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Taking a break from a long-running weekly D&D campaign. In the meantime puttering around on eBay and became enamored with Mantic Nightstalkers. Decided to give Kings Of War 3rd a go. My daughter saw the new Halfling Army and asked if she could start a Halfling army. Figured we would be more motivated to get armies done if we worked on a P&M blog as well.

This will be her first tabletop miniatures battle game.

Step 1.) Buy way too many miniatures. Done.

For Nightstalkers, I snagged 3 of the KoW 3rd Edition 2 Player Starter sets with Nightstalkers at a great price. Then a Nightstalker upgrade pack
For my daughter, a 2 player Starter with Halflings, a Halfling army deal, and a Halfling mega army, then a TTC Combat Halfing Army.

Step 2.) Start P&M Blog so I spend time painting and Modelling instead of shopping for deals on eBay.


Day 1 Update

Butchers


9 Butchers assembled. Didn't notice until I started assembling that there is only a single body type, head, and left arm sculpt. There are 2 sets of right arms to choose from. Considering there are usually 3 to a unit, that's not much of a big deal. Me being weird, it bothered me making 5 of 1 and 4 of the other, so I customized the odd man out, changing a weapon on each side.

Scarecrows


25 Scarecrows assembled. I actually prefer using the Spectre arms. They are basically zombie analogs. I don't see why they all need to be wielding weapons.

Built another 10 Scarecrows while I finished off binging Sandman on Netflix and here come the big boys...



The two on the left I plan on using as terrors while the two on the right are destined to become Shadow Hulks.

Also treated myself to a set of Army Painter Speed paints and Quickshades as well as a nice new rack to store them all.



Also, pondering using a NECA D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures W15: Nightwalker for a 3rd Shadow Hulk.
For $18 it clocks in at about 150mm Tall on a 75mm base. A far cry cheaper than Mantic's $65 one.

Don't know if I would ever need to field 3 Shadow Hulks, but I'm not against having the option.

Started off by decapitating and disarming the cyclops. I was originally going to sculpt over his head, but decided it was going to look like a rubber scooby doo helmet if I did.


Drilled and pinned the arms so I can reattach them and added a wire frame to support the mouth


Drilled and pinned some wires to support the talons on the left hand and a mouth on the right hand.


Was too busy trying to sculpt before the epoxy hardened to take pictures. Sculpted the foundation for the mouth and hand replacements

Sculpting individual teeth would look better, but honestly, Toothpicks are a tried and true hobby hack that passes the 2-foot rule.

More Progress on the Shadow Hulk head


Additional progress and the model is shown next to a copy of the original


Shadow Hulks tend to be covered in spikes and tentacles. I made a pile of them in Apoxie Sculpt. You can see the work on the arms as well.


Had Apoxie sculpt to spare to play with before it hardened so I converted an old Mage Knight Troll into a Butcher.





Procured some Dark Alliance Cyclopes at a very reasonable price.


The whole Dark Alliance line is more 20mm scale, but they stand taller than a Mantic KoW Butcher. After shipping, they cost me about $1 a model.
Great looking models. Not sure what I'm going to use them for.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Turns out, sculpting Blood Worms is not that tough.

That Nightwalker is very cool and makes for a properly towering Shadow Hulk

Nice start on the army overall, now how is your daughter faring with her Halflings??

 Boss Salvage wrote:
That Nightwalker is very cool and makes for a properly towering Shadow Hulk

I know, right? I'll post some comparison picks once it comes in.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Nice start on the army overall, now how is your daughter faring with her Halflings??

Still waiting on them to arrive. Will definitely post pics of her progress as well. It's a big part of my motivation for this project that I get to share the hobby with my daughter.

I'll be watching this. Your daughter is going to love painting the doggo cavalry

 McDougall Designs wrote:
I'll be watching this. Your daughter is going to love painting the doggo cavalry

I really hope so. This arrived in the mail today.



Here is a size comparison of the Nightwalker next to a Scarecrow, Butcher, and custom Shadow Hulk



I didn't get any modeling done today. Just stared at the Nightstalker and debated adding tendrils and spikes to it or just leaving as is.

Going through my old stuff I found these two images

Orc War Drum


Undead Catapult

So, I need to stay off of eBay...



Also, I think I am getting better at sculpting Blood Worms

For the first-generation models, I was locked into the mindset of keeping them about an inch long and maggot-like. It resulted in them being kind of flat and not very threatening looking.



In my second attempt, I varied the model lengths and posed them in a more snake-like manner when possible. Some deep-seated core of the mammalian brain recognizes snakes as dangerous and it makes the overall collective base of miniatures more dynamic looking


There is an Easter Egg in the last pic for anyone who was part of my Blood Worm discussion on Reddit. I'm happy to explain it if you can find it but don't quite understand it

Great looking worms, both first and second gen. But WHOA quite the Nightstalker haul! The models where the fluo green has been washed look pretty good as well, whatever their fate is.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
WHOA quite the Nightstalker haul!

I was unbelievably pumped. I scored that entire army for around the Retail Price of the 2 Terrors and Shadow Hulk

That green paint job isn't something I would have gone with, but it does look good and I will likely roll with it.

Working on prepping some TTC Combat Halflings

Added more spikes to each of the arms of the Shadow Hulk, lots of new huge tentacles as well as a Blood Worm wrapped around its ankle, and a tail.

The added Tentacles give it more detail and make it look related to the Terror I have. Almost as if a new Terror is slowly coming forth out of the Shadow Hulk or the Shadow Hulk was formed by a Terror infecting a Giant.
In either case, I like the aesthetic.







Also freed 20 ITC Halflings from their resin vents and channels and started a unit of Doppelgangers.
For the Doppelgangers, I plan on using random Mage Knight miniatures. I have to have at least 1000 of them collecting dust.
Already earmarked piles of them for Forces of Nature, Undead, Orc, Dwarf, Elf, and Goblin armies with a bunch of random Monstrocities and Humans left over.
For the Doppelgangers, I'm mostly just trying to decide whether to field them with their original paint jobs or make them matching monotones.

I had an epiphany on how to tackle Doppelgangers.



Building Scarecrows left me with a ton of Spectre heads. Some surgical clipping here and there and now those boring old Mage Knight figures are now cool Doppelgangers.

That's actually pretty brilliant! And I've never seen a 'proper mini' version either, using Spectre heads on, say, Basileans or Orcs. Smart thinking.