We Hunger - Valtteri's Undead - February Rank & File 2

Intro

My goal for February was to paint a large unit of Zombies with a Zombie Ogre as an unit filler. If I had enough time I also wanted to paint another Wight to lead the unit and Screaming Skull Catapult, one of my favorite old Undead models!

Goals.

And I'm happy to say I succeeded! I even painted two Wraiths as an extra. Behold what my Necromancer dug up:

Painting

I painted the Zombies the same way I did my Skeletons, using enamel washes (see my previous post). This time I did varnish the models before the wash and I think it actually made the process a bit cleaner. Since the Zombies are a bit more involved I did give them some pre-highlights ans shading, as seen on the pics below. Most of the highlights on the clothes are simply done by an overall drybrush of an off-white color. The skin tones are layered. I mostly went with a single layer of highlights but some models like the Ogre have a bit more.

Pre-shaded Zombies before their wash.

Ogre before his wash.

Juicy.

The Zombies and the Ogre are 3D prints from Red Bard Games and they are really cool. They have a perfect old school vibe, details are amazing and the price isn't too bad either. My only complaint is that they're a bit big, closer to a modern 32mm than the old 25mm scale.
I used a few different skin tones but they all ended up pretty similar, thanks to the same enamel wash on them all.

The deadites in all their g(l)ory.

With the Screaming Skull Catapult I wanted to introduce a bit more colour variety than with the rest of my skeletons. This was done by giving them a coat of a bone coloured speedpaint (Pallid Bone by Armypainter) and then drybrushing them with bone/beige colours all the way up to white. This was then given an enamel wash like the rest of my models.

Speedpaint/After drybushing

The Wight's colour scheme was once again inspired by the 4th edition Armybook.

The two Wratihs are from later editions (6th ed I think?). I sort of painted them as tests for the proper old 4th ed Wraiths I've got waiting. No enamels on these! But this time the secret ingredient is a final coat of ultra-matte varnish to give them a really smooth finish.

Smooth operator.

Banner & Shield

This month gave me another banner to paint and a freehand challenge for one of the Zombie's shield.
This time I remembered to take some step-by-step pictures. Below you can see how I painted the banner.
The paints are thinned enough so they don't completely obscure the printed picture. This requires several layers for good coverage.

The shield design is taken from the Army Book photos. With freehand I start with the general shape which I then fill and shade. After that I paint the lines and details carefully with black and add some more shading where needed.

Forgot to take pics after steps 3 and 4...

Battle Report

Arguably the best part of this month's challenge was that I got to play my first game of 4th/5th edition Warhammer! We used the 5th ed rules with 4th ed Army Books.

My opponent wielded a 1000p Dwarf Army against my Undead. We decided not to use any magic items to keep the first game relatively simple. Neither of us wants to play "Herohammer" either, we'd rather play games where the troops carry the day, not hyper-equipped heroes.

The background music was spot on!

The game started of pretty well for me. My Skeleton Archers scored some lucky shots and my horde marched forwards aided by Vanhel's Danse Macabre. Those Dwarfs wouldn't stand a chance!
Their Flame Cannon was a bit worrisome though. Luckily their aim was off and my shields held the flames at bay.

The lines advance.

It's getting hot in here.

My Skeletons charged into the Dwarf Warriors and even managed to score a few wounds. The Dwarfs easily passed their Break test though with the aid of their General. 

The Slayers charged my spear wielding regiment which was just as well, I could fight back with 2 ranks. The Skeletons held firm and felled a few Slayers. Too bad the berserkers turned out to be unbreakable and immune to fear. Oh dear.

Battle is joined!

Then the tide started to turn. Both of my Wights were slain when the Dwarf heroes issued challenges and my Skeleton regiments were slowly starting to dwindle, losing each turn of combat by a few points. All of my attempts to raise some more skellies were dispelled.

Things went from bad to worse when the Dwarf general challenged my Necromancer to a duel. I glanced at his stats and was surprised to see that he was a better fighter than my Wights. So naturally I accepted! I should've looked at the Dwarf's profile before I started to swing that pink sword around. MY Necromancer was cut in half by a single blow and my whole army crumbled to dust, with no Undead heores to keep them together. My army was completely wiped off the board by the end of turn 3.

Duel!

That pink sword was just for show.

Since the first game was over so quickly we decided to have another battle with the same armies. This one went much better for me. I positioned my Necromancer at the back with my archers and gave him some offensive spells. But again I just couldn't break those Dwarfs and they passed every single Fear test. This time I wasn't wiped out but still lost decisively by victory points.

No matter! The games were great and I had a lot of fun! And for the next battle I'll have some reinforcements and new tactics. Victory shall be mine!

Stats

After February, my statistics look like this. 

January
25 Skeletons w. Swords&Shields, including Command Group	214 points	25 models
Wight	37 points	1 model
Necromancer Champion	163 points	1 model
2 Skeleton Ogres	72 points	4 models
2 Mummies	90 points	2 models
February
2 Wraiths	150 points	2 models
20 Zombies including Command Group	88 points	3 models
Zombie Ogre	16 points	2 models
Screaming Skull Catapult	74 points	5 models
Total	904 points	45 models

Next month I plan to paint some cavalry so I can charge those pesky Dwarfs in their flanks! But first I need to chuck some flaming skulls on their heads...

Goals for March.

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!

 

+++++

Next Month’s Preview:

I hope the suspense does not kill you.

The Legion rises - Valtteri's Undead - January Rank & File

First month of my first OWAC done! And it went great!

I managed to avoid getting sick (not a mean feat with little kids in daycare and school during winter), painted all the models I intended to and a few extras to boot.

My plan was to paint a nice block of Skeleton Warriors with a hand painted banner, a Wight to lead them and my first leader model, a Necromancer. I knew this wasn't going to be too difficult, because I had already painted two units of skeletons as a test, so I had the process down.

Behold! The start of my legion:

(These skellies were painted before OWAC9 but the Ogre is brand new)

Dr. Kemmler's painting clinic

I don't have a narrative for my army yet, though I might get inspired later on. So I'll focus on painting.

January goals.

These skeletons are 3D prints from Celtic Miniatures. Like I wrote in my first blog post, I didn't feel like hunting down dozens of old plastic skellies. I really dislike stripping plastic models of old paint jobs, not to mention cleaning mould lines from already assembled minis. These prints were really easy and fast to clean and assemble and they have a perfect old school aesthetic. And great shields to boot!

My painting method is dead simple:
First I spray them with a white primer.
Then I do the bases: dark brown followed by drybrushing of lighter browns and greys.
I then paint everything that isn't bone: swords, banner pole etc. I only paint a base color and maybe a single highlight.
Then I clean up the bone with white, correcting any mistakes I did previously.

Base colours. Ha. Ha.

After the skeletons are basecoated I moved onto the shields:

These were primed black.

I painted the red patterns first, because it required multiple layers and was messy. Then the dark grey parts, tidying up the red borders. 

The skulls were first painted brown, then layered with a bone colour. They were further highlighted by a light beige and pure white.

Metal parts were painted last, no highlights.

Shields progress.

I glued the shields on in preparation for the final part - cracking open a bottle of liquid talent.

Ready to rise from the grave.

Some of you might have guessed it already. I'm of course talking about enamel washes, namely the hobby sensation that is Streaking Grime.

In case you're not familiar with this method I'm going to give a quick breakdown.

You need:
Thinned enamel paint aka wash.
Thinner/white spirit. I highly recommend an odourless one!
Old crappy brushes (these paints will ruin your brushes).
Q-tips or make-up sponges.
A metal pallette.
A pipette/dropper makes using the thinner easier and less messy.

Tools of the trade.

Enamel painting couldn't be simpler.
You drown the model in the wash, wipe most of it off with a Q-tip dipped in thinner (remember to change the Q-tips after a few models, they will not last long) and then wait for a day or two until the paint has dried.

Below is an example of this. The third pic is after the paint has just been wiped off, the fourth pic is what it looks like after a day.
You will end with a nice, moderately dirty model with a nice matte finish. Remember to use bright basecoat colors, otherwise you will end up with a drab model.
I used a few different tones for colour variation (Mig & AK Streaking Grime and AK Dark Streaking Grime).

It might be a good idea to varnish the model before using enamels and thinner, if you brush them too hard you might dissolve some of the previous paint job. I don't bother with plastic models but do it with metals, just to be safe.

Rise my minion!

Painting the banner probably took me as long as the whole unit of skeletons. It's an old-school printed paper banner from the 4th ed. Army Book which I then painted with acrylics and a brush. The hardest part is the black lining at the end. Thin paint, a good brush and a prayer to the old gods does the trick!
As a kid I thought the idea of painting the black&white banners to look like the ones in the Army Books was a cruel joke. No mortal could do it. Well, turns out you can!

Childhood ambitions: Unlocked.

The Wight was painted just like the skeletons, only with more colours. With the Wight I did some preliminary highlights on the bone, cloak and the winged helm and a used varnish to protect him.

I feel like a new man after that bath!

All of my Wights will be painted in the colour scheme of the Army Book, though with more muted colours.

Twins!

You might remember that the Wight on the cover of the Army Book has a menacing green blade. When I started this project I decided that I wanted to give all my wights weapons like that. And because I like to challenge myself now and then I settled on doing them with a NMM-like technique. 

Now, I can't actually paint NMM. My brain just doesn't understand how light reflects and bounces off different surfaces. So I just look at reference pictures and copy them. This works just fine with simple surfaces like swords but with this battle axe I just had to guess. Turned out pretty good though!

Spooky.

The Necromancer was painted with a traditional GW style of basecoat, wash and highlights. No enamel shenanigans here. I needed a change to keep things interesting, And I also wanted to make sure he has more vibrant colours than his dead companions. A pink magical sword just seemed appropriate.                                                                     

He's looks fabulous in pink.

Now wait a minute, why did I paint a Leader when it's a rank&file month? Well, that's because I've never really played Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Sure, I tried it as a kid but it just didn't take off, like I wrote in my intro post.
I really want to play now that I'm building a proper army for the game. With the test units from before OWAC9 I've got a nice starter force but no leader. Hence the Necromancer. Don't worry, he will be surpassed by a more powerful ruler when the time comes. Mwahahaa.

I actually have a game of 4th/5th edition WHFB lined up with a friend next month! Hopefully I'll get to do a little battle report for February's post.

At this point I still had a bit over a week left of January, so naturally I decided to paint some more models! Who needs rest, eh? I painted two Skeleton Ogres (available from Ral Partha) which will act as unit fillers. They count as 2 models a piece for the challenge but since they represent 4 skeletons I'm using that as their point cost. I also painted a few more skeletons to round up my previous unit to a nice 30 models and some test models for Mummies and Zombies. I finished an old skeleton drummer as well after taking pics of the skeleton unit, he will replace the horn blower.

Ogres, pre-shading before the enamels.

Extras.

Participation fee and gifts

Somewhere around this time I remembered that I needed to paint a model for the organizers. I managed to pick up this old spindly Wraith, gave it a quick paint job and shipped it off to Jaakko. I decided to paint him more corporeal than ethereal, I felt it suited this model better. Hope you like it!

Stab, stab, stabbety stab.

To top this month of I bought a bunch of reinforcements from around the globe. 
The sweetest part was these two models, gifted to me from Tom - free of charge! Thanks mate, greatly appreciated!

Best.

Stats

So here's what my painting looks like after the first month:

25 Skeletons w. Swords&Shields, including Command Group	214 points	25 models
Wight	37 points	1 model
Necromancer Champion	163 points	1 model
2 Skeleton Ogres	72 points	4 models
2 Mummies	90 points	2 models
Total	576 points	33 models

With my previous units I already have close to a 1000 points painted, enough to play my first game!

Phew! That was a long post. Respect if you managed to read through it.
For December I'm trying to paint an unit of Zombies and maybe some extras too. See you then!