Undead Army - 28mm

I thought I'd show you what I've been working on for most of the past year. I started a new Warhammer Fantasy army based on the Mantic Kings of War range of figures. Their undead range is really nice and much superior to the Games Workshop one for around a 1/3 of the price.

This is the army as it stands at the moment including all the unpainted/WIP bits and bobs

It comprises (Mantic names in brackets):

Vlad Von Carstein

Konrad Von Carstein
Blood Dragon Vampire

Necromancer Lord (Mhorgoth)

2xWight King (Revenant King)

Wight King Battle Standard Bearer

3x Necromancers

Necromancer on a Corpse Cart

40 Skeletons
20 Ghouls
82 Zombies
10 Dire Wolves

10 Black Knights (Revenant Knights)

40 Grave Guard (Revenants)
5 Wraiths
5 Blood Knights (GameZone)
9 Fell Bats
9 Bat Swarms
2 Balefire Catapults
2 Spirit Hosts

The stuff in blue is what I am still working on, so I'm getting there with it. I've actually only used the army once as I don't get to play much Warhammer. I do enjoy painting up units and armies though (odd I know!) so its been fun collecting it. All of the Games Workshop models were purchased from ebay, mostly in unpainted condition, so that saved me a lot of money, in total it costs me ~£225 for the lot. When you compare to GW retail prices of £62 for 40 skeletons and £61.50 for 5 Blood Knights it starts to look like an incredibly cheap army.

I'll post up some unit pictures over the next few weeks but in the meantime I've got a shot of the painted portion of the Mantic Kings of War army and one of the skeleton units to get us started.

Mantic Kings of War Army

Mantic Skeleton Regiment

I painted these over an undercoat of Army Painted Skeleton Bone primer. This stuff is fantastic for painting undead and lends itself to a quite unique painting technique. By using very thin paint for the basecoats the undercoat shows through, however as the thin paint naturally pools in the recesses and the undercoat showing through is light it effectively provides a basecoat and shade in one step. By careful colour selection these can be painted really quickly.

I used Vallejo French Mirage Blue for the cloth, GW boltgun metal for the weapons/armour, Vallejo US Field Drab for the leather and GW Foundation Necron Abyss for the shields. The helmet plumes were just given a heavy wash of GW Baal Red wash. The wooden shield backs were just glazed with dark brown ink over the undercoat.

The entire models were then washed liberally with GW Devlan Mud and then everything but the metal was drybrushed with Vallejo Iraqian Sand (like a lighter GW Bleached Bone).

For the weathering the chips on the shields and dirt on the banner were added with a sponge and GW Khemrian Brown. Then a couple of stages of rust weathering powders were added to the metal (MIG Old Rust, then MIG Rust) by mixing them with thinners and just randomly dabbing it on with a paint brush. I think the weathering powders give a more realistic texture to rust than using orange paint, for probably less effort.

The last stage was to wash the eye sockets with a couple of coats of GW Aysurman Blue wash and then pick out the eye balls with Vallejo Pale Blue to give them the appearance of glowing blue eyes.

The bases were painted GW Cathyan Brown, drybushed Vallejo Iraqian Sand and then covered with patchy dead grass. The grass is Steppe Grass from Antenociti's Workshop. I think its parched, dead look works well with the undead.

Mantic Skeleton - shows the effectiveness of the brown ink wash over the bone undercoat on the shield back

Mantic Skeleton

I'll post up some more units soon.

No More Room in Hell - Battle report

One of the many things I've been busy with this past year is getting figures and terrain for a skirmish game called "No More Room in Hell". It's a light hearted 28mm zombie survivor game which draws heavily on popular zombie films like the Evil Dead and Day of the Dead etc.

It involves some really nice mechanics for example new zombies are spawned from a "dice grave" which has a starting level but every time a firearm (or other noisy weapon) is used the "to hit" dice are put into the dice grave. This has the effect of rewarding stealth early on, but equally when it all goes down there is a nice build of pressure as the zombies reach a critical mass where the more zombies you shoot down the more are likely to spawn next turn.

It is possible to pick a gang of survivors who can swoop into each mission like Black Ops and carry the day, but far more fun is had from assembling a bunch of misfits contemporary with the start of most survival horror films. Indeed there is one class of character called "sheeple" who's only purpose is to get eaten by zombies as they pathetically fumble with a box of shotgun shells trying to reload.

I finally got round to playing a game recently with Jon, where we played a simple rescue mission. We both took a crew each of survivors and the objective of the game was to get to a central building, ascend to the roof, surviving whatever horrors were lurking inside to rescue a scientist, and then escape off the table with him.

As it was the first game we played with an odd mix of terrain and figures. I had picked up some cheap toy cars and a helicopter that were about the right scale, and we used an Infinity building I made with a Anisty pipefarm, some paper shipping crates and some of Jon's 40k ruins. Overall it was a pretty decent set-up considering.

The figures were mainly Hasslefree adventurers, with some Infinity minis and one I sculpted.

I started with Zombie Hunter Kev and 3 sheeple soldiers in the SW corner where they were hoping to approach the building from the rear through the Imperial Park (Jon has some odd terrain - A Space Marine arboretum being his pride and joy!)

Chainsaw wilding Ash took his band from the NW and Jon's crew lead by William came in from the NE. Keen to try and get their hands on some supplies both crews explored the "survive locations" nearby. However this didn't go so well. William found an old man hiding in a shipping crate who then proceeded to follow him round for the rest of the game preaching the end of the world and reducing the crew's Guts score. Ash faired even worse, firstly opening a shipping crate full of rancid offal, the smell of which drew zombies from all around, permanently raising the zombie threat level for the rest of the game. He then found a wise cracking kid hiding in the pipefarm, who also tagged along. No cool guns for anyone!

Jon's leader Harby had already got his crew to the front of the target building, but elsewhere things were starting to heat up. Zombie hunter Kev had got trapped in a long melee with several zombies and had lost all of his support crew and was now very alone and deep in hostile territory.

He's behind you!

The dice grave had built to a very high level (>30) and things were looking very grim, but as William explored the abandoned police riot van a loud explosion was heard in the distance, drawing the zombie's attention - the dice grave was immediately re-set! Harby took advantage of the lull to lead his crew inside the building and begin working their way up to the roof.

The rest of the crews tried to form a perimeter to keep the zombies out and leave a path to the board edge for escape. As Harby worked his way up Zombie Hunter Kev also made it into the building and barricaded the back door as a group of 6 zombies tried to batter it down.

Jon's favourite character, an old lady called Madge with a hunting rifle was picking off zombies at will, but Ash's crew were sucked into a melee with a zombie horde and all his men were dragged to their deaths before the zombies could be killed.

As Harby secured the scientist the zombies finally broke down the back door and Kev was quickly overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Ash quickly realised that only his chiselled chin and massive chainsaw could save the day so he charged into the building and began laying about him with his whirring prosthetic chainsaw limb. Outside the end had surely come for Madge as she and William were trapped in melee with three zombies, William killed two before he was dragged to his death, but against all the odds Madge punched the remaining zombie to death with her bare hands! There was more to this old lady that an antique hunting rifle and nerves of steel.

Ash cleared the ground floor as Harby came down the stairs but more zombies were already pouring in through the front. The two heros locked eyes and nodded, Harby escaped out the back door and Ash fired up his chainsaw and prepared to hold them as long as he could.

Harby makes it off the board with the scientist in tow

As they fought their way free of the handful of zombies baring their way Harby and the others heard the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw splutter and then die as it ran out of fuel...


Jon and I had loads of fun playing this game, it really is one that doesn't take itself too seriously, but the basic mechanics are intuitive and work well (and dare I say it realistically). There are some really nice touches in the mechanics, I've already mentioned the dice grave, but the way the hero characters get weaker as they get injured particularly in melee is good (basically Wounds=Attacks). Using D10's also helps to give more gradual increases in skills and abilities between survivors. This is not a game where the good guys always win, we got the impression that the standard horror film ending is about the best you can hope for - one or two plucky heros make it to the chopper and freedom, everyone else gets eaten, as happened here.

From end to end it was about 2hrs playing time and it was only the second game we had played (the first being a quick free-for-all practise right before) so it plays pretty quick. Will definitely be trying it out again and I'll try and get my University club interested as well.

More Lead - Spartan Hoplites

Or should that be plastic?

I've long been an admirer of the Immortal Miniatures range of 28mm classical greeks. The owner and creator of the figures had let the line slip a little over the past year, distribution had been transferred to North Star Military Figures and most of the metals were no longer available, so it was a welcome bit of news a couple of weeks ago to see that Warlord Games had bought the lines up and were going to start producing them again.

I'm a follower of North Star on facebook, where they often post news of limited bargain deals they are doing. This week they announced they were selling off their remaining Immortal stocks at knock-down prices. A box of 24 Spartan Hoplites for just £7.50.

Now these figures are cheap enough anyway (RRP £12), but I couldn't resist this deal so I decided to snap up 3 boxes for the princely sum of £22.50 for 72 figures! They arrived the next day, which was frankly incredible at this time of year, but when I opened them I quickly realised the Spartan frame was not an upgrade, but an additional frame to the basic 24 hoplites, with 8 bodies and various right arms and heads. This meant each box in total contained 32 bodies well over 50 right arms and heads, but only 24 shield arms.

I'm therefore planning to use Instantmold to make 18 additional shield arms from greenstuff, and then make 6 slingers using the remaining 6 spare bodies, making sure they are the ones in tunics and no armour.

I'll use these guys in Hail Caesar as units of 18, giving me 5 units of Hoplites and 1 small unit of skirmishers. I've had a long look at Hail Caesar and the unit sizes don't really work for me, so I've scaled them down, I'll detail it in a future post. I'll probably make up 2 as Spartan/Lacedaemonian elite hoplites and 2 as levy hoplites and maybe the last lot as allies. 96 figures and a 200pt HC army for £22.50.

Yet another project and a big pile of plastic, I've already got a pile of over 100 28mm celtic types to do something with...

Narrative Game

Apologies for the time since the last post, I've got distracted with various projects, some of which I'll probably get round to showing on here. I've built up a ~6000pt Vampire army made up of ebay purchases and lots of Mantic's fabulous undead range. I've also been sculpting some of my own figures for a zombie survivor game (more to come soon on this).

I did get together with a couple of my good gaming friends last month though and finally managed to persuade them to have a game of Warmaster Ancients with me. I pretty much used all the figures I have, didn't worry about points values. It was Imperial Rome against Carthage, and I'd guess it was about 3000pts vs 2000pts respectively.

I came up with a quick narrative scenario that the Romans were on a patrol from a main camp and starting cutting up rough in a local village (OK it was a Dark Ages village, but we won't worry about that). The Carthaginians with a sizeable quota of Gallic allies appear on the scene and ambush the patrol, and the main Roman army then turns up to save the day.

6x4 board with the village about 8" square set up ~24" from the Roman board edge and 30" in from the left hand board edge (so roughly central just in the Carthage half of the board). The village is surrounded by a stone wall and so all units behind this count as defended.

The Romans deploy first with 1 unit of legion, 1 unit of archers and 2 units of auxilliaries and 1 leader. The rest of their army deploy as normal near their own board edge.

The Carthage forces deploy as normal.

The objective of the game is to control the village by having 1 or more core units inside it and no enemy units.

It is quite a challenging scenario tactically, because the both main armies need to decide whether to try capitalise on successful commands to try and get forces into the village (either to support or attack), or to try and advance as normal with a solid battle-line. The Carthaginians also have a difficult decision of how early to commit their best units 

In this battle I took command of the Carthaginian forces and Jon and Jan took command of the (evil) Romans.

As the initial ambushers Carthage moved first, but only the Numidians on the left flank moved at all! The Gallic centre and the Spanish light cavalry on the right wing stayed put. Not the start they needed to try and sieze the village before the bulk of the Romans could arrive.

In response Rome got one big legion brigade moving and in the village the commander sent the archers out to get a range on the gauls and moved the auxiliaries up to the wall.

Roman Archers looking a little exposed.

The middle period of the battle saw a lot of manoeuvring but no deceive combats. The archers frustrated the gauls by inflicted confusion on them and the Carthage skirmish screen began to lose odd stands to the main Roman force's artillery and archers.

The Gauls, strangely reluctant to move off their hill and get stuck in.

With the main Roman army now forming a solid battle line to either flank of the village and with their cavalry wing threatening to sweep through the Carthage left flank it was looking decidedly dodgy for them, even though at this stage it was still 0vps each.

As were playing to a time limit the final turn was predictably silly! I charged with most things that could into the village, but despite taking some stands off the Romans all the fights were lost and the Gauls pulled back, the Romans deciding to hold their ground. The Spanish light cavalry on the right managed to sweep right around the Roman's flank and attack their skirmishers in a rare moment of success.

In their last turn, as we knew it was time to call it a day Jon and Jan declared charges with anything that could! The Romans in the village leapt over the wall and charged the demoralised Gauls, while their cavalry on the Carthage left smashed into the Numidians. Both main wings of their battle line also piled in. The results were predictably devastating. Most of the Gauls were wiped out and there were break-through charges aplenty. The only real bright spot for Carthage was the Spanish cavalry chewing through the skirmishers on the hill at the back.

As an impenetrable mist descended onto the battle field the picture was far from clear cut. A count back showed a narrow Roman victory on VP by 85. However no-one was left in control of the village due to the hot headed leader of the patrol!

This was a fun game to play and it was a shame we had to call time on it when we did. I've played a lot of tournament/campaign games where the player going last almost always wins due to being able to call charges where they can wipe out a unit, but leave themselves horribly exposed, knowing there can be no counter-charge as they know it is the last turn.

In this game it was fun to do and I'm glad we got stuck in and rolled some serious dice, but it always feels a tiny bit unsatisfying when a game is nicely balanced and you don't get to see how it would have played out normally. I'm keen to try out a similar scenario in the future though, its good to play something a bit different as most of the games of WMA I play are 1250pt tournament style ones.

Dark Age Buildings

I bought four buildings from a company called Total Battle Miniatures a while back and have got some paint on them now

This picture is of the "Great Hall" and a small wattle and daub dwelling. I've also got a 2nd dwelling and a "workshop" which is about half-way between the sizes of these two. The Great Hall is definitely the star of the show and will make a great centre-piece for a game.

Even though they are sold as Dark Ages, I don't see any reason why they couldn't be used for Late Roman, Northern Europe setting and possibly the workshop and dwellings all the way through to ~1600AD. As I understand it the Romans in Britain encouraged the move away from round houses to rectangular ones, so I'm happy to sub these in for a game of Gallic types against Imperial Romans as a rebellion or something.

On to the buildings themselves - they are not too expensive and I think they are worth it for the cost. I bought them from Maelstrom Games; unlike most MG stock they are not discounted normally, but I waited for one of their frequent 16% off vouchers and bought them then. So it was Great Hall - £6.75; Workshop - £4.20; Dwellings - £2.10. The resin casting quality is not too bad, but there are some problems with bubbles up around the eves of the thatch and the base of the buildings.

On balance I'd recommend them though. A nice quick way to populate a 10mm table.

Carthage Commander

I've been very quiet recently, got sucked into 28mm for a while; Mantic Undead, Dark Elves for Warhammer and some zombie survivors. I think I'll start to post stuff about these as well. I figure its probably better to post regularly and be a little less focused, than to drop the frequency of posts and keep it restricted to Warmaster/10mm only. If you've got any thoughts let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile I have finally finished my Carthage army to 1250pts, which is the level that is commonly played round here. This fellow is one of my Leaders - he's a magister millitum Numidian commander figure.

 

I tend to use him to command skirmishers or the Numidian light cavalry on my flanks.

Ángel Giráldez 10mm painting

I'm a massive fan of the work of Ángel Giráldez, who is miniature painter for Corvus Belli and also does work for Privateer Press and Governance of Technology amongst other brands. Not only is his painting style clean and beautiful, but he tends to paint for the mini ranges I love as well.

His most recent update is of a 10mm sculpt of the classic Mordheim personality "Aenur Sword of Twilight".

Something to aspire to with my 10mm painting...

If CMoN is your thing you can vote for his paint job here, and if you're quick bid on the mini itself!

If you like good painting check out his blog - link should also be to the right of this page -->>