Ben's Stirland Undead - OWAC VIII - Intro Post

I have fond memories of sticking together an Undead Horde box, and using the models to play a campaign against a friend's Empire army.  Little of the undead army survives, but my plan for this army challenge is to resurrect the survivors to fight anew.

Nachthafen, Stirland.  The year was characterised by a plague of bats that seemed to be everywhere in the stormy night skies.  Trying to drive them from his tower one lightning-swept night, the Count, who had been driven to despair by the never ending flapping and keening, fell to his death.  Later that same night, the new ruling family clattered through town, in a black coach with drawn curtains, and took up residence in the tower.  No-one left the tower, until the town militia stumbled out, pale and carrying blank expressions, and holding picks, spades and iron bars.  They no longer speak to their families, but march off at night to who knows where, returning at daybreak escorting carts laden with piles of old bones and rusty metal.

The models are from a mix of sources: Citadel knights, bats, heroquest miniatures, skeletons and screaming skull catapult; Foundry skeletons, mummies and ex-Citadel militia; Westwind vampires, coach and wraiths; Dark Art Studios characters and skeletons; and a few Mantic models from a dungeon-crawl game.  I also picked up some sprues from Wargames Atlantic and Fireforge to replace missing weapons, heads and horses.  This lead to a much bigger variety of scale than I was expecting; I've tried to mix things around to disguise this.  If (!) I am able to paint this all, it will total 2,856 pts, as follows:

Characters: 782 pts

Mannfred von Carstein 475
Undead Battle Standard, steed 89
Wraith 75
Wraith 75
Necromancer 68

Units: 1444 pts

5 Skeleton Horsemen, shields, spears, standard 132
24 Skeleton Warriors, shields, standard, musician 234
24 Skeleton Warriors, double handed weapons, standard, musician 260
24 Zombies, standard, musician 104
5 Wights, spears, shields, heavy armour, skeleton steeds, standard 264
6 Mummies, standard 315
3 Carrion 135

War Machines: 230 pts

Undead Chariot, scythed wheels 78
Undead Chariot, scythed wheels 78
Screaming Skull Catapult 74

Monsters: 400 pts

4 x Bat Swarms 400

My aim is to achieve something like the classic art: a shambling horde under a sky filled with banners and bats.  It will be lead - eventually - by my Mannfred von Carstein, my favourite of the characters in the Undead army book.

I painted a couple of test models, and think I might go with green rather than red as the key bright colour; red has great impact, but green will help the army contrast with my red-and-blue Altdorf army.