Undead Army of the Cairns Part I

Hi All,

Now that my miniatures have appeared on Curt's Analogue Hobbies blog for 24 hours I can post them here too. This is my first batch of units on my way to painting up Heinrich Kemmler's Undead Army of the Cairns.

You can see from the following army diagram how I'm tracking. Pretty solid progress for week one!

Now on to the miniatures...

First up we have a couple of core units. These are Simulacra, essentially animated statues from barrows and mausoleums. They're the original wight models and some of my favourites from the fantasy range. In total there are 12 figs split into two units of 3 bases each, or I could play them as one big unit if required. They were undercoated black and then dry brushed and inked a number of times to get the desired stony finish.

Next up is another animated statue but this one much larger. This is a Tomb Stalker (one per unit) and is one of the early Chaos Centaur models. He's a special choice in the list. He was painted the same way as the Simulacra but given his size I've spent a bit more time on the basing.

The third set is a pair of Ghosts, one each per unit. The female is a pretty recent banshee sculpt and the other is an old skool ghost miniature. These count as core choices in the list. They were painted the same way as the Simulacra and Tomb Stalker.

Second last is a unit of eight Mummies from the old Khermi range. These are classed as special choices under the list. They were undercoated brown and the dry brushed, inked and then over painted to get the desired result. I've painted these figs three times now over the years and this is the first time I've been properly satisfied with the outcome.

Lastly is the piece of resistance (and didn't he resist!), a Winged Nightmare. This is also a unit of one and counts as a rare choice. When I purchased the model it was in a horrible state. Past owners had attempted to pin the joints numerous times and had damaged him quite badly in the process poor chap. It took 2.5 hours just to pull him apart without further injury. Another 4 hours was spent pinning and rebuilding him, including filing away the saddle behind the head, followed by carving and inserting two more spines to give the right look. He's the 6-million gold piece monster! "My Spikey" was undercoated black and then painted in layers with a bit of dry brushing on the leathery part of his wings. He's very dark (obviously) and has more depth in real life but no amount of Photoshop Foo could bring him up better unfortunately.

I've also completed a couple of extra "fluff miniatures" for my 40K Angeilicus Mechanicus army...

And that's it for completed stuff to report on. I've got a unit of skellies painted but unbased as yet, plus plenty more stuff lined up on the desk so stay tuned.

Finally, a quick and festive welcome to Legion Games who has joined us as a follower.

Cheers,
Millsy