Greetings Terrans, just a quick post for me today – painting time has been more compressed than usual since the last post, so I only have 2 minis to show you this week… That said, they are pretty hefty – it’s the two ‘Kosargi Nightguard’:

The fluff for these guys is that they are loyal Bodyguard Ogors (i.e. Ogres for frickin’ frick’s sake – these stoopid IP-protecting names get right on my nerves). These henchies were loyal in life, and remain so in undeath, providing the big man some serious close support. They were great fun to paint, with loads of space for adding texture & highlights. I went pretty heavy with the corrosion & gunk, because I really wanted this dudes to look ‘dug up’. I also copied the orange beard trick from Radukar, just to bring in some colour & give the mini a focal point (again, the faces were pretty obscured in all that fur!).

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this week – this post is literally the opposite of the subject matter (‘short and sweet’ rather than ‘tall and… savoury’?!?). Catch you next time droogs 😊

Greetings Terrans & happy (slightly belated) Samhain. What an auspicious time to launch a new project to complete the latest Warhammer Quest boxed game – the Cursed City!! (cue spooky backround noises). For those not in the know, WQ:CC was released back in April, and it takes a party of adventurers to the titular Cursed City of Ulfenkarn, which is being ravaged by a big-bad vampire called ‘Radukar the Wolf’. The game is basically a dungeon-crawl where you need to compete missions & fight hordes of undead in order to reach & kill Radukar, and hopefully lift the curse on Ulfenkarn!

This release caused a bit of a stir in ‘the community’ – the minis are very nice indeed & the game format is now well established & very successful, but the game controversially sold out in just 2 hours… The webstore buckled under the pressure & I actually didn’t even know that I had managed to bag a copy until it turned up at my house, so yeah, frustrating release. To make matters worse, GW have implied that the game is not going to be re-released or expanded upon… ever… (cue much gnashing of fanboy teeth & the salivation of a hundred ebay scalpers!). Whether this really will be a one-off release or not I don’t know, but it makes no odds to me – I’m painting my set & you guys are along for the ride, so let’s get into it!

The box contains all the bits needed to play the game, including 60 brand new miniatures, (8 Heroes; 5 ‘Overlords’ (evil boss monsters); 37 generic baddies; 10 object markers). All the components are really high quality, and the minis look pretty darn fine. I’ll follow the same forma as I did with the Conan set – weekly(ish) posts with a few minis and a bit of a write-up. Sound good? Ok, here we go!

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First up, and because Halloween, I wanted to tackle the big fella himself – Radukar the Wolf:

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According to the fluff, Radukar was an ambitious warlord who wanted to become a vampire – as you do. He raided some vamp’s tomb, killed a two-headed wolf, nicked a barrow-blade from inside & this blade turned him into a vampire… He then liberated a city called Mournhold from Chaos, and became the ruler of the city – apparently, he was doing a decent job of it, but then an in-world event called the ‘Necroquake’ happened… Unfortunately for the citizens of Mournhold, the Necroquake amped up Radukar’s powers & made him lose his shit, so now the city is his hunting ground & has become known as Ulfenkarn… I find all this fluff quite tedious tbh, but the key points are Vampire, Ruler, Batshit Crazy.

Radukar is an interesting model to paint – he’s technically a very good mini, but the face gets lost in all that fur from his two-headed wolf pelt & furry hat… As such, the model lacks a clear focal point in my opinion, (though I found that giving him an orange beard helped to frame the face a little). Still, it is what it is, and I painted him up as best I could with Contrast paints & washes, drybrushing where I could get away with it, (and blending and highlighting where I couldn’t). I experimented with very faint crosshatch lines on the trousers & belt to show wear, and I also used a fair amount of corrosion where I felt it appropriate. I really used Radukar to set the tone for the whole box, and I want things to look worn and tired… The suggestion is that the curse over the city affects everything, even metals leather and cloth.

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Next, I went for a big boi – the ‘Vargskyr Vampire’:

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Vargskyr are bestial manifestations of the ‘Vyrkos’ strain of the Soulblight curse… I have no idea what any of that means, but I think that they are basically vampires that have been overcome by bloodlust and have devolved into bestial wolf-like creatures… Whatever it is, it’s a big mini – easily the biggest and most imposing mini in the set. It went together ok – a few minor issues with gapping here and there but nothing terrible, and painting was great fun. I really went for it with the wet blending on all the skin, pushing the highlighting & getting a very pale complexion, and then really working to get some texture in there. The fur was just really simple drybrushing, so nothing fancy… This beasty didn’t take long at all & was very satisfying to complete.

Well, that’s it for this week – I hope you enjoyed the post & the minis! Rest assured, there is more to follow next week 😊