Warhammer Underworlds - Grashrak's Despoilers

I have had the Warhammer Underworlds Beastgrave box sitting on my shelf for a little while now, so as a nice change of pace from all the boardgame miniatures that I have been painting recently I decided to crack it open and assemble Grashrak's Ravagers. Moreover, as the models are quite detailed I wanted to spend a bit more time on them. Basecoat and wash is fine for boardgame pieces but these I felt warranted a little more love. Even if they are savage goat men.

As with other warbands they are push fit so assembly was pretty simple. I don’t recall where I learned it, but snipping off a bit of the peg holes and using some plastic glue to stick things together makes things a lot easier and sturdier. I didn’t glue the models to their bases in case I needed to remove them to get to some hard to reach places. All in all I think it took me about an hour to clean and build the six miniatures. Once they were assembled, I primed them with Halfords grey primer. 

Grashrak Fellhoof

I started, as I tend to do, with the skin; and for this I gave it a couple of layers of Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw. Any fur on the miniature I painted with Dryad Bark, and boy is there fur in some surprising places. Noses and any scars I carefully painted with some Kislev Flesh. A couple of them have their tongues out as they scream in a rage, so I carefully picked them out with Screamer Pink. Lastly I painted the hooves and claws with Corvus Black.

The next thing to do was the clothes, if you can call them that, they’re mostly just rags and loincloths. I decided to use Vallejo Model Colour English Uniform as the greenish-brown colour fits with them being dirty rags that almost certainly haven’t ever been washed. For all the bone details, including horns and teeth, I gave them a few thin coats of Army Painter Skeleton Bone. 

For the leather details I decided to use a combination of colours. Obviously, I still used Mournfang Brown for some of the details but I also used some Skag Brown and Vallejo Dark Fleshtone to add a bit of variety. For the cloth wraps on wrists and weapon grips, I painted them with Vallejo Khaki. 

Draknar

The various stone charms and daggers I painted with Mechanicus Standard Grey. The blood on Grashrak’s dagger I picked out with Mephiston Red. Draknar is the only member of the warband to have metal weapons, and I was tempted to paint them bronze to show that this merry band of murders hadn’t quite progressed to steel weapons yet. Alas I decided against it, painting them and the metal bucklers that Murgoth and Korsh wear on their stomachs with Leadbelcher. Anything that would be wood (excluding bows and arrows) I also painted with Vallejo Khaki. The bow limbs and arrow shafts I painted with Rhinox Hide. The arrow fletching I painted with Corvus Black. 

For the bases, I painted the soil and dirt with Dryad Bark, the rocks with Mechanicus Standard Grey, any bones with Army Painter Skeleton Bone and the plants with Death Guard Green. 

Ushkor

The last thing I needed to do before the fun stuff was to differentiate the bones from the horns, which had both been painted with Army Painter Skeleton Bone, and the wood from the cloth wraps, both of which had been painted with Vallejo Khaki. For the bones, I gave them a layer of Skeleton Horde contrast paint and for the wood I gave that a layer of Wyldwood contrast paint. The bones did end up looking rather golden but I could fix that with washes and highlights. 

Speaking of washes, for some variety I decided to use oils. In order to protect them against the thinners that I would be using I gave each of the models a quick spray with matt varnish. I learnt the hard way that white spirit will just eat through your paint job unless you properly protect it. The washes themselves where fairly simple, on the models themselves I used Burnt Umber mixed with a bit of black. And on the bases, Sap Green desaturated with some Burnt Umber. I worked in batches, applying the wash before leaving it for a few minutes. Then I went back in with a q-tip dampened with some white spirit to remove the excess wash from the raised areas. It took some practice but I was happy with how grimdark they turned out. However, as stated at the start of this article I wanted to put a bit more effort into these guys. So, I left them for a few days for the oil washes to fully cure before I started on the highlights. 

Korsh “The Sneak”

Like the Wurmspat, Grashrak’s Despoilers ended up being left for a while longer than a few days. But at least it meant that the oil wash was completely cured by the time I came to do the detailing. And like the Wurmspat I started by layering the skin with Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw followed by small highlights of Pallid Wych Flesh. I also did small highlights of Pallid Wych Flesh on the scars on Murghoth Half-Horn. Then as the leather and the clothes looked so good on the Wurmspat I did the same for Grashrak and his gang. For the leather, this meant first layering with Mournfang Brown then adding small highlight scratches with Skrag Brown. And for the clothes, it meant layering with Vallejo English Uniform then doing the scratches with a mix of English Uniform and Pallid Wych Flesh. 

The next step was all the bone details. As the various teeth and bird skulls are quite small I skipped the layering step and instead highlighted them with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. This was fine for the smaller details but for the larger ones like the skulls this left me with a bit of a conundrum. As I had painted the bones with a layer of Skeleton Horde contrast paint I wasn’t sure what colour to use to layer them with. If I used Skeleton Bone then they would just end up looking like the rest of the bone details, including the horns. I ended up using Vallejo Khaki, and the results were… alright. The last step of the bone details was the horns on each of the characters, they are beastmen after all. For the four Ungors in the warband, this was a fairly simple small highlight of Skeleton Bone. But for Grashrak and Draknar it meant carefully painting Skeleton Bone along the ridges on their own girthy horns. The spear shafts and the wraps I both gave an edge highlight of Khaki. For the trees on the base I gave them a quick drybrush with Tyrant Skull to bring out the bark texture. 

Gnarl

For the few metallic parts, I first layered with Leadbelcher then added very small highlights of Runefang Steel. I was very careful with my highlights as I wanted to keep the metal looking dirty and ill-kept. To assist with this, heavily thinned some Skrag Brown then ran it into some of the recesses to look like a build of rust. Whilst I was working on Draknar, as he has the most metal on him, I took the opportunity to do the details on the severed aelf head that he is carrying. For the skin, I layered again with Pallid Wych Flesh. I was going to do some highlights with a pure white but I decided against it, otherwise it may end up looking like Draknar is carrying a snowman’s head. The hair I first layered with Jokaero Orange then highlighted with Troll Slayer Orange. I finished off the head by putting a small dot of Army Painter Skeleton Bone in the eyes and dabbing on some Blood for the Blood God technical paint on the neck. 

At this point most of the models were done, I just needed to finish off the bases. As said bases are quite busy with details I didn’t feel confident drybrushing the rocks, instead I edge highlighted them with Dawnstone manually. Which honestly didn’t take all that long, I think by this point I must have found my groove. Which is a pain in hindsight as I only had one thing left to do: the plants on the bases. And for this, all I did was highlight the edges of the leaves with some Ionrach Skin. I finished the models off by painting the rims of the bases black, and I was done. 

Murghoth Half-Horn

Second Warhammer Underworlds warband is complete, I should probably get around to playing a game of it at some point. Although I do need to get the other warband in Beastgrave, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, assembled first. I suspect that will be my next project. 

In any case, that’s another six boardgame miniatures done, which takes us nicely past the two hundred models mark. I reckon I can make it to two hundred and fifty by the end of the year. It would only be another forty-five miniatures, or the total number of miniatures that I painted last year. I had better get a wiggle on then!

Boardgame miniatures left to paint: 561

Boardgame miniatures painted this year: 205