Maledrakh’s odyssey into the Warhammer Underworlds

Next up of the Shadespire teams is Magore’s Fiends, the Blades of Khorne Blood Warriors:

One of the last pair of sets released for Shadespire before they started the new season with Nighvault were the Khorne Blood Warriors with Fleshhound, and was criticized for being too similar to the minis in the Storm of Sigmar starter set.

Bollocks to that. I like ’em.

Magore Redhand

Ghartok Flayskull

Zharkus the Bloodsighted

Riptooth the Fleshhound

I did not want to paint them in the typical Khorne Red, so I went with bronze for the main colour with green and steel for spot colours, but kept red for the hero’s cape just because it fit with the overall look.

The fleshhound I chose to do in my lizard-colours as I wanted too see how it would look on this kind of mini. it looks perfectly fine, it turns out. For a Dogzard.

The third warband to get some attention is the orc big’uns, sorry, Orruk Ironjawz one.

I like how they have evolved the orcs in Age of Sigmar, following the scale creep by making even bigger big’uns. I am not too enthused about the name changes, even though I do understand the IP-ownership reasons for it. So in my mind, these are still Orcs.

At any rate, I am not a fan of the yellow (was yellow really the only unused color scheme available?) Not so much for it’s difficulty, but more for it’s garishness. (And the aftertaste of banana). I think yellow comes across as “too clean” a main colour for orcs

Going with the concept of orcs as not being diligent with the maintenance of their weapons, and their philosophy of using their opponents’ blood as lubricant, their stuff is fairly decrepit, I turn to Orange. As in rusty.

What once might have been as clean as clean can be …just isn’t anymore.

How I did this effect: starting with a black/grey undercoat, I painted all the metal in Scalecolor black metal. This I then gave a heavy drybrush of some off-brand peachy orange, followed by a drybrush of golden yellow. This I then drybrushed carefully with Scalecolor Thrash Metal, which is a grungey yellowgreen steel-type metal. The green bits on the metals are Vallejo Green Black wash. I lined the armour plates with Reaper Dusky Skin Shadow (I used this dark brown as I think black would have been too stark here) as I did not use any wash to define the details.

The four skins were each painted in a different green basecoat, given a vallejo black green inkwash and highlighted with the same basecoat and then some lighter greens mixed on my pallette, using a bit different tones on each. Not that this is very apparent in the photos though.

The red bits are Citadel Screamer Pink hightlighted with Citadel Wazdakka Red. I really like this combo, and find I am using it alot these days.

The hero’s cape is painted in three coats of Reaper Aircraft Grey and carefully drybrushed Reaper Leather White with a spot of Reaper Vampiric Skin. Then I sloppydrybrushed some brown (I honestely don’t remember which I used) followed by Reaper Dusky Skin Shadow and some black on the edges.

Gurzag Ironskull. The Hero wears a Cape.

Bonekutta.

It looks like his axe was made out of some tank’s frontal armour. Just one think plate sawed and hammered into shape.

Hakka.

Maybe I should have greenstuffed and painted a dial in his forehead there, to make him an Angel?

Basha.

Playin’ the maracas. Chica-chica

Thumping out the other half of the Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire starter set:

Garrek’s Reavers, the Khorne Bloodbound squad of angry, blood-crazed bullyboys. Five of them as opposed to the three Cybermen Stormcast Eternals.

Garrek’s Reavers

Games Workshop

From the Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire base set (recently rereleased as a seperate warband for WU: Nightvault)

HIPS plastic

32mm bases

My odessy starts with Steelheart’s Champions, the hard-as-nails powerhouse trio of Stormcast Eternals from the Shadespire starter set.

Primed and basecoated with Army Painter Plate Mail spray sometime during the summer. I did the edges of the armour in citadel mephiston red before hosing the whole thing down with Flames of War Ordnance Shade (=army painter dark quickshade).

When dry I did the green bits in an old dark green/grey mix I made in years past and that still is viable in the dropper bottle. Acrylic paints are very long lasting when stored right!

Over this I used Citadel Waagh Flesh and Scalecolor Greenskin Flesh, with highlights in Scalecolor Goblin Flesh. All the other red bits were basecoated in Citadel Screamer Pink, with hightlights in Citadel Wazdakka Red and Wild Rider Red. The pictures do not show the subtle differences between these red bits and the armour red bits.

The armour was hightlighted with Army Painter Plate Mail and Army Painter Shining Silver. The golden bits were basecoated Vallejo Brassy Brass, with Army Painter Greedy Gold and some silver mixed in for the last highlight.

Eyesockets in pure Goblin Flesh. The streamers in Flames of War Sicily Yellow followed by Citadel Flayed One Flesh, finished with some white mixed in. The script was donw in Screamer Pink.

The stone bits on the base were done in my greengray/sandy yellow/offwhite combo, leaves in orcskin flesh and goblin flesh, Vallejo Earth and my flock mix here and there. Black rim.

Done.