The CF's almost weekly 2!

Woot, already been two weeks?! I've been so busy. I still am, and I'll tell you why in today's almost weekly (which is, I admit, a little rushed).
I've been trying to expand my Black Knight units from 5 to 15. I'm almost there, having assembled 9 more horses (the tenth is going to be a Wight King, AWW YEAAHH).
Anyways, it's looking pretty good on that front, so I'm satisfied.


The other thing that's been keeping my busy and working is that my Mantic Games Skeletons and Zombies arrived! 120 Skeletons and 60 Zombies to assemble, and they're sadly not going to assemble themselves!

There's about 60 - 70 of the Skeletons in that picture. That means there's at least 50 left, as well as 60 zombies! -sigh-

But anyways, for today's topic, let's have a short review of the Mantic Skeletons, shall we?
The first thing that... stroke? Striked? Whatever, the first thing that straught me was the level of detail and armour compared to GWs own skeletons. Where GWs skeletons range from nude to loincloth+shield, Mantic's range from Loincloth+shield to chainmail, ex-clothing, pretty helmets, birds eating their flesh and shield. That's a plus for me. I've always wanted my skeletons to look like they're actual dead warriors, and now they do!
The second thing that came to me where the pretty little bits. It's not so much, but now I have 6 tombstones, 6 skeleton Wolfrats and 5 skeletons bursting out of the ground (a champion took the sixth skeleton for his hand weapon). It's just a little something that made me a bit happy anyway. Everyone loves bits!
Third difference I notices was their faces, and I'm not sure if this is positive or negative. It's the fact that the Mantic Skeletons have their faces slightly twisted into expressions (mostly anger from what I can see, or just seriousness), unlike GWs in this case slightly more realistic skeletons whom have little to no expression at all. But I have yet to decided if it's good or bad. It's slightly silly and unrealistic, but it adds character and make them seem slightly more frightening.
Another bad thing was that the MG skeletons weren't as well done when it came to the bones. To many ribs and such, not like a real skeleton. But that is countered by the extra armour, so I'm fine with that.
Next thing in the list of differences is the poses. GW skeletons has the pose of marching forward. Mantic has the pose of standing still.... More or less. Although you would believe it to look bad on the battlefield, it actually does not. If you want an example you're familiar with, look to the ranged infantry units in your army. In almost every case these will be standing on their place, not marching forward.
And the last thing (and the thing I loved the most) was the simple effectivity of assembling them.
Every lower part (from feet to stomach) is in one piece, for every skeleton. Then there are six complete upper parts, six upper part where you get to choose weapons (Spears, Swords, Axes, or a flail), and eight where you may customize a little bit (Choose head, gear for both hands, sometimes even pose the arms...).
So there's like the generic guys, the slightly generic guys, and the characterful guys. Yay!

I'm not even gonna bother telling you the price comparison. Let's just say Mantic aren't GW.

And for a final, a little size comparison between them and some VC models!


As you can see, they scale pretty well. The Grave Guard may look shorter, but he's hunched forward, and even so still more bulky than the little warrior, so he appears larger in any case.

All in all, it's a win for Mantic Games. I know where I'm getting my future Skeletons from, should I ever need more.


Now, as a final note is the thing that spurs me so currently.



The convent Gothcon is coming up! It's during April, 6ht to 8th I believe. And I decided to join their WHFB tournament. I need to have everything bought, painted and assembled by then!
I've made a rough list of what to bring, so that's planned. It includes be buying two Necromancers and my kitbashed Vamplord. That'll be a good 400 crowns. Some Direwolves are also needed, basing materials, new Movement trays and foam trays for my GW bag. Also spraypaint and more paint. I'm not even sure I'll have enough money. This will be rough.
But I'm gonna make it!

The Cornerfag's Converted Black Knights

Ah, finally I have the time to publish an article about my converted Black Knights!
I've been intrigued by their ethereal movement since I got the VC Armybook, but the models... Gah, I did not stand them. So I decided to convert some myself.
Unlike some other conversions I've seen however, I decided NOT TO USE FLESHY HORSES.
Seriously, their entry in the book specifically says Skeletal Steed. So I'd be damned if I wasn't going to get my skeletal steeds, and they were going to be barded damnit!
And thus, with some Grave Guard bits I've got, some Bretonnian Knights and a few Tomb Kings Horsemen, I set to the work with knife, greenstuff and a toothpick.

Now, this was my first extensive conversion. And I did not know very much how to do, so... Improvisation was my friend.



Now, this first picture illustrates the early stages very well, regarding the body.
I've included parts of everything before and after for simplicity.
One thing I noticed rather early is that the Bretonnian horse is well scaled with the Skeletal horse. Actually, it's so well scaled that the Bretonnian barding fits almost perfectly!
So that's what I did. I removed the fleshy parts of the living horse (which sounds pretty gruesome), and cut at the sides and flanks of the skeletal horse, then just... Donned the barding on the skeletal horse.
Note that you will need to cut some parts of the skeletal horse to get it to fit well, but nothing noticeable.

Then it would look something like this:


As for the head, well.. The Bretonnian horses' heads were varying a little bit, and so would my horses heads do too.
So I just used my imagination, a bit of greenstuff and the knife for the heads.
Some would look like the one in the previous picture, which required much cutting and fitting... Patience was needed.
And others would look like this one:



And that's also how you put together the head and body. Pretty much just glue it. Greenstuff if needed. Simple enough.
And then we move to the rider.
I used the Bretonnian knights legs - but I cut them off at different part, exchanging that part with the skeletal equivalent. Sometimes, I cut off from the knee and down, sometimes only the foot, and at some times not at all.

Then, for the body, I alternated between just using the Bretonnian body (cut on the sides, my skeletons aren't supposed to be that fat), or the Bretonnian body cut of in the bottom, placing the lower ribcage and spine of the skeletal horseman there, or in a few cases I juse used the skeletal horseman's body.
On the shoulders I placed a few spare Grave Guard shoulderpads I've aquired from not putting every shoulderpad onto the Grave Guards (Leaving a few with a single, or no shoulderpad at all, gives more of an ancient, slightly shambling feeling, with a little bit more variation within the unit, methinks).

Right arm: The Skeletal Horseman's spearhand, but the area of the spear above the hand is cut off and exchanged with the equivalent lance part from the Bretonnian (with the flag cut off).

Left arm: Simply the shield arm from the Grave Guard Kit.

Head: I made a makeshift neck out of greenstuff (but since I cannot model, I pretty much made it a big lump which smeared slightly out over the shoulder, looking like som kind of cloth). Then I just used some leftover Grave Guard Heads.

All in all, it would look something like this:


And here's my unit of 5 (aspiring to be 10 someday), painted and all:


And that's all for me today!