The Four Horsethem

With two posts in a row covering Things I've Painted, I'm at risk of turning this blog into one of those wargames blogs that's less about games and more about Things I've Painted.

But here you go. I painted some more figures.

I've used my Undead HOTT army in a couple of my HOTT 52 games, and decided that it really needed the bases being brought into line with my current convention. This allowed me to rejig the composition of some of the elements and generally tidy things up.

But whilst I was doing it I decided to paint these beauties which I bought at MOAB last October in order to add to the army.

Theydies and Gentlethem, allow me to present ... The Four Horsethem of the Apocalypse!

The figures are from Slave2Gaming's Weird WW1 18mm range, and were sculpted by Mike Broadbent.

In the original myth, the four riders are differentiated mostly by the colour of their horses, plus some key piece of equipment or costume. These models all ride skeletal horses, so I used the colours as a guide to the riders' clothing and the horse trappings instead.

Here we have War (in red) and Conquest (in white, with a gold crown)

And here's Famine (in black, carrying some scales), and Death (in pale robes). Traditionally the robed skeletal  Death with a scythe always seems to end up in black. I blame Terry Pratchett. The pale robes looked a little odd as I was doing them, but they've grown on me now, and it makes for a nice contrast with the rest of the figures.

They were pretty easy to paint. A black undercoat covers a multitude of sins (dark brown would work just as well), and then I just dry-brushed layers of colour. The skeletons, for example, are a khaki base, with some sort of bone colour on top and white highlights.

Riders riding.

In HOTT I can run them as Heroes or Knights depending on my mood. Or even Gods if I'm feeling suitable apocalyptic. They are a little larger than the 15mm figures in the army, but they work nicely as a centre-piece in that respect.

Anyway, I'll probably debut them in this week's HOTT 52 game.