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...

Merry Christmas Old Skoolers...

Seasons Greetings to all Ye Olde Skool Warhammer fans...

Dwarf Santa (Citadel Miniatures)

Wolf Rider Blood Eye Tribe...

The second C21 Goblin Wolf Rider regiment - the Blood Eye Tribe...

I added banners to both units made from tomato puree tube foil. Designs have been kept very simple as previously discussed.

Wolf Rider Dead Skull Tribe...

Not one, but two new regiments today, both C21 Goblin Wolf Riders (1985 vintage). First off the Dead Skull Tribe...

I bought the figures back in 1985 and painted up one regiment of 16 at the time, but not the other.

To maintain a consistent look (and hide my horrid youthful painting) I repainted the 16 at the same time as the unpainted ones.

I went for a rough look, wetbrushing a dark brown over a black undercoat, then layering colours on the goblins themselves. The wolves are just drybrushed greys and browns over a black undercoat.

Unfortunately I found I was missing two of the original Gobin riders so have drafted in a couple of converted plastic Moria Goblins. Hopefully I can replace them if I can find the originals or replace them...

Red Orc Blood Moon Tribe...

Plans for some concentrated Orc painting in September evaporated as the real world intruded but I have now managed to finish my first regiment of Red Orcs. The models are all Nick Lund sculpted Grenadier UK models.

Given the clear differences between the Perry Twins/Kev Adams Orcs and the ones Nick sculpted, I have decided that the Nick Lund ones (Chronicle, Grenadier) will be a different Orc race with "red" skin as opposed to the more common "green".

I've always liked Nick's style of Orc and even have some of his original pre-GW Chronicle Miniatures which wll be repainted as part of this exercise, even if the original early eighties Orcs are now so small that they will probably now have to downgraded to Red Goblin status!

I picked up most of the miniatures whilst Grenadier UK was still operating but between Mirliton and em-4 I think most are still available.

Finishing these off reminded me I have a pile of the plastic Grendier Orcs that were included in their Fantasy Warriors boxed game (and are still available from em-4 for as little as 15p each if bought in packs of 50). I've not done anything with these yet but as can be seen from these posts at Combat Zone Chronicles, they have great potential...