Ostermark: A guide to the Empires East March and their foes

[spafe]

I recognise that Strigoi Vampire's paint job! Did you buy him on ebay? I don't remember selling them through here but I might have. Or the paint job is just incredibly similar.

Yep the vamp (strigoi, along with his brother and a wight lord BSB) all were ebay. Came with a strange base, so I ripped that off and rebased. The BSB isnt painted, so thats on my to do list. I've been painting up the crypt ghouls to try and match him so I can use him as a ghoul king lord with them.

The lahmian was one I painted about 15 years + ago.

 

[Stoof]

Yeah, the strigois base was a bit of fibreboard. Small world!

 

[spafe]

So you've seen a knights charge have you? pah! you've seen what? a joust? oh while you were out hunting, so it was what a small patrol at most then, either riding for sport or to chase a bandit, that's not a charge lad. No my boy, a knights charge, well, the clatering, like a whole regiment on the move, the stench of the horses tightly packed, their whineying, then you'll hear deep gruff voices, different from any of the regiments of foot, each voice speaking with authority. Ah, then you might hear a lull, not from the knights you see, but almost as if the rest of the field has stopped their actions to watch, for when they start to move, everyone pays attention. Then as they move up to a trot, the rythm of the hooves gains traction and beats through your entire body, as they move up to a canter. You'll feel the very ground you stand on begin to shake as they commence they close the distance at a full gallop, and just shy of their targets you'll then hear the bellows battle cries to their warrior god as the carnage and crashing begins to ring. Once you've experienced that lad, then you'll have seen a cavalry charge.

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• Aug 3, 2020

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• Aug 3, 2020

This is the last of my regular knights finished, a large block of 15 to hammer and grind the enemy into submission. Following the good @CaptainDangerous 's prompting I may have picked up some further knights in the form of 9 demi gryphs to give the army some bigger beasties. I'm unsure if these should be white wolf order or if I'll go for a different order of knights for variety. Any thoughts let me know.
Only thing that remains to be done on these knights though is their banner, which I will be printing off once I get access to a printer so for now, they are done for me. Hope you like em!

Might have some more updates on the undead front soon too.​

 

[CaptainDangerous]

Quite possibly the smartest, most striking, debonair, knightly vows of the Empire?...

Spoiler: The Demigryph Order of the Hat!?

 

[spafe]

So what could stand against our might? What could face our steel and gun powder, fire and fury, faith and courage? Well lad, our enemies are many. The reason the Eastern March is the border that it is, thats because of those foes. We have Chaos barbarians rampaging, Ogre tribes descend from the mountains, marauding greenskins, they are all external threats to the state and our empire. But there are also Beastmen and mutants like I told you off earlier, they hide in our forests. And there are the restless dead, to the south of the Ostermark lies Slyvania, the cursed land. Part of our Empire in theory, but all manner of cursed beings march forth from their to bring death to good honest citizens. One such foe we faced were skeleton hordes. Not much of a match for a trained empire infantrymen one on one, if that soldier can overcome their fear. But when you face hordes of them, and they keep being brought back by their foul necromancers, it's a whole nuver thing. We faced plenty of them in our time there. Priests of Moor are your only real defence, they can sanctify the resting places and allow the dead to rest peacefully.

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• Aug 7, 2020

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• Aug 7, 2020

Horde of skeletons are now finished, bases and shields all in place. This is 31, I have a few more stragglers lying around I will top them up with at some point.​

 

[crimsonsun]

Its wonderful to see some Warhammer armies getting painted, I've never had a finished army (does such a thing actually exist?) and I've not had a army painted for a couple of decades. I've got three Armies to paint, Dark Elves, Green Skins and Vampires but I've got nowhere I can paint that's not in range of my 3 year old or our 10 week old puppy so its going to have to wait until I move...

Love seeing the Empire go up, always nice to see a solid line of humans ready to slaughter, personally I feel your light on field artillery but I love my gunpowder.... As for the Vampires it makes me envious, I've got a vast project ready to go and its still in the boxes, simply cant do anything with it, it was going to be a passion army then they killed fantasy and what I had for it got put on the to do list and there's plenty more I want, though I've added a few bits such as a living death cult of Nagash but its all boxed up...

 

[spafe]

personally I feel your light on field artillery

In terms of what I've shown... you are sadly right, I've not photod them up yet. But I have 6 cannons, 2 hellblasters and a steam tank... is that light? do I need more?!

Work and real life is a bit busy this week and next, I'll try for another update either later next week or the following showing my Wight BSB, artillery and possibly some other small units.

 

[Tiny]

But I have 6 cannons, 2 hellblasters and a steam tank

Only joking. Sounds like plenty to me. Although where are the mortars?

 

[crimsonsun]

In terms of what I've shown... you are sadly right, I've not photod them up yet. But I have 6 cannons, 2 hellblasters and a steam tank... is that light? do I need more?!

Work and real life is a bit busy this week and next, I'll try for another update either later next week or the following showing my Wight BSB, artillery and possibly some other small units.

You need some mortars in there, how better to blow holes in T3 infantry if you've not got what I used to call Elf Killers.... 6 Cannons and two hell blasters is pretty solid though, and a steam tank which is no questions very tough.. You grouping those into Cannon Batteries with engineers? What about Hellstrom rocket batteries, I've actually never seen one on the field so I don't know if they are worth it but you've got to keep trade up with Nuln if you want to survive in this mordern climate.

Looking forwards to your new update!

 

[spafe]

So you've seen skeletons, you know about the walking corpses, Moor's teeth, you've probably even heard about the living cannibals that serve those undead nobility! But I bet you've never been told of the Vargheist! Massive beasts, bigger than an ogre! Savage and mad. No real idea where they come from, only know their name from a shared warm ale with a vampire hunter who joined us for a bit. Shame about him really...

What? oh, yes, the beasts! They have huge wings, descend in the night and either carry a man off in each claw, or land and begin ripping through even the most veteran of soldiers. We fought them many a time. We saw a few different types of them too, something to do with the lineage of their poisoned blood or something. Pray you never have to face them on the battlefield, while they arn't invincible, they will certainly seem it without the right tools.

vargheists up close

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• Aug 24, 2020

vargheists side

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• Aug 24, 2020

vargheists front

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• Aug 24, 2020

Of course like all armies, even the noble dead march under banners. If you're lucky it'll be a ragged banner that seems to focus the dark energies of the vile mages to keep their undead puppets going, but sometimes they hold power in their own right, screaming to the skies, or sucking all warmth from the very air, as if you are in the clutches of moors embrace while still alive. These vile banners are born to battle and safe guarded by wight kings, mighty warriors from the north, or even ancient warlords who roamed the earth in Sigmars time. They get summoned back to bear their dread banners. If you can capture that though, well lad. You could be knighted, praised by the church, inducted into warrior cults or high society of the reknown that would get you when you hand it over to the church for santification. Of course you'd be dead before any of that because that Wight would gut you before you knew what hit you unless you've improved since we last spared!

bsb and VC

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• Aug 24, 2020

I've also got my first bat swarm finished, and a wraith (first of 3 or 4) who I got to do some blending on with contrasts which was a real joy. Hope you like them all. Not much progress on the empire recently, although hoping to get another batch of spearmen finished soon.

Bat swarm

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Bat swarm 2

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• Aug 24, 2020

Wraith

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Wraith back

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• Aug 24, 2020

 

[spafe]

So another month has passed, and due to real life and the vampire counts, progress has been slow. However there has been some Demigryphs added to the force, currently under painting. Overall although my focus was on getting some progress done in the vampire counts I managed to finish another 12 models and finish bar bases another 12, so not a terrible month. More updates soon.

 

[Ben_S]

Nice idea to use the chainrasps as a wraith.

I spy some funny looking bats too...

 

[spafe]

I spy some funny looking bats too...

yep, I bulked them out with some fay things that came with... I wanna say wood elf sets. Looked suitable fly-y/swarm-y so slotted a few in to make the bases look fuller.

Also, along with some gw shipping containers for my mad robot comp plans, I also ordered a set of 20 'elite' skeleton warriors from the mantic range yesterday (apart from the vargheists these are the only new purchase to make this army)

 

[Ben_S]

Yeah, sprites from the glade guard kit. They blend in surprisingly well when painted like the bats, even though when you look at them they're totally the wrong shape.

 

[MedMos]

I'll admit I hadn't even noticed. But I'm paying attention now, as I have no Bat Swarms for my VC, but do have a few loose bats and sprites!

 

[spafe]

So this has been quiet for a long time, I have sadly lost my excel tracker I think, which is a pain. My empire are progressing, but about to halt, more on that in a bit. My current progress has effectively meant that from the last tracker snapshot above, the demigrpyhs are unchanged, the steamtank has had progress but would still be orange on the tracker, and the mising models in the spear and death head units are still missing. However, of all the rest the it is all green bar 1 archer and 2 wizards who are orange (in painting progress). My aim has been to finish off the models I have. The demi's are however a cool unit, so I want to 'want' to paint them rather than forceing myself to finish them off like the other bits hanging around.

The reason for wanting to finalise those last bits is to draw a line under the empire, and to an extent the undead I was doing on the side. I never go round to making the elite skelie unit, they are still in box for a future surge of inspiration/motivation. The rest of my undead is currently all painted. In a week or so I will have the last empire stuff done and take some pics of the entirety of both forces as they stand.

In the meantime I have begun a new force, that I will have a new thread for (and a new tracker!). This is a completly from new force. What this space.

 

[CaptainDangerous]