Project: Hag28

 For a witch stands on the very edge of everything, between the light and the dark, between life and death, making choices, making decisions so that others may pretend no decisions have even been needed. Sometimes they need to help some poor soul through the final hours, help them to find the door, not to get lost in the dark.

    - Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

The Hunt of the Death Hag Mother Skaïth

My friend Jimmy is the artist on one of the latest games to come out of the 28 Movement - Hag 28, written by TM Cibelius and currently on Kickstarter. Each player takes on the role of a Hag, be she of the Wode, Death, Desert, Brine. The Hag collects a Hunt of various creatures, and they battle over the soul of local villages, treasures, ancient arcane whatevers. The tone is a mixture of Terry Pratchett, classic folklore, the folk horror trend, and the 'kitbash whatever the hell you like' ethos of the 28 crowd. 

I love the idea, and I love even more the idea of supporting my friends... plus, I have all these horror miniatures I've bought over the years burning a hole in my backlog. So I bashed up a gang and got very lucky a few days ago with some weather clear enough for priming and here we go.

    Hunt of Mother Skaïth

    Mother Skaïth
    Death Hag
    Hex: Death is No Excuse
    Hex: Evil Eye
    Weapon: Basher (wand)

    Terror/Spawn
    Weapon: Basher (or maybe a Poker) (staff)
    Damn Spooky; Make your Entrails your Extrails
    Pretties: 9

    OR if Spawn
    Hex: Nightmare
    Mutation: Where There's a Whip, There's a Way

    Mercenary (x2)
    Heavy armour; Scarred veteran
    Weapon: Chopper (sword & knives or axe)
    Pretties: 4 (each)

    Goblins (x4)
    Ramshackle weapon: Choppers (scratchy claws and rocks)
    My Handiwork
    Mutation: Vicious OR Where There's a Whip, There's a Way
    Pretties: 2 (each)

The above is a 25 Pretty warband based on the 2.0 playtest rules. I think some of the models can be flexible, depending on what's more fun to play with. The Hex Death is No Excuse is a little redundant with the Whip mutation, and similarly with the My Handiwork trait, so we'll see how they interact in a game.

On to the miniatures!

Black Elf mercenaries

A lot of Jimmy's art features dark dwarfs, and they are called out as a specific 'kind' of mercenaries available for hire. I don't have any spare dwarf miniatures, but I have loads of elves, and the idea of mercenary dark elves tickled me, so I kitbashed these two from some spare North Star Oathmark materials I had lying around.

I then read The Trolltooth Wars and got into a Fighting Fantasy headspace, so I decided they were Black Elves, the not-quite evil-but-still-fallen elves of that setting, with greyish skin rather than the pale Druchii or black Drow. So that's fun. And then I was idly thinking about elves, and the fae, and their aversion to iron and the idea of painting iron-age-inflected elves with only bronze metals tickled me. I know there was no bronze chainmail, but I figured it would be a really interesting look. 

So with all that in mind, these guys wound up with a very colourful near-East bronze-age look rather than the grimy, grey-and-black colour scheme you would expect of the servants of a Death Hag. Which is great! It makes it clear that they are mercenaries.

This elf is well-equipped for anything, with a spare, viciously curved knife, a stake for handling vampires (probably handy when you work for a death hag) and some poison. He's not a nice person. I'm also pleased with his arrogant pose.

Also well-equipped, with a heavy axe, twin knives, and a big bag of money. I originally had these guys be more 'evil', hence the bone mask, but that still ties him into the Hunt so it works. The axe is because a) I love elves with axes and b) I was wanting to move away from regular elf stereotypes. The arms are from Oathmark orcs, with the shield from their European Bronze Age-styled undead.

goblin constructs

These were fun as hell to bash together and then paint up.

Big skull from the skull kit, with little skeleton arms and legs from... somewhere. The now-Warlord kit, I think. Stringy strands from UHU glue and then lots of Vallejo's Thick Blood to make him all gooey. I kept the line of the two skull halves together to raise questions about how this was made - was the creature placed inside it and then sealed? Is it hatching? I don't know, and I don't care.

I keep seeing people using bandage, soaked in (diluted? PVA) and then wrapped as hessian cloaks and the like, and wanted to give it a go. The underlying structure was wire and UHU glue for a gooey effect, although the cloak then did work a bit too well to conceal it.

I originally was going to give it a 'clean' skull to contrast with the goo body, but in the end I bloodied up the skull so that it would be tied in closer to its brothers. I am pleased with experimenting, even if it didn't quite work out. At least one commentator on Instagram called it a 'maggot cloak' which, while not the intended effect, goes hard.

This was the first one I kitbashed, intending to make the whole gang variants on 'body that is subsumed by big skull, and then I decided I wanted him to be unique. He's a Flesh Eater's Court body and legs, mostly because I have trillions of them left over, with a spare left hand and then Skulls.

I agonised over skin colour, wanting for something Weird and Bright or maybe my usual ghoulish greys, but in the end went for a slightly bruised Caucasian skin tone. Blacks or greys would make him seem another Black Elf, and I wanted those kept aside; reds would just be too close to the skulls, and everything else felt weird or didn't work against bone. Plus, this way he's far creepier...

As with the Black Elfs, this guy's colour scheme wasn't quite what I originally intended, but I decided against the boring all-grey palette I'd intended. His stringy goo arms and steel chains also ended differently - less rust and the string is still a bit obvious - but given that it was all a total experiment, this is a huge success. Love to try new things.

The body is from the Oathmark cultist sprue, which is probably going to work well for future Orientalist needs as well, from the looks of it.

'Willow the Wicked', WilhelMiniatures

I bought this thing in 2022 via WilhelMiniatures's Woods and Witches Kickstarter and they went in a drawer with a lot of other indie horror miniatures. That collection is pretty considerable now, and it bothers me, so I'm very pleased to be able to use them for something.

It'll serve as either a Terror or Spawn in this Hunt, as the vibes are on point for either.

It was painted using Wilhel's fantastic Pestigor skin tutorial (apparently from 2016, yeesh), all washes and then some white highlights. I didn't highlight the hat or staff, while the maggots were given two layers of whites up from just whatever had happened to them while painting.

While not a perfect rendition, it was a phenomenally relaxing way to paint and I loved every minute. Very pleased with the final outcome.

'Sabrina the Sacrificer', WilhelMiniatures

Mother Skaïth was also from that same kickstarter, where she was 'Sabrina the Sacrificer'. I'd gone through a couple of choices for Death Hag, although they were all various Wilhel sculpts I think. In the end, I went with this guy to help keep the warband grounded.

I'm reading Leigh Brackett's Skaith series, by the way, which is where his name comes from. I also think the gender of the model is ambiguous, so she uses both pronouns.

She was painted in a similar washey style as above, although the shawl was opened with a thin layer of Snakebite Leather Contrast and the living purple hat was shaded only using reds, purples, and greens with a thin sort-of-accidentally-mixed-with-a-little-white-happy-accidents lilac. The main robes were shaded with a bunch of different colours, leaving all the raised parts as white as possible, before being hit with multiple layers of Nuln Oil. Waiting for each of those to dry was the most time consuming part.

Bit of blood on the ambiguous organ, dripping down the bone-y growths on his arms, and we were all done. Another phenomenal sculpt that was so joyous to paint. Really excited to paint more of Wilhelm's work - if you haven't seen my take on his finger forest by the way, go check it out.

So, that's it. Another small warband project done, a fun and weird mix of kitbashing and indie sculpts, and supporting a friend and his project -- all at the same time. Good way to spend most of a week of evenings.

If you would like to help support Hag28, it has 20 days remaining on Kickstarter and you can just click this here link. There's a small, chill, discord group. Bash up some weirdos and join in.