King of the Hill

This update is full three days overdue, I know, and I'm terribly sorry. Blame good beer, good computer games and my overwhelming fondness of both. Guilty as charged.

Regardless of the delay, here to present itself before you today is the Dread King, more affectionately known as The Man. It is a very, very old mini, apparently from the Warhammer Quest line. I am not sure of its origins in the least bit and having no time or patience at the moment to browse through the Stuff of Legends, I'd be grateful for any information about this mini's provenience.

The model consists of two elements, the mini itself and the hillock I've carved for it. The former is sadly incomplete, it is missing a pedestal with a grimoire on it. Everything else is there, and it is in my opinion the most characterful undead model GW has ever produced.

Getting the throne to stick together was a pain, as the model I was supplied with (second-hand, bought it online for an amount proportional to my love for it, and that's a lot) had some ridiculous amounts of glue - the nature of which I was unable to ascertain by any means I had handy, it wasn't epoxy, it wasn't cyanoacrylate, it was sticking as the ninth hell - in some strategic spots. The glue blobs were so hard and so resistant to every kind of debonder I possess that I was left with no choice but to actually sand and sometimes even carve them out. Luckily, I managed not to ruin this piece of heavenly cream and got it stuck together.

In the meantime, I was busy ruining the vacuuming I had done in my room earlier by carving the rock out of extruded styrofoam (commonly known by the brand name Styrodur - yes boys and girls, capital letters here, it's a trade mark of BASF). I don't have a hot wire cutter, therefore I had to use one of my favorite tools - my jewellers' saw. My fondness for it comes from the miraculous resilience of its blades; they can be strung with the force that is comparable to this with which piano strings are, yet they still maintain their power when cutting.

After I got it cut, the rest was very easy - glue on the stairs, texture the rock a bit and paint. Lastly, I stuck the finished throne on it and added the snow.

That said, I'm not happy about the way the rock turned out. Looking at it right now, I think I'd be far better off having textured it more.

On the gaming side of things it is a filler. Yes, I can hear you moaning and groaning, and I can relate. I'm not that keen on unit fillers myself. On this baby however, I decided otherwise. Firstly, I love this model so much I just had to include it in the army, period. Secondly, I do also have a unit of grave guard made from the old Armoured Skeleton models, and having no money to order a full twenty-five strong batch of these, I had to have a filler.

Next week - or rather next update, I do hope not to be late again - I'll be showing you either the black knights or the fell bats.

See you next Friday!