Subedai’s Fantastical Fighting Forces

The second of my armies for the undead in Warhammer Fantasy Battle is themed around the Ghoul Kings. It’s another force that has been decades in the making and is utilising figures of various ages.

As their name implies, the Ghoul Kings are followed by a court of ravenous carrion eaters, and other monstrous creatures of darkness flock to their unholy aura. Zombies rise in their wake, recent victims of their raids into the lands of the living.

This army makes for 1,000 points under 8th Edition rules, ready to be combined or mixed with my existing Vampire Counts army should the opportunity arise. The Strigoi Ghoul King is a metal sculpt from the time of an earlier edition, when this type of vampire was first introduced as a distinct faction. The lowlier vampire in his thrall I just painted now, using the plastic rider from the Terrorgheist kit.

I had finished the Varghulf some time back, but took the opportunity to highlight its wing membranes and claws further while also scattering a couple of bones on its base for decoration.

It’s a compact little infantry force, well suited for a battle even on a 4×4 gaming table. However, plans are obviously afoot to expand the army to 2,000 points. While using some existing models like more bats and Dire Wolves, the main new addition will be a Terrorgheist and some Crypt Horrors I have yet to build.

After having bought Saga: Age of Magic and the Book of Battles at Salute, UndeadHighElf and I got two games in. With it being our first games of Saga, we skipped magic and war machines and played a standard Clash of Warlords, followed by Prized Possessions.

Pitching my Night Goblins against Dwarfs, I got trashed twice. The main setback in the first battle came early when my two trolls were beaten back by a handful of hand gunners defending a wall, neutralising my main strike force. In game two, I managed to destroy two of the three artillery pieces the stunties were trying to deliver to the local Elector Count, but the casualties suffered in doing so proved too high a prize to pay.

We really enjoyed the system and both left with plenty of plans for future Saga forces. With these Night Goblins being my first warband specifically built for Saga (I have a separate army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle), I have since expanded them using some spare models.

I painted up Gobbla and Gnasher and two Squig Herder teams which I can now use either as a unit of Hearthguard (potentially with heavy weapons) or Berserkers in a Horde force.

In order to have a standard bearer for both of my Warrior units, I painted up a classic Kev Adams sculpt. Finally, the archers were strengthened to a full Levy band of twelve, using plastic models I didn’t have a use for previously.

It turned into a bit of a slog towards the end, but I managed to complete my horde of 30 zombies in thrall to the Ghoul Kings for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

A dozen of the figures are metals from The Assault Group that I ordered with their Kickstarter in 2017. Five of the sculpts are now available from their store, while the sixth was an exclusive. They will tie in nicely with my fledgling Empire army, hence I painted some of the zombies up in the state colours of Ostermark and Ostland.

To complete the regiment I dug through my bits box and combined  Citadel plastic zombie heads and arms with bodies from the archers and militia sets. One is using the legs and torso of a Perry Miniatures mercenary, while two do not use any legs since I modelled them to be emerging from the cursed soil of Sylvania.

Altogether I have a horde of 60 zombies now for my masters of the necromantic arts to call upon. The upcoming Fireforge zombies are looking pretty nice as well, so I might add another unit of them in future. Maybe something for my Salute 2020 shopping list.

I am sticking with the undead forces for Warhammer Fantasy Battle for the time being. Between painting up a horde of zombies I managed to complete a small hunting pack of ten ghouls that I had purchased a while back when dreaming up my Ghoul King’s force.

My existing ghouls consist of the two ranges released in metal in the 90s, while these additions are using the still current plastic set. I never liked them very much but wanted to add variety, and there isn’t much choice in ghouls for mass battle units.

After building them I started to like them a lot better. There are a bunch of faces I am not keen on, but by keeping those to a minimum I am quite happy with the pack now. Some of the bodies needed to be glued at an upward angle as they were leaning forward on their bases far too much (a strange practice Citadel employed on a number of regiments at the time, including their skeletons and flagellants), but other than that I did few adjustments.

I’ve had some figures built for a second 30 strong unit of zombies for a while, which I am aiming to complete as part of my Ghoul King’s retinue.

The first ten are now painted, consisting mainly of figures from the Citadel plastic kit, with a few skeleton parts thrown in to make use of my spares and add variety. I also like the little rat scuttling through the mob.

I’m using Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th Edition as a guide for collecting and painting various forces. Going for a modest 1,000 points still turns out to be quite a few models as I want to start with the rank and file of each army, leaving the fancier and more costly elements for later expansions.

The overall largest faction of painted models in my collection are the Vampire Counts. So rather than forming them into one army I decided to split them into themed sub-factions with the intention of sharing little to no models between them.

The first faction I am considering finished is a force led by a Vampire Count. Himself armed with two sharp blades to revel in carnage, the mundane task of raising and maintaining his undead horde falls to a Necromancer in his service.

The skeleton regiments are built from three generations of plastic sets with some extra bits taken from Chaos Marauders. The zombies are a mixture of Citadel metal and plastic figures.

The Vampire Lord is the metal sculpt of Konrad von Carstein, while the Necromancer is the newer plastic kit.

The hunting beasts that have followed the call of their vampiric master are the early plastic wolves with some metal add-ons, a swarm of bats and a flock of giant Fell Bats.

The other two factions I am working on are Ghoul Kings (ghouls, zombies and monsters) and Necromancers (massed ranks of zombies and skeletons). Once they are all assembled, the Old World will tremble before the armies of the dead!

I’m throwing all skeletons with polearms together into a unit of Grim Reapers for my Oldhammer Undead. The majority will probably wield scythes in the end but I am starting with this motley assortment of blades on a stick.

Three of the figures are from Marauder Miniatures, one Citadel, and one is by Bob Olley I believe. The weedy looking fellow on the left in the first photo is possibly Essex Miniatures. The figure was part of a batch purchase and I wanted to do it justice by fielding it all those decades after its creation. I imagine it portrays an unfortunate young farmhand drafted into a long forgotten war. Another broken sculpt from that purchase had already found its place as part of a terrain piece.

When the Winds of Hobby Motivation are waning, the Lore of Death can usually still squeeze the odd beat out of my shrivelled necromantic heart.

As one can never have enough skeletons, I painted up a couple of old metal Marauder and Citadel warriors of bone and two others which were part of a bundle purchase and possibly produced by Grenadier or another long defunct manufacturer.

The Citadel figures are mostly slotta models with one that pre-dates this era. I went with my usual simple colour scheme of mostly black and iron while painting the more ornately armoured fighters with oxidised bronze plate.

The non-Warhammer miniatures of a sword fighter and a crossbowman are based on round bases as I will use them in skirmish games like Frostgrave rather than my Oldhammer Undead army.