The Court of Spades, part 9

Thornwing, the Knyght

A KNYGHT ther was, and that a worthy man,

That fro the tyme that he first bigan

To riden out, he loved chivalrie,

Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.

Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,

And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre

Spleenford, the Squier

With hym ther was his sone, a yong SQUIER,

A lovyere and a lusty bacheler;

With lokkes crulle, as they were leyd in presse.

Of twenty yeer of age he was, I gesse.

Of his stature he was of evene lengthe,

And wonderly delyvere, and of greet strengthe.

+++

Gloomston, the Pardoner (WIP)

With hym ther rood a gentil PARDONER

Of Gloomston, his freend and his compeer,

That streight was comen fro the court of spades.

His walet lay biforn hym in his lappe

Bretful of pardoun come from Kyng al hoot.

A voys he hadde as smal as hath a goot.

Ne was ther swich another pardoner;

For in his male he hadde a pilwe-beer,

Which that he seyde was Oure Lady veyl:

He seyde he hadde a gobet of the seyl

That a seint hadde, whan that he wente

Upon the see, til Lord Nagash hym hente.

He hadde a bagge of latoun ful of stones,

And in a glas he hadde pigges bones.

But with thise relikes, whan that he fond

A povre persoun dwellyng upon lond,

Upon a day he gat hym moore moneye

Than that the person gat in monthes tweye.

Update: 27th June 2020

Gloomston is finished.

So, for now at least, is the Court of Spades!

The Court of Spades, part 8

The Wortbad Tales

Whan that Ignus with his shoures soote,

The droghte of Huntygn hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Whan Hysh eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of the Harrowmark, to Wortbad they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Bifil that in that seson on a day,

In Gallowmire at the Gryph-hound as I lay,

Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage

To Wortbad with ful devout corage,

At nyght were come into that hostelrye

Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

Of sondry folk, by áventure y-falle

In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,

That toward Wortbad wolden ryde.

The chambres and the stables weren wyde,

And wel we weren esed atte beste.

And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,

So hadde I spoken with hem everychon,

That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,

And made forward erly for to ryse,

To take oure wey, ther as I yow devyse.

~ ~ ~

(Apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer)

The Grymwatch are such a characterful band of Crypt Ghouls I couldn't resist them. I wanted to make them blend in with the rest of the Grail Pilgrims so they all got greenstuffed rotting fabric robes - some more than others. The paint job was fairly rapid and loose and there a few things I need to tidy up but I'm happy enough with them.

This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,

And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro;

But deeth nys not the ende of every worldly soore.

The Court of Spades, part 7

After morning prayers the band of Grail Pilgrims broke camp and gathered their meagre belongings. / The pack of Crypt Ghouls howled at the moon then picked up rocks and bones and wrapped themselves in rotten remains of clothes found in broken mausoleums.

They sang as the walked, the sun shone down through the spring-green bowers of the pleasant airy forest. / The pack slunk through the tangled roots and dead leaves beneath bare branches.

The merry Pilgrims soon came to a welcoming looking inn. Their spirits rose as they discussed the prospect of a night before a warm fire, with hot food and cold ale. / An overgrown ruin, from an age long forgotten, loomed over them in the dark: Broken pillars like black ribs reaching up into the night. The Ghouls swarmed through the shattered buildings, sniffing round rotting timbers and mossy stone.

~ ~ ~

The Grymwatch arrived in the post yesterday (they were the first thing I ordered when GW's web shop reopened - they came faster than I expected!), I assembled them as soon as I could. They went together really well... apart from the guy with the giant two-handed bone weapon: He was a bugger to assemble.

I wasn't keen on the halberd, so I swapped it for a scythe blade (from the Coven Throne kit I think). I need to add greenstuff robes and hoods to all of them, so they fit in with the Pilgrims as a coherent Warcry warband.

The Court of Spades, part 6

Sourshanks the Grail Pilgrim woke in the makeshift camp alongside his fellows as the bright morning daylight shone through the green forest canopy and dappled the pale canvas of his tent. / Sourshanks the Crypt Ghoul grunted to himself as he stirred in the fetid boneyard. Sickly moonlight glinted on the wet slate tiles of mausoleums and autumn leaves.

After taking breakfast and breaking camp they followed the trail of the Grail Knight they sought, singing chansons about his exploits as they went. / After picking the last of the rotting meat from broken bones scattered in the mud the pack of Crypt Ghouls crawled through the dank forest darkness, hissing and gurgling at one another angrily.

The pilgrims stopped regularly to take repast and swap anecdotes about the knight, seeking to outdo one another with tales of his deeds or boasting of a time when he supposedly spoke or gestured to them. / The Ghoul pack wandered aimlessly through the night. Stopping and starting at random and fighting occasionally over scraps.

The pilgrims gathered any of the Grail Knight’s discarded effects they came across. They will equipped themselves with bits of armour, bent swords, and broken lances. / The Ghouls gathered any discarded effects they came across, and stripped the corpse of any unfortunates they killed and ate. They will equipped themselves with bits of bone, sharp stones, and rotten cloth.

If the knight should fall during his travels the pilgrims would make a grisly prize of the corpse, using it as the centrepiece of a sacred reliquary. Care of this reliquary was of paramount importance to the pilgrims and they bore it with great honour. / The Ghoul pack sometimes hoisted aloft the remains of one of their victims, tied to poles like a grisly banner. They briefly cared for these macabre reliquaries as if they held great importance and bore them solemnly for a few days, then cast them aside and forgot about them.

~ ~ ~

Lockdown landed just as we were in the middle of moving house so most of my hobby supplies (specifically my bits boxes and unbuilt kits!) are in storage and inaccessible for now. I have been pottering along with projects based on what I do have to hand and getting distracted (and frustrated) by planning projects that I cannot possibly work on (The Necrons in my head may never come to pass so they have taken up a disproportionate amount of time in there!).

So I have been looking at the things I have and while I am enjoying turning the Warcry starter scenery into something more suited to the Harrowmark, I needed something smaller to work on as a palate cleanser in between. I found a partial Crypt Ghoul sprue and the remains of a Coven Throne / Mortis Engine kit and the Court of Spades popped back into my thoughts.

It's been over two years since I last made anything for this warband, and the Ghouls have been sat in a box since then waiting for some ideas of what to do with them - I didn't want to make them as "men-at-arms". I fished them out when I got the Warcry cards for Flesh Eater Courts last year to round-out the warband, but I couldn't think of how to make them unique, so they went back in the box again.

Then the other night I had the idea to make them into FEC versions of Grail Pilgrims - who deludedly think themselves the devout followers of a holy cause. Hooded robes made of ragged, rotting cloth seemed like a relatively easy greenstuff make! So over the course of three evenings I assembled, based and greenstuffed the 7 Crypt Ghouls I have, and I have added the Warhammer Underworlds warband to my (ever growing) wish-list, with the intention of giving them similar robes when I can get hold of them. I also made them a reliquary as an objective marker.

I'll try to get some paint on them soon.

Olshovilaag - The Fiend of the Harrowmark

Most of the Harrowmark is covered by virtually-impenetrable forest: Seemingly endless leagues of dark, tangled, twisted and unnatural woods. It is a corrupted land: the dead trees are warped by death-magic, skull-formed rock formations tower over the forest canopy like islands in an arboresque sea. The symbols and motifs of death are everywhere. 

Things live in these forests: malignant, spiteful things. It is a brave soul that ventures under the dark bowers, brave or foolish, as few who attempt to navigate the winding pathways ever emerge again. The forests are shaped by the death magic that permeates them and the things that emerge from the shadowy bowers are shaped by the forest.

One terrible example is the dreaded Olshovilaag; the Fiend of the Harrowmark. A massive undead construct made from a conglomeration of monster parts, horns, huge black-feathered wings, lots of skulls, tree branches, bones, rocks and broken weapons. A Death-monster, born from the forest itself. A crow-winged “Terrorgheist". The sound of its beating wings fills the villagers of the Harrowmark with dread. It's screeching stops their hearts and shreds their souls!

🕱🕱🕱🕱🕱🕱

This project was a great fun to do and really fast - 9 days from starting building to finishing painting. I wanted to quickly make a large undead creature for a scenario in our Malign Portents campaign "Thy Soul To Keep", but I didn't want to spend any money on it. So I decided to keep it as a "bits box only" project.

A quick rundown of the source for the parts used includes: Flesh Eater Courts Zombie Dragon, Daemon Prince, Island of Blood Griffon, Thundertusk, Rhinox, Mournfang, Kurnoth Hunters, Dryads, 1990s plastic Dragon, Araknarok, Skulls box, AoS Large basing kit, Citadel Woods... and probably a few things I've forgotten! I have a lot of hoarded left overs from other projects but I was also recently given a big box of bits by a good friend. That helped a lot with this beastie!

"Sketching out" ideas!



I had no idea where I was going with this build, and that was quite liberating! I was just rooting through boxes of parts and trying things out. If they worked I glued them on and started looking for the next bit! I knew I wanted something that looked like a huge undead-bird-construct, but I didn't even know how big it was going to be at the end, let alone what it would look like!

I think the hind legs were the hardest part to make, as by the time I got to them I had an idea of what it should look like, but I had nothing in my bits box that worked. So I started assembling the legs a piece at a time, and covered the worst joins with flock once it was done.

The first stage of painting (for nearly everything I do these days!) was a spray black undercoat and zenithal grey basecoat. Then a drybrush all over with Ushabti Bone. This gives me a great pre-shaded base layer to work up from and picks out all the details nicely.

After that I just picked out bone and wood areas, so it wasn't all one colour/texture.









(The name Olshovilaag is a bastardised phonetic version of the Hungarian folklore term for the underworld - Alsó világ.)