Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Hobby Update: Undead Vampire on Pegasus

Surprisingly, I've done a lot of hobbying the last few months. I've tried to do a bit of a reset this summer, twice, in fact, but I keep overdoing it with my active projects. I suppose I'll just need to keep powering through things for the time being! Up now is a counts-as Vampire on Pegasus for the Undead.

The guy. Not great lighting.

While Mantic does have an official model for the Undead Pegasus, I was looking for a quick project, and didn't want to deal with the actual mount. The mini here is from Fantasy Flight's Rune Wars, Lord Vorun Thul or somesuch. That particular game is now-defunct, but has a number of neat minis, if you can find them around. I figured he was large enough to read as monster-sized, and a vampire, and a bit of a flier, with those under-arm wings.

Hobbying-wise, I wanted to mess around a little with the skin. I primed in boring black, then had a gray base coat, then Pallid Wych Flesh layer. Some washes were used to accentuate the muscles and wings, and then another layer of Wych Flesh to highlight. I'm not entirely pleased. It's a little chalky looking in person, but it was an old paint pot. This was a good hobby experimentation, but not a home run.

That's looking suspiciously like some Naruto running. Maybe I've made a mistake.

I built him for fun, but crunch-wise the Vampire is actually pretty intriguing. He's roughly comparable to the Kingdoms of Men General on a Winged Beast, a unit I quite like already. They've got the same stat line, and just have some special rule differences. The human version gets TC1 and Very Inspiring, while the vampire gets Lifeleech 2 and just has Inspiring, while costing 25 points more. That price difference stings a little bit, as they are just so similar otherwise, and my Generals is usually easily dispatched by my opponents! I'm not sure if the Vampire will have much of a chance to feast and Lifeleech things back, but we shall see!

Perhaps the difference in army compositions, with the Undead having more monsters and fliers and shamblers and general threats could justify the price hike? I believe Mantic is known to "adjust" costs based on the rest of the army. The Vampire is also a Spellcaster 1, and while they know no spells innately, that avenue might be a culprit for the cost increase as well, as well as something to possibly leverage.

Like I said, the unit seems intriguing, so we'll give him a try soon!

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