Hobby Update: Legendary Undead

It was juuust nice enough to get some things primed this weekend! I was doubly fortunate, as it was also a bit of a quiet weekend for me, so I was able to get some painting in too!

Since I have been getting in some games recently against my girlfriend, I decided that the first units of the season shouldn't be new toys for my Kingdoms of Men. Though shiny new reinforcements for the Regnum are coming soon, the first new units are some legendary Undead!

Meh. Unimpressive.

First up is Lady Ilona. The model is Mantic's sculpt; nothing too fancy and no conversion to speak of. I liked to model, and figured I'd run her as-is. I flubbed re-ordering my basing paste twice. The paste on Ilona is quite fine, and unfortunately really shows the stand on top of the base. However, this is good enough for now. While I'm generally pleased with my rock and mud effect for the Undead, the current basing isn't great, and I want to add add some bushes and grass to all the units to kick the army up a notch.

Like the other Vampire options, Lady Ilona has some spells, but is mostly around to Inspire and beat face. My girlfriend likes the elite Soul Reavers, so I imagine Ilona will see the table in any larger game in order to get the powerful Thirstful Coven formation. We tried running that previously with a proxied Ilona, but the vampire never saw combat. Hopefully the giant sword on the real deal will encourage her to be used more offensively!

There we go. Way cooler.

The second unit is the legendary Barrow Wights. The models are from (I believe) a Russian company. I found them on Amazon, and they honestly have a pretty neat selection of different units. I used 4 out of the 5 models, as the 5th was a very recognizable woman; I think she was meant to be some kind of WoW-style Death Knight or something to lead the pack.

I've been working on some wargaming hills, which you may have seen in the recent battle reports. I'm not quite satisfied with them yet, so they're still WIP and a more detailed post is still forthcoming on them, but I put those hill methods to work here too, building a simple barrow/tumulus, complete with a spooky little entrance.

Originally, I thought I'd try some paperclip, tape and paper wings to represent the Fly special rule, but the models just didn't seem like that would be a good fit (giant pauldrons mainly). Without wings, I decided to emulate the spectral paint job on my current Wraiths. I think the unit makes sense aesthetically. I think I drybrushed a bit too much white onto it, but they are greener in person, and overall I like how the unit turned out.

The Wights have been a staple of my Undead collection from very early on. I've got a bit of fascination with large infantry, I think because the Kingdoms of Men don't get any. Large infantry hordes seem like a great way to get the unlocking power of a horde without the detrimental footprint of a typical infantry formation. These are super-Wights, so I'm quite interested to see how these work out on the field!

For thirty extra points these legendary bad boys get 1 extra speed and the Fly rule, which seems pretty cool? I have yet to play with or against the Basilean Elohi, but flying large infantry seem nice and powerful. They are slower than other fliers, but their Shambling may let them get into sneakier combats than their living counterparts.

I don't know if they are a competitive choice, but we'll see how they do.

So yeah, not bad for an afternoon's worth of painting. More coming soon!