Necromancer

The first necromancer for my new Undead army. If you are wondering what the model is, it's a witch by Enigma miniatures. I have long been impressed by their sculpts and wanted to see how they looked in real life. They are metal models, finely detailed and easy to assemble. The 20mm base is a plastic mantic base, I prefer the non-sloping sides, it gives marginally more room which is useful when the models are slightly larger than 20mm wide as in this case.

Next on my list is more zombies and another necromancer. If I could get those done by the end of next month I will be on target.

My enthusiasm for painting the models remains, but I must admit that I am a little worried about what GW will do with the new army book, rumoured for a  new year release. I don't particularly like the direction they have taken with the last two books. The introduction of snake-surfing skeletons and large Flintstones-esque models is not appealing to me, so I am half dreading what they will come up with for the Vampire Counts. The new terrorgheist model missed the marked in my mind, a little too comical and unfeasibly large too, so I don't have high hopes. Still, low expectations are easy to meet, so maybe I will pleasantly surprised.

Zombies

I am almost done on the first unit of zombies. The bases need some extra work, I think the addition of some rotting grass and some moss might be in order. I am not happy with the gravestones, they will have to be re-worked in some way.

On the meat of the unit, the zombies, I am pretty satisfied with their appearance. There's a few rough edges, but these are only really visible up close and to those with a critical eye. The mix of different parts works well, as long as you don't mind this more dynamic look. The old shuffling, comical GW zombies from yesteryear are a different breed to this species.

And here they are in horde formation. It's pretty unlikely they will appear in a game like this, but it looks nice!

Zombies almost finished

I am nearly finished on the zombies. They are painted and glued to the multibases, there's still the earth and grasses to complete. I took a quick snap to show how they look ranked together, but the photo was awful. However, a quick play in the photo editor and I almost rescued it - it's still not focussed properly, but I thought the end result was a bit of fun, certainly worth a mini update.

Zombie horde assembled

I have been assembling these zombies for some time. They are a mix of mantic zombies and ghouls, with a few GW bits thrown in. The scale difference is quite negligible, though it takes a bit of cutting and trimming to get them together. There are around 50 zombies here, though I have recently decided to make it up to 60 and paint them in two batches of 30.

The black bases are plasticard. I am mounting them in large groups with a few odd spares, to give the appearance of a disorganised horde. It's a technique used by historical gamers and it gives a much nicer appearance, as well as being more convenient to transport and game with.

The metal and resin bits are from ebay (of course), a selection of gravestones and monuments to decorate the bases, or to become scenery pieces. I am still not 100% sure how to tackle the bases, I want to move away from the sand and flock routine, which is becoming a bit old.

This overhead shot shows that there is a fair bit of real estate to play with. I don't want to go overboard and cram it with graves and skulls, I like the sense of spacing in between the figures. This picture also shows the more natural groupings, the zombies are bunched together rather than lined up neatly in ranks and files. I have already started to speed paint the first 30, so hopefully I will have my first regiment painted in the near future.

Project XX Unveiled

Not so much an unveiling as I have been banging on about my old army for a couple of weeks at least. My main project for the next year will be a Vampire Counts army, partly to recreate my first fully painted warhammer army, but mostly to play once again with one of my favourite armies.

This piece of art is from the original skeleton horde box set. I think there were 30 skeletons included. I actually have some of them somewhere and it would be nice to include them in the new army if possible.

I have been collecting models and ideas for the army over the past year or so. At first I was going to try to recreate the army as it had been in the mid 1990's, complete with metal zombies and lots of the old school metal characters. But after looking around the web at all that is available for Undead generals, I decide not to limit myself in such a way. I will be using a combination of plastics and metals from a variety of manufacturers. I am choosing them mostly for two reasons ; affordability and aesthetics. I have already made a start on the first unit of zombies and a lone necromancer.