The Return of Nagash

Nagash: Supreme Lord of the Undead
Company: Games Workshop
Part #:
Sculptor:
Released: 2014

Dammit. GW is going to force me to crack open my wallet again. And it is going to cost me dearly.

But seriously, How friggin' cool is that? The giant liche lord borne up by a spirit host.You can't turn that down.

Nagash is the Ur-liche in the Warhammer^(tm) mythology. But for someone so important in the lore, he's never gotten his due in a model. The only other attempt was that mid-1990's sculpt by Gary Morely:

Cannot unsee!

Yeah. It's pretty much entered miniature lore as one of the worst executed models ever released. It's pretty dumb looking. Although it is one of my four liche giants along with the old Grenadier Lich Lord, Liche Giant and Grim Reaper Casting's Lich Lord.

Now, Nagash has been reanimated (see what I did there?) in a super cool format as part of a slew of new undead minis to support GW's "End Times" expansion. I don't give a flying fig about the lore. Neither do I care about the new rules that will undoubtedly force 12 year olds everywhere to switch to an undead army for official Warhammer^(tm) tournaments since I don't play Warhammer^(tm) anymore.

However, I am powerless to resist the lure of Nagash as a general for one of my legions - perhaps the entire legion. Ugh. I'm done for.

Reaper - Golgoth the Ancient

Golgoth the Ancient

Company: Reaper

Part #: 03357

Sculptor: Kevin Williams
Released: 2009

This has become my new favorite piece.  Well cavalry piece at least.  It is a dynamic sculpt by Kevin Williams from Reaper that was released sometime in 2009.  It’s been sitting in my box waiting to be painted for a while.  It’s a pretty large figure, creeping into the 35mm range and is mounted on a 40mm base.  That pretty much prevents me from using him in a normal cavalry unit, but given his general awesomeness, I’d probably commit to using him as a cavalry brigade commander or individual hero anyway.

Epic...

I painted him and the horse using the black base method, directly applying the bone color later and finishing it off with a brown wash over the bone parts.  The armor is Reaper Pro Paints  “Aged Pewter” with a black ink wash over it.

The really interesting thing about this piece, and kind of what makes it generally epic aside from the full plate on a rearing charger, is the fact he comes equipped with a flaming spear.

This was actually completely unexpected.  All of the pictures I’ve seen of this piece has him equipped with a sword.  But when I broke open the blister I found 2 weapons on the sprue, the sword and a spear.  But as I examined the spear it seemed to be wrapped in something and I couldn’t figure out what it was.  Was it cloth… some sort of tattered battle standard?  After a time I realized it was flame!  The guy had a freaking flaming spear! 

Given this, I can’t imagine who would make the decision to go with the sword which is pretty pedestrian.  It’s a freaking flaming spear!

He's got a freaking flaming spear!!!

The problem was, I didn’t know how to paint flame.  I don’t have any other pieces which incorporate fire, except for an awesome Rackham skeletal demon that is holding a goblet of fire.  And I really dogged that one up by just painting the flame red.  More so, I didn’t even have any of the colors really necessary to paint fire.  As the owner of a Skeleton Legion, my palette runs to pretty drab colors.  Bone/ivory (natch), black, dark reds, dark greys, various shades of brown and some metallics for armor.  That’s pretty much it.  I didn’t even have a pure white in my stock.

So, I set out to learn how to paint fire, and using my google fu found some pages with some good tips on painting flame.  Then I sent away for some good fire colors using Reapers Pro Paints, and waited for them to arrive.

Once everything was set I started with the experiment, painting the entire spear in a base of "Pure White" to brighten the colors that were to follow.  Over the pure white went a layer of "Clear Yellow".  Following the instructions I had found I then washed it in a "Fire Orange" wash (fairly thick) and then once that dried, another wash of "Fire Red" (much thinner).  Then I frosted some of the tips of the flame with a dry brush of "Pure White".  I’m pretty happy with the effects I can’t wait to use them on some other models.

This close up with a flash gives a harsher light, but gives you a better feel for the flame effect.

Like I mentioned, I’ll probably use him as a cavalry brigade commander for one of my medieval armies.  I figure I’ll also equip him with a magic weapon as well.  Piquet: Scramasax isn’t very big on magic items as they tend to dominate the battle too much (we’re looking at you Warhammer™).  However the latest edition before the project was abandoned does include some rules for minor magic items.  He has a freaking flaming spear fer crissakes!!!

New Tomb Kings!

Well, time to break out the wallet come May.  Games Workshop, makers of Warhammer™, is coming out with new a new Tomb Kings book for 8^th edition.  And with a new book comes delicious, delicious new models. 

Warhammer™ may be a sucky game, but I still collect the figs – and GW can certainly put out some nice models.  And these new figs are certainly… interesting.  Definitely out of the box thinking from GW.  Skeletal knights riding cobra constructs?  I have to admit a certain uneasiness concerning a lot of these figs since many aren’t strictly skeletal.  A lot of them are constructs, or golems, like the previous ushabti in the Tomb Kings line.  I accepted those as part of my fantasy Middle Kingdom Egyptian Legion because the heads were skulls, and beautifully crafted skulls patterned after the Egyptian gods; Anubis, Horus, Set, etc.  But some of these may be too out there for me.  Like the war sphinxes?  Definitely constructs.  Beautiful ones surely, but not skeletal.  Of course, one of them has a howdah with skeletons in it.  So that may be a possibility.  But those snake constructs?  We’ll have to see. 

And then there’s the new Tomb Guard set. That looks nice.

I like the fact that all these are in plastic, which is rapidly becoming my favorite medium.  Not only is it way cheaper than pewter (and with GW you need to save every penny you can get.  They’ll STILL probably find a way to charge $40 for the war sphinxes) but the plastic sets just allow for a wide variety of customization.  We’ll have to see what the detail is like.

There’s rumors of a new plastic catapult set and bone giant as well.  With these I can probably field an entire Middle Kingdom Egyptian undead force.  All the previous GW figs, plus the ones I have from Gamezone, Reaper, Crocodile Games and half a dozen other companies give me an army of such size that I couldn't fit in an augment of ancient Greeks or Romans even if I wanted to.

Sweet.