Worset the Undead...

Whilst the Tomb Kings might not be an Olde Skool concept, Araby is with the Arabians being included in the WHFB 2nd edition Battle Bestiary. I do have some nebulous idea that once I have finished my Old World armies to look at raising some small armies for some battles in Araby (hopefully after someone has released some suitable 28mm plastic historicals).

Anyhow, today I decided to paint up an old Grenadier UK Giant Mummy (still available from Mirliton) which has sat on the workbench for the best part of a decade and a half. An impressive model at 65mm tall, it was a fairly straightforward paint job of drybrushes with some Devlan Mud washes. When it came to basing I decided he would be the first miniature of the Araby project using Dead Grass flock instead of the traditional green.

I'm not sure when I will get around to paint some more miniatures for the project but he is a start...

In the Northlands...

Unfortunately I have not had too much time for my Olde Skool Warhammer project this year but I have kept it in mind when working on other projects, most notably with my Dux Bellorum Arthurian army. Dark Ages miniature warriors are equally at home whether beating each other up or laying into Orcs and Goblins so when it came to Dux Bellorum I have made sure that the miniatures can be used for both the Dark Ages wargame and WHFB2!

The background to WHFB2 is not as detailed as in later editions which allows for the some interpretation in what can be used. The Old World is largely dominated by humans but all we know is that the ones who live in the north are "technically and socially primitive (11th to 13th century Europe)". Using Dark Ages figures may be pushing the early edge of this time period though there is little difference between a 6th century Saxon and a 11th century one and we are talking fantasy wargaming here...

Consequently my Dux Bellorum Romano-British will form part of a Northern Old World force, possibly allied with other good or neutral races. The miniatures here are shown in their Dux Bellorum sabot bases and comprise of Old Glory, West Wind and a couple of Gripping Beast cavalry.

The Little Bumpton Militia

I painted up these old C11 Halflings (1084-85 vintage) from Citadel a couple of years back, but they are part of my 'olde skool' plans I thought they deserved showing off...

Un-named halfling, Rotundo and Screaming Lord Titch

Cecil Ogre Slayer

Stigwort Facebracket

The Shambling Terror...

More undead shamble onto the field of battle causing terror in their mortal foes!

Another horde of forty Mantic zombies...

I do like these models.

Another forty wouldn't hurt would it?! :-)

The Rotting Horde...

The first horde of forty zombies is now finished!

The miniatures are all plastics from Mantic, with a few Ghoul bodies used in the front row for some slight variations.

The detail on the plastics is superb and the options of spare heads and arms gives the model maker lots of opportunities for customising figures. The only thing to watch out for is ensuring they rank properly given a number of them are leaning or grabbing forward.

I pretty much followed this excellent tutorial from Dice and Brush which has produced great results in relatively little time (just have something else to do during the drying phases!)

A second horde is almost compete and hopefully will be up on the blog in the next couple of days.

Boronn the Wretched

I managed to grab a little bit of time today to finish off the Reaper Ogre Chieftain that has been sat on my workbench for almost a year (hardly time to gather dust given my usual 25 year delay!). He is one of their plastic Bones line and purchased to check out the material as much as it was because I liked the miniature.

Whilst the plastic is not to same as the hard styrene Citadel use and despite it looking slightly vinyl like in the raw, it produces an excellent result miniatures wise and paints up well using standard techniques (I washed, layered and drybrushed here).

The miniature has a very 'old school', almost Ral Partha look to it and I suspect it will fit in well with my old Citadel Ogres bought pack in the eighties when I find them(!) As this traditional style differs from the GW Ogre Kingdom look I decided to paint him in swarthy brown skin tones rather than the original Ogre Kingdom greyish skin I painted the Ogre Slayers.

Incidentally progress on the Zombie horde goes well, lots of block painting, and I hope to start splashing the dip sometime in the week...

The Undead Rise...

Last year I picked up some good deals on the Mantic Undead figures for a future exercise - that time has now come...

I've fancied making up the Zombies for a while now and this weekend I dug them out and stuck them together. Initially I planned to do three 32 figure units but in the end decided to make up two 40 figure hordes for starters.

I've only got as far as undercoating them but they look pretty cool en masse...

As previously discussed I don't hold with the Vampire Counts Undead army concept and reading the the WHFB2 Battle Bestiary it isn't really part of the limited background of the Old World contained therein either, Necromancers are the normal controllers of the Undead. So I need to hunt through Lead Mountain to find a suitable miniature...

Whilst the Zombies are a pretty straight forward painting exercise I have been pondering paint schemes for other Undead elements and any heraldry on shields and flags. Over the years I've seen some exquisite paint schemes of skulls, bats and other ghoulish paraphernalia but it strikes me unlikely that the recently risen dead would have anything other than the remnants of what they were interred with, so whilst it will be torn, muddy and even bloody, there won't necessarily be a lot of skulls and things on show. More on this when we get to the skeletons...