Beneath the banner of the black serpent

I’ve made a command decision to drop the amount of figures I own and I’m paring down what armies I have sitting about. This project is one of them but I’m gifting it to the guy I bought the mumak from in the local gaming group so its not just chucking it out.

As a matter of course I’ll finish what I have to give away for the SAGA army idea. I don’t know what to do with the future plans or random bits of whimsical inspiration now. In short, this sucks.

I have painted the large cobra I thought to put into my Indian army. The foot soldier accompanying the serpent is not done as I’m still pushing through the figures. I will be done soon with a couple units. It sucks to end up doing this but I need to relieve myself of a thing I will not play or enjoy. I will find joy in seeing other people have well painted models.

A side note on the paint, I primed using a Rustoleum™ rattlecan paint. I then went over it with the Vallejo Xpress Intense for the black. Trying to seal it with a matte varnish, it reactivated and pulled away slightly when I brushed over raised edges. I don’t know if this is an issue with all Contrast/Speedpaint/Xpress but I don’t think I’ll be brushing much anymore if I use them. My experience even with water-based airbrush varnish shows that they run a bit when sprayed. I think I’ll stick with enamel or shellac varnish if I do that again in future. I’ll work as much as possible to layer my paints from here on out.

I have gotten more on my mind to run in the private portion of the project system. Thinking about leadership I have decided on putting my Warlord on a giant serpent. Pretty standard if you consider my huge scorpion and the chimera for the last two armies I made for myself and the theme for Harad.

It is yet again a point I regret being inspired by things I see. Combining the undead camelry with the snake and a paint video put out by Sword ‘N’ Steel, featuring the lovely Naomi, I had the thought “Why not a bone naga?”. Dammit, the parts just fit and it’s perfect to be a Warlord on Beast. I have since found two models which best suit my vision and won’t violate the 80x50mm limit in SAGA. Now to find a model of a kneeling figure I could remodel to put on top. I will stop while I’m ahead for the moment.

I haved purchased a mumak from a guy at my FLGS and it is 3rd hand. It is in rough shape and I am not pleased with the state of it. Used items are assumed to come with some setbacks, but lacking the entire howdah sucks. I am in the midst of trying a plan of rebuilding it with a dry run of cardboard from a pizza box and toothpicks. My estimation of dimensions is based on pictures of the beasts that are much more photogenic than mine. I also scraped images from the GW site for the sprues so I can sculpt in details for the wooden structure and rope rigging. I believe I can find a file for the wicker flooring to print a roller and just layer greenstuff over plasticard.

Where else to go with my lamentations? Oh, let’s just mention the tusks. I’ll get those out of the way with cutting the remaining one off and resculpting them. I think I have a suitable replacement material that will be adequately resistant to bending out of shape once I set it where I want.

Another point for replacement will be the ears. The small contact points where they were attached with, what I can only assume from the color and texture remaining, Liquid Nails commercial adhesive are telltale signs of a shitty assembly. I’ll rebuild them using wire like the tusks and sculpt new ears with Greenstuff/Milliput over 60 or 100 grit sandpaper for the tooth.

I also will rework the mouth to give it more detail and fill in gaps. I will also work on the trunk as I’ll be removing it to better address the mouth details and just realign it to better match the details. Thinking of minor details that I can quickly repair I’ll be resculpting the lower half of the tail that has been broken off. Greenstuff over a wire core should suffice easily enough.

Carrying on, I will cut off the base. I could always ask future opponents about an oversize base if it came to be an issue but I’d rather avoid the matter entirely. On top of that I hate the massive details of casualties that won’t be compatible with my basing scheme. Away it will go to be replaced with a fresh 150x100mm oval.

I think this is a good laundry list of all the shit that is wrong with the model I can fix.

I want to add tribal figures to my army concept but when I look up things like Frostgrave’s Ghost Archipelago and others but there are just too many feathers for my taste. I take the Haradrim mahut from Lord of the Rings as inspiration and there just needs to be more from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Wargames Foundry Tribal Archers and More Archers packs from the Darkest Africa line are the figures I plan to add as they just strike the right amount of savage and open for customization.

I’ve found my fancy horses! As usual I dug into the Interwebs and dredged up what fertile offerings lay in the land of miniature warriors. Inspired by 3D files of Easterlings I saw on Myminifactory I started looking at cataphracts. I’m not one for much in the way of barding because I like the way horses look. I’d say it is a learned bias and sitting for a moment to consider a departure from the norm this was a great opportunity to diverge.

There are many options available to choose from as I sifted through a slough of metals. I finally settled on half barded Sarmatian cataphracts. These had enough visual diversity away from standard expectations of naked horses to say this faction is unique. This unit is distinct and stands out. The only issue was getting enough to field eight as a Warrior unit for SAGA. If need be I could just use half as Hearthguard and the idea of being specialized troops compounds.

I’ve settled on getting two packs of these horses from 1st Corps. I’ve done business with them on the past and the quality of cast is solid. The guys over there are friendly with excellent customer service. The only change I could make would be cosmetic after looking at some fancy half barded Arab horse that Essex offered. I have a modicum of sculpting ability that I think I could add the flourishes myself. The worst case scenario is I get help and have tiny 3D prints done for me.

The next element would be the riders. I had issues with that as the Middle Earth references didn’t give much in the way of description that I found. I fell back and relied on the films (with corresponding GW figures) and Myminifactory again for trying to shift my brain. I went back to a semi-Arab motif as the land of the South was described as being deserts. OK, not much change for my brain there but it needed to be different than my initial Arabian Knights.

This is the point where I dug deep and settled on Gripping Beast’s Mutatawi’a cavalry unit after considering their Jund riders from the collection of Moors. There is enough variety in poses and visual space to play with so that individuals would be distinct and I’d need to do little cosmetic changes. The collective of army versus individual came back up but I think the issue could be solved without too much stress. This part of the build would be just for the riders so I’d need to reach out directly to the company. Oh the joys of making unique construction for a distinctive army.

A quick buildup of some bone colors and the general model is finished. All I needed to do from there was hit the models with AK Quick Gen Crimson Red as a general shade to buildup a midtone VMC Vermillion (70.909) and add a little orange for highlight.

The black was Vallejo Xpress Black Lotus (72.423) and was a good blue-black. I have criticism with the paint pulling back leaving small pockets of primer color showing. Its a drawback of the paints as I also find it with others and might just be a binder issue. I went back over this with VGC Charcoal (72.155) as a midtone and lightened in value for a highlight. Those difficult colors out of thr way I touched up here and there with what I felt was needed and called them done.

For those who want to get some for themselves look up the Zombie Raiders from Obelisk Miniatures. They’re under their Darkest Africa Undead line. I know Badger Games carries them.

Considering the next phase of what I have on hand, I believe the Warrior units will be a breeze. After that I’m considering what will make the cavalry unit distinctive. I’m thinking cataphracts for the horse armor and replace the riders with some Arab themed ones. To catch the proper esthetic and motif I’ll be doing my regular conversion craziness. Here’s to more painting and another idea gone wild.

So I’ve to change my mind…again. I wanted to do a second Arabian Nights themed army for Kings of War. As I have eight skeletal undead camel riders and sixteen Gripping Beast Mutataawi’a Fanatics. The idea would have been fine if I really got into KoW. That, was not meant to be as an edition change and the local gaming group changing focus lead me back to my love of SAGA.

Going to work in searching out crazy new directions I found wonder with Thistle&Rose again. I’d purchased some Classical Indians from them before and I saw they have an oliphaunt as of January. Seeing the pair of mumaks done up by @holly I decided this was worthy of working towards. I was to begin building an army with the flavor of Easterlings added. A true Lord of the Rings force would be pretty boring. Yes, that is a blasphemous statement for some but it doesn’t stop being true. So, here is another charge into a landscape where sand gets in all the wrong places.

Well damn it! I’ve had a change of mind about the project. And will shape this as a Kings of War army build as I found a new group to hang out with. The first hurdle is this being a new system where I multibase. I am a baser. This is no problem for me. I hate Napoleonic squares. This is a problem for me. The love/hate issue of doing this will require my creativity to overcome adversity.

The second hurdle is they play more competitively than I ever cared to so this will be my impetus to give a damn about list building over narrative/beer&pretzels play. This also affects the composition of my force and what gets painted. If I repeatedly have my toys kicked in I’m happy to paint well and say screw the system. The mitigation for my childish “If I don’t win I’m taking my ball and going home” is seeing how quickly the games run. KoW is quite killy and bases of units come off the table fast. This doesn’t really sit well with my crafting brain with concern for durability from high frequency of handling.

This whole project is a push in a new direction of thinking since individual figures really don’t matter for the game. It all boils down to how much I care about what my bases full of pieces look like and how much abuse they can take from play. Maybe this is where things go sideways for me in comfortable complacency with hobby skill.

Who am I kidding? I value the positive reward of feedback that strokes my ego so I won’t lower my standards. I just don’t want to take on more than I want to manage easily since I have slow burn projects already for years to come. I don’t want to try a self imposed Armies on Parade challenge without reward.

So, I need to consider what kind of army I want to play. Ive decided aesthetically I’m going to play “dry fundead”.