Archive 3.3 - Eater of the Dead Part 3 - Monsters and Special Units

First up we have the Zombie Pygmy Spearmen from Conquest Miniatures. These guys played the role of Ghouls in the Ankhara campaign because it was before Crocodile Games had those minis available. Now they might act as another Warrior Mummy unit or even as Death Cultists. 

The Musician has done duty in Horde Mummy units as has the Standard Bearer.

The Spearman Chief, above. I really love these figures and should have gotten more when they were available.

Our first monster of the post, the Scarab Ogre! This was one of the first of these hefty metal chunks in the wild. He made his debut at an Ankhara game in Greenwood Indiana at the Game Preserve. I painted some vaguely skull-like markings on his back but they're a little too subtle unless you know what you're looking for.

More Pygmy Zombies, this time the Archer unit. This unit is not complete (there are 4 more to be painted that will be finished up soon- for real). These guys mostly filled in for the Warrior Mummy Archers before that unit was up to strength.

Above, another Standard that has done duty with Horde Mummy units. Below, another Pygmy Zombie Hero or Champion, he was part of the unit filling in for Ghouls during the Ankhara campaign.

The Pygmy Zombie Blowpipe/Archer Captain, above.

The Haunted Chariot of Hemati! A converted GW Tomb Kings Chariot thanks to Dave W. talking me into going in on a box with him during the Ankhara Campaign. I had no idea what I was doing with this when I put it together, I just wanted to make it look good and spooky and fit a mini on a 25mm square base (like Shefdu Sootootma). The results are ok and performed admirably on the battlefield.

The giant Cobra head for one of the horses came from the Sphynx Abomination. I added a false beard to the other normal skeleton horse. The mummy wrappings for the horses were thinly cut strips of masking tape that were then painted with watered down glue until they were sturdy. I used part of an old gift card to help extend the chariot width. Of course, this left a gap at the front that a tall ornate shield helped cover up.

on the round shield above I freehanded rough hieroglyphs for Hemati (the backstory for this chariot was that it belonged to an ancient Uraei Harbinger who Shefdu was obsessed with studying-more on that next time).  I almost forgot to mention the blue spectral hands coming out of the chariot at various points- these are the "haunted" part of the name. Instead of Gruesome Trophies I decided to go with scary spectral hands clawing from within.

Below we have the converted Chariot Driver- a Priestess of Isis mini with some minor conversion work. I still like the design on her dress.

One of the original Sphynx Abomination sculpts. I did not like the snake at the tip of his tail and chopped it off (eventually it was used for one of the horses for the chariot). I tried to make his wrapping metallic and they looked good at one time. Seeing him now I feel like he should get some major touchups.

Finally, my SECOND Sphynx Abomination (this one was actually dubbed a Nekharu Abomination). One month for my reinforcements I managed to roll another Abomination. Instead of getting the other Crocodile Games miniature for it I decided to use this old GW Greater Demon since it already had a vaguely Egyptian look to it. I added some wrappings and put the little Anubis statue on the base to help bring it more into the WarGods setting. Later on, during the Golden Fleece Campaign, he played a prominent role in the Nekharu Eater warband I ran.

We're almost 'done' with the Eater of the Dead figures, next up will be the Crypt Lords, Necromancers and Dark Harbingers!

Archive 3.2 - Eater of the Dead Part 2 - Warrior Mummies

While Horde Mummies are great speedbumps for opposing warbands, the real meat of an Eater of the Dead warband comes from the Warrior Mummies. I've got about as many of these revived warriors as I do the common rabble of the Horde Mummies...

The first Warrior Mummy unit I completed for that gateway Ankhara World Campaign was from Fortress Figures. They were plastic single pose mummies with axes. I had painted up a few before I got into the campaign, so again it was an easy task to get the rest of the unit painted up. There were 12 of the same pose I had originally painted up but over the years some of them wandered away.

Above, the Standard Bearer for the unit is the only different model I remember from the original unit composition. Below are some of the regular 2-handed axe-mummies. This unit was later dubbed "the Dread Axes" after their Crypt Lord leader, but we'll get into that lore later.

Above, you can see that they stand a bit raised on their 20mm bases because (like many several minis companies) these had integral bases. The last few of them were cut from those integral bases (it was pretty easy and I should really go back to do the others- nah) so they weren't as super tall.

Some additional Dread Axes slots were filled with these cool metal Egyptian-style Dwarf Mummies from some long-forgotten source. Like the Fortress Figures minis, these guys all had integral bases, so they're raised a bit off the 20mm bases too but they're short.

The Dwarf Mummy below is probably my favorite meber of this unit. I still think he came out pretty good.

The next Warrior Mummy unit is the (mostly) official Crocodile Games Spear Mummies. There were lots of variations among the official models but even then I had to do some conversions because that's one of my favorite parts of the hobby.

Above we have the two Asar sculpts from the unit- the main differences being color choices. My philosophy of the undead in most settings is to avoid matching uniforms because unless the Necromancer has raised the units from a recent battle they're going to be from a variety of backgrounds with different weapons and outfits. The second guy above was converted to be a Chariot Passenger as well as fit into the Spear Unit.

Above we have the two Anubi mummy sculpts with color choice again making them less matchy. The same with the Heru sculpt below.

Headswaps above and below on the Anubi and Asar bodies to give us some Tethru (my great Dark Harbinger for the Ankhara campaign, Shefdu Sootootma, was a Tethru so I needed to give him some Tethru guys in the warband. a Uraei (the cobra-headed guy below), and a Khemru. As with soem of the other Tehru mummy conversions, I liked to crinkle up the beak because it's a little disturbing and mummies are supposed to be scary, right?

Finally, the Standard Bearer for the Spear Mummies. The standard was converted with a bit from a Reaper mummy figure because I didn't like the original standard bit. I also gave him a plastic GW Tomb Kings shield.

partway through the Ankhara campaign I became obsessed with getting some archer mummies to shoot back at those annoying archers in other warbands (usually with flaming arrows which were very effective against dried corpses wrapped in cloth. Thus was born the Warrior Mummy Archer unit. Below are the first three conversions I did based on Horde Mummy bodies with bows from various sources.

Then I got a handful of the pre-production Crocodile Games Mummy Archer bodies (they didn't have heads yet because Chris was going to sculpt some different heads) and went to town! The three above have plastic GW heads. Below we have an olde Dark Eldar plastic head alongside a metal Tethru head from Corcodile Games. I know most of them don't have a quiver, but I'm not going to worry about that at this point, the bow is the most important part.

Finally, the last member of the Archer unit is a Spear-mummy with a pretty effective bow conversion (and I put a quiver on his back).

To help diversify the Warrior Mummy units I decided to convert some with hand weapon and shield to give even more flexibility on the battlefield. Most of these are spear-mummies with weapon and shield swaps. I like to think these are some of my best mummy conversions yet.

The conversion above is based on a Reaper miniature with a Crocodile Games Nekharu head and shield.

Above we've got a GW Tomb Kings mini with a Crocodile Gaes shield (probably my least favorite member of the whole Eater warband). Below are three mummies from Reaper that were useful to help fill out the hand weapon and shield unit.

Above is the Standard Bearer for the hand weapon and shield unit. A pretty simple conversion of an Anubi spear-mummy (the shield is a rare Crocodile Games piece from one of the early Asar miniatures). Below we have conversion of the generic Dark Harbinger miniature from Crocodile Games. I've used himas a Crypt Lord and a member of either the double handed weapon unit or the hand weapon and shield unit. He originally had a crook and flail but those bits were stolen to use in other conversions.

Above we've got a Crypt Lord who's been converted from holding a kopesh to having a spear so he can easily fit into the Spear Mummy unit. His shield was is froma Reaper mummy (they have a lot of cool shields and bits). Below is a heavily converted spear-mummy to be an archer Crypt Lord. I'm not sure where the cobra head came from (maybe an old Ral Partha snake?) but I know the mace is from a GW Tomb Kings figure and the bow and quiver were from the Crocodile Games weapons packs. It all came together to make a pretty dynamic miniature...

Coming up next are the special units and monsters for the massive Eater of the Dead warband(s).