Ben D's Skellibobs - June-p Scares!

Weather: Hot

Mood: Stressed

Music - Drive by R.E.M.

I don’t like that OWAC is almost over.

It feels like I haven’t done nearly enough painting for us to be as far into the challenge as we are, but then again I now have a full army of 5th edition Undead Gnomes, so maybe my perspective is a little skewed? In retrospect, I had the foresight to make this army compact and manageable, so to be surprised that it’s completed is… silly? As grateful as I am to past me for making the decisions that led to this cleared slate, I have trouble trusting it. Something feels off still, unfinished maybe.

Ah well, it’s probably just second boot syndrome. Anyway, Bones!

Another 20 Skellibobs, the sister unit to the first blob of Skellibobs, this time done up with a purple undercoat. Although they’re not as dark as their siblings, I’m still pleased as punch with the emotional color of this unit, especially with their bright red weapons. Actually I love the red so much that I’m redoing my Death Guard army so that I can use that red for all of my little plague marines’ weapons.

The only thing I’m not sold on is the banner. I think it needs a fish or a sausage, or something horizontally inclined for that hand to grasp. Part of me wonders why a unit of skeletons needs a banner to begin with since morale isn’t really something they’re worried about on account of not having a life they’re motivated to protect. I think the reasoning I settled on was that necromancers and vampires need something to point at while giving orders, and maybe Gneil wasn’t feeling particularly inspired the day he raised these 20 bony tonics.

Finally, we wrap with the army’s second necromancer, to make sure that the Skellibobs go where they’re told. I decided that I was allowed to have more than one artistic inspiration for this project, and so I found this old piece from WFRP.

This is Ian Miller’s depiction of Heinrich Kemmler and his entourage, done for The Terror of the Lichemaster for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game. I’ve never been too convinced that an undead army could pillage a village, but there’s something lively about the reanimated menaces depicted here.

They have… aura?

Are they… corpsemaxxing?

Beats me. I’m just here to drool adoringly at the linework of this early Miller illustration, thirst over the vibrancy of the palette, and bask in the atmosphere of one of the coolest Warhammer art pieces to ever exist.

So then I painted a Heinrich Kemmler.

If you’re wondering how Gneil the Gnome got it together again after Gnome-mageddon, to put it succinctly, he didn’t. Lost and injured after his failed siege of the Alpiner Gnome village, the inherent magics of gnomekind allowed him to be discovered by a traveler, who just so happened to be the most vile and infamous necromancer of the Old World since the days of Nagash.

Why Heinrich has chosen to support Gneil’s second muster is beyond me, but certainly this villain wouldn’t waste his time on a venture with no chance of gaining him power. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see…

Anyhow, Kemmler was a great model to paint. It drove me a little nuts, painting this figure, but overall I think it came out pretty okay. 

That would have been it, but I suppose I was feeling one way or another, because then I had three ghosts on my desk, but that’s it!

Ok, maybe I had ten mummies sitting around with little gnome hats. I rebased them, so even if they hadn’t made it onto the army’s roster, it seemed a shame to just leave them in such a sorry state…

And then there were some stands of “bat swarms” that were made up of little charmers. Obviously they needed to go in the soup too!

While the last three units haven’t been included in the initial army list, they seemed like fun additions that can maybe come in handy later on or in different editions.

Month’s Additions 

20 Skellibobs with full command and halberd - 257p

A necromancers - 68p

Total - 325p

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Phew. And that’s it, the 2k for 5e WFB done and dusted.

Good luck everyone, and see you at the finish line!

Ben D's Skelibobs - May-be Haunted

Weather - dark and stormy

Music - darkest of the hillside thickets

Mood - harried

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Hello all! Tonight we're sneaking our post in right under Satan's nose, in the eleventh hour and with great haste. Since there's no time for dawdling, here are the fiends, fresh off the paint tray.

10 Wights on Skeleton Steeds with heavy armor, shield, and full command. That's what these are, uh huh. Not a bunch of noodly skeletons riding behemoth pill bugs.

Okay, they're both, but I have a very good reason for it: I already had three pill bugs. All I had to do was sculpt a pair of variants, blue stuff cast them, and then I had a horde of heavily armored bugs that were in dire need of riders. The decision was made for me, by destiny some might say. Really tiny destiny.

Their lances were probably the hardest part, since by that point all of my patience had been used up. I actually find the result of my slipshod solution here really charming, where all of my lances are curled and flaccid because I couldn't be assed to sculpt them the right way. This accidental choice lends greater comedy and wickedness to the force, as it reflects the necromancers impotence, and yet he's still a moderately sized issue with all those death head bugs and pointy sticks.

The legs were also a bit of a chore, but with the same sort of result. None of these Skelibobs know how to ride pill bugs, and thus their legs are all over the place.

+528 pts

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To round things off for May, I've also finished my gift model (also under the wire,) a skeleton musician that is the right size for a lucky recipient to use it in a normal sized skeleton unit (that is also, presumably, normal sized )

Spooky tin for atmosphere and freshened breath. Onward and upwards! See you at the finish line!

Ready - Ben's D’s Skellibobs - Sc-April

Weather: Wet

Mood: Calm

Music: St. Vincent

Long time no see, fellow nerds. I hope March and April have treated you well. The last few months were a little rough on my end with a big con and a big sick, but having used my first mulligan in three years, I took some much needed rest so that I could come back with the good stuff.

The good stuff being, of course, more gnomes.

Kicking the double-month haul off we have my army’s general, a big old vampire lord on a dragon. I had been waiting years to paint up this pond dragon, having doubted myself and my designs for its destiny years ago, so putting a brush to it this year felt particularly satisfying. In keeping with the skellibobs, my focus was to use as many magical colors as I could, hence the vibrancy of the dragon with its apple green complexion.

The vampire himself was a bit tougher, since his costuming didn’t communicate his station, and I didn’t have room under the beard to do much more detailing. I had hoped that the cape would be majestic enough to convey his dark grandeur, and didn’t want to mix the pallor of his flesh with a crisp white shirt, so I will have ask narrative to carry that weight (until I pick a better shirt color anyhow.)

At this time, I feel as though this vampire has only recently been disinterred, and is perhaps a little confused as to why he’s waging war. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not displeased to be doing so, but he’d rather not be doing it in his pajamas if given the choice, (he wears his funerary dress to sleep, which is kinda cute in a depressing way.) At least the nice necromancer who freed him from the crypt gave him a beautiful cape, a dignified hat, and a spectacular dragon (he’s a chalice of blood half full kind of vampire,) so all in all, things could be worse.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

I know my original list didn’t call for sheep, but I found some sheep, and now my army has sheep in it.

They’re a little off though, as are their minders (who can be run as a standard bearer and musician respectively.)

Oh, they’re dead… 

dead cute.

Because each of the other gnome armies have their pets, Alpine gnomes with their geese and Chaos gnomes with their dogs and donkeys, I felt that the undead should have some critters too. With that said, do you know how hard it is to find FIFTEEN SHEEP?

I found it pretty hard, so that’s why there’s twelve of them and three ghost gnomes hanging out with them. I have this memory of a ghostly goblin army that was printed in White Dwarf when I was a kid, and the ghost paint jobs here are inspired by that article. They kinda look like cheese I don’t want to eat, and since I can’t for the life of me find my original source, I think the next ghosts I paint will be based on the classic blue Spirit Hosts of yore.

Lastly, we have Gneil the Gnecromancer, who has been delving into forbidden magicks (again) and will undoubtably be a menace to his former Alpine allies, considering who and what he’s consorting with. 

Friends don’t let friends resurrect BBEGs.

For a two-month haul, that’s not too shabby. Here are the points for the period.

Vampire Lord on Dragon - 825p

Necromancer - 68p

Total 893

Since the zombie sheep aren’t on the original list anyhow, and the necromancers will need things to summon, I don’t feel the need to tally the points. If they wind up in the army I can put their hq pieces in the front, and if they end up being summoned, I can use them in the back as bodies to flesh out the sheep squad. Anyhow, that’s it for me gamers. Good luck with your projects, and see you next time 

Army Total: 1213/2003

Ben D’s Skellibobs - Febru-Terri-Fying

Weather: Thawing

Mood: Frazzled

Music: Nine Inch Nails

With February done and dusted (we’re getting this one in under the wire folks,) I can safely say that we’ve cleared the ten models a month requirement for the challenge. I counted them all myself. 10. Ten skellingtons, or 100 boney toes. 

Hey, come on out, the rest of you! You’re making me look bad!

That’s more like it. Thank you kindly. 

This Month’s Total

+10 Skellibobs

100pts

I said most of what there is to say about their coloration last month, so in lieu of that, why don’t you look at this instead?

I enlisted my partner to help me construct some of these Halfling villas I’d gotten from TT Combat, to create some fresh set dressing for my future gnome vs gnome action. Since the undead gnome army is likely taken from the alpine gnome graves, I figured it only fit that they’d come back to haunt their descendants. This is my first time working with MDF board, and while it’s not my favorite, I have to admit that they fill a space quite well.

Their stacking capabilities are… poor, but workable. Hopefully they don’t quit their day jobs.

And then here we are, eyeing up all the models done to date. Twenty Skellibobs makes quite a handsome block of halberdiers, don’t you think? I’ve managed to misplace the tufts I was using for this army, so there’s a finishing touch left undone, but they’re otherwise ready for the table. All else that’s missing is some necromancer to raise them!

Total Points

 220/2003

It occurs to me that I’ve forgotten to pick minis to be Wights for these huge blocks. While this might have been a quieter post than most, I now have a new sidequest to add to the other surprises I’m planning for the next four months. Thanks for the attention ghosts and ghouls, and have a safe start to your March.

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Next Month’s Preview:

🎩🐑💀🧠

Ben D's Skellibobs - Janu-Scary

January - Rank and File

Weather: Yuck

Mood: Efficient

Music: Grimdor

http://Welcome back to "Gnomes, but dead this time," where we follow the painting of an army of gnomes, who are this time, undead. Since the backbone of the army is mostly skeletons on foot, the manager of the project took ten of them to task, creating a hopeful dent in the sea of skulls.

"Since this is my second go at painting these clowns," says Ben, "I wanted to try something different. Originally they'd been painted with a ochre-heavy scheme to play into grimdark aesthetics (which were the style at the time,) but this spin I had set to work with the Gallagher palette in mind. I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out, with the high saturation halberds and the blue from within boniness."

 

This first batch actually uses much of the same color set as the Chaos Gnomes did in last season, which feels like quite a cheeky decision, but works out satisfactorily all the same. Bones here start off with a Night Lords Blue (Citadel), and then gradually brighten with Celestial Blue and Trooper White (both Two Thin Coats again.) The same basic technique goes for the halberds with a mix of Corvus Black and Khorne Red (both Citadel) up through Demon Red (Two Thin Coats) to give them that otherworldly cartoon brightness.

While there's a lot to say about this batch now, there'll be thirty more skeletons just like them in the coming months. Rumor has it that the project manager may play with an inversion of the base colors, which is to say that some bones may be red, and some halberds may be blue, likely to help differentiate the units and break up the monotony. Another way to distinguish the sections could be changing the color of their hats, a tactic which we saw in OWAC 7 for the Alpine Gnomes. 

Whatever strategy Ben ends up using however will eventually have to answer to the gods of lore. Where are all these bone-gnomes coming from? What do they want? Why are they so cute? While the word is still out on all of those questions, we do have a statement regarding the history of this force, and elements that may resurface as the project progresses.

"In 2024 I hosted an event for my LGS called Gnomemageddon where the earliest iteration of the skellignomes invaded a small village on the orders of Gneil the Gnecromancer. While story has it that he died that day in the shadow of his Abomin-umpkin, maybe that's not how the story ends. As far as I know, gnomes in Warhammer are quite longlived, so its not out of the question that it might take a little more than a sour fistfight to end the career of such an illustrious sorcerer."

Maybe that's true, and maybe its not, but there’s no time to dally since we've sunk all of our time into taking a really sweet picture of the unit as a whole... minus the frontmost, leftmost skellibob. 

He was not ready for his closeup, and we will shame him later.

 

10 skeleton warriors with halberds, musician, and banner = 120 pts

120/2003

And with that, we’re at the end of the month and this bit. 

Thank you all for reading, and good luck out there!

 

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Next Month’s Preview:

I hope the suspense does not kill you.

Ben D's Skellibobs - Intro Post

 Well Owackers, its that time of year again (take a shot,) where we pledge our axes to a cause and dedicate the next six and a half months of our hobby lives to making something beautiful. I, like the rest of the mugs on this blog, have had a whole year to think of something cool to do for OWAC 9, and I figured I’d do something a little bit different to spice it up a bit. That’s right, this year’s army will be good old fashioned Undead, bones and warts and all…

Wait…

What’s that?

Why are they so small?!

Alright, as per usual (three years running bay-bee) I’ve made it my goal to gnome it up, and this time is no different, except for it literally being different because these gnomes are of the boney variety. Some Halloweens ago, our lovely Byron made a handful of minis to celebrate the spooky season, and as the story goes, I jumped in with two feet. Originally, a number of this horde were a force I made for Dragon Rampant, but after I finished two armies of gnomes for the Warhammer system, I simply had to redo the whole thing so that they’d all match!

There’s been much talk about the Field of Bones amongst participants given the shape of the year ahead, and to make certain that I won’t take any arrows to the knee, I’ve formed a force that should be plenty easy to accomplish before the summer. Should 2026 do me dirty, I ought to be able to manage about 10 skellibobs a month, with plenty of surprises waiting in the wings in case things go smoother than expected.

Here’s the list in all its ghoulish glory.

Undead Lord - Vampire Lord on Dragon - 825 pts

2 Necromancers - 68 pts/each

20 Skeleton Warriors - Full Command and Halberds - 257 pts

20 Skeleton Warriors - Full Command and Halberds - 257 pts

10 Wights - Full Command, Spears, Shields, Heavy Armor, Skeletal Steeds - 528 pts

Total - 2003 pts

I’m personally delighted by this collection of miniatures, not just because they are a continuation of a theme, but because this force has afforded me the chance to sculpt more and use pieces from my collection that I’d been saving for a special occasion.

 

I can’t think of many things more special than our community’s annual project, so I’m proud to haul out this tiny pile of lead in celebration of the new year and the ninth official Old World Army Challenge.

 

But wait! There's a rub! This year's OWAC has an underlying theme: your project has to draw inspiration from some Oldhammer Art!

 

 

Here is the virgin cover of the 4th edition Undead Army book, illustrated by David Gallagher. Its gaudy, busy, and full of pop, so of course I had to pick it as my piece to draw from. While the undead in my army are gnomish and are beholden to their quaint sensibilities, I can at least draw from Gallagher's palette and general vibe. With any luck, by the end of the challenge you'll be able to look at the army and then at the painting, and nod sagely from the commonality of it all.

 

 

Best of luck to all participants, and a hearty thank you to our organizers! Be well, and paint wisely!

Ben's Chaos Gnomes - Month 6

Sometimes, things come to an end, and you can tell the person responsible for the thing let out a huge sign of relief as if to say, "finally, I am free of this burden."

I do not feel this way, what with it being the last month of OWAC VIII and my penultimate post, but I thought that was a funny way to introduce my own beasts of burden, these baggage trains for the chaos gnomes. 

They're made with dog pack masters (the gnomey part) and old lead ponies I painted like donkeys (the ponky part?) All of the baggage is hand sculpted by yours truly, and the bases are old cavalry 25*50 glued poorly to a 25*25, because I like the long footprint that exists in its own space. Once I found a website that let me pick my own base dimensions, and I had printed a 10*200 oval, which is to say that this is incredibly tame by my standards (the oval is another story altogether that I promise to tell someday.)

I also gave one of the donkeys a hat so that the other donkey could be jealous of the donkey with a hat. I'm sorry... Ponky with a hat.

There they are...

I also ground out another unit of warriors. I regretted not having more red gnomes (many of them were night lords blue,) so for my last complete unit of the year, here are my red skulls.

Are they part of a cult? Who knows! They've got their own flag, does that count?

Finally, we have two very angry dogs. Last time when I said "I don't think I'll sculpt an entire unit's worth of hats," that was because I'd sculpted these hats, and it helped me decide that maybe I had better ways to while away my time on this earth than the making of 20 little big hats. These though, I've no regrets on whatsoever. These hat dogs have big personalities, and like the geese of last time, will serve as unit filler, or honorary champions if none are brave enough to step up to the challenge. They need names however, but I'm still much too crispy to come up with anything good. If you think of something spiffy, put it in the chat and if it's good, maybe you'll see it in next months role-call.

And here's the month's haul all together, 24 bases of badly behaved bellyachers.

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TOTAL

20 chaos gnomes warriors, great weapons, shields, full command

2 baggage trains 

2 pepperoni petzas

348 pts 

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Man, I can't believe it's the last month of OWAC VIII. 2025 has been a bit of a nightmare, but it's wild that we're halfway through it already. I guess the only thing between us and the unknowable future is the wrap-up huh? 

Well, I hope we're all here to enjoy it. 

Congrats to everyone who's made it this far, and condolences to those we lost along the way. Fingers crossed we'll all read each other next month.

Ben's Chaos Gnomes - Month 5

 

Well my fellow fanatics, another month has passed, and that means it's time to assess the harvest.

First off is a pair of hobgoblin heroes, who I couldn't light to save my life. They might work well as unit champions or accompanying heroes, although I doubt the points they'd cost would be worth it. That said, I counted them as heroes because the math makes my brain light up.

Probably the thing I'm most excited about right now is the Gamers Grass tufts I decorated their bases with. This army's base situation has been kinda plain, so I got some Alien Turquoise and Pink to liven things up. They certainly look otherworldly, and add a bit of pop I'm not sure I'd realized was missing. Being that I'm so happy with the results, I'll likely go back and add some of the tufts to the rest of the army to tie it all together.

Then since it's a rank and file month, I cranked out the penultimate unit of Warriors. Skull masks are all the rage with this band of evil gnomes, but I kinda wish they had big hats too. Even though they didn't hit the spot for me aesthetically, I still think they turned out well. I've decided that I'm going to leave the banner til later, when hopefully I'm more inspired. We've still one month to go and then the grand wrap up, so there's plenty of time to make beautiful things happen.

2 hobgoblin heroes, hand weapons

59 pts each

20 chaos gnomes warriors, full command, double handed weapons, shields, heavy armor

348 pts

+466 pts for May

2763 pts total