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The Art of Necromancy! Reaper’s Mantic Undead

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Author Topic: The Art of Necromancy! Reaper’s Mantic Undead  (Read 455 times)
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imm0rtal reaper
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« on: June 21, 2011, 03:11:20 pm »

Nalgar walked across the empty plains, humming to himself. In the distance he could hear them coming. Hundreds of armoured boots. He smiled, it was raining. He enjoyed summoning in the rain. And this fog would provide amply cover.
He placed his phylactery in a finely crafted steel box and handed it to Ra’s.
    ‘Make sure it is well hidden.’
    ‘Yes my lord.’
    ‘And call the others. They will be here soon.’
Ra’s bowed his head and hurried away. Nalgar was joined by a quintet of other necromancer’s, forming a line beside him.
    ‘Karnack,’ the Liche spoke, ‘are you certain this is the place?’
    ‘Certain my lord. There will be more than enough.’
    ‘Excellent. You may begin your summoning.’
The necromancers moved away as the Elf army appeared in view at the opposite end of the field. Nalgar watched his necromancers begin the process of raising the dead. Skeletal arms burst from the ground all around him. The undead rose from their earthly slumber and formed neat ranks and columns.
    ‘So much more obedient than the living,’ Nalgar laughed. He took a phial from inside his robes and poured a single drop onto the fertile earth. Speaking an incantation of dark magic, he lifted his arms above his head. The ground gave a soft rumble and the freshly dead forced their way back into the land of the living. The zombies formed a horde of rotten flesh in front of the skeletal ranks. Nalgar watched the ghouls who had accompanied him fight amongst one another with a smile.
    ‘The summoning is complete my lord,’ Ra’s said.
    ‘And my phylactery?’
    ‘Totally hidden.’
    ‘Excellent. Let us spill some blood.’    



The tale of Nalgar, Liche King.


    Nalgar is a Liche of some 300 years old. Once a well respected scholar and mage. He was outcast from the school of wizardry when he suggested the study of Necromancy as standard practise to better understand the threat it posed. Driven from his life as a well known and highly regarded member of society, Nalgar moved to the country where he practised with the damned arts on his own for many years.

    When word reached him that his son had been murdered in the city, Nalgar returned. He found his son’s resting place and used his knowledge to perform a summoning spell. However, Nalgar was but a novice, with no true understanding of the art he was practising. His spell did indeed revive his son, along with every corpse in the graveyard.  The mass of zombies he had raised proceeded to slaughter hundreds across the city, acting on Nalgar’s powerful hate of those who had “wronged” him.  By the time his hold broke on the undead, Nalgar was a shell. Having witness the citizens of his hometown butchered, their flesh feasted on by those things he himself had summoned, Nalgar was a broken man.

    Overcome with grief, Nalgar returned to his country home and delved deeper into the secrets of Necromancy, determined to revive those he had killed.  Six years later he returned to the city to find it repopulated. After some searching he found the mass grave of those affected by the actions of his last visit. With his new knowledge, and broken mind, he raised an army of hundreds of skeletons. The townspeople attacked him, calling him a monster, but they did not understand. Nalgar tried to make them see he had corrected his mistakes but they would not listen. So the Necromancer turned his undead on the living, slaughtering the inhabitants of the city for a second time.

    The next few years are shrouded in mystery. Nalgar, along with his ever growing legion of undead, made his way across the land, sacking towns and cities as he went. As each populated area fell, his numbers grew. During this period there were dozens major battles between Nalgar’s army and the Elves, and several against the Dwarves. At some point during this time Nalgar achieved his Liche status, his living body having finally succumbed to the effects of Necromancy. But in death, Nalgar became far more powerful than he ever was in life. His grief and sorrow were replaced with an insatiable lust for chaos. He wrought a bloody path, decimating entire armies as they tried to stop him.

     And then, after many months of destruction, he disappeared. There was no sign of the Liche, or his forces, for over 150 years. His actions became another note in the history books and he was forgotten. What he did during this period is unknown. But when he returned, he did so at the head of a colossal army of undead. Having recruited his famous six insidious Necromancers, Nalgar was able to summon a terrifying force and advance upon the living world.


_____________

Greetings fanatics, this  log will chronicle my journey into the art of Necromancy as I build and paint an undead army for Mantic's Kings of War.
In light of recent happenings involving GW, I have decided a partial boycott is in order. I won't be buying GW minis in the month of June and I play on toning down my buying of GW minis in the future too. I already have more than enough marines to make thousands of points for an army, and I recently sold most of my Guard/Krieg, so the stage is set for Mantic. I will still buy GW paints because they are what I work with most, but I'll only need to buy a few to get myself going with this army.

Well, onto Mantic then. As I said, because of recent events, myself and a few others have decided to give Kings of War a go. I downloaded the rules and gave them a read, and so far, I'm loving what I'm seeing. For such an easy game it seems to have so much character.
I chose undead because I think they have the best models and I already had a horde of zombies.
My force will based around the Liche King Nalgar, from the short fluff piece above. He's a vicious being, but I'm hoping to add a little humor to him over time. As per the fluff, Liches deal with the recently dead, so Nalgar is a master of Zombies and ghouls. While his six necromancers handle the skeleton elements of the army.
I will be reflecting this on the table top. Whenever there are zombies or ghouls present. Nalgar will be there. And wherever skeletons walk, his Necromancers won't be far behind.
So, onto pictures:

Obviously one of the first things I considered was colour scheme. I saw a few different ones that I liked but in the end settled on a variation of the Mantic Studio army's Red and Blue. I chose this scheme because blue is one of my favorite colors to work with and red can be done really well with washes.

My first test mini was Ra's (think Ra's al Ghoul from batman for the pronunciation)









I chose to use a ringwraith model because I'm not fond of the any of the hero undead miniatures apart from Mhorgoth. The pictures make him look a lot shinier than he is and a few have lost some of the depth in the colors (the bottom is closest to true colors)

Next we have my first army standard.





I'm really pleased with this guy. However, the picture has washed out a lot of the depth in the red and blue, particularly on his banner. He represents a recently dead warrior, hence the skin tone. For those interested, here are my colour recipes:

Blue
Basecoat regal blue
Ogryn Flesh wash
Begin layering a 50/50 mix of ultramarine blue and regal blue
Highlight with roughly a 50/25/25 regal/ultramarine/white mix
Wash with Asurmen blue to tie the colours together.

Red
Mechrite Red Basecoat
Thraka Green Wash
Layer Roughly 50/25/25 Scarab red/blood red/blazing orange
Highlight pure blood red
Wash heavily with baal red wash.

Metals
Boltgun base
Chainmail and weapons are washed badab black
Plates and other metal areas washed devlan mud

Dead Skin
Dheneb stone base
Levaithan purple wash
layer a 50/50 mix of Dheneb stone and Rotting flesh
Highlight with same mix but skull white added.
VERY light purple wash

The last thing we have is the first regiment of zombies:



These will be (re)painted following this tutorial.

YouTube        - ‪Painting Tutorial - Zombies! - Part 1‬‏

Well, if you've stuck with me till the end of this massive post, have an internet cookie. I will update when my army set arrives.

Until then :ok:
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 04:35:20 pm by imm0rtal reaper » Report Spam   Logged

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mattjgilbert
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« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2011, 04:34:00 pm »

Hmmm.. I'm not sure I'm convinced by that tutorial. It seems like an awful lot of effort! Perhaps some better pictures of the final models are needed to convince me. Have you tried it yet?
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« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2011, 05:20:49 pm »

Link didn't work for me, had to change it to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7jWn60NOog&feature=mh_lolz&list=FLkWap0hjtMlo

Looks like a good technique, basically heavy drybrush of red/brown over black then spray dusting light brown to add highlighting.

If you look at the other video he seems to have painted about 200+ zombies using this technique and they do look pretty good as a horde.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2011, 05:24:36 pm by scarletsquig » Report Spam   Logged
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« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2011, 08:31:35 pm »

Ha Ha, that's Caz, the resident painter at Kingdom of Adventure. 

Interesting that you are using LotR models for your Mantic army, because I just started using some of my excess Mantic Undead to build up a WotR army.

Great backstory so far, looking forward to more.
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« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2011, 10:08:43 pm »

... because I just started using some of my excess Mantic Undead to build up a WotR army.

You have excess Mantic Undead?!? Shocked

How did that that happen? Wink
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imm0rtal reaper
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« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2011, 04:28:16 pm »

Hey all, it’s a text update today (boo!)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the background of this army and I’m really intrigued by Nalgar’s six Necromancers. Now, some of you may be wondering how I can be intrigued by it when it’s something I wrote, well anyone else who writes will know the effect that character development can have lol.

The snippet of fluff on the site mentions that the Liche deals mainly with the more fleshy undead (zombies), and while I’m sure a Liche of Nalgar’s status would have no trouble summoning skellies, I’m going to keep him for zombies and general evil over-lording. So it will be up to his insidious six to summon the bulk of the army.

I’ve been thinking about how this will work and I have a general concept in mind. Each of the six necromancers will be responsible for one particular unit type.

For example, one Liche may be the sole summoner of skeleton warriors, another in charge of the revenants, a third for the cavalry (mounted on a horse of course, probably a revenant conversion using the plastic skeleton hood and other bits). Then I would have a necromancer dedicated to the binding of spirits to bring wraiths to the field. That would leave me with two necromancers that can assist and also it leave me room for any new undead that are released.

My plan for this in tabletop representation is twofold. The first, and most obvious, will be heraldry. I want to keep the army colours uniform, but by having individual heraldry for each necromancer, I can add these to the shields/etc of the units they have raised.

The other, and more subtle way to do this is eyes. The undead are animated via magic, and it is said the skeleton warriors have an aura about them (the air around them hums. And there is a metallic scent/taste to them) So I will be painting their eyes to colour co-ordinate with the eyes of their raiser, to tie them together. It’s only something small, but I really like it as a concept, sort of a magical signature for each magic user.

Hobby wise, I’m still waiting for the undead army box to arrive (I’m jonesing for some undead now) but have already started planning my next purchases (cavalry and warmachines :grin: )

Comments/suggestions welcome.
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« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2011, 10:59:11 am »

Nalgar watched as his undead horde advanced towards the Elven line. Many of his minions fell to the points of the Elves arrows, but they rose again as soon as they fell. He smiled as Ar’nath’s wraiths glided towards the Elf line, their spirit bodies immune to bolt and spear.  The Liche gave a throaty laugh as the western glank of the elf line buckled under the weight of the wraith assault. As the elves adjusted their line to meet the threat, Caloth led his revenant cavalry from the tree line into the heart of the Elves eastern flank. Caught between lance and spirit, the Elves were defenceless against the main body of the force as it arrived. The ghouls struck first, biting, hacking, clawing, limbs falling wherever they went.  The zombies arrived next, feasting on the injured and pushing further into the Elf line.
When the skeleton horde reached them, the elves were broken. In retreat or dead, they were defeated.

‘Ra’s,’ the Liche spoke, ‘regroup the troops, we press on. The day is young and there is much blood to be spilled.’

________

Update time folks. The undead box still hasn’t arrived, turns out its out of stock so won’t arrive until the end of next week at the earliest Sad

I have managed to get some more painting done though. I painted another Necromancer, Ar’nath the wraith master.





His staff top is green because that will be the colour of my wraiths. And green is Ar’nath’s magical signature. You can’t see it in the picture, but he has green eyes also.

I think by this point I’ve got painting the red and blue down to a T and should be able to knock the main force out quite quickly.

As always, comments, suggestions and criticisms are always welcome!
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« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2011, 08:16:44 pm »

I love that you're using LOTR models for KoW. I think they are excellent miniatures and they may fit quite well in a KoW army like yours.
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