My army lacked a vampire battle standard. Moreover, it lacked a good model of such, meaning the new versions of bloodsuckers were right out. No, with this army, I needed something truly great. Luckily, the old Blood Dragon vampires were up to the challenge, which resulted in, for instance, this gentleman.The banner is of course hand made from scratch, as perhaps evidenced by its less-than-hoped-for quality. The ugliest part has to be the lion figure... well, no decent laser printer, let alone decal paper, was handy at the moment. The streamer is painted on freehand, design being copied from the VC book. I might actually be learning how to paint streamers!
The shaft and cross bar are just lengths of circular brass wire, a material quite hard to get in Poland, believe it or not... Oh, and Typrand's shaft-holding arm comes from the necromancer supplied with the corpse cart.
On the cloak and the skin you can observe my first attempts at glazing. I'm especially happy about the red on the cape.
Of course Typrand needs a unit to lead, and what better than the grave guard? These are some of my favourite minis overall, and definitely THE models that should be used for armored skeletons, if a bit old-fashioned in the design.
The unit is 20 models strong, including Typrand. There are three fillers. I modelled the bases as if the unit is advancing along a road or duct, so signposts are perfect for fillers in my humble opinion. Here they are.And yet another shots of the unit itself:
Next up are the rebased and redone black knights. With the new rules allowing them for a much broader freedom of movement I felt it was proper to model them as if they really are crossing some obstacle. Here is what I came up with.
Modelling them as ethereal didn't feel right to my mind, so I just made them leap over a fence. The horses and riders' legs are the same as used previously, however all the rest is taken from the splendid Grave Guard and Skeletons plastic sets. I honestly am in awe of these two sprues and the amount of detail put into the models. If GW has to make plastics, this is the way to make them.Here are some more shots of the unit. Oh, the fences used on my VC are of course from the Walls and Fences set. Also a great resource if you ask me.
The bugger on the last picture is of course another character, formerly a wight lord, now called a wight king in the book. Made the same way as the regular knights, but with a much older horse model.
Next up are the Blood Knights and maybe a sneak peek at the skeletons! Stay tuned.
