Ankhara City of the Dead part 1

 

Ever since the wrap up of the truly epic Ankhara world campaign at GenCon thousands of years ago (tales are still told amongst those brave souls who survived- like that Harbinger who got swallowed whole by a Sphinx Abomination), I have dreamt about smaller scale games set in the ruins of the resurfaced necropolis. This would involve conflicts between Crypt Lords and their followers attempting to gain power in the new Eater of the Dead order.  There could also be bands of would-be tomb robbers looking for treasure and even more noble Aegyptian warbands seeking ways to undermine the rising undead tide (perhaps a formidable Anubi and Tethru team-up warband). Heck, maybe even multiple warbands against some kind of mindless undead monster. 

Yet I haven't really moved forward with anything more than daydreams, until now. I came across the Necropolis28 rules a few months ago and have pondered creating a warband for it. It recently hit me that mummies would be cool for the setting and I rummaged through my undead containers for parts. Several mummies have been put together and then I turned to some conversions. 

First up was this cat on a chest that I needed to give a cobra head to (above is an unmolested version of the mini with the converted one). The cat is a great mini from Crocodile Games while the head is from a source I don't recall (possibly Dark Fable). I like how this vicious beast has turned out. 

Next is another Crocodile Games figure, this Anubi horde mummy was given a different right hand and a big mummy warrior shield. It's a simple conversion that changes the original lowly horde mummy into something a little more dangerous. 

Then comes the undead lion from the Nightmare Lords Beastmaster. I held this mini in limbo for a very long time before basing him up and adding the wrappings. I think one of the beasts we used from time to time during the Ankhara campaign for the 'Lair of the Beast" subplot was a mummified lion. And now I've got one.

The final miniature for this entry is an undead Blade Dancer converted from the Tomb Queen and both of the Blade Dancer miniatures (all from Crocodile Games). 

It was a daunting task that turned out to be pretty simple. The toughest part was sculpting her hair. I think she came out pretty good and might be my favorite of this batch.

Hopefully this is just the start of a wider project to make the Ankhara game a reality. Below are the other miniatures that are in the painting queue so far. I hope to get them all painted up soon and get a few games in using them.

Anubi Assessor Conversion

 

This is a conversion that was made a very long time ago (I have ideas to make him better if I were to do this conversion nowadays) . I started painting it but then hit a wall of doubt. He was removed from his tiny plastic cell to get a well-deserved finish to his paintjob. 

I like to make my Anubi purple skinned to be different from the standard black that most people use. It's a little more exotic and stands out a bit. 

Assessors are something like an Inquisitor or secret mystical police in WarGods. There's not much said in the rules but I've always thought they might make interesting characters for use in skirmish games. This guy has a fancy axe (with vaguely drawn hieroglyphs on the ribbon) and what is likely an Embalmer's dagger, so he's got some power against the undead. I need to make some skirmish rules for him. 

Spined Thresher Monster

This big thing was a nice surprise at a local game shop earlier this year. It was marked down so much that I couldn't NOT get it- and there's a different posed one that I haven't assembled yet. I want to eventually have a totally chaotic warband of Titans which either means a ton of conversions of the available miniatures from Crocodile Games OR going outside of those for other monsters. This find should fit in as a Titan Overlord or something.

It's a nice chunky plastic figure that went together pretty easily. I think there was only one obvious mold line that needed to be sliced off.

The base was completed first- it's a 60mm mdf base. I put some scraps of my favorite temple floor stuff down and slapped on some texture paste so it was obviously a ruined building of some kind. It was a series of drybrushes and some target washes to make the stones pop and give the rubble some more definition.

For the Thresher itself, I went with lots of drybrushing and a bit of targetted washes to make his muscles and other nice details stand out more. It was a pretty quick paintjob- probably only a couple of hours altogether. I think he came out good for a giant crab/demon/scorpion monster.

Above we have the Thresher with a copuple of unfortunate Corinthians. Below, a Beloved of Sobek is enthusiastic about the challenge this big thing represents.

And here's the Thresher confronts the Amazon Raider Heroine Kylissma. An epic battle that they'll write songs about ensues...

Wendigo Test Colors

I've had a lot of Wendigo miniatures in a box for a very long time. This Hunter has been primed for way too long. So I decided to clear him out of the painting queue (and also taunt young Jordan to start his own Wendigo warband).

In the past I've seen a few people paint their Wendigo in schemes other than wintry white snow based colors. I found that to be a lot more exciting than greys and whites so that's what I did.

I like how he turned out and I've got some additional ideas when I eventually get back to the rest of the warband. I think loincloth colors will be a nice way to sort out units.

Six Sphinxes

 

From Miniature Building Authority at Adepticon 2023, I picked up these 6 sphinxes because they looked great and sphinxes make good scatter for WarGods games. Plus, four layers of drybrushing turned out pretty good 

The Criosphinx design. There are some very faint heiroglyphics along the base but they are so faint that I decided to ignore them

The standard Sphinx design almost got gold accents but I decided against it to keep all of them the same.

Here we have a couple of Crocodile Games Aegyptians with a few of the Sphinxes to show how well they fit together.

Mummy Kidnapping

This figure has been assembled and primed almost since it arrived from one of the Dark Fable Miniatures campaigns. But now this fearsome mummy and his unconscious hostage have finally been completed. 

It was really just a simple rather quick paintjob once I focused on it. I think it turned out pretty good. The floor tiles are simply drawn on the base with a micron pen and then weathered the best I could. 

Here we have the newest mummy alongside a few of the other Eater of the Dead miniatures I've painted (mostly Crocodile Games figures). I think he will most likely see use as a moving objective marker because a "save the damsel" objective sounds kinda fun.