Von Dreisel's Danse Machine (VC)

[ManusMarines]

Hello all, and welcome to my first foray into the Fantasy game system.

I am a 40k player of several years and have collected a small High Elves army (mostly for the models) and am now getting into actually playing the game with the Vampire Counts.

Basic Info:
- I enjoy painting, and usually paint at least a little every other day. School/work loads tend to shorten or extend that time.
- I'm looking to build to a predetermined list, as opposed to my past armies where I just bought the cool looking units and built from there.
- I play Imperial Guard, Orks, and Ultramarines in 40k, and you can see their painting progress in the link in my sig.
- My friends and I are going to be building our armies in 500pt increments, starting with 500 of course. Well, at least that is the general idea.
In reality, this idea turned out being me going on a spending spree and quickly amassing a legal, 2000pt army. Oh my...

CURRENT STATUS OF ARMY
Start Date: October 16th, 2009
Points: 1500ish

**INSERT ARMY PICTURE HERE**

Painting Status:
White = Purchased
Yellow = Assembled/Work In Progress
Orange = Basecoated/Painting In Progress
Red = Finished

LORDS/HEROES
- Vlad von Dreisel - Vlad
- Annabelle von Dreisel - Isabella
- Mikhail von Dreisel - Vampire
- Johan von Dreisel - Vampire
- Gregor von Dreisel - Vampire
- Anton von Dreisel - Vampire
- Nebuchenezzar, The Ancient - Wight King (mounted)


CORE
- Skeleton Warriors w/ Spears (20)
- Skeleton Warriors w/ HW/Shields (10)
- Grave Ghouls (20)
- Grave Ghouls (10)
- Zombie Horde (20)
- Corpse Cart
- Dire Wolves (5)
- Dire Wolves (5)

SPECIAL
- Grave Guard (20)
- Black Knights (5) (Tomb King Skeleton Horsemen/VC Grave Guard kitbash) <--- Idea credit of zigoR

RARE
- Varghulf
- Bestial Giant - Counts-as-Varghulf



Let the horde rise!

[Ganymene]

Undead! Yes!

Have you decided on a color scheme for them yet?

Looking forward to seeing the first test models!

[ManusMarines]

Undead! Yes!

Have you decided on a color scheme for them yet?

Looking forward to seeing the first test models!

Color scheme is as of yet undecided. Will be working on some ideas over the weekend.

I need to grab some more primer to coat the first 10 Grave Guard and Crypt Ghouls that are assembled. Will post pics of assembled units tomorrow.

[ManusMarines]

After a bit of shopping, I now have a lot to work with!



A battleforce, 2 boxes of Grave Guard, two boxes of Crypt Ghouls, and Vlad.

After assembling my purchases I will be able to field the following:
- 20x Grave Guard (10x Swords/Shields, 10x Great Weapons)
- 30x Crypt Ghouls
- 20x Skeletons
- 20x Zombies
- 1x Corpse Cart
- Vlad/Standard Vampire

That means I'll be in possession of over half of my eventual 2250 army. <3 25% off coupons.

Tonight will be spent assembling things, and trying to get my rank construction down so things seem fluid.

I might spray a GG and ghoul test model later on, and start trying to come up with a color scheme.

For the horde!
~Manus

[Elazar The Glorified]

Looks like plenty of boxed goodness. Look forward to seeing you get these guys painted!

[ManusMarines]

Looks like plenty of boxed goodness. Look forward to seeing you get these guys painted!

Thanks, Elazar! That makes two of us!

I completed a full 20-strong unit of Grave Guard last night, including basing and movement tray. Will post pics after work.

Time to start on the Corpse Cart

~Manus

[ManusMarines]

*UPDATE*

Here are the promised pics of the completed Grave Guard.

Now that I've had a chance to see them all up close and magnified, I realize I need to go back and tidy up some mold lines, especially on the weapons. Oh well.

I built the Grave Guard as a 10/10 split, that being 10 GG are equipped with Swords/Shields, and the other 10 are equipped with Great Weapons. That way I can field either configuration simply by shifting the correct models to the front two ranks. That is, at least until I nab two more boxes somewhere down the road.

Anyways, here is the Sword/Shield configuration:




Side view.


Great Weapon configuration.


Side view.

I will hopefully be basecoating them tomorrow or Wednesday.

I absolutely love these models! I am noticing that there is a lack of individuality in Fantasy as opposed to 40k, but the ranking system necessitates conformity.

The GG will remain a closed, non-filler unit. For my ranks of Ghouls, Zombies and Skellies I will be crafting some fillers, and perhaps some regiment bases for massed IoN markers. These regiments will also have open-backed movement trays to show the ability for them to increase past their initial space constraints.

On to building the corpse cart!

[Ganymene]

I like the Grave Guard, very cool. The shields look good, but the great weapons look awesome!

Did you have anything in mind for the banner?

[ManusMarines]

I like the Grave Guard, very cool. The shields look good, but the great weapons look awesome!

Did you have anything in mind for the banner?

They better look awesome..those things are a pain to put together (the Great Weapon ones, at least)!

As for the banner, nothing comes to mind at the moment. There will definitely be something there. I just might be trying some freehand (after much pencil practice on paper )

Corpse Cart is about 70% put together. The main structure and Necro are put together, but remain separate for painting purposes. I just need to put together the Zombie slaves, and find some decoration for the base.

Upon further digging in my Battalion, I DID manage to find the chariot base that I thought was M.I.A. Turns out I just need to look harder when the clock reads 3am

[Elazar The Glorified]

The Graveguard look great. The Great Weapon wielding Grave Guard are amongst some of my favourite Fantasy minis, they look brilliant and I would imagine they are a pain. My Marauders with flails and great weapons were a paint to put together, that's the problem when 3 or 4 bits need to be glued at the same time for it to work, can get very messy!
Glad to see you've textured your movement tray!
Have you thought any more on your colour scheme?

[ManusMarines]

The Graveguard look great. The Great Weapon wielding Grave Guard are amongst some of my favourite Fantasy minis, they look brilliant and I would imagine they are a pain. My Marauders with flails and great weapons were a paint to put together, that's the problem when 3 or 4 bits need to be glued at the same time for it to work, can get very messy!

Ain't that the truth!

Glad to see you've textured your movement tray!
Have you thought any more on your colour scheme?

I've been playing around with two major color schemes (at least for those models with Armor).

A) Dark Gray robes, Liche Purple armor dressings, heavily washed Boltgun Metal/Chainmail armor

B) Black robes, Blood Red armor dressings, heavily washed Boltgun Metal/Chainmail armor.

As soon as I get the GG primed I will be painting up a tester in each color, which hopefully will be tonight.

[npow34]

Looking good so far! Cannot wait to see them painted! Decided on a color scheme? (Maybe someone asked already. Sorry if they did.)

[ManusMarines]

Looking good so far! Cannot wait to see them painted! Decided on a color scheme? (Maybe someone asked already. Sorry if they did.)

Thanks, npow. Color scheme is still undecided between two different ones: Purple/Gray/Metallics or Red/Black/Metallics.

I did get to basecoat my GG before I went to work, so I will be knocking out two quick test minis in a little while here. Pics up hopefully tonight (well, tonight EST anyways )

~Manus

[ManusMarines]

As promised, here are two quick test minis showing the two different color schemes I'm considering.

There are no highlights/etc on the models, as I'm still trying to figure out which scheme looks the best.









The red scheme is a "traditional" VC color option, especially for models with armor. It is very sharp, and nice.

The purple scheme is a little cooler (color temp wise) and gives a subtle, darker feel to the models. Plus, I always think of Roman Praetorians (Emperor's Guard) with purple robes w/ armor.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the purple.

Thoughts?

~Manus

[Elazar The Glorified]

Purple gets my vote. As you say, it has that Praetorian feel to it. It really darkens the mini in comparison to the red and for a Vampire Counts army darker is better I reckon. Plus, I'm a Slaaneshi player so purple would always get my vote in such matters
I reckon an army based on the purple scheme would look pretty awesome!

[No-One]

personally i say go with the colder purple color, it looks great, and with highlights, will look even better, i'll definately be keeping an eye on this

[ManusMarines]

Purple gets my vote. As you say, it has that Praetorian feel to it. It really darkens the mini in comparison to the red and for a Vampire Counts army darker is better I reckon. Plus, I'm a Slaaneshi player so purple would always get my vote in such matters
I reckon an army based on the purple scheme would look pretty awesome!

personally i say go with the colder purple color, it looks great, and with highlights, will look even better, i'll definately be keeping an eye on this

+2 for purple thus far

Before I fully commit to it, I'm going to start painting the rest of the guard, leaving out the parts that would be purple.

That, and trying to figure out my basing scheme.

Updates up later today/tonight!

~Manus

[Ganymene]

I think they both look very nice. This one is going to come down to personal preference.

I know you think I'm going to vote for purple, but the red really contrasts well with the dark armor.

They are fairly equal, so that is my vote.

[ManusMarines]

I think they both look very nice. This one is going to come down to personal preference.

I know you think I'm going to vote for purple, but the red really contrasts well with the dark armor.

They are fairly equal, so that is my vote.

Yea, definitely wasn't expecting you to stray from Purple.

I think I'm going to go with Purple, as I am definitely loving the Praetorian feel. The red can be saved for another Grave Guard unit down the road, and definitely for eventual Blood Knights.

[Endor]

Yes - I'd say go with purple as well. It will make the army stand out from the more traditional colour schemes.