Nannaris, The Moonlit Kingdom (Soulblight Gravelords/Tomb Kings conversion project)

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Hello everyone!

I have been meaning to start a thread about my Soulblight Gravelords/Tomb Kings army, and I guess now is as good a time as any

Some time around two years back I got back into painting miniatures, mostly for games like Dungeons and Dragons at first. I had previously tried to get into Warhammer about 10 years prior, but only ever managed to paint one unit of Tomb Kings skeletons.

At the time, I had optimistically purchased a Tomb Kings battalion box, and it seemed like a waste to let all those skeletons go unpainted, so I picked the army that would allow me to field them in an actual game of Warhammer most easily, which at the time was Legions of Nagash.

By now that little project has certainly progressed quite a bit. I have written some original fluff for the army that fits into the Mortal Realms and have even managed to add a few conversions of modern models to the old Tomb Kings aesthetic. I hope to share some of my writing, painting and conversion efforts with you soon and hope you find them interesting!

[Twisted Firaun]

7 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Hello everyone!

I have been meaning to start a thread about my Soulblight Gravelords/Tomb Kings army, and I guess now is as good a time as any

Some time around two years back I got back into painting miniatures, mostly for games like Dungeons and Dragons at first. I had previously tried to get into Warhammer about 10 years prior, but only ever managed to paint one unit of Tomb Kings skeletons.

At the time, I had optimistically purchased a Tomb Kings battalion box, and it seemed like a waste to let all those skeletons go unpainted, so I picked the army that would allow me to field them in an actual game of Warhammer most easily, which at the time was Legions of Nagash.

By now that little project has certainly progressed quite a bit. I have written some original fluff for the army that fits into the Mortal Realms and have even managed to add a few conversions of modern models to the old Tomb Kings aesthetic. I hope to share some of my writing, painting and conversion efforts with you soon and hope you find them interesting!

Seeing as I'm trying to do the same thing as you, I'll give you a follow. Please post more soon!

[Ravenborn]

Great to see “shovel-guy” getting Egyptianated. These are the projects I love to watch!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 hours ago, Ravenborn said:

Great to see “shovel-guy” getting Egyptianated. These are the projects I love to watch!

Since you keyed in on him, I'll talk about Gorslav (Gortep?) a little bit. But first, a group picture:

This is basically the state of the Moonlit Kingdom so far. I'll say a bit about all the different models in separate posts

Today's post will be about the newest addition to the army, good ol' Gorslav the Gravekeeper:

Even though I had the idea for this conversion in my head for a while, I only got motivated to put it into action after the recent FAQ made all the Cursed City units playable separately. I always thought that he could make a cool Liche Priest type character, but I already had an old metal Liche Priest that I use as a Necromancer proxy. Without having his own thing going on, I was not really willing to cut up an out-of-production Tomb Kings model and one of the models from Cursed City (which is, after all, still it's own game with a cool aesthetic) just to have an alternate sculpt of a unit.

But now that Gorslav is a real boy, and actually mechanically good at that, I decided to make this conversion a reality.

The conversion actually has more parts replaced than you might think.

Most obviously, I had to cut away and replace the upper chest area with the neck/chest piece of the Tomb King from the Warsphinx box. I had first seen this part used for conversion on this great Lady Olynder conversion by  @Izotzuhure. Luckily, I had a spare one of those models which was overall in pretty bad shape, so I did not feel to bad destroying it for this project. I am sure over time other parts of that model will also be put to good use. The back/neck piece comes attached to the chest armour and I saw no real reason to remove it, so I left it on. Finally, the Warspshinx Tomb King also donated his decorative beard

Next, I had to build Gorslav a suitable new mask. I cut away the upper boney part of his face mask and replaced it with the head piece of a Sepulchral Stalker from the Tomb Kings snake rider kit. I got lucky a few months ago and got my hands on an unbuilt box of those guys, and they are a great source of bits. The snake kit comes with a spare head part, so I was able to do this conversion even after building the kit normally. The little scarab decoration on Gorslav's head is also from this kit. I like how this part turned out, because the new mask gives Gorslav a priestly feel. It kind of reminds me of a bishop's hat.

Perhaps less obviously, I replaced both of Gorslav's original hands. Both hands are again from the snake kit: It contains these weird hooks for the snake riders to hold onto the snakes with, which always reminded me of the Egyptian symbols of authority, the crook and flail, which seemed like a perfect match for Gorslav: He's supposed to be a priestly character in my conversion, and he carries a hook anyway! Of course, I could not have him resurrecting a zombie (this is Tomb Kings, dry undead only!), so I rebuilt that whole coffin-lid-lifting-scene he had going on with a shield and half a skeleton.

I also replaced the shovel Gorslav usually carries with an ornate spear from the snake kit. I was kind of sad to see it go, because it's a cool, distinctive weapon, but it was just a little too gothic looking to match the aesthetic I was going for. I put way more work into that spear than I should probably have, not just simply replacing the whole hand with one already holding a spear, but also rebuilding the spear to more closely resemble the way that the original Gorslav model holds his shovel (moving the spear head down, extending the shaft downwards). As a result the top of the spear is slightly crooked and will probably snap off in transit some day. Oh well.

For the final details, I cut off a second hook that Gorslav usually carries on his belt on the back of his hip and added a little Tomb Kings belt buckle to cover up his original, gothic looking one. I left him with the weird hand and noose he has on his belt, though. Weird hands are actually present on other Tomb Kings models, such as the Liche Priest from the Casket of Souls, and I figured even ancient civilizations had rope, so why go through the trouble of removing or covering up the noose?

When I was finished putting everything together, there was a bit of a problem where Gorslav's head ended up facing the ground, and you could not easily see his mask if you looked at him from an elevated perspective. So I decided to elevate the front of the model by having him climb up a hill on the base.

It's worth mentioning just how big Gorslav is in comparison to other models. He's in a super slouchy pose, but he still towers over other foot heroes. In a way, that was an advantage for me, though: The old Tomb Kings plastic kits all come from a time when GW could not yet do hands and weapons that are properly in scale. But they fit pretty much perfectly on Mr. Slenderman Gorslav over here.

Overall, I am happy with this conversion. I think it actually conveys the idea I had of a more modern take on a Liche Priest pretty well, and the base actually turned out pretty cool even though I added that hill to it out of necessity

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

The Origins of the Moonlit Kingdom

During the Age of Myth, many great civilizations prosered all over the realm of Hysh. Among them was Saruris, the City of the Sun. Like many of the human kingdoms found in Hysh at the time, Saruris was a place of opulent monuments and highly sophisticated culture.

Saruris was ruled by a caste of priest-kings, claimed to have a special connection to the gods, interpreting the omens so that Saruris future could be shaped by their will. The chief among them was the High Hierophant, who acted as the head priest of the main deity of Saruris, a god of both death and the sun whose name has long since been lost to time. The people of Saruris believed that the giving of laws and the judging of the guilty was purely the domain of the gods. Those that obeyed their law would find themselves inducted into the Sun God's paradise after their death, where they would be rewarded with an afterlife filled only with pleasure and serenity brought about by being in the presence of the god's light. Those who dared to break the laws of the gods would, however, be faced with an eternity of toiling in the dark of the night, only illuminated by the cold and uncaring light of the moon, in a pale immitation of their mortal life.

One day it came to pass that the High Hierophant was accused of a crime, which is said to have been so terrible that every mention of it was struck from the annals of history. A crime of such magnitude could only be judged by the highest authority in Saruris: The High Hierophant himself. The High Hierophant is said to have retreated to the ceremonial chambers for 13 days of contemplation and prayer, as was customary, and after emerging from his isolation pronounced that the Sun God had passed his judgment: The Sun God had found him innocent.

This angered the people of Saruris, because it was beyond doubt that the High Hierophant had actually committed the crime of which he was accused. However, out of fear of breaking the laws of the gods, nobody dared to act out against him. Of all those gathered to hear the Hierophant's proclamation of judgment, only one rose up, a lowborn scholar. He took possession of the ceremonial executioner's axe and proclaimed that if the gods could find the Hierophant innocent, then clearly their laws were not just. The Hierophant called him a fool, asking if he was truly willing to doom all of the people of Saruris to an afterlife filled with darkness, devoid of pleasure, by passing his own judgement on the highest agent of the Sun God himself, directly in opposition to the God's own judgment? The Hierophant received his answer when his head was cut from his shoulders in a single strike, in the first act of one man ever judging another.

It is said that the wrath of the Sun God came over Saruris immediately, killing every inhabitant of the city and leaving the once-prosperious monument to civilization as nothing more than empty ruins. The High Hierophant had indeed told the truth about the Sun God's judgment, and the scholar had doomed the xity by violating the law of the gods.

However, the story of Saruris does not end here. Such is the influence of the force of belief in the mortal realms that the souls of all inhabitants of the City of the Sun found themselves drawn to an underworld in Shyish which was as the teachings of the Sarurian priests had described. A place of perpetual darkness, in which nothing but toil awaites those who ended up there. However, something unexpected had happened. The scholar who had taken up the axe to pass judgement on the High Hierophant had in the moment of the deed himself become the object of belief of all those citizens of Saruris who had for long resented the absolute rule of the gods and their priests. When he awoke in the moonlit underworld in Shyish, he had somehow become more than a man.

He found that he had taken on the mythological aspect of the Underworld Judge, who determines the rightousness of the lives of the people of Saruris. And since he himself rejected the laws of the Sun God, he decided that the dead of Saruris did not deserve his wrath. Taking on the name of Naram Sin, the First Judge, Beloved of the Moon, he took up rule over the newly populous underworld in which the people of Saruris found themselves, naming it Nannaris, the Moonlit Kingdom. In this kingdom, the ultimate authority was to be the law of men. Gods were regarded as nothing but tyrants with no claim to dominion over the souls of mortals.

So the aeons passed, with the now-dead, skeletal (as the Sarurian vision of the underworld would have it) populous of Nannaris continued much like they had in life: Building grand monuments, delving into philosophical and magical intricacies and eventually building a splendid city in their moonlit underworld kingdom in Shyish. The Sun God, like all other deities of death, would eventually be consumed by Nagash after his return to the mortal realms, but his curse upon the people of Nannaris would not weaken: They were still bound to their own, moonlit underworld in the realm of death, which they were unable to leave and which nobody else could enter. That is, until the Necroquake weakend the binds of their curse and the people of Nannaris found themselves able to make contact with the rest of the mortal realms again.

Faced with this development, Naram Sin, the First Judge, made a proclamation: The curse of the forgotten Sun God had finally been revealed to be what it had always been, not a true expression of justice, but a petty act of tyranny against the innocent. Thus the destiny of the Moonlit Kingdom had been made clear: To take back possession of their ancestral home in Hysh and to resume rule over the grand kingdom that they had unjustly been denied. Thus, the ancient armies of Nannaris began marching out of Shyish once more, spreading their curse of darkness over the land wherever they go...

[flamingwalnut]

Absolutely amazing lore. So evocative and mythological, and yet has enough grounding to showcase a place and people. Like a history book lost to time. Looking forward to seeing more, your conversions match the epic lore so well.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, flamingwalnut said:

Absolutely amazing lore. So evocative and mythological, and yet has enough grounding to showcase a place and people. Like a history book lost to time. Looking forward to seeing more, your conversions match the epic lore so well.

Thank you! That's exactly the kind of mood I was going for, I am glad it comes across well!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Since we know the back story of Naram Sin, the First Judge now, I think it's time to take a look his model:

As you can see, Naram Sin is based on Kurdoss Valentian. This was a conversion I was very excited about. I mentioned previously that I had the good luck of getting my hands on an unopenend Necropolis Knights kit and one of the reasons I went for that over pre-assembled minis was to get access to the axe and mask bits for this conversion. I took the inspiration for this from an excellent Knight of Shrouds conversion I had previously seen, which I can't seem to track down right now, but will edit in a link to when I do.

EDIT: It was this conversion by @TristanGray.

Besides the mask and axe head, I used the trumpet and one of the shields from the snake kit to really get that Tomb Kings feel. The heads of the two attendants are from thr Necropolis Knight kit, as well. The banner is from the Tomb Guard kit, however. I thought that the movement of the two streamers on it mimiced the flag that is usually found on Kurdoss better than the banner from the snake kit would.

I think the base of this model is another thing that goes a long way with regard to selling its narrative. I happened to have the base of a Casket of Souls left over from another conversion, and since it fit perfectly on the 60mm base Kurdoss comes with, I decided to use it as a starting point. On top of it, I built a Miliputt hill for Naram Sin's throne to rest on, which served to both hide the non-skeletal parts of the Casket base and gave me an alternative to the ghost energy Kurdoss throne usually rests on, which I thought looked out of place for this conversion.

I then added some resin pillars and a statue head to imply Naram Sin sitting in the middle of a ruined, ancient desert city. As a final touch, I added that little skeleton guy reaching out to him. That detail is also found on the Casket of Souls, and I thought it conveyed the idea of judgment well in this case.

I think using the Casket base was a really good decision to luck into. It provides this model with a lot of cool detail for very little effort.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[flamingwalnut]

Your Naram Sin is definitely an AMAZING centerpiece, but what do you play him as? Or is he JUST for decoration?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 hours ago, flamingwalnut said:

Your Naram Sin is definitely an AMAZING centerpiece, but what do you play him as? Or is he JUST for decoration?

Good that you ask, because I meant to write about this in my previous post but completely forgot, haha.
 

I orginially built the model without any concrete plan on how to use it, mostly because I just really wanted to do that conversion. But naturally, after you have a model finished you think about how it could be used on the tabletop.

Naram Sin was finished during the Legions of Nagash days, which meant that there was no really good proxy option to start. Mostly because of the 60mm base size, which did not exist on any LoN characters. At the time, I experimented with just allying in Kurdoss Valention or running Legion of Grief lists to get him on the table, but the reality is that Kurdoss just does not have very good rules. He does not feel as impactful as you would want for your "faction leader".

I got really luck that the release of Soulblight Gravelords provided me with two good options for proxying: Belladamma Volga and Radukar the Beast, which are both on 60mm bases. I currently run Naram Sin as Radukar, which I think fits him quite well: He definitely looks like a big melee dude who would deal mortal wounds with his axe, and giving +1 attacks after charging as a command ability could also be on theme. He even has two attendants hanging out on his base, just like Radukar! The only problem left to solve is to make sense of his ability to summon Dire Wolves, but I am working on that right now

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I am going to alternate lore posts and in-depth looks at models for a while, so today is a lore post!

The Social Order of Nannaris

 

 

Death has rendered the inhabitants of Nannaris free of all bodily wants. They do not need to eat, drink, or sleep. They do not derive enjoyment from, and indeed are unable to partake in, the pleasures of the flesh. They spend their existence in a place without the change of day and night, just an eternity of constant pale and soft moonlight.

This absence of desire and change is enough to make most individuals lose their drive and sense of purpose entirely. Which is why the society of Nannaris values these characteristics above all else. Your position in the Moonlit Kingdom is predicated on your ability to keep striving even in the face of stagnation. Strong willed people who can impose their vision on the world are regarded the most highly, and even those who managed to find meaning in their perpetual existance by indulging what other cultures would call vices, such as greed or excessive ambition, are admired.

The lowest rung of the social order of Nannaris is occupied by those listless undead that did not manage to find a purpose to existence beyond satiating their mortal urges. Those wretched individuals are wont to fill their days with gambling and the mindless consumption of created by those more driven then they are, as those are the easiest ways for them to gain pleasure in unlife. However, this way of existing cannot sustain the self forever, and it is near certain that those who waste their days in this manner will eventually stop moving and striving (and, as whispered by some, even thinking) alltogether. Most Nannarians see this fate as the ultimate horror and do all they can in order to avoid it. Those that do end up losing their sense of self in this way are often eventually roused by more strong-willed individuals and put to service as low-level soldiers and workers.

The next step up in the hierarchy of the Moonlit Kingdom is reserved for artisans. With an eternity to hone their skills, the craftspeople of Nannaris are know to produce stunning artefacts and towering edifices of the highest quality. Their devotion to the perfection of their arts is what sustains their sense of purpose and keeps them from succumbing to the meaninglessness of eternal existence. This category also includes those that seek to perfect the martial arts, such as the elite troops of the Nannarian forces. It is ironic, then, that with the death of the people of Nannaris also came the death of creativity: Since creation is the domain of the living, the undead artisans of Nannaris cannot hope to ever create anything genuinely new or innovative, only to refine their ancient crafts to the point of excellence. So while the redsmiths of Nannaris might be able to produce the finest bronze blades and spears in all of the mortal realms, using superior materials like steel or even iron is something their minds are unable to comprehend. The grand monuments of the Moonlit Kingdom are an incredible sight to behold, but their architectural style has not progressed one day in the aeons since the fall of Saruris.

Rulers and mages are found near the top of the heirarchy. They are admired for the way in which they do not just have the drive to perfect their own self, but also to impose their vision of perfection onto the world itself. In the case of ruling class, this takes the form of shaping society to your own will, by conquest if necessary. For mages, it involves manipulating the fabric of the realms themselves to more close resemble your ideals. Notably, due to the inherent distrust of the gods shared by all the inhabitants of the Moonlit Kingdom, there are no priests in Nannaris. However, there is a class of mages that dedicate themselves to reading and interpreting the omens of the Lunaghast, the pale moon of Shyish, bringer of secrets. They do so in a manner that is very difficult to distinguish from the religious worship of other cultures.

Finally, on the very top, we find those rare few individuals who have overcome desire alltogether. When asked about his purpose in life, Naram Sin, who after all was a scholar and philosopher in his previous life, said this: "I do not desire anything out of my existence. I simply recognize the inherent and essential law of the world and do what it requires of me. A world in which the law is violated and the violator is not punished is not just. Yet without justice, there is no world: How could one even act without acting towards a purpose? And how could there be a purose without our acceptance of the fact that some acts take us towards our ends, while others detract from them? And should we not call those acts that do so 'right', and the other kind 'wrong'? Without justice, there is no striving, for all beings, as far as they act at all, do so in service of the law."

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Today I want to take a look at the humble Skeleton Warrior:

You can't have a proper Tomb Kings army without a skeleton horde. And here it is! Since there is not a lot to say about them in terms of modelling (they are mostly just stock skeletons) I want to talk about my painting decisions a little.

When I first started this army (back in about 2008 when Tomb Kings were still around), I was actually planning to maybe give them a bit of a Cthulhu mythos flair. That led to the choice of my main colour: Tomb KINGS -> KING in yellow. Genious! I had a friend at the time who I was planning to lay with, and he told me what he thought was the secret to quickly painting an army. Just make one of your army colours black! Then you can just prime black and leave some bits unpainted and it's fine! So with that idea in mind, I started to paint my guys yellow and black, from a black prime. Anyone who has ever tried painting yellow will tell you that's a recipe for disaster. Painting one unit of 16 skeletons was enough to put me off of painting for a while back then.

So when I came back to painting, I decided it would be smart to rethink my colour selection a bit. I only returned about two years ago, but it's so much easier to find good information on how to paint on the internet now than it was back then. Anyway, my new idea was to stick with yellow actually for another really galaxy-brained reason: I had used one of my old minis in a DnD game and had made a big deal out of the fact that it was wearing a yellow robe, and wanted to use whatever Tomb Kings minis I painted later to stick to be usable in DnD, as well, and keep the colour connection. But I decided to go with a different colour than black for my secondary choice. Since I knew just enough colour theory to be dangerous at that point, I went with purple, since it is the complementary colour to yellow. Plus: Tomb KINGS -> ROYAL Purple. It's obviously the right choice!

There are actually four types of skeleton warrior models in my army. From left to right: The really old type of skeletons I started with, skeletons from the Tomb Kings chariot kit converted to be footmen, skeletons from the 8th (?) edition skeleton kit (the one that was just replaced recently) and skeletons that are a mix of different sets. They all differ in scale and some undenyably look better than others up close, up on the table they really blend together well. I probably spend more time on the shields than the skeletons themselves, because that's really all you can see at a distance: Some kind of skeleton carrying a huge shield.

Of course, there are also these more fancy skeletons. Originally Tomb Guard, I run them as Grave Guard because let's be honest that barely even counts as proxying. While I keep my skeleton warriors fairly plain and mono-chromatic (in the interest of being able to paint them quickly), these guys get a lot more colours and attention. My idea to convey the status of my different troops within the Moonlit Kingdom is to give them more purple the closer they are to the king, Naram Sin. That is why his model is wearing an all-purple robe, these guys all get a few purple accents and for the standard skeleton warriors, only the command models have any purple on them at all.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with these guys. While I love how they look painted, they are so full of little bits and details that they are a huge pain to actually get finished. The fact that I painted the first 10 from a pure white prime probably also didn't help. I will definitely start from a zenithal prime the next time around and be way more rough in the beginning stages.

Finally, we have this Liche Priest that acts as a Necromancer proxy. One of the first models I ever got a compliment on, and I am still riding that high to this day

I have a bit of a soft spot for him, even though he's not objectively a great sculpt. I do like his litte skeleton buddy footstool though, I always imagine him like some kind of Flintstones animal: "Eh, it's a living!"

I painted theis guy mainly by drybrushing back when I though that was a magic technique that solves all problems, and I probably put a few too many effect paints on him overall. Still, he looks good on the table together with everyone else

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

The Allies of Nannaris

The foremost allies of Nannaris are the Soulblight Vampires of the Vyrkos dynasty. At first glance, this might look like an odd pairing: What could compell highly law-driven civilization builders of the Moonlit Kingdom to join forces with the feral hordes of the Vyrkos? For one, he elders of the Vyrkos see the advancement of Naram Sin's goals as beneficial to themselves. An expansion of the Moonlit Kingdom's sphere of influence would result in a wider spread of their cursed underworld. Since the Vyrkos, much like the mages of Nannaris, have an intimate connection to the moons of Shyish through their particular lupine expression of the Soulblight curse, turning large parts of Shyish and possibly even other realms into lands of perpetual moonlit night would surely grow their power, especially since the secrets of lunar magic are know to few outside the cabals of the Vyrkos and the Nannarian oracles.

The rulers of Nannaris, in turn, view this alliance as beneficial since the venerable Deathrattle kingdom has a fatal weakness in it's stagnant and limited population. While ancient Saruris was a metropolis of enormous before its fall, and the souls of all its former inhabitants are cursed to perpetually return to the underworld of the Moonlit Kingdom if their skeletal forms are destroyed, an expansion of the Nannarian territories will inevitably leave Nannaris' forces spread too thin at some point. This makes the Vyrkos ability to supplement Nannaris' skeletal troops with newly-raised Deadwalker zombies and Dire Wolves most welcome to the Nannarian warlords.

However, more than just being an alliance of convenience, the Soulblight of the Vyrkos feel and the philosopher-kings of Nannaris feel a strange kinship to one another. It has been said that Naram Sin himself looks approvingly on the way in which the Vyrkos matriarch Belladamma Volga acquired her vampiric powers, not by being gifted them by the tyrant-god Nagash, but instead by demanding them from the great hound of the cairns Hrunspuul on her own terms. Belladamma Volga, for her part, seems to appreciate the peculiar views on justice and punishment examplified by the First Judge.

 

 

The Moonlit Kingdom is not inherently warlike and is known to be open to deals with other peoples, as long as they are deemed to be committed to the pursuit of justice. Nannaris has good trade relations with the sky fleets of the Kharadron Overlords, for example, whose rejection of divine authority the kingdom respects. The magnates of the Kharadron supply the Moonlit Kingdom with the raw materials its undead artisans require to perfect their crafts, while they in return receive the products of their labour. They are known to be especially fond of the pommegranate-based beer crafted to perfection by Nannaris' brewmasters according to a millenia-old recipe.

Since the barren desert lands of the Moonlit Kingdom offer nothing paricularly worth making an effort to eat, Nannaris also enjoy overall good relation with some Ogor Mawtribes native to the Shyishian continent of Ossia, where the kingdom is located. Nannaris is known to make contracts with these Mawtribes for mercenary work and occasionally trade with them if it benefits both parties.

Nannaris will ally with all those who are not directly subservient to any goods, although a certain degree of tolerance to the worship of divine beings has occasionally been displayed when dealing with more secular Cities of Sigmar. It is just as likely for the Moonlit Kingdom to come into conflict with overly ambituous Dawnbringer Crusades seeking to encroach on its highly magical lands, however.

Viewing themselves as civlization builders, the Moonlit Kingdom rejects and fight chaos in all it's forms. However, their relentless focus on self-perfection and the acquiration of magical secrets makes Nannarian warlords and mages susceptible to Slaaneshi and Tzeentchian corruption.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Another modelling post for today. This time, it's about my Black Knights and Wight King

These guys were among the first units I painted for this army. My original list that I was working towards was a Legions of Sacrament Deathmarch battalion list. For those of you who don't know, what that list does is basically try to rocket a unit of Black Knights 25" up the board turn 1 through a combination of a command trait and battalion ability. Black Knights are kind of not so good right now, but in Legions of Nagash they had a bit of play, potentially dealing absolutely absurd amounts of rend '-' damage on the charge.

These Black Knights are converted from Black Knights horses and a mix of Tomb Kings chariot crew, skeleton horsemen or just plain old skeleton warriors. For anyone who know the old Tomb Kings horses, you know they look just awful. Even if the skeletal riders kinda still hold up, the horses just look too bad to keep as they are. Luckily, you can fit old Tomb Kings riders on Black Knight horses no problem. Interestingly, the legs of some of the old-old skeleton warriors sculpts are even bowlegged enough sit on a horse, which was nice for me since I have 10 Black Knights but only ever had 8 Tomb Kings horsemen. Since they all carry "bronze-tipped cavalry-spears", you can even get away with putting regular skeleton warriors spears on them.

In retrospect, I made a few questionable painting decision on these guys, such as trying to drybrush up the horses cloths to yellow from a dark brown. On these guys, I feel like I frequently don't get the yellow right yet. It's often either too bright and flat, or too dusty. I am also not sure if I'd paint the rocks on the bases blue if I were to do these guys over again. I originially did this because my number one thing I want to avoid is my models looking dark and muddy on the table, so I tried to add many contrasting colours. But I now feel like regular rock-coloured rocks would have probably worked just fine.

One decision I stand by, however, is the black stripe I added to these guys' shields. I originally added it as a justification why they are Black Knights. But it stand out well among the other basic troops and gives them a distinctive feature. It's really easy to do, too, by using masking tape.

Finally, there is my Wight King proxy/conversion, Abi-Eshu, the Faithful Herald:

This guy is a Tomb Kings herald that I mounted on a Dreadblade Harrow horse. It's a bit of a hack job, because I didn't have the proper equipment at the time, but I managed to hide most of the gaps with some Miliputt and a painted saddlecloth. When I painted this guy, I had just bought some Vallejo Colour Shift paints, and I feel like I probably went overboard with them a bit on the banner. But it's a fun model overall, and I think the greenish flames on the yellow ghostly body of the horse remain a pretty cool colour scheme. One thing to note is that the old Tomb Kings herald has a really bad case of monkey arms and gorilla face, which I tried to de-emphasize as much as possible with my paint job.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

The Enemies of the Nannaris

Nannaris is located in the Moonlit Desert in Ossia's Land of Living Bone, close to the edge of the Ossiarch Empire. Due to the nature of their curse and their own ancient beliefs regarding the afterlife, the inhabitants of Nannaris never truly die even if their skeletal form is destroyed. Instead, their soul will make its way back to the Moonlit Desert, where after a while they will rise from beneath the night-cold sands in a new skeletal body.

Naturally, this makes them a favourite target of the Ossiarch Bonereapers. It is hard to imagine a more perfect enemy for the Moonlit Kingdom. Not only does the Ossiarch Empire view the Moonlit Kingdom and its inhabitants as nothing but raw material to be harvested and used to advance their own ambitions, they are also loyal servants of Nagash, who in consuming the Sun God became the ultimate bane of Nannaris. Naram Sin of Nannaris views treating others as mere means to your own ends as the ultimate transgression, and rejects the authority of all gods. Thus, the conflict between the Moonlit Kingdom and the Ossiarch Empire is sure to last until one of these nations is ultimately destroyed.

Besides the Ossiarch Empire, Nannaris most frequently comes into conflict with the Cities of Sigmar. In these cases, the resulting wars are much more mundane affairs, with the Moonlit Kingdom sometimes acting as the aggressor in an effort to secure access to a Realmgate that will lead them to their ancestral homelands in Hysh, but also frequently being the defender against the aggression of a Dawnbringer Crusade encroaching on the magically rich lands upon which Nannaris is built. Smaller skirmishes against Sigmarite expeditions lead by treasure hunters and soldiers of fortune hoping to plunder the treasures of Nannaris are also not a rare occurance.

The Moonlit Kingdom suffers frequent attacks by the Shyishian Gloomspite Gitz, who view Lunaghast, the Whispering Moon of Shyish, as the enemy of the Bad Moon. They therefor dispise the city of Nannaris, which derives its magical powers from divination of the signs of Lunaghast. Their ultimate goal is the destruction of the Moon-Reading Tower, a spiraling monument in the center of Nannaris which is the seat of power, divination and worship of the Nannarian Lunamancers.

The Nannarian obsession with unveiling the arcane secrets of Lunaghast makes the mages of the Moonlit Kingom common targets of Tzeentchian chaos corruption. The Nannarias hold an ancient belief according to which leonine messengers bring good omens and arcane knowledge to especially worthy mages, which makes Nannarian wizards particularly suceptible to the influnce the devious Mindstealer Sphiranxes. Occasionally, the face of the Sphiranx can even be found on Nannarian ritual items and decorations.

The Kingdom of Nannaris abhors Chaos in all forms and will often aid the battle against the forces of chaos when called upon even by non-allies or former enemies. While Tzeentch and Slaanesh are most likely to try to corrupt the Moonlit Kingdom from within, the armies of Khorne and Nurgle more frequently face the legions of Nannaris in open battle.

[Onitenchu]

The gold and purple is just perfect, love the richness if gives to the models

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

On 8/30/2021 at 2:12 AM, Onitenchu said:

The gold and purple is just perfect, love the richness if gives to the models

It's a classic colour combo, but it works

I find it also works well with a secondary yellow. Especially on all those egyptian stripes, even though those are usually blue and yellow.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

The Beasts of the Underworld

After taking on the aspect of the judge of the underworld during the fall of Saruris, Naram-Sin found himself with the ability to call forth the Sacred Beasts of the Underworld. These large jackal-like beasts are said to guide the souls of the departed along the dangerous journey through the deserts of the dead until they reach paradise. However, they are also said to be able to smell the wicked intent of a sinner, and, according to Narrrarian myth, they will devour the hearts of the unjust, which is said to destroy their souls forever. Besides Naram-Sin, the First Judge himself, the most powerful and devoted arcane adepts of Narraris are also able to call upon these beasts to aid in battle.

The elders of the Vyrkos dynasty take a different perspective on these beasts, however. They claim the Nannarian ability to summon these canine beasts from beneath the desert sands is of the same type as their own ability to re-animate the corpses of Direwolves, and that the connection to the secrets of Lunaghast shared by both the Vyrkos and Nannarians is the explanation for this ability. Some may even believe that Naram-Sin and the mages of Nannaris are merely deluding themselves, that far from having achieved a connection to noble Sacred Beasts, they are actually using most profane necromancy without realizing it. Few, however, would risk saying this to the face of the First Judge, in fear of incuring his wrath, so it is unknown how the king of Nannaris would respond to such accusations.

With the release of the new Gravelords range and the (long overdue) update to the Direwolves sculpt, it seems like a good time to include some doggos in my army. I found the idea of wolves in an army with a desert/Egyptian aesthetic difficult to justify at first, though. My personal breakthrough was the realization that desert wolves and dogs are animals that exist in the real world (as obvious as that may seem) and that jackals actually fit perfectly with the Egyptian theme. What's more, they are not actually black like you might assume if (like me) your only idea of what a jackal might look like comes from depicitons of the Egyptian god Anubis (incidentally a god of the dead, so another really nice and thematic connection), but that they usually have a kind of sand-coloured, light yellow fur that I thought would fit quite well with my established colour scheme:

The sculpted fur on the Direwolf model gave me a good base to easily immitate the spot pattern of a real jackal, by edge highlighting their black back fur tuffs with a light yellow. The whole paint scheme was simple enough that I felt comfortable with it on a cheap battleline unit: A light yellow base coat, red-brown wash for the recesses, contrast black for the back, one highlighting step on the fur and some added darker orange colour on the body. To finish, just pick out all bones in white and add a dark red wash over all open wounds (plus maybe paint some other details like eyes, noses and claws).

Finally, I want to bring up this little guy:

While assembling my wolves, I somehow managed to lose half of the face of one Direwolf. That is why I ended up making this guy a kind of ceremonial golden mask. It ended up working in my favour, though, since masks are a theme on a lot of other units in my army and it ended up tying in the unit a bit better aesthetically. The mask is made from a Tomb Kings banner and a spare Mindstealer Sphiranx face. It happened to just fit perfectly on there without the need to cut anything off or add greenstuff.

[El Antiguo Guardián]

Very very very cool army! Please, continue working on it. It´s a pleasure for our eyes.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 minutes ago, El Antiguo Guardián said:

Very very very cool army! Please, continue working on it. It´s a pleasure for our eyes.

I definitely still have plans to keep going

There are a lot of things I still want to try out. Like maybe converting that Kruleboyz vulture into a Tomb Kingsy Vengorian Lord proxy. Or maybe scratch-building some appropriate terrain, which always looks super fun in videos but I just don't have the space to give it a try right now. I also have at least 20 Tomb Guard that still need to be painted, so there is that.

[Gitzdee]

On 7/13/2021 at 7:05 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Hello everyone!

I have been meaning to start a thread about my Soulblight Gravelords/Tomb Kings army, and I guess now is as good a time as any

Some time around two years back I got back into painting miniatures, mostly for games like Dungeons and Dragons at first. I had previously tried to get into Warhammer about 10 years prior, but only ever managed to paint one unit of Tomb Kings skeletons.

At the time, I had optimistically purchased a Tomb Kings battalion box, and it seemed like a waste to let all those skeletons go unpainted, so I picked the army that would allow me to field them in an actual game of Warhammer most easily, which at the time was Legions of Nagash.

By now that little project has certainly progressed quite a bit. I have written some original fluff for the army that fits into the Mortal Realms and have even managed to add a few conversions of modern models to the old Tomb Kings aesthetic. I hope to share some of my writing, painting and conversion efforts with you soon and hope you find them interesting!

Very nice project!
May i ask how u painted the purple cloak?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 minutes ago, Iksdee said:

Very nice project!
May i ask how u painted the purple cloak?

If I remember correctly, the cloak is entirely drybrushed with an eyeshadow brush. These are the paints I used:

Start with undiluted violet ink over a black/white zenithal base coat. From there, progressively go from royal purple to carmine, and from carmine to white without fully cleaning the drybrush in between.