Hobby Update: Abyssal Horsemen

I’ve mentioned it previously, but I was pretty disappointed with the Abyssal refresh in late 2024. I did not get the Abyssal Guard kit or upgrade pack that I was hoping for, and I wasn’t too excited about most of the other changes the army received, such as downgrading Lower Abyssals to Me5. One bright spot in the revamp was making Abyssal Horsemen Fearless though, and so that was something I wanted to expand on for my collection and explore more on the table, so here we are. Up now are a bunch of Horsemen for the Forces of the Abyss! 

The first newcomer regiment.

As with my original unit a few years ago, the models are from the defunct Runewars game, but this time from the cheaper Oathsworn Cavalry box. The minis are still nice when you can find them, but they are getting scarcer over time. Each box is 4 models: a pair doubled. Samey poses are an issue, so half of them got weapon swaps and everyone got a head-swap, courtesy of the Frostgrave Demons kit, which I will be using as my new Abyssal Guards (I want to retire my old Bloodletters, so lots of work to do on the new minis… more to come… eventually).

Like other Runewars minis, the figures come in several chonky parts. Here we have: 1) horse on stand with and rider legs; 2) rider chest and arms; 3) rider cape and head. It’s a little cumbersome. I cut the horse from the stand with a sharp knife, and snipped off the heads. The capes are pretty billowy, I tried several combinations for assembly and painting (horse and torso with cape/head separate; horse separate with torso and cape/head connected). I didn’t notice a big difference one way or the other, but both were better than assembling it all and then trying to paint it up later, since the cape does billow over the haunches of the horse.

And the second regiment. 

Previously I’ve often failed to get good coverage on metallic details. Big armor plates is fine and easy to paint, but making multiple passes on narrow trim is rough. So for painting these, the armor and trim got blocked out in gray and the trim in a brown/orange, and then I went back later to add both of the metallic colors. Starting with a non-metallic base color really helped, especially on the trim. The Abyssal humanoids got reddish skin (Wicked Pink from War Paints, as my old Pink Horror is spoiled and I haven't seen one in any of the shops I've been to the last few months), and departing from the other unit, the horses got purplish hides (Citadel Dechala Lilac) and then messy green eyes for a lazy glow effect. 

The other big departure painting-wise was the cloth. For my other Abyssals, the cloth has been dark and light grays, or purple on a few things, if memory serves. I've mostly done army-wise schemes like the humans with their purple and white, but I've embraced differentiation for many units in the last year or so. I'll shoutout Squirmin Vermin of the Nerd's Tale blog as my big inspiration here, as his rat units are just so colorful and varied while still looking like a uniform army. One of my big gripes with the Abyssal fluff is how inconsistent they make them. One passage they seem cunning and scheming and orderly and the next they have regeneration can lead to writhing tentacles and multiple heads for Lower Abyssals. I feel like GW is known for Chaos, so I think an otherworldly, orderly feel would do far better for Mantic's demons for so many reasons. Here, I took a little inspiration from Wheel of Time, and went with orderly white cloaks and fabric and these units of Horsemen will be zealous crusader-types in my head-cannon. 

Prior to the revanp, the Abyssal Horsemen already had a great reputation online, as Fury and CS1 and Regen all made for a great cavalry unit that could survive and grind if caught out. My one regiment though was perpetually wavered at range and never amounted to much on the field … but Fearless is a very nice buff and a rule that I quite like having in my lists. While I like regiments, I hobbied these up as troops, just to try those out sometime as Fearless could be extra beneficial on them. We'll hopefully get them all on the table soon, and hopefully having a few more units will give me a better idea of what the unit can actually do!