The Legion of the Infernal Skull: 2016 State of the Union

This undead legion will always be my first love. I took an army photo back in 2012 when I first began this blog. The Legion of the Infernal Skull has grown quite a bit since then, so I decided that it was time for a new "family reunion" photo: 

 

 

460-something models takes an awfully long time to set up.

 

 

If you haven't read the original post about my army and the story behind it, I'd highly recommend checking it out. There's a lot of insight into how I began my foray into collecting miniatures and the influences that led to my design choices. (Read that here.) The backstories for my characters and the army itself have also been written about in previous posts. I'm working on another post that will serve as a recounting and updating of where everything stands in my current lore. (Stay tuned.)

The army has grown so much that I've organized it into 3 main aspects, divided along the unit types and color schemes. (Note: This doesn't follow the Age of Sigmar undead sub-factions, following instead my own story themes and aesthetics.)

 

Martial Aspect

The martial units are comprised of the more formally regimental army units led by the Blood Dragon vampires Seth and Dimitri von Koss. All of the wight kings, grave guard, black knights, and the Red Guard skeletons fall under this aspect. The black coach and blood knights (once they are added) are also included in this category. Nagash and his morghasts will also be part of my martial aspect.

 

My upcoming projects for this section are the mounted wight king battle standard bearer and more skeleton archers converted from the classic metal armored skeletons. I recently played a game of Age of Sigmar and tried out the morghasts for the first time. They performed excellently, so they're at the top of my queue. I'd like to get them painted as soon as possible and, frankly, I've dragged them out long enough! Blood knights are also on the to-do list, but I need to pick up a couple more of the zombie dragon vampires to use as the riders and come up with a solution for their horses before I delve into that unit. At the very least, I could build them one at a time and use them individually as mounted vampire heroes.

 

 

Feral Aspect

This section is made up of Marduk the Ghoul King's ever growing retinue of beasts and bats. If it's got fur or wings, it's in here– Dire wolves, all levels of bat, from lowly swarms to Wolkhar the terrorgheist, and the ghouls of course.

 

 

The ghouls are the first priority to bulk out this section. I've collected a pile of about 80 metal ghouls to bolster the ranks. I want to come up with a different color scheme from the 25 I already have. They look a little too pink and healthy, so I might go with a greyer, greener flesh tone which will bring them in line with the aesthetic of the rest of the feral models. I plan to convert them with fur pelts, and bits of meat and flensing knives from the Kroot warrior kit. I haven't built a single one of the monstrous infantry crypt horrors or vargheists; I'll add them one of these years. I also have a "stock" varghulf that I plan to eventually convert and repaint to match his big brother.

 

Spectral Aspect

The necromancers and the wraith Korak the Grim lead this portion of the army and it's made up of all the ethereal units (of which quite a few have been added over the ages), along with the zombies and skeleton units beholden to the different necromancers. The Crimson Reaper skeletons are Korak and Nieman Kimmel's, the skeleton spearmen are led by the necromancer Samus Garz, and Toht Nhemisis is master of all the zombies and corpse carts.

 

 

This aspect of the Legion is the most disparate, seemingly made up of the random odds and ends with no real unifying theme other than the ethereal glow. I think I might update these skeletons (and maybe the zombies) to have a blue-green glow in their eyes to match the other ethereal elements. The first thing I need to do is assemble my hexwraiths and repaint the banshees. I also have a few "regular" wraiths to bulk up the units, but there's no rush since I can't field wraith units in Age of Sigmar. I'm holding out hope for a Nighthaunt Battletome that might offer some different unit options for the wraiths. (Maybe a build for the hexwraiths that uses the horse barding, the same way they mixed up the assembly in the crypt horror/ vargheist kit to create crypt flayers and the courtier heroes?) We'll see....

 

'Til next time!