Why I haven't painted any Legion stuff lately

By TauntaunScout, in Painting

3,000 odd points of 4th/5th edition WFB Undead, that's why. All using old metal minis and the original plastic skeleton sprues from before Vampire Counts was released as an army.

  • Vampire
  • Wight
  • Mounted Wight
  • Wraith
  • 2 chariots
  • 2 screaming skull catapults
  • 2 Bat swarms
  • 10 skeleton knights
  • 10 skeleton archers
  • 20 skeletons w/ shield, spear, and light armor
  • 20 skeletons w/ shield
  • 20 zombies
  • 10 ghosts
  • 10 mummies
  • 10 ghouls

All with textured movement trays that match their bases, and 10 spare skeletons for use in "raise the dead" spells.

thZoHUd.jpg

Edited by TauntaunScout

Now there's a blast from the past. Pretty sure that vampire predates 4th, I did a conversion borrowing his cape for a jumpack space marine sarge, and built an awesome action posed commander.

I do always regret losing track of my 3rd ed nagash and the chariot liche lord.....

Edited by Ralgon
2 hours ago, Ralgon said:

Now there's a blast from the past. Pretty sure that vampire predates 4th, I did a conversion borrowing his cape for a jumpack space marine sarge, and built an awesome action posed commander.

I do always regret losing track of my 3rd ed nagash and the chariot liche lord.....

Many of the sculpts, including all the plastic skeleton warriors/chariots/steeds, date to 3rd edition, relatively few new sculpts actually came out in 4th/5th until Vampire Counts was released.

Heck some may date to 1st or 2nd edition WFB, I'm unclear which 3rd edition WFB sculpts were leftover from earlier editions. However, when planning the army, I am using the army book which was released in 4th and remained the official army list for most of 5th edition.

As I work on other things I will round out some odd little projects for this army... but I am thinking next Halloween I'll start a 5th edition Vampire Counts army as well, using the later sculpts, the Skeleton Regiment boxes, etc. I might have to cheat on the cavalry for that army, I never did much care for the uber-top heavy metal mounted undead of the early Vampire Counts era.

Even for this army I occasionally decided to "cheat" and use bits that were unavailable in 4th/5th edition. But basically the guiding principle was, "What undead army would I have made in high school, if time and money hadn't been an issue?".

The lighting in my pics is terrible. But the mummies might be my favorite unit in the army, both to own, and to paint. However at a whopping 35 points apiece, I won't be adding any more!

XavZVMp.jpg

Edited by TauntaunScout

Mummies are for sure a cool unit. In m'y memroy they worth their cost.

But the most of thé minis a bought were from thé count vampire Era. Black coach was a must have and i do love the giant bats as well.

In my opinion the deaths armies do not offer now such diveristy if you stick on brand new minis and official battletome.

5 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Many of the sculpts, including all the plastic skeleton warriors/chariots/steeds, date to 3rd edition, relatively few new sculpts actually came out in 4th/5th until Vampire Counts was released.

Heck some may date to 1st or 2nd edition WFB, I'm unclear which 3rd edition WFB sculpts were leftover from earlier editions. However, when planning the army, I am using the army book which was released in 4th and remained the official army list for most of 5th edition.

As I work on other things I will round out some odd little projects for this army... but I am thinking next Halloween I'll start a 5th edition Vampire Counts army as well, using the later sculpts, the Skeleton Regiment boxes, etc. I might have to cheat on the cavalry for that army, I never did much care for the uber-top heavy metal mounted undead of the early Vampire Counts era.

Even for this army I occasionally decided to "cheat" and use bits that were unavailable in 4th/5th edition. But basically the guiding principle was, "What undead army would I have made in high school, if time and money hadn't been an issue?".

The lighting in my pics is terrible. But the mummies might be my favorite unit in the army, both to own, and to paint. However at a whopping 35 points apiece, I won't be adding any more!

XavZVMp.jpg

Agree totally on the cavalry. I converted high elf dragon princes instead, worked a treat once you got the faces and a few accessories right

Edited by Ralgon
8 hours ago, Ralgon said:

Agree totally on the cavalry. I converted high elf dragon princes instead, worked a treat once you got the faces and a few accessories right

Next up for this army is a few more swarms, a vampiress, and I've already started 5 more zombies, for use in spell-raising. I've got enough sprues to make another base of bats, plus one each of rats and spiders.

I have to carefully allocate my precious plastic 1980's skeleton sprues. I definitely need more 5th edition cavalry and shooting, so I might make a unit of 5 mounted archers. Or save those old school bow-arms to expand the foot archers and make a second, smaller unit of mounted lancers. Dunno yet. I am also keeping half an eye on keeping this army somewhat Kings of War compatible as it's probably how I'll mostly get to use it.

This whole nonsense started when I acquired a few nice metal figures and thought "It would be fun to make an undead Mordheim warband that only uses WFB figs. Maybe have a couple spare units so it can eke out 1,000 point battle". Then I found a mint in box 3rd edition Skeleton Army for "only" $60 and things quickly went off the rails.

The main thing is, I am trying to be "good" and 1) not buy anything more for this army till everything I already have is painted and 2) not start that 5th ed. Vampire Counts army until my Tale of Faux Gamers army of Bretonnians is done. I am gonna paint them in blocks of $50 in 1990's MSRP, 6 times, so I get an army like what the 4 gamers coulda done. Mine won't end up looking just like Richard Gunnson's though. I am theming it around Repanse de Lyonnesse.

Edited by TauntaunScout
7 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

I have to carefully allocate my precious plastic 1980's skeleton sprues.

That is (in my opinion) one of the better skeleton sprues that has existed. The Wargames Atlantic one is also pretty good, but has a grecian theming as opposed to european, which while interesting, probably wouldn't fit in as nicely.

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

That is (in my opinion) one of the better skeleton sprues that has existed. The Wargames Atlantic one is also pretty good, but has a grecian theming as opposed to european, which while interesting, probably wouldn't fit in as nicely.

The “Regiments” box from VC was super fun in its own way, and by the time it came out it was a better dollar value compared to the 80’s sprue! The big problem with the 80’s sprue was always equipment allocations. However, the skeletons looked like they could actually fit inside my Bretonnian men at arms. As opposed to the overly scale-creeped VC ones.

hey TS do you happen to be a BB player too by chance??

love the army man...i have a bretonnian regiment the size of nebraska that just rumbled alive when i opened your pics ;)

1 hour ago, magnumhan said:

hey TS do you happen to be a BB player too by chance??

love the army man...i have a bretonnian regiment the size of nebraska that just rumbled alive when i opened your pics ;)

Never got into Bloodbowl, no. Though I am similarly revisiting Bretonnians at the moment.