Battle Yak Sketchbook (Spooky Edition) | Blightergast Reanimators (Patreon)

Happy Halloween everybody! With the world being the way it is right now, trick or treating and parties are probably not how a lot of folks are going to be spending the holiday. It may be safer to stay indoors, but you can still get into the Halloween spirit by enjoying something spooky! Watch some monster movies, read a thriller novel, play some scary video games, or break out some horror-themed tabletop adventure!

And so, in the spirit of indulging in scary stuff, I want to share this Halloween edition of the Battle Yak Sketchbook, showing off some character and creature designs for one of the spookier Battle Packs, the Blightergast Reanimators. This Battle Pack already consisted of a host of nightmarish abominations, but these were far from the only horrors that the Reanimators have to offer. The following sketches are of some of the other designs from the Blightergast Reanimators range, and represent potential figures that will be made in a future release.

Blightersturn Reanimators

Firstly must be revealed the Reanimators themselves! Previously, only their Wargast creations have been shown, but these madmen and women of demented and uninhibited science have been known to take to the field of battle themselves, the better to gather fresh specimens for their experiments.

Reanimators of the Blightersturn school represent newer practitioners of the forbidden science of Reanimation, whose skills have yet to reach the heights of older, more experienced Reanimators. Nevertheless, these deranged souls have embraced their dark art utterly, even experimenting upon their own forms to increase their physical longevity and durability. The reanimation panoply attached to their bodies is festooned with all manner of mechanical implements, for both combat and field experimentation. Pray that the Reanimators simply kill you! Don't let them take you alive!

Dregborn Thralls & Miscreations

Unlike the mightier Wargast creations, these wretches represent a rougher, less successful series of the Reanimators' efforts. Assembled from the weak and lowly, the unhealthy and unseen, the dregs of society whose absence will not be missed by those of means and authority, they are the Dregborn Thralls. Many are used as assistants and labor by the Reanimators, given simply commands like 'carry this tank of embalming fluid' and 'fetch me that severed leg.'

Occasionally, should the Reanimators find themselves with a surplus of such refuse, they may be sent haphazardly into battle to swamp the enemy in great groaning hordes, the stupid creatures dragging down and ripping apart the foe with sheer numbers. Occasionally dark inspiration may strike a Reanimator, and a few thralls are experimented on further to create horrors like the Dregborn Miscreation, who are grafted with fleshy-sacks pumped full of explosive chemicals and sent shambling into the enemy ranks to detonate like walking bombs.

Wargast Reaper

The Wargast series of creatures embody the efforts of the Reanimators to create effective and reliable soldiers for the field of battle, and they are ever conducting wilder and more insane experiments to produce more fiendishly destructive expressions of their dark science. The Reanimators are not blind to the advantages of air superiority, and have produced the monstrous abomination known as the Wargast Reaper.

With technology that can defy gravity grafted into their bodies, Reapers are able to float high above the ground and can move rapidly through the air. Without the need for legs to support them, Reapers often have their lower torsos amputated and replaced with all manner of dreadful weaponry, such as slashing blades, hooks for capturing hapless targets, or chemical pumps for dousing the enemy with vile substances. Their flight technology is soundless, allowing Reapers to descend upon an unwary enemy in total silence, before unleashing a bellowing inhuman shriek and launching their attack.

Wargast Gallowglass

Representing a triumph in Wargast creation, the Gallowglass is everything the Reanimators dream of in their living weapons - ruthless, efficient, nigh-invulnerable, and hideously destructive. The finest reanimated flesh has been augmented and grafted to advanced technology, durable armored plating, and deadly powered weaponry. A Gallowglass can tear apart the enemy in close-quarters with their super-human strength and brutal toxforged techno-armaments, or bombard the foe from afar with plaguetech chemical blasters.

Gallowglass are assembled from only the most monstrous specimens that the Reanimators are able to get their hands on, often using captured criminals locked away for the most unspeakable and violent of crimes. Gallowglass are left with a few stunted fragments of their former maladjusted personalities to give them an extra brutal edge in combat, and they retain the capacity to experience a dark and twisted delight in the violence and death they unleash.

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There are even more monstrous beings in the ranks of the Blightergast Reanimators than what's been shown so far, creatures like the Wargast Blight-Crawler, the Vandalizer Engine, and the nightmarish Blightergast Reanimaestro, but I'll save those designs for another time...

One day the Blightergast Reanimators will appear on a new Battlecry Poll, and voters will be given the chance to see more of these frightening figures take shape as 3D printable minis! In the meantime, the current Blightergast Reanimators range can be found on the Battle Yak Miniatures online store! And speaking of the store, the Beyond Mortality miniature range is currently on sale at the store for 20% off, but only until the end of Halloween! Use the discount code: YAKOWEEN to enjoy the sale! Or become a Patreon and get the entire range for signing up!

Have a fun, safe, and above-all spooky Halloween!