Entering The Cursed City (Warhammer Quest)

The next step is now to work through all of the rank and file in the game. I have done a fair amount now and the Deadwalker Zombies are some of the hardest as they have so much detail.

This is the Deadwalker Zombies who have gone through the basecoat and wash stage. I need to go back and highlight the miniatures again now to make them match up with the rest but it shouldn’t take long.

The basing is easy as pie now too so it shouldn’t be long until I am through these. The real bugbear for me is going to be the rat swarms. They are so awkward to paint and I don’t want to do them all just as one colour!

I will try and get through it though as I have dreams of playing Cursed City in a couple of weeks with some pals when the world opens up once more. We shall see!

I am also sad that I don’t have Morrvahl Olbrecht! I am genuinely considering buying the whole wizard’s box JUST to make that chap. I could use the others for my Stormcast Eternals army so it’s not a massive waste of money I guess haha.

I got to work on the final elements of the game recently. I had a few more characters to paint including the final two ven Altens who have turned to the dark side.

The painting of the skin here on these folks was pretty rough to get right and took a long time. I’m still not overly sold on it but I think it works to mark them out as different from the other undead. It is just a process I would not repeat on too many miniatures!

So, I went with a slightly modified idea of what I mentioned on the Cult Of Games XLBS. I went with Stirland Mud but I took out the whole cobble/paving stones thing because, well, I didn’t want to do much extra work.

I think it came out looking simple but effective. It was a case of covering the bases in Stirland Mud (thanks for the alternative suggestions on that) then drybrushing them with a lighter brown.

After that, just a big shock of grass and some PVA glue and you’ve got a completed base. The rim of the same light brown then, I think, helps frame the model better than a black one.

I imagine them walking through the muddy graveyards and back alleys of Ulfenkarn and – it kinda works. I would have killed for some proper sculpted bases like you get in Warhammer Underworlds but that probably would have bumped the price up even more!

Glaurio is ready to put things right and take on some of his family members who accepted the blood curse of Radukar The Wolf. Here is one such vampire, Janus!

I really wanted to play around with the skin again here. I took a similar approach to the skin on Radukar but I dosed the flesh and fur in Contrast Skeleton Horde too.

I think it gives Janus here a rather Blachitsu-style look which seems befitting for Cursed City. All of the ven Alten vampires have black-ish hair but I think I’m going to give each of them different coloured mops just to break things up a bit.

I took some time to paint up more of the Skeletons and Zombies this weekend…

This is a super quick scheme to do. It takes no time at all to get it all finished off even if the cloaks can be a little fiddly now and again.

The Deadwalker Zombies take more time due to all of the roots and the mounted gravestones/markers.

It might take a bit more time but it has been fun working on them. I like the variety of bits and bobs that you get in the Cursed City set.

I’m not sure how I’ll get on with all of the swarms and stuff. I reckon I’ll need to push myself to finish them. BUT, the core of the game is good fun to paint!

I went with a different scheme for the Vargskyr. I wasn’t liking the fleshy look and so wanted to go for something more bat/wolf-like.

Plenty of drybrushing and the application of two washes worked out ok here I think. The claws are a bit bright but I think they help draw the eye to the miniature. I am intrigued to see how it looks when I work out my basing style.

The final character was Cleona Zeitengale who is another of the spellcasters that you can add into your games of Cursed City.

Pain in the arse painting up the back of this model and I was not going to toy around with painting runes on those banners. But, a nice end to the cycle of characters in the set. I am going back and forth on the orb at the end of her staff – should it be repainted blue?

Time for a Duardin! Here we have Dagnai Holdenstock who involved a lot of metallics!

Alas the beard wasn’t a proper one but he is quite the interesting rogue, especially when sat alongside the likes of Glaurio.

Time for a wizened old wizard! This fellow was a lot of fun to work on although I had to try and puzzle my way around a dodgy purple paint pot!

I always like painting books as well! There is something satisfying in the finishing of them!

By contrast – this miniature, Qulathis The Exile, was a lot of fun to paint and mainly because I know one of my friends will be clamouring to play as her.

It was cool working on the different colours and trying to marry them all together. I had a lot of fun with the antlers on the “crown” and the skin here.

As possibly my favourite character from the game, I was a bit dismayed with the outcome here on Jelsen Darrock.

I think it’s because there is so much brown. He is very dark compared to the other characters and I maybe could have done more to highlight various areas of the model. His face was also a pain to paint!

I think of all of the characters, Brutogg Corpse-Eater was possibly the biggest challenge thanks to his sheer size.

I enjoyed the process of painting him but there were a lot of different stages involved in doing so. It took me a good few hours to finish him between working on other characters.

The second hero I attempted, this time clad in heavy armour, Emelda Braskov.

Another fun one considering the amount of armour on display at that rather wild cloak topper too. I also liked playing around with the hair and facial details here.

The first hero I painted from the set, the dashing Glaurio ven Alten III.

He was a lot of fun and an interesting character to start with considering all the different elements to him.

I will get to the heroes shortly but I was also drawn to some of the key villains from Cursed City that you’ll face on your adventures. First up, we have the impressive Vampire Ogor Radukar The Wolf (I don’t care GW…he’s still an Ogor).

He was a lot of fun to work on, especially when it came to getting his vampiric flesh looking right when contrasted with the pale wolf cloak.

We also have Captain Halgrim here of the Ulfenwatch…

…and Gorslav The Gravekeeper. I wanted to add a bit more to this fellow but I might come back to that. I think as it stands he works nicely and dies into the zombies.

At the time of reading this, I will probably be working towards the Vargskyrs and Torgilius next before attempting more of the rank and file monsters in the collection.

I did spend some time tinkering on some more of the monstrous creatures that the heroes will face. One such pairing is the duo of Kosargi Nightguard who have been given an unending task by Radukar The Wolf.

These were good fun to paint and I think they have a nice presence to them on the tabletop. Again, nothing too fussy but just enough to make them stand out!

The first thing I did once I’d assembled all the miniatures is try a few test schemes on some of the rank and file miniatures in the set. First up we have one of the Deadwalker Zombies.

The idea here was to create a scheme that was simple but effective. I really liked the look of the proper Nurgle-green flesh and it contrasted well with some of the brighter colours and dark woods on these creations.

Part of me wishes they didn’t have the graves on their backs as they would be much easier to paint!

Next up, we had one of the Deathrattle Skeletons of the Ulfenwatch.

Again, a simple but effective scheme that should allow me to get all of these skeletons painted rather quickly.

In both cases, the miniatures were basecoated then washed with Agrax Earthshade. After that, they got highlighted up a bit here and there and I think it works!

Finally, we have some of the Bats!

This was a bit of a palette cleanser test piece for me. It allowed me to crack out the drybrush again and finish off this critter very quickly indeed. I think it will serve me well on the other swarms.