[AOS] Kingdom of the Broken Chains - Death riseth once more...

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**Ezra Tyrius**

I sleep.

Deep within my fortress, in the darkness of my ancient tomb, I rest.

Around me, in the chambers and halls of the castle I call home, my brothers and sisters slumber, their vigil eternal, their service unending.

It has been long since they were roused to perform their duties.

It has been long since one dared enter the Kingdom of the Broken Chains.

The kingdom we conquered from tyrants and butchers.

The kingdom whose chains we broke and cast off.

The kingdom we reshaped into greatness.

The kingdom that is now our tomb.

But even here, in the darkness, we felt it.

We felt the world’s death throes, as its plains were scoured, as its life was extinguished…

…and as its light finally died.

But that was not the end. Not for us, and not for our world.

As the Realms formed and blossomed, we slumbered still, in our quiet, untouched fragment of the world.

But now, our hour has come.

As the one I once called queen opened my tomb and pressed her ever-living lips against my undying skull, I felt a thousand souls stir back to life.

As I rose from my tomb, dust falling from my ancient bones, I heard a thousand more rattle their broken chains.

I am the Slave-Born King.

And we have returned.

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Additional fluff:

Spoiler:

The ancient kingdom lies in a forgotten corner of the Mortal Realms, at the center of a dark forest. Once, it had been the stronghold of a dynasty of vile and wicked tyrants, whose wealth and power were sustained by the enslavement of the various human tribes that wandered in the forest. The slaves were not only forced to perform any hard labour their masters desired, but were also pressed into arenas where they had to fight for their very lives, all for the amusement of the kingdom's nobility.

One among the slaves, a man now only known as the Slave-Born King, managed to survive the hell of the arenas time after time, emerging victorious against even the most dangerous beasts and warriors the kingdom possessed. Impressed, the last of the tyrants elevated him into the ranks of his army, where he began a steady climb to the top of the hierarchy. In secret, the once-gladiator conspired to dispose of the king and his court, avenging the brothers and sisters who had perished under their terrible reign. Around the campfires of the kingdom's army were whispered plans and schemes, as the ex-slave's influence grew and allegiances shifted.

When the rebellion broke loose, the kingdom burned. The old gladiator, now Grandmaster of the army, directed his army expertly against those still loyal to the royal dynasty. A joint offensive by soldiers and liberated slaves on the king's own fortress resulted in the near-total annihilation of the royal family, the king himself thrown from the highest tower by none other than the slave he had elevated into his ranks all those years earlier.

Although the king and his entourage had been successfully deposed, it was discovered that the king's son, a cruel, wicked man who was rumoured to have dabbled in the Dark Arts, had escaped the rebels' hands and had fled into the sewers below the kingdom.

It was in those sewers that the fate of the kingdom was decided for all the millennia to come. As the Slave-Born king and his men finally overwhelmed the last of the loyalists, the king's son, wounded by the Slave-Born and on the edge of death, cursed them all with his final breath. The rumours of his magical powers turned out to be far more true than imagined; the curse was a powerful incantation that bound every man, woman and child to the kingdom until the end of eternity itself. Only the Slave-Born king's wife managed to escape the curse, her fate spun in a different direction through the intervention of a vampire.

Now, aeons later, the Slave-Born king and his brothers and sisters, still shackled to existence by the ancient curse, are woken once more. With the aid of a Necromancer named Virgil, the Slave-Born king's wife, now a vampire of great power, has revived her beloved. The King and his army march through the Realms in search for a way to break the final chain binding them to this world, so that they might finally find the death they have desired for so long...

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Welcome to the Kingdom of the Broken Chains, the thread where I'll be posting the progress on my small Vampire Counts army. It's going to be a Skeleton-only army, consisting mostly of Grave Guard, as I really like their aesthetic. I can't guarantee regular updates, but I'll try to keep things interesting with posts about heraldry and fluff and such.

On to the actual models, then!

I've painted a test model for my first Grave Guard unit, to see what techniques would be best for this kind of army. I eventually settled for a combination of drybrushing and washes, which led to the following colour scheme:

Spoiler:

Apologies for the huge pictures, I had some trouble with my camera so had to compensate a bit with Photoshop.

I really like how he turned out, although I wonder if I should add some more rust, wear, patina and stuff to really sell the 'ancient skeleton brought back to life'-shtick

I also built an archer out of the Grave Guard kit and some LOTR bits, as I'm not really looking forward to having zero ranged capabilities. Here's how he looks now:

The Archers will look a bit different from the other Grave Guard, mostly because they won't get the shoulder pads and winged helmets. And because they carry a bow and arrows, of course

Basing-wise, I tried to create an open-forest-y look, as shown here:

That's all I have for now, comments and critique are more than welcome, and I hope you enjoy

**Ezra Tyrius**

Got two more models finished, one archer and one Grave Guard

Here's how they turned out:

Grave Guard #2:

Spoiler:

I'm trying to make the Grave Guard look a bit more interesting by posing them as if they were actually fighting an enemy as opposed to the GW-standard 'marching forwards'-poses. For example, this one is blocking his opponent's strike with his shield while angling his sword for a nasty stab.

I'm thinking of adding some heraldry to the shields though, right now they look a little flat. Perhaps some white or red chains painted diagonally over the shield?

Archer:

Spoiler:

I really like how the archer turned out, the conversion works pretty well I think. The only problem is that there's practically no way to make the archers look as if they're, y'know, actually firing arrows as the GG have very few options when it comes to their arms. So I'm probably going to have to pose them all a bit like this guy, close combat weapon drawn as if they're about to engage some enemy that managed to get close to them

That's all I have for now, I've got two more Grave Guard primed and ready, so there should be an update again sometime soon

**Ezra Tyrius**

More updates!

I've finished the Grave Guard unit, managed to get the three last ones finished in pretty much record time (for me, at least)

Here's what they look like now:

Spoiler:

And the obligatory group shot:

I tried a different lens on my camera for these pictures, but looking back at them, the pics aren't as good as I'd hoped. I'll try to get some better pictures of these guys sometime later, maybe when I figure out how to actually use my camera

In other news, I've built and painted my Necromancer, converted from the Empire Battle Wizards kit (which is pretty cool by the way). Fluff-wise, he's known as Virgil, the Necromancer-poet (who is also a ghost, thanks to a freak magic-related accident):

Spoiler:

Here are some detail shots:

And here he is with some of his buddies:

I'm really happy with how this guy turned out. I didn't really know how I was going to paint his skull and arms, until I realized I couldn't paint them bone-like, as the arms are very obviously fleshy bits. I eventually settled for a ghost-like look, which I pulled off with the white base + Nihilahk Oxide technique. Quite fitting for a Necromancer, don't you think?

That's all I have for now, hope you guys enjoy

**Ezra Tyrius**

I forgot to add this to the last post; I made a bit of an icon for the army, to give it a bit more identity and hopefully one day find the courage to try and paint it on the army's banners/shields

Here's what it looks like:

Let me know what you think!

**Guildenstern**

Very nice! I've not worked on any VC type stuffs since my son's army and AoS hit. Love the Grave Guard conversions. I know what you mean about the bows. Have you looked at any other undead lines? I think Mantic fit about the same maybe with a little GS'ing at the joint, but seems like I recall them having a skeleton version that looked like the bow was being fired. Of course if you wanted a WYSIWYG melee look as well you'd need to add a weapon at the waist maybe, or back.

**Ezra Tyrius**

Thank you! I haven't looked up other lines yet, mostly because I really like the aesthetic of GW's line, but I'll give them a look if I can't figure out something else for the archers

**ThunderFury 2575**

I rather like how the bones have come out on those grace guard, would you mind sharing the recipe

My iron Warrior trophies dont look particularly...well..realistically bony

I rather like this thread already otherwise, consider this a sub!

**Ezra Tyrius**

Thanks for the sub! Hope you enjoy your stay

As for the bones, I painted them with Flayed One Flesh and then washed them with Nuln Oil. I usually need two layers of the Flayed One Flesh to get good coverage, but YMMV

**ThunderFury 2575**

Wow, Really? Its so basic and turned out great.

Personally for bones i tried zandri dust, and then Ushabti Bone followed by nuln oil . I wouldn't recommend it, as it doesnt look right

**Ezra Tyrius**

Yep, it's that simple

I've also used Flayed One Flesh for the Necromancer's book and scrolls, but they were washed with Agrax Earthshade instead, which really gives them that 'old paper'-look

And yes, painting bones can be quite the challenge, I was really lucky to stumble on this method at the start

**Sgt. Vanden**

I'm actually really jelly for that Ghostomancer...Just looks so hawt...In a non-necrophiliac sort of way...

But DAYUM! That conversion is just purely amazing...Well done Ezra!

Exalted.

**Ezra Tyrius**

Thanks Vanden

I haven't been able to make much progress painting-wise, the weather's being all over the place so priming is out of the question. I did build the rest of the archers, so there's some progress

Here's what the group looks like now:

I've done some more conversion work on these guys, mostly trimming down some of the helmets to create some more variety and getting the bows in place

I've given one a musket, because A. it looks awesome and B. I thought I didn't have enough bows to equip the entire squad with

Also, I spent some time searching the web for interesting VC conversions, and one Wight King conversion caught my attention. It was converted from a Chaos character, with some Greenstuff and VC bits sprinkled over it. It looked really badass, and as I dislike the idea of my Wight King being a completely generic character on the table-top, I decided to steal the idea somewhat

Behold, the King's Champion!

Fluff-wise, this guy would be the King's Champion, a title bestowed upon the greatest fighter in the Kingdom. Modelling-wise, I converted this from an old metal Chaos Champion I had lying around, adding some VC bits to tie him to the rest of the army. I'm not sure about the helmet yet, I've used the same head for one of the Grave Guard so I would prefer not to use it again, but on the other hand, it does look pretty cool...

That's all I have for now, let me know what you think

**Ezra Tyrius**

It's update time (again)!

I've been a bit busy for the past two weeks, but I managed to claim some time to work on my growing skeleton horde, resulting in a fully painted squad of converted Archers and a Wight King and another squad of Archers built and ready to get primed

Here's what the Archers I showed last time look like now:

The pics are a bit blurry this time around, I'm working with a new lens that's supposed to be great at taking macro pictures, but I'm not doing very well with it so far, it seems...

And here's a closer look at the little buggers:

I was rather nervous to paint the banner, as I really wanted to get the army's icon on it but at the same time worried that I'd mess it up completely. It turned out pretty great in the end, in my opinion (even if the picture of it didn't)!

Also, skeletons carrying a banner decorated with skeletons with an icon of a skeleton - SKELETON-CEPTION!

The Wight King also got finished, quicker than I had expected in fact:

Again, the pictures are a bit terribad, but they should give enough of an idea of what he looks like

Now, as for the unpainted models I've been working on, I've finished building the second squad of Archers and two Black Knights, using some Skeleton Warriors and Grave Guard parts to create some more variety in the skeletal horde:

(one of them managed to sneak into my painting station while I wasn't looking, and was thereby painted alongside the other archers - sneaky little git)

This one's going to be the leader of the Black Knights. I went for a badass calmly-charging-in pose, with his sword stretched out to decapitate some fools. He'll be a Duke or Baron of some sort fluff-wise, I'll figure something out

And here's the banner bearer, for whom I used the Grave Guard seneschal helmet, as I thought it looked suitably ornate for a knightly banner bearer

I also whipped up a mock-up of the second squad of Grave Guard, who will be armed with the Great Weapons. I'm aiming for defensive pike-wall poses, as these guys represent the kingdom's elite cadres

And finally, I've been experimenting with terrain pieces, seeing what I can create with layers of cardboard and how I'm going to paint said layers of cardboard

I took some inspiration from the new AOS gaming boards GW has released recently, which resulted in the following:

A simple, cracks-in-the-earth kind of base:

And a ruined fountain of sorts, crashed into the earth after being displaced throughout the Realms:

I'm thinking of building a gaming board in the same way as I did these ones, although I'll have to think long and hard about what it'll look like, and about where I'm going to get the money to buy all the paints needed to get it painted afterwards

Anyways, that's all I have for now, let me know what you think!

**ThunderFury 2575**

I absolutely love your army's paint scheme. It's so much eye candy!

Also i really love the musket wielding skelly, i imagine him firing it and his arm's literally flying off due to the recoil.

**Ezra Tyrius**

Thank you! Glad you like the colour scheme, I'm really having a blast painting them

I love the musket-wielder as well, he was actually a test model for the skeletons I didn't have bows and arrows for (until I found my second sprue of the LOTR Warg Riders, after which I could equip all of them with bows if I wanted to)

**Ezra Tyrius**

Got some more stuff to show you guys, this time some Spirit Hosts conversions!

These guys were built from the Hexwraith torsos from the Black Knights kit, some Skeleton Warriors legs and a bit of Green Stuff to fill in the gap between the legs and the torsos. I also added some more straps/cloth to the legs, to make the transition from their heavily-robed torsos to the tattered pieces of cloth on their legs a bit les jarring

Here are some close-ups of the spooky Grim Reaper lookalikes:

I've got two more of these to convert and one old metal Wraith to build and then my second squad of Spirit Hosts will also be ready to paint

In other news, I was toying around with some more terrain stuff, and found that my entire army can comfortably sit on a board of 30 x 35 centimeters. Here's the rough outline of the board, with most of the finished and built stuff on it:

So the basic idea is: HQ's up front, followed by the Grave Guard, Archers, Skeleton Warriors, the Spirit Hosts and finally, the Black Knights riding between the pillars. I have no idea how I'd build the rest of the board though, I'll have to make some sketches and stuff before proceeding

**ThunderFury 2575**

Looking good! Can't wait to see how this goes!

**Ezra Tyrius**

So I've been busy the past week, prepping a large amount of the skellies for priming (mostly because the weather didn't allow me to get anything primed anyway), finally getting some of said built models primed and working on a tile of the terrain I intend to build for my future gaming adventures

The result of all that hard labour is that model-wise, I've got 4 Archers and 3 Spirit Hosts ready to paint, 5 Black Knights and 5 Skeleton Warriors built (the former has also been based) and I've done some more test posing for the Grave Guard with Great Weapons, so they'll probably get built somewhere in the near future as well

As for the terrain, I managed to build and paint a tile for the terrain in the past two days. Here's what it looked like prior to painting:

Dat cardboard goodness

The tile's 30 x 40 centimeters dimension-wise, so not exactly huge, but the full terrain would consist of 6-9 pieces, so it should eventually be big enough to play some games on (especially smaller ones). Construction took about an hour or two, with a lot of that time spent figuring out how and where any height differences would go on the tile. It's a very simple way of building terrain, rather cheap too (especially since I'm sitting on a stockpile of cardboard), and once painted it looks rather decent.

Speaking of painting, here's what the final product looks like:

And with some terrain pieces:

As I said earlier, construction of this kind of terrain is dead-simple. Starting from a solid base of MDF, the terrain is built from layers of cardboard cut into somewhat natural shapes. It's also a rather versatile technique, seeing as you can make as much or as little ridges, slopes and hills as you like, as long as you have enough cardboard to cut the pieces out of. Of course, the visuals are a matter of taste, I can imagine the more 'terraced' look may put some people off, but I personally like the result

One thing I must note is that I used acrylic paint as the basecoat for the tile, as it is more suited to this kind of work (acrylic paint sticks pretty well to these materials and it dries amazingly fast). After that, I gave the entire tile the same treatment as my skeletons' bases, which coincidentally means I need to go buy another pot of Stirland Mud...

That's all I have for now, I hope to bring you another update soon

**Kid_Kyoto**

Very cool and creepy army, I like the flaming skull wizard.

**evildrcheese**

Great blog. The intro is particularly awesome.

Love the wizard and other conversions, I'm also looking forward to seeing how your terrain progresses.

EDC

**aku-chan**

Excellent conversions, I love the guy with the flaming hat!

**ThunderFury 2575**

Love how this is going, really like the board there!

**Ezra Tyrius**

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

I've been tinkering on the terrain some more, I've made a rough sketch of what I'd like the other tiles to look like:

The idea is to make the terrain look a bit like a dried-up riverbed, with the brown/greenish parts indicating where the water used to run. As you can probably tell, I got the idea after acquiring this little bridge in the FLGS:

I just knew I had to use this thing for something the moment I laid eyes upon it at the FLGS, but I do intend to keep the bridge itself as a separate piece, so I can always choose whether or not I place it on the terrain

**Ezra Tyrius**

Another minor update, this time from the painting front: my first unit of converted Spirit Hosts is finished!

Behold, the spookiest amongst the skeletons:

Even among the ranks of the Slave-Born King's army, where all have become equal in eternal servitude, there are.. outliers, or perhaps more accurately, pariahs. These are the souls of those who were damned irrevocably by their actions in life, punished for their crimes even beyond death. Their ancient bones possessed by their tortured spirit, they wander the Mortal Realms in search for an atonement that might never come.

I managed to make some decent pictures this time, the terrain tile has already been put to good use

I'm going to experiment with the setup some more though, especially lighting-wise, and maybe swap out the brown background for a nice picture/poster of a forest or something

Edit: I also added some more fluff about the army in the OP

**KernelTerror**

So this is where you have been ^^, and I was waiting on the Remnant thread ! Great start to an undead army here; I especially like the special characters, as you managed to give loads of personality to skeletons. Well done !
And man that necromancer is brilliant !

Looking forward to what's next !

**Ezra Tyrius**

Apologies for the inactivity in the Chaos thread, I've been jumping from army to army the past months

I'm trying to get stuff finished quicker though (mostly to quell the voices of all those unpainted miniatures I still have lying around), so who knows, maybe the Remnants will resurface sooner than expected

Thanks for the kind words by the way, glad to see that my efforts to give the undead legions some character are not in vain

I've got another minor update by the way, I managed to get a Black Knight finished, take a look:

I originally wanted to paint the horse's clothes half black, half blue, like the army's heraldry, but eventually chose to paint it all blue, as it looks a lot better in my opinion

**Ezra Tyrius**

A slightly bigger update appears!

I know I forgot to take a picture of the Black Knights unit before I primed it, and taking one now would be a bit silly, but I am determined to not make the same mistake twice, so here's two pictures of the first 5 assembled Skeleton Warriors:

To be perfectly honest, the Skeleton Warriors models aren't exactly my favourite, I prefer the more heavily-armoured look of the Grave Guard, but I have to admit that they do have that classic skeleton charm. The kit also sports a large variety of bits, which I've already made use of throughout the rest of the army (most notably the archers)

I've also assembled and slightly converted this old Warhammer Chapel, which I once tried (and horribly failed) to paint:

The new tenants are Chaos worshippers, hence the spikes.

There's also progress on the painting front, a second terrain tile and a second Black Knight are ready for use:

A defeated Zombie lies dead on the field, this time for good.

And here's the second tile:

Coupled with his brother:

That's all I have for now, hope you guys like what you see

**Ezra Tyrius**

The Black Knights are finished!

It took me a while, but I finally managed to get the entire unit done. I went for the batch-painting procedure this time, as I was getting tired of seeing the unpainted ones every time I finished one

The latest additions:

Spoiler:

And here's an epic shot of the undead riders:

Also, I've experimented some more with my photo-setup, I've added a tundra-ish background to make the pictures a bit more appealing

So, with these guys done, I'm probably going to finish the Archers first before moving on to the Skeleton Warriors.

That's all I have for now, let me know what you think, and if you really like my stuff, rate it in the gallery!

**WarbossDakka**

Nice stuff there. I really like the background picture especially

**Ezra Tyrius**

Got another update for you guys

Now I was going to finish the Archers unit first, but as my girlfriend wanted to join in on the fun of painting these little buggers, we went for the Skeleton Warriors instead, as they're less complicated (meaning she could make more of a mess without it resulting in a million years of clean-up

)

Thanks to her handiwork, the first five of the Skeleton Warriors were finished in a flash, so I'll be getting back to the Archers soon enough

In the meantime, have a look at the finished Skellies, the first of (hopefully not too) many!

I went a little bit overboard with the weathering here, but I think it worked out nice enough in the end

This guy is my favourite of the bunch, he's got this nice Barbarian look to him (in the fluff, he'll be one of the slave-gladiators from the North or something)

If you want a better look, check out the pics in the gallery, where you can zoom in on all their skeletal glory