Undead Vikings

The first fantasy army I collected, over twenty years ago, was the Undead. The first historical army I owned was a viking army. I guess there's a certain inevitability about me starting an undead viking force.

I have a few good reasons to be painting this lot up. First, there's a revenants battle board for the Saga game I can use them with. Secondly, I would like to have a fantasy force available for gaming the new Dragon Rampant game when it surfaces later in the year - I am also thinking that I should receive Blood Rage at about the same time, so having a fantasy force of vikings and undead vikings would make sense. Thirdly, most of these models were already built to be used as zombies in a WHFB army, so it only took a couple of hours over the weekend to get the rest kitbashed. As you probably realise, there's a combination of Army of the Dead, mantic undead, and a smattering of historical bits been used. Fourthly, I enjoy blasting through figures like this at a fast pace, far quicker than I can complete commission work. It's early days yet, this is after just one painting session, but I already feel like I have made a lot of progress. Undead Vikings

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Vampire and Wraith

A female vampire and wraith join the ranks of the undead. The vampire is from Avatars of War and is a nice characterful sculpt. The model comes with several options, there are three right arms and two heads to choose from. I went with the wiping the bloody chin option, there are no other figures around like this. The leftover bits will be useful for future conversions.

The wraith is from the Lord of the Rings range, a barrow wight. It appealed to me as far less cartoon like than the usual robed skeleton with scythe. At first I was going to paint it black robes and armour to match the vampire, but decided on ghostly glow in the end, to further reinforce that it is a wraith and not a wight (though I reckon it could be used as either if need be).

The army feels more complete now. The vampire is the general of course, with the wraith her personal bodyguard. She also has three necromancers in her thrall, who she uses to resurrect and control her skeletons, zombies, ghouls and grave guard. The varghulf adds some much needed punch. That adds up to well over 1500 points and I think it could be fielded in a small battle. I also have a corpse cart and dire wolves painted, I want to spruce up the former while the latter I am hoping to replace. There is still plenty more to come with the army, including cavalry and flying contingents, plus more skeletons and some ghostly additions. As ever, finding the time to fit all these things in among my other projects is the biggest constraint. Vampire and Wraith

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Skeletons

A regiment of 36 skeletons, painted and based. These are mostly mantic figures, with a few GW bits here and there, head and shield swaps for a little variety. I managed to paint them quite quickly, around two weeks over several sessions of one to two hours each. As usual, I stuck to thinned colours over a white primer, with glazes and washes doing most of the work for me.

The shields and armour are black, with plenty of wear and rust. The shield design is from the Bretonnian transfer sheet, but I only had 20 to cover 30+ shields, so the most battered got a very crudely painted mock design, which was heavily weathered to cover the differences.

This regiment has been a long time coming. When I started the army about two years ago I wanted the skeletons to be the first unit I painted, but I had a mental block on how to go about it. It was painting the grave guard unit in the style of Skyrim draugr that suggested the way forward with the skeletons. The black armour idea was a happy accident, suggested by a painting competition on the Warhammer forum - this unit will be led into battle by a black armoured vampire. The shields were simply the best fit from a spare transfer sheet. Serendipitous skeletons!

The figures are mounted on 2mm mdf bases from warbases. These are mostly 6x4, but there are also a couple of 4x4 and another four singles at the back, which will allow me to remove casualties and slot in heroes in the front rank if required.

Finally, here's an almost-a-horde shot, ranked up nine wide.

Skeletons

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Skeletons in progress

The skeletons are shuffling onward. Last week they were not much more than a white mass, but now I have got the basic colours applied and started some of the shading. The metal areas are messy at the moment, I am painting them black so am not concerned about pooling, usually I would be careful to mop up any such mess.

My original plan to spend an hour on the skeletons, then an hour's reward on the vampire went straight out of the window. Each session I felt compelled to finish off a particular stage - all the metal areas, all the cloth areas, etc., which took far longer than an hour. After slogging through the tedium of 36 skeletons rags, there was just no energy left in me to move on to the vampire. Still, the horde is well on the way to completion and that's a good result in just one week. The vampire will just have to wait. Skeletons in progress

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Summoned from the depths

For centuries they have lain in the dark, forgotten, overlooked. They have rested, undisturbed, while savage, bearded warriors have rampaged in the northern realms, while orcs have gathered, grown in number, raiding and pillaging unchecked. But now they have arisen from their slumber, their number is great, their purpose unknown. 

It may sound a bit like your average pulp fantasy nonsense, but it is, in fact, the story of my skeletons. They have lain in a box on the top of the cupboard for a good few years (I think I assembled them in 2010). I had always intended them to be the core of my Vampire Counts army, but when I finally got that started I had a block on how to paint them and painted a regiment of zombies, then ghouls, then grave guard. In the past year I have painted Chaos marauders, Saga vikings and Orcs for Lord of the Rings. The skeletons have been on my to do list for a long time.

Over the xmas holidays I have had a break from painting, a good two or three weeks in which I have tinkered with a few bits here and there, but never really felt like taking on a major job like this. On the gaming front I have enjoyed a few games of Saga, a game of Warhammer Waterloo and a couple of dry runs of Mayhem. I have also been looking online at various blogs and forums, finding myself more and more intrigued by Chain of Command and World War 2 in general. So my mind has been flitting from one thing to another, like many a wargamer I suspect.

It was when I was writing my review of the year that I realised how much I enjoyed painting fantasy figures, even though I rarely game with them at the moment. The grave guard regiment and varghulf were the highlights of 2013, so I took down the box of unpainted undead and rummaged through, made a few shield swaps and then pondered. And pondered some more. And then put them back again. I couldn't face a large regiment, so I had a think about a single character. I decided I would drag myself out of the doldrums by entering the Warhammer Forum painting challenge. This month the theme is black and white, and I had always intended to paint up three female vampires - one red, one white and one black. A white skinned vampire in black armour would fit the bill perfectly, and easily achievable in the next few weeks. So I assembled the second of my "brides" - if you are wondering about the first bride, she can be found, started then neglected, in this post. As I was filing and glueing, I thought about where on the battlefield she would be positioned. I often think of characters in tandem with units, and decided that the black bride would have her very own bodyguard of black armoured warriors. Not very good warriors it has to be said, but that's the way it is with brainless corpses! And so the box was dragged down from the top of the cupboard once more, only this time with purpose and conviction.

The skeletons have been primed white, the bones glazed with a brown-grey mix (made from horse dun, dark grey and horse brown). A second glaze with raw umber has been used to pick out the shadows and details. The next step is tedious indeed, painting all the metal and robe areas. I will alternate this boredom with work on the vampire bride, an hour on the skeletons earning an hour's reward on the vampire, that kind of thing. I am pretty confident she will be striding forth into the light by month's end, with her bodyguard hopefully not too far behind. What I will do with them once they are finished is another matter, but for the time being I am just pleased to have my painting mojo back. Summoned from the depths

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Review of the Year

It's traditional at the start of a new year to take a look back at the preceding twelve months, so here's my highs and lows of 2013.

The year started on a very promising note. I was determined to continue trying new games and quickly got some Sedition Wars figures painted up. Well, the painting was quick enough, the cleaning and prep work on the plastic resin mix was more work than usual. The final painted result was worth the hassle. Rather than just get stuck into a game, I checked the forums on a few rules queries and found there were lots of issues with the gameplay, confusion and lack of balance. There was a promise to get everything sorted, but it seemed to drag on and my initial enthusiasm drained away. I started to look into alternative rules sets but didn't get very far. In the end, about mid way through the year, the second consignment of figures arrived along with new cards and new rules. However, these seemed just as unbalanced as the first set and I was really put off even trying the game, which is pretty stupid really when you think about it. Maybe I should just give them a whirl in the new year.

Saga proved to be a far better gaming experience. I have played many a game over the year and while the newness has worn off a little, I still feel that the system has much to offer. I have tried roughly half of the available factions and maybe need to look into new scenarios, but still like the game enough to invest time and money into building my collection of dark ages warbands. The miniatures leave me less excited, I feel that most historical miniatures are adequate and not much more, but am pleased to now have two starter warbands fully painted.

Lord of the Rings was probably the biggest revelation for me this year. It's a decent set of rules with fairly quick gameplay, heavily reliant on the scenarios and background. It works well with about 30 or so miniatures per side, but starts to break down after that as it handles every combat singly. If you are using orcs and have over 60 combats to roll, it can get a bit tedious. While the game is decent I find the minis to be excellent, I can't understand why they are not more popular. I have a sizeable collection of orcs painted and a reasonable Isengard force started, with a Rohan contingent waiting for paint.

The only thing that tops Lord of the Rings figures, for me at least, is my Warhammer fantasy collection. While the official figures have got steadily worse in my eyes, I have enjoyed finding and painting alternatives. My top highlight of the year was adding a unit of grave guard (built from Lord of the Rings figures!) and a varghulf to my Vampire Counts army, though I only got to use them once in a game. I also added a few chaos characters to my army and played a few games with my daemons, but overall it was a very quiet year for the game that was once all engrossing.

When I look at my painting list for the year, it's quite impressive compared to previous years. Most of it is shown here in this review, though I have also pretty much finished a unit of marauders for my chaos army too. I have spent less time on painting individual models, though I do have something nice to post in the new year. I have also managed to add a fair few bits to my terrain collection, so it's been a good year for my wargaming collection.

My highlights for the year then would have to be painting the Vampire Counts, playing Saga and discovering the quality of the Lords of the Rings figures. If only there was some way to combine the Saga rules with the Lord of the Rings figures. Well actually, there is, but I will come back to that in a future post. The low points were probably failing to find decent dark ages figures and my declining interest in playing WHFB. If only I could use my fantasy collection without having to rely on the actual rulebooks. Again, that's something I will be looking into next year. I have some interesting plans and ideas for 2014 and will post about them in the next few days. Happy new year folks! Review of the Year

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