The Great Thirst: A Black Grail Hobby Project for Trench Crusade

Why Vampires?

I don’t think this will surprise anyone when I say I love vampires. For me they are the quintessential gothic monster and have haunted my journey into the realm of miniature wargaming since an early age (Thank you Dracula and the Underworld movie series, you have a lot to answer for), to the point where if there is an undead faction led by vampires, it is safe to say that I will be busy painting and playing it. The same can be said for running Dungeons & Dragons as at some point the party will inevitably encounter vampires somewhere along their adventures. 

Now one of the miniature games that has consumed most of my hobby time over the past year has been Trench Crusade. As settings go, Trench Crusade is very gothic, full of demons, ghosts, castles and churches, all the good things that you would want to find in a gothic novel. You could probably imagine my happiness when I discovered that there were actually vampires confirmed in the setting with the existence of The Sacred Order of the Dragon led by Vlad the Impaler himself on the side of the faithful. Yet as always with these Trench Crusade projects I wanted to carve out a little space of the world to make my own. With my heart set on bringing to life my vision of the undeath, the next step for me was to work out which faction would be best to portray my version of vampirism on the tabletop. 

It was then that I found The Great Hunger.

Editor’s Note: If you’d prefer to watch the project overview instead, you can also check out Painting from the Loam’s excellent video on YouTube showcasing the warband:

If you are unfamiliar, The Great Hunger is one of the subfactions for the Black Grail. In the lore, The Great Hunger is something which is left in the soil and sinks deep into the places where the forces of The Black Grail have passed through. In the abandoned corners of trench lines and ruined villages it will wait patiently until forgotten, only then it will rise to the surface to infect, raising the dead, all possessing a hunger that can never be satisfied, forever bound to consume, their ranks growing with each victory and rising again after each defeat. The Great Hunger is described as an ‘abhorrent rot - a lingering stain’, and it was from these descriptions that I could begin building the bridges between The Great Hunger and vampirism. 

For me you could consider vampirism as an ‘abhorrent rot’ which lingers, like Bram Stoker’s Dracula who festers in his castle that time has forgotten, preying and corrupting the local population, who then after centuries of rot seeks to travel to England to spread his undeath to a new unsuspecting population:

Once the first of the bridges was built it was easy for others to be made and more similarities drawn. I could see the Matagot Hag, the leader of The Great Hunger warbands and maker of monsters as being the progenitor, the vampire who is in charge of this bloodline who births these monstrosities and enthralls mortals with the promise of eternal life. 

The Gregori Gula, the Great Hunger’s big scary monster, who can be brought back to life in game by sacrificing one of your thralls screamed vampire to me. Just the image of a thrall having to go into a crypt and give their blood in order for their vampire overlord to rise again was too good not to act upon.

Even the Raverous, the thralls at the mercy of the infection, became these mortal characters who have been enthralled or wish to serve these vampires. In their service, these mortals become more bestial as they wish to become more like their undead masters, by consuming flesh and drinking the blood do they believe that they can ascend up the food chain like Renfield in Dracula. 

For the Plague Hounds I thought they could be werewolves, those mortals who on the path to vampirism found another more alluring one with more guaranteed changes.

Making all of these links and fleshing out this warband was such a fun exercise in creative writing, to the point where I began to think where these particular vampires could physically exist within the world of Trench Crusade. I thought France would be a great location as it is the European country with the most castles and I could only imagine that number increasing with the forces of Hell being unleashed upon the world. So maybe they inhabit one of these castles, perhaps its location has been forgotten in the ever shifting trench lines of the Great War, and so in their castles, or trench keeps do these vampires wait and rot, increasing their numbers with each village enthralled and warband defeated. Each vampire house vying with each other for control of populations and elevation within their self contained food chain. For only the most cunning and monstrous can hope to thrive.

Now as an avid vampire/undead miniatures enthusiast I already had an idea of how I would go about bringing this warband into (un)life on the tabletop. For Dungeons & Dragons-related reasons I already had the 'The Vampire Court' STL collection from the Abhorrents faction but hadn't gotten round to getting them printed. This project was definitely the excuse I needed as the miniatures in this collection fitted perfectly with what I had in mind.

Alberix, Vampire Oldblood was the perfect fit for my Matagot Hag, as he embodied the monstrosity I was looking for in my vampire progenitor.

The Crimson Order Knight was an automatic pick for my Gregori Gula. The fact that it has wings helped but what really drew me to it was its aura of monstrous nobility. For its Dormant Hunger token I decided to use the Mausoleum that came with the collection as it fitted perfectly with the aesthetic I was going for.

When it came to picking what to use for the Raverous and Plague Hounds I decided to cast my net out a little wider. The Accursed Servants from Calden Keep would be my choice for the mortal beings that served the vampires of this house (the largest being perfect for my Dessicated Husk) and the Werewolf Kin Pack from the Wilds collection would represent those who could no longer wait for their Lord's empty promises.

When it came to settling on a scheme there were two aspects which I knew would play a massive part of selling the horror of vampirism, hair and gore.

For the past couple of months I have been using the fibres from the end of cotton buds used to remove enamels during the grimdark painting process. By using this material for hair you can give a miniature an almost uncanny lifelike quality. So I decided to give all my Ravenous and Plague Hounds really matted and dirty hair whilst giving the vampires stark white hair.

The gore was done using artist-grade alizarin crimson oil paint. This has been my go-to for gore ever since the idea crossed my mind. I hardly use it when I paint landscapes but I knew that I would find a use for it eventually. It is very powerful and can get everywhere if you aren't careful but it has such a wonderful finish and you can use it for all sorts, from blood, to agitated skin, you can even mix in some black to make it look even gorier!

As projects go this has been one of my favourites to work on. Being able to bring my love for the gothic and for vampires onto the tabletop was such a fulfilling hobby moment for me and it has definitely pushed me as a grimdark painter.

I can't wait for the next one! Will definitely have to do another spooky warband for October! I hope you are all keeping well.

I've been Painting from the Loam and until next time

Goodbye

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Editing by Sam Franquet