The Month of the Goat

This month's target was to paint my Khemru for Wargods of Aegyptus. The Khemru are the children of Khanum, an Aegyptian god of life. It was Khanum that created people, spinning them out of clay on his potter's wheel and then holding them up for Ra to cast his life-giving rays onto them, before Khanum placed them in the womb to be born. The Khemru are cast in the image of Khanum, being goat-headed, and revere life. They abhor spilling blood and will only use blunt weapons as a result.

So far this month I have painted one unit of Khemru slingers, two harbingers of Khanum, one priestess of Khanum, one Khemru hero, one Khemru Master of Words (wizard), one Khemru beast-master, one lion and one undead Khemru Crypt Lord. This amounts to the twenty figures I needed for the monthly target of 2 Victory Points. I have a unit of Khemru warriors on my painting desk at the moment and I hope to complete them this month to earn a bonus victory point.

When painting these figures, I used a simple technique of washing the mid colour over a white undercoat. This gives natural highlighting as the pigment settles in the folds and the white undercoat naturally highlights the raised areas. To further enhance the effect, I then used a magic wash coloured with Windsor and Newton Peat Brown ink. While it will not win any painting competitions, this technique is quick and effective. It leads to wargames standard figures that I shall not be embarrassed to place on the games table.

In addition to getting the figures painted, I decided to tart up their movement trays. Someone had commented that they did not like the black movement trays that I used at a demo game at Salute last year. Personally, I do like them. With slottabased figures, I always go back over the edges of the base with black to make the figure stand out from the table a bit. I also paint my movement trays black, so that they are like a display plinth for my figures. It is simple, quick and defines the unit. One thing that I had always intended to do, though, was texture the spacers in my skirmish units, so I have done that. I have also painted the base of the movement tray sand coloured so that it does not jar as much when casualties are removed. However, I have still retained the black sides of the tray. It may not be to everyone's taste, but it suits mine.

Click on the pictures below for a larger picture.

Movement tray

Khemru slingers on movement tray.

Khemru harbinger

Asar harbinger of Khanum

Khemru priestess

Khemru master of words

Khemru hero

Khemru beastmaster with lioness (I have two more lions ready and painted but they were not part of this month's project. The beastmaster is allowed up to four lions, so I already have one more lion on the shopping list)

Khemru crypt lord (I was pleased with the way his cloak came out so I have included front and back shots of this chap)

The good thing about the Khemru is that they actually have a multiplicity of uses. They can be Broo in Runequest, Beastmen in Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures, or Beastmen in any other system that uses Beastmen. These particular figures will feature in our Wargods games, and will almost certainly make an appearance in our pulp games too. I can envisage using them in Larger than Life, possibly featuring as the villains on my Larger than Life blog at some point, or as a lost tribe in .45 Adventures, or even in Broadsword Adventures. Perhaps I need to give some of them ray-guns so that they can feature in a Fantastic Worlds game too. Now there's a thought ...