Expanding my horde of cannibal Bretonnians

Recently I got started on a new army of Bretonnians painting a small band of five serfs and their lord Vicomte Pascal D'ascii. Sharp eyed readers may have noticed my army does not quite match the usual expectations when it comes to these feudal fighters of the Old World. That's true. I'm actually painting a Flesh Eater Court army. Deranged cannibals living in a shared delusion of noble grandeur. Recently I added a fresh batch of monsters to this army.

Have no fear, the noble knights of the realm are here!

Far be it for me to just glue these ghouls together and claim they're delusional Bretonnians. The background just begs for a some small conversions (at least). The five plus one test models I painted for the previous update were assembled as the instructions stated (and languished in the lead/plastic pile for quite some time). The new models above were stuck together for this army (they languished in sprue-hell). I stuck the new members of the army together with a box full of old Bretonnian bits handy. This gave me the chance to do silly stuff. Let's start with (most of) the commanders.

I still need to make up some cheesy names for this lot.

From left to right these are two Crypt Ghast Courtiers. These 'captains' drive the units of Crypt Ghoul serfs into battle. I added a few bits from the current plastic skeleton range to give the skeleton mounted on the back of these models different faces and added a right arm to each. One I gave a banner and the other is holding a spear like a lance. I imagine these mad ghouls think they're noble riders leading the peasants into battle, completely forgetting who's the horse and who the rider. In the center of the picture is an Abhorrant Ghoul King. He was a leftover from a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon I painted a few years ago (and apparently never blogged about). I did not really do anything special to it (except finally splashing on paint). The next in line is the Abhorrant Archregent from the Carrion Empire set. I added some Bretonnian bits to his base. Last in line is the Varghulf from my previous blog.

Now there's a handsome and noble king, ready to quest for the lady!

Abhorrant Archregents are the oldest vampires and head of a Flesh Eater Court. I imagine mine to think he's a true son of Mousillon. I added a Bretonnian knight's helmet to one side of the base and a shield and sword on the other side. I also tried to ease down on the blood on his hands. I imagine the king dines with a sense of refinement and etiquette as behooves his station. After all: “Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude.”

I just love the goofy expressions on the faces of all the models in this range.

 Crypt Horrors are listed in the army book with the keyword Knights. I assume these shambling monstrosities 'ride forward' to protect the realm from monsters. They also proudly ride forward to great hunts preceding feasts in the beautiful (crumbling) hall of their lord. I had a great giggle after combining a Bretonnian helm decoration with the top of the skull of the Horror on the right. The one in the center is holding a shield and the one on the left a banner.

Ivanhoe!

The second group gave me a chance to really go crazy. Two of the models in each box of Crypt Horrors have a corpse stuck on top of a spike in their body. I took a lance for the one on the left and added a bit of skeleton arm to make the 'knight' on the back of this one look like a rotting lancer. I gave the one on the right a Bretonnian Knight's helm. I can just imagine this being the ignoble end of two hapless questing knights. I kind of lost my creative streak for the one ion the center and just added a small 'fleur the lis' to his shoulder.

"Ready to work", "Right'ho" 

I had a lot of fun converting some individual Crypt Ghouls to make my army vibe more like a bunch of monsters thinking they're Bretonnians. I added a couple of the rather emblematic helmets to the heads of the ghouls. That was harder then I expected, the poses are not really meant for broad brimmed helmets. I also gave one a sword, another a shield and a third a war drum because why not. I planned to add a few useless bows too, but haven't (so far, there's another twenty ghouls to be assembled to complete this army).

Its wonderful how an extra arm in the right place turns a strangely spiked skeleton into a full fledged knight (that keeps reminding me of the Goblin riders in the movie Labyrinth).

I'll end this update with a shot of one of the captains (Captain Snapbanner*) leading the serfs into battle. He's closely watched by his Archregent (Comte Notnamedyet**). As you can see by the banner (and some of the models) I paint all cloth I can in either yellow or black to tie the army together. With the purple on the backs of the Crypt Horrors added it makes for a more colorful host than I first expected. I think that's a nice bonus (I like colorful armies). This army is a massive amount of fun to stick together and paint. I will have to wait a bit with the second part as I'm finishing the second set of Townscape buildings (yes I will have an update on this soon) and have another project on my workspace (add mysterious eyebrow movements here). This is all for the good as I'm wracking my brain over how to add a proper 'damsel' to this army. Going by the evil smile I feel forming on my face, she will be appropriately horrendous :)

* I have a formidable sense of the future when it comes to this banner as I couldn't drill a hole to pin it to the lower part.
** I should have gotten a name by now. Shame on me.