Vampire Counts Enchantment Spell Tokens
The first of my end-of-year projects is finished– The bat-themed enchantment tokens for my Vampire Counts:
I really dragged my feet painting these, but once I got rolling, it went pretty quickly. The most labor intensive portion was painting and highlighting the scroll parchment. For the text, I lightly drew it in with a pencil and then used a mix of brown ink and black India ink with a fine brush. The India ink stays wet in the brush much longer than thinned paint and is more opaque, so it makes painting precise lines much easier. I painted large capital letters for to represent the different enhancements (Movement, Initiative, and Weapon Skill), and the script itself is just a series of squiggly lines. Once the ink had dried, I gently erased any visible pencil lines. The ink dries glossy, however, so using a flat matte spray is essential, and I went with my go-to spray: Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear.
The skull counters turned out pretty well. The Vampire Counts Lore of Undeath enchantment spell Vanhal's Danse Macabre, when cast upon a friendly unit, will add +D3 to that unit's Movement or Initiative characteristic, or +1 to its Weapon Skill. The number of skulls denotes the amount of the bonus, and the outer two skull spots are magnetized, so I can adjust the count as necessary.
Even though the Danse Macabre caps the Weapon Skill at +1, I added magnets for extra skulls because the Helm of Commandment also increases a unit's Weapon Skill by up to +3.
I made a tray to store the skulls. It's just a 25mm cavalry base with magnets glued to the top.
In game, the token gets placed by the unit to track their enhancements without breaking the aesthetic immersion. I like these so much, and since the Tomb Kings have essentially the same enhancements in the form of the king's ability "My Will Be Done," I plan to build another set, themed for the desert, with vultures carrying the scrolls and sandy bases.
'Til next time!
Smart and awesome!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteI love the foresight of having the relevant info facing behind the unit, while keeping the bats looking like they're moving with them. India ink is also a great tip! Awesome job!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteI SO much more like these kind of markers than a dice or wooden chit with a word printed on it. I try to come up with things to mark unit status and things like that in a similar vein, but nowhere near as elaborate. Fantastic job. The writing looks astounding!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I always prefer any markers on the battlefield to be modeled rather than a "token" whenever possible. Nothing ruins the visual aesthetic of the game (which ideally functions as a moving diorama) more than acrylic tokens, wound tracking dice, spell cards, and other bullshit like range widgets and giant objective circles.
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