The Brotherhood of Necros

I’m on the lookout for the spare fish ‘accessories’ / bits from the Idoneth kits. 🐠 Do you have some unused and spare you’d be willing to sell? 🙏🏻 I'm particularly keen to find these parts (see the pics attached). I’m UK based and if you’d be willing to go to the trouble of selling these on, I’d be able to make my theme and conversions a reality! 🙌🏻 Thanks in advance for any help — I really appreciate it!

Come on Kurnothi, my Wild Hunt theme is straining at the leash! ‘Their charge is indistinguishable from the storm. Hoofbeats tumble through the heavens. Spearheads glitter with lightning. The aroma of first spring and spilled blood and the forest in full bloom precedes them. And when the sky flashes, the maddening host flashes into being with it: a hundred shapes both aelf and steed pouring like liquid clouds towards the earth. ‘He roars, and with each shuddering breath to wrack His chest, Ghyran roars with Him. Its fury burns like the vast swathe of His thighs, its light a billion spites glittering in His antlered crown. Beneath this mantle, the whites of His eyes gleam with Ghyran’s wrath, utterly indifferent to all in His path, nature unbridled. He is our father, a hunter, sovereign of Kurnotheal and Consort-King. ’We do not pray to Him but make worship with every spear cast, every arrow loosed, every bead of sweat and drop of blood and scream we spill on this holiest of days when spring breaks and His horn echoes between the trees, a calling none of us can ignore.’

Do any of the FEC models currently wield blades? I'd love to say it's Soulblight, with vampires being dialled up a little and becoming more bestial in appearance generally. Would make them more consistent with the FEC take on vampirism but still leave room for distinct factions with different backgrounds and ways of waging war.

New Brets — woop!

If you squint really hard, I think you'll see it's a handful of Magmadroths

Hero! Thank you so much. Damn, the community is great. Crossing my fingers you find it! 🤞🏻

Hey! Maybe you can help. I’m Tom and I’m on the hunt for a part from the Dankhold Troggoth sprue — the hand squishing the centipede. It’s one small part from the sprue and if you built him with the club, you’re unlikely to have used it. My next project will depend on me being able to find several of these. 🙏🏻 Please could you check your Gitz’ bitz box and drop me a DM? I’d be willing to buy it for a price you considered fair. 🤞🏻 I’m UK and I’d be so appreciative. Thanks in advance for helping, Tom

Gargant’s toothpick?

'What We Are' They emerge with the shadows from beneath the pale branches, unable to resist my summons. My, how prolific my sons have been. They travel fast, silent but for the knocking of hooves and the rattle of old bones and a sigh, as empty as their heads. Their steeds bear down on the Bloodbound horde before us, and though their gift is weak and their thoughts base, their hunger is my own. When was the last time I let them feed? Even before they crash headlong into my foes, I realise I am smiling. How bats flock to the smell of blood. Is there anything a starving rat won’t eat? * Do you know what it’s like to have a secret and not be able to tell anyone? I see it every night, in my brothers’ eyes, in the catacombs where we sleep, in the long silences that fill the Tower, suffocating. If only! You see, I am two people. One part of me would raze the realms to live again. I would drown in this silence for one more breath, to remember what it is to fill my lungs even as the air is choked away from me. But I cannot. Why? Because the other part of me is ravenous. For knowledge, for Dhar, for the blood of the living and their secrets. That person would hold my head beneath the water, just to watch me flail. So you see, I have a secret, and for all I would scream it from the parapets, I am held ransom by it, forced instead to crawl through the Tower and the surrounding foothills, a dead thing given life, trapped in this halfway place, a puppet made to sing. Sing with me, won’t you? And when our song is ended, show me your last breath. Share that release with me, as we have shared it a thousand times before. Breathe for me, while your lungs still hold, before the rot sets in. I can smell it already. Look at us, sharing secrets! You will promise not to tell anyone, won’t you?

“They emerge with the shadows from beneath the pale branches, unable to resist my summons. They travel fast, silent but for the knocking of hooves and the rattle of old bones and a sigh, as empty as their heads. My, how prolific my sons have been. They scurry onwards, their steeds bearing down on the Bloodbound horde, and though their gift is weak and their thoughts base, their hunger is my own. When was the last time I let them feed? Even before they crash headlong into my foes, I realise I am smiling. How bats flock to the smell of blood. Is there anything a starving rat won’t eat?”

Wait, is that it now for AoS? Surely we’ll see more than the Mountain Spirit and its hammer aelves?

I’m guessing the Kraken-Eater will incorporate that barnacled ship teased ages ago in the Rumour Engine 🤓

I wonder if it could be Soulblight-related. It does look very OBR...

“Do you know what it’s like to have a secret and not be able to tell anyone? "I see it every night, in my brothers’ eyes, in the catacombs where we sleep, in the long silences that fill the Tower, suffocating. If only! You see, I am two people. One part of me would raze the realms to live again. I would drown in this silence for one more breath, to remember what it is to fill my lungs even as the air is choked away from me. But I cannot. Why? "Because the other part of me is ravenous. For knowledge, for Dhar, for the blood of the living and their secrets. That person would hold my head beneath the water, just to watch me flail. So you see, I have a secret, and for all I would scream it from the parapets, I am held ransom by it, forced instead to crawl through the Tower and the surrounding foothills, a dead thing given life, trapped in this halfway place, a puppet made to sing. "Sing with me, won’t you? And when our song is ended, show me your last breath. Share that release with me, as we have shared it a thousand times before. Breathe for me, while your lungs still hold, before the rot sets in. I can smell it already. Look at us, sharing secrets! You will promise not to tell anyone, won’t you?”

“Ghyran, Realm of Life, home to the children of Alarielle, cries out in pain. Our once great glades wither under the march of the dead, a blight spreading outwards from the Ancient One’s host with each new moon. At the same time, life abundant seethes in the wake of the Foetid Fellows, the Bilespreader come again to his favourite playground. Our rangers rush to intercept both forces, prayers to the Goddess spilling from their lips even as they fall to the blades of their foes. Still they fight, dancing side-by-side with the dryads and the sylphs, their lives buying just enough time for the rest of the Emerald Eyrie to assemble. Soon, our clarion call will ring through the trees. The cycle of nature is broken. Balance must be restored.” * She emerged from between the trees and her light was like the coming of spring on a cold winter’s morning. Far below, the forest was a patchwork of withered glades and walking dead, but she had only eyes for the abomination sailing towards her on ragged wings and the entourage of monsters flapping in its wake. Here was the architect of the forest’s plight, the one for whom the puppets swarming below staggered and danced. Its unnatural presence rolled across her, a shadow over her soul, and then it crashed into the Green Finger. Rock crumbled. The mountainside shook. The delicate weave of life magic in which she hung rippled, sending shivers down her arms, and for one dizzying moment, she felt the nature of the creature and its blasphemous mount like poison through her veins. The once noble wyrm swung its head to regard her through eyes like amethystine marbles. Staring into them, she saw nothing. Then she was amongst it, the winds become pale flames under her touch, a prayer to the Goddess on her lips as she cast back the fell bats and turned her hands on the soulless monster in the saddle. Once more, the winds lurched. Though she couldn’t hear the creature over the gale, she could see its lips moving, and where her pale fire leapt, bolts of amethyst sprang forth to meet it. The monster’s gaze burned into her until she could not resist it. Her ears filled with the screams of the dying, her hair with the wordless roar of the wind. And the unblinking eyes that stared back at her from that long-dead face did so with the detached curiosity of a mortal about to pin and dissect a butterfly. Read more about Tale of Instahammer

Thank you, hammer49. Really appreciate the support Here’s the latest, my second counts-as Coven Throne: “Through the old stone, behind the many glyphs and across the long leagues stretching between me and Methuselah, I hear them. No, it is not sound so much as the tickle of their legs, the flutter of their wings, the pinch of their mandibles: a miracle of feeling against this cold skin. Under my first son’s careful ministrations, the casket opens once more. I know this as surely as I observe the moons in the sky or the plethora of gheists dancing above us, for if it is true that the children of Khepra make my flesh crawl, it is also true that I feel them inside me: a roiling nest stirring with appetite, as hungry as any to have shared my gift. For one moment, I feel the coarse granite beneath my son’s fingers, know its weight against even his terrible strength, see the first cracks of moonlight, fractured a million times in the million facets of our eyes. Then we are amongst that moonlight, a silvery host filling the sky, bent towards one purpose. Far below, Methuselah opens his mouth wide, and Khepra feeds, and distanced though we are by space and time and the fecund span of this rank forest, the cavern inside of me knows some measure of reprieve.”

From what I understand — I may well be wrong on this — the Mortarchs aren’t quite the same as those who walked before them in the world-that-was. The way I understood it, they are Nagash’s memories made manifest, tied to him (and his will) more strongly than ever before. Nagash needed generals to lead his armies, and his memories of the Mortarchs’ victories (and some other notable characters — the Blood Dragon and Ushoran, for example) weren’t entirely dissatisfactory, and so in true Undead style he brought them back to serve him again. I’d love if someone who knew more about this stuff could expand on it for me! EDIT: That Seraphon artwork in the Community article is gorgeous!

"From my rotting body, flowers shall grow, and I am in them, and that is eternity." Edvard Munch Apologies for the lack of updates recently. It's been a while, but then it's taken me a while to tackle this month's challenge. At the beginning of February, to align with Tales of Instahammer's Monster Month, I set myself the task of complete The Ancient One atop his zombie dragon. I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been a slog, but we've made it. Who is The Ancient One? (The lore) For decades, this vampire's spirit has walked the Realm of Death's many underworlds. Unfettered from his cadaver during bouts of deep sleep, he has travelled far in his hunger for knowledge and secrets. Most souls are all too eager to share their stories. Others are doomed to repeat their final moments or strongest memories; The Ancient One need only watch. Even the dead want to be heard. Now his tower stirs again. Fell bats flock to the upmost turrets, crawling like lizards to rest in the rafters. Those humans and the other base creatures held in the laboratories huddle deeper in the shadows. Deep beneath even the duardins' old tunnels, rows of iron maidens rattle once more with madness and the crunch of mandibles. Acolytes long sequestered in their private quarters feel the winds shift and look up with red eyes and trembling hands, helpless against their father's will. Back in possession of his remains, he pushes aside the lid of his sarcophagus and emerges into total darkness to record that knowledge, the secrets of the dead painted on reams of human skin that he might reread them, refer back to them, draw pleasure from them all over again in his quest to understand them. For only in understanding them does he make them his own. And they will be his. "I come back to myself slowly, and the visions of the dead come with me. They dance in the corners of my eyes as I reach out to drag the vast stone cover from before me, retracing steps they once learned in life or else writhing from base memories of a different kind. A select few of them I recognise, their features etched into my being, bound to me or my holdings until such a time as I deem otherwise. Others I might recall once I have woken properly. Most of them are as faceless to me as the dead in my dreams and just as immaterial." Dark Awakening, Ch. 1 Bringing The Ancient One to un-life You might recognise several of the parts used to convert The Ancient One and his mount. Much like his experiments, this vampire's model is made from a variety of different sculpts. At its base is the Tomb Kings Hierophant from the classic Casket of Souls set. There's a Spirit Host arm, an arm from the Warcry Beasts kit, several skulls from the Mortis Engine set, and a Terrorgheist with a Troglodon's head, which to my mind is super serpentine and draconic. The rest is Greenstuff. (Curious? Check out some WIP shots.) I think my favourite part is his gnarly expression, which I feel really captures the essence of the Necrarchs and the classic Vampire Counts artwork that has so inspired me. I hope you like him as much as I do. If so, I'd love to hear about it. Related read: Sunday Spotlight: The Acolytes Five Instagram: @brotherhoodofnecros

'The Withering’ (Pt. 2) She emerged from between the trees and her light was like the coming of spring on a cold winter’s morning. Far below, the forest was a patchwork of withered glades and walking dead, but she had only eyes for the abomination sailing towards her on ragged wings and the entourage of monsters flapping in its wake. Here was the architect of the forest’s plight, the one for whom the puppets swarming below staggered and danced. Its unnatural presence rolled across her, a shadow over her soul, and then it crashed into the Green Finger. Rock crumbled. The mountainside shook. The delicate weave of life magic in which she hung rippled, sending shivers down her arms, and for one dizzying moment she felt the nature of the creature and its blasphemous mount like a poison through her veins. The once noble wyrm swung its head to regard her through eyes like amethystine marbles. Staring into them, she saw nothing. Then she was amongst it, the winds become pale flames under her touch, a prayer to the Goddess on her lips as she cast back the fell bats and turned her hands on the soulless monster in the saddle. Once more, the winds lurched. Though she couldn’t hear the creature over the gale, she could see its lips moving, and where her pale fire leapt, bolts of amethyst sprang forth to meet it. The monster’s gaze burned into her, until she could not resist it. Her ears filled with the screams of the dying, her hair with the wordless roar of the wind. And the unblinking eyes that stared back at her from that long-dead face did so with the detached curiosity of a mortal about to pin and dissect a butterfly.

When life meets death... As promised, here are a few more shots:

Finished!

And he’s done! Here are a few pics — will get some more up tomorrow.

Sooo close to finishing this guy... Apologies for the radio silence. I've been working on him for weeks and have been resisting the urge to update you with every step! Hoping to complete him this weekend. *Maniacal cackle* In the dark corners of Necros, the Necrarchs endure...

"W'soran woke slowly, reluctantly. Eyelids as thin as parchment peeled back from dull orbs — one a grisly yellow, the other milky white and blind — even as thin, desiccated lips retreated from the thicket of needle fangs that occupied his mouth. The twin leathery slashes that were his nostrils flared, taking in the air instinctively. He smelled the effluvium of age, the cold, harsh stink of rock and the faintest odour of long-ago spilled blood." Here we go, people. As an avid (okay, obsessed) fan of all things Necrarch, this book promised to be the mother lode, exploring the background and lore of our bloodline as seen through the eyes of the father of the Necrarchs himself, W'soran the Wicked: W'soran, one of the first vampires and former pupil of the Great Necromancer Nagash, seeks to unravel the secrets of life and death. But his hunt for power is interrupted by a civil war in Mourkain, the mountain nation ruled by his former ally, Ushoran. Now W'soran must battle old friends and new enemies as he weaves a complex web of treachery and deceit in order to anoint himself the Master of Death... What did I think? How couldn't I love a story that brought both W'soran and perhaps the second-most-infamous Necrarch Melkhior together? As I've already mentioned in earlier reviews, what really captures my imagination and inspires me in Black Library's books isn't the (often generous) fighting or even the grimdark fantasy but the characters and their relationships. W'soran wouldn't be half as interesting without his scheming pupil, and Melkhior might seem motiveless if not for his father-in-death, ordering him about like the lackey he is. "Melkhior jerked back, surprised, his flat, black eyes gleaming in the sudden blaze of light and his monstrous features writhing in consternation. Melkhior looked akin to nothing so much as one of the great bats of the deep dark, squeezed and twisted into a mockery of human shape." Ticking away at the back of the reader's mind is the knowledge we have as gamers and fans of the established background of how this unvoiced conflict plays out. Josh knows this, and his solution is both satisfying and fiendishly in-character — I was cackling when I realised what had happened. Of course, the book also explores W'soran's relationship with his peers and (dare I say) equals in the form of Neferata and Ushoran. The book does a great job of painting that picture, helping the reader to understand, if not justify, W'soran's actions and motives and build up a relationship of their own with him. "Even now, after everything that had happened he still felt it, burning in his gut like a slow poison. The need, not for blood or to feel the life of squirming prey ebb from twitching meat, but for — what? — respect, perhaps? Acknowledgement, certainly; the admission of his superiority by those who dared to call themselves his peers." The story continues on from Neferata and the exploits of Ushoran in Mourkain, so if you enjoyed that one, you'll want to give this a read. My favourite thing about the book? There's a moment, deep beneath the mountains, when Melkhior introduces W'soran to something he has found buried in the dark. I won't quote it as it will spoil that moment for you but the reverence and awe that W'soran experiences, standing in its presence, is quite moving and does justice to a creature so often flaunted in fantasy novels without due respect for its sheer size or majesty. Look out for it. Haven't read it yet? Order a copy, turn down the lights, and dive in... Related read: Am Reading: Neferata: The Blood of Nagash Am Reading: The Rise of Nagash Tales #1: The Withering