Smashing Through The Rank And File

   This week has been a bit of a breakthrough in terms of getting bulk loads of figures done, the long weekend is what you are expecting me to say, but mostly it's the fact my son has learnt to put himself to sleep, which has freed up an extra hour in the morning before work and untold hours afterwards, and that's not including weekends.

   With that in mind and still waiting for my Old Glory Napoleonic's back order to arrive I went back to my neglected 15mm projects - Middle Imperial Romans and Undead. I still plan to split my Romans in half for their first proper game, before I really get on with buying and painting an enemy for them, but I've also had half a thought that they might end up fighting my Undead army in the short term as well. Using Lion/Dragon Rampant means it doesn't really matter what is on each side. With a unit of Legionnaires being 6 points to a regular skeleton unit's 3, I'm going to need to get cracking with undead, but as a quick reward for each Roman unit finished, I think they will make both projects move fairly quickly now.

   So, this is what I managed to achieve this weekend:

   Firstly, I finished the remaining two units of Legionaries, this time with shield transfers that I discovered that Forged in Battle had added to their range since I bought my army - this now leaves me the issue of going back to the two units that I painted shield designs on, which I am not looking forward to.

   Next are my Medium Cavalry. I had already finished one and a half of these units - which was when I found out my plan of 12 cavalry to a base wasn't going to happen, however, this has the happy accident of meaning that I get 3 units out of 2 packs of models, which is nice. Thankfully, sorting out the transfers on the finished models was a simple process. I have half a plan of buying another couple of packs and giving them a different shield design but that is a problem for later.

   Lastly, the the Romans, is a unit of Auxilia. I got 3 units wearing similar gear to my Legionaries as part of my kickstarter, so when I wanted to round the force out, I purposely picked something different. A bit of a shame I can't get printed shield designs for these guys, but they are supposed to look a bit like a rushed raising of local militia rather than a standing unit.

   As I was on a roll, I decided to get some undead units moving too, just to keep myself a bit more refreshed. Nothing particularly exciting here as its a lot of quickly painted mass infantry but I've got two more units of regular skeletons, a unit of skeleton archers and a mass unit of zombies off my painting list. The regular skeleton warriors are made up of a slightly better mix of figures than the first unit I did, as on my second order I realised Alternative Miniatures have a pack of skeletons with swords. I probably need to put a small pennant on a spear in each unit, but I'm not too worried at this stage.

   I've put the zombies on a base 50% deeper 80/60 instead of 80/40 with an extra 11 figures to try and make the unit look like a cheap horde - in game play it won't make any difference but I like the idea of fantasy zombies being so easy to kill that units need to look intimidating - I also think Sword and Spear uses bigger bases for horde units, so it will allow them to work with that ruleset too.

As always with my 15mm stuff, I apologise for my photos. 

As this whole 15mm thing is a bit new to me and 15mm fantasy ranges seem to be the worst for websites that don't have pictures of the product, I've had a bit of a splurge and bought a single unit for a few different fantasy armies with the plan of seeing how they look next to other models in different ranges and whether my 24 infantry and 8 cavalry fit on a base - I don't want to place an order for an army and find I'm a few figures short and I really don't want to be buying a whole army and finding I really don't like the look of the models - so expect to see a few projects appearing that don't seem to go anywhere for a bit.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2019

   I had been putting zombie figures aside all year in anticipation of the fabled Zomtober, but I decided just before the event that I didn't want to commit myself to the rate of painting required and instead I would paint a zombie whenever I had an idea for a colour scheme or I just fancied painting one*. This didn't turn out to be many.
   Mainly, what it turned out I fancied painting was the spare zombies from the Walking Dead: All Out War sets, I'd picked up but that had fallen by the wayside. I keep meaning to buy more packs, but the price for 3 figures keeps putting me off by the time I have a few in my basket. We'll have to see what next year holds.

*I couldn't miss out of the fun of Zomtober entirely

 

 

 

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2017 - Week 5

Zomtober zombie count: 10

   I am going in early this week with my last submission for Zomtober* and, as ever, the last week is always a struggle, more so in a 5 week month! So, this week I have decided to throw a curve ball, instead of zombies or survivors, I have gone for undead farm animals. . .

* See my wife's new blog to

see why; Thingswelearntin

   So a few months ago I saw a kickstarter that had a zombie cow as one of it's rewards, even with the postage starting to make buying a single figure seem expensive, I couldn't say no, so when they added a zombie sheep and pig I was already in, so why not? As this is a shorter painting week, I have aimed low, with only the sheep and pig on my painting table, but the cow will come in due course. I have kept the colour simple to for a similar reason, I want to focus on the zombie side of the models and not worry too much about getting the breed spot on.

Thanks for reading and if you have some time, please read my wife's blog, she is a much better writer than me.

Zomtober 2017 - Week 4

Zomtober zombie count: 8

    It's that time of the week again, so here are my next 3 entries for Zomtober 2017, the last 3 zombies from the Walking Dead; Walkers booster. I had planned to paint the booster as a single week's entry but as I quickly painted up the 3 I had ideas for, the remaining ones took longer for me to get going with.

   The end result was a slower painting process where different parts of the models made sense at different times; with the black girl being inspired by Colgar6's first zomtober entry *, the redneck in the middle screamed southern Trump supporter (make America great again hat, tattoos and all) so has been painted up as such, while the last model was the result of a google search to give me ideas.

   Although the last couple of these models proved a struggle to paint, I would rate them higher than most of the plastic zombie ranges I have come across so far, only held back by availability issues if you don't want to buy loads of survivors to get the zombie models - I would definitely buy another walker booster if Mantic bought a new one out.

*I'll be impressed if you

can work out how

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2017 - Week 3

Zomtober zombie count: 5

   With no major projects on the go at the sec, I have had more time to enjoy painting some zombies and try out some ideas. These three are from The Walking Dead All Out War game Walker Booster and was a pretty reasonable way of picking up extra zombies, at a few pence over £2 a model, they have also turned out to be some of the most enjoyable models I have painted for quite a while.

   I used these three to try out a few ideas I have been toying with. Black skin was my first big one as I never got it looking right, until I found a recipe from one of GW's Eavy Metal painters and I quite like the result. Second was trying out old blood, so far all my zombies have had Blood For The Blood God splashed over them, which is fine for recent blood but old wounds dry a horrible brown colour, so I tried to do something like that for the guy in the middle, as that can't be a recent injury. The last thing I wanted to try out was being a bit braver with my detail, the guy that painted my Somali Pirates for me managed to get numbers and names on them, while I can't manage that detail the black guy's t-shirt was calling out to have something on it, so I found an NFL team's shirt I thought I could paint.

   Just in case anyone was wondering about scale I have included two Studio Miniatures zombies as a comparison and while the All Out War model is slightly chunkier, I am really not worried about any differences in their sculpts. This pack should fit into my horde really nicely.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2017 - Week 2

Zomtober zombie count: 2

   Pretty much all the comments from my last post were about how combining Zomtober with a current project was a great idea, well that didn't last long. This model was part of a Fenris Game order from earlier this year, as I didn't know what I was doing for Zomtober it meant I at least had a figure for the first week, while I worked out a plan.

    I have done nothing special with this guy. Standard white guy in jeans and a t-shirt, I gave the t-shirt a pokemon go team design just to give the figure something interesting about him but that is what makes me like him, he is the sort of zombie I would expect to see loads of come the apocalypse.

I am going to try and up my game now, as a single zombie a week for a month a year does not a horde build.

Thanks for reading.

Zomtober 2017 - Week 1

Zomtober zombie count: 1

   So Zomtober is here again, and much as I spend all year holding off my zombie themed projects and trying to plan what I want to do when it does happen, it always sneaks up faster than I am actually prepared for. With this year being even worse - a single day to get my first entry finished - I need a plan.
   With the deadline fast approching I decided to do the most logical thing, paint a zombie from a project you are already working on, in this case, Frostgrave. I have been sorting out my remaining sprues and bags of metal from the nickstarters and the various bits I have picked up on my travels and trying to get them ready for the table, in this list were a zombie and skeleton that I wanted to have as options for a bit of necromancy. Using left over mercenary bodies and upgrade bits from the cultist sprues I kit based one of each, aiming for the zombie to look fairly fresh, while the skeleton has been out there for a while now.

   While I have been mostly working on my Vikings recently, it hasn't stopped the steady trickle of Frostgrave related bits getting painted and while I am doing a post on Frostgrave undead, it made sense to include these guys too.

Check out Pulp Citizen's blog for more details on the Zomtober festivities.

Thanks for reading

By hook or by crook

   As part of a 40k project I attempted half a dozen or so years ago, I bought myself a mad old cat lady* from Reaper Miniatures, the plan stumbled pretty early on and didn't really go anywhere, which left me with a figure I didn't know what to do with. Since then, she has alternated between my lead pile, bits box or sitting on my 'to do' shelf and she seemed perfect to become part of my project tidy up.

* I'm not even going to 

try and explain why, here.

   I see this mad old woman as the feisty member of my band of zombie survivors, back in her days zombies wouldn't be allowed to roam the streets willy-nilly and all that, and by jove, if she has to take her walking stick out there and show them some respect she will.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2016 - Week 6?

   At the end of this year's Zomtober festivities (?) I had a couple of half painted figures still on my desk that just hadn't quite made it to the finish line, but I was loath to put them away to do for next year*, so the only logical thing to do was to actually finish them. A month later and here we are**.

* Zombies and Survivors are

for life not just Zomtober.
** Yeah, a month - I can explain?.

   The hench guy from Heresy Miniatures sci-fi range, but if you ignore the gun style I think he works as a modern guy, while the blond figure is from Hasslefree Miniatures and takes a lot less explaining. In keeping with my theory on how a survivor gang should work I have kept automatic weapons to a minimum, with these two only having pistols and bravery to rely on.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2016 - Week 5

Zomtober zombie count: 18

   Not a huge amount to report this week. I played a quick game of Lord of the Rings on Monday to get my mojo back into that game - more to come in the future - and did a little bit of zomtober painting just to keep up with he challenge.

    First up are 3 survivors from Hasslefree miniatures. The girl on the left was a freebie as the order took a while to turn up, the one in the middle was just a fantastic sculpt and how could I not pick up the goth on the right?

    Secondly, I have my last unpainted Nazi zombie, the officer. Again a great sculpt and really had to be done, just a pity I didn't finish him last year when I did that theme!

   Lastly we have, well I don't know what it is, but it felt really Halloween to me. It is from Black Tree Designs and was just too cheap not to add to the rest of what was a sensible order.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2016 - Week 4

Zomtober zombie count: 17

   I don't really know what to call this but I suspect I have been watching too much of The Walking Dead, while building plastic Rubicon Opel Blitz's. This lorry, however, is a cheap resin Opel Blitz off ebay (it looked easier to build the cage on the back) and I bought a few more German zombies just to fill it up and complete the look.
   The guy in front is made from a Warlord German sprue with zombie extras that was built as a backup plan in case I couldn't finish this or it looked terrible, as it is, he can now just join the rest of the horde.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2016 - Week 3

Zomtober zombie count: 8

    This week I dug through my lead mountain, properly this time, and resurrected a few half painted or just sprayed models from last year. So this week's contribution to the challenge is another 5 zombies and 2 survivors, plus a bit of scenery I plan to use for both zombie games and Afghanistan.

     Zombies are a mix of Wargames Factory's Zombie Vixens (I still have another sprue to go) and a Studio Miniatures zombies, all bought for Zomtober 2014 . . .

     The first of 5 planned survivors, both are from Studio Miniatures. As you will see with the next 3 as well, I am trying to put together a group who feel like they might be fairly normal people. No swat teams for me just yet.

      Lastly, a quick bit of scatter scenery I thought would work for both zombie games and games set in Afghanistan.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2016 - Week 2

Zomtober zombie count: 3*

    Carrying on with my plan of not actually having a plan I started painting a few different models and these 4 are the ones I chose to finish, as they share a theme together. They are all from the same ebay seller and, while being really flat sculpts (every one has been bent into a more interesting pose) the sculpting is fantastic.

     *Skeletons not counted

Left to right we have: A Ratman skeleton, 2 goblin zombies and a goblin skeleton, all of which will be added to my fantasy undead army in the hopes it will reach Dragon Rampant size in the future.

Thanks for reading

Zomtober 2016 - Week 1

Zomtober zombie count: 1

    I haven't gone into this year with a set plan other than going through my lead mountain (seems churlish to pretend it is merely a pile at this stage) and paint up anything that fits the tag zombie, so expect an eclectic mix of ranges and periods, although I am going to try and paint in batches that match certain themes. I will be buying a few models specifically for this but I am attempting to mostly clear out old, unfinished stuff.

    As the opening week of Zomtober is only 2 days I have kept my first entry to a manageable single figure, but made up for this by making it a big figure. The Zombie Beast is a Warlord figure from their Project Z range and it is a lovely figure. I choose not to use the stop sign arm as I felt it's not very walking dead to rip a sign out of the ground and hit people with it, my zombies are based much more on the TV show, The Walking Dead.

      I have tried to make this guy look more like a hench gym user than a mutant zombie but when I get a photo up of him next to another figure you'll see just how big he is, that's a 50mm base he is standing on. . .

      While not Zomtober themed, I have also finished off some other figures that I thought I would add to the end of this post. I realised at the weekend that my Bolt Action German army was suffering from a massive lack of panzerfausts in useful places, so I went able fixing the problem. The assault rifle armed men are all from the Warlord plastic Grenadiers box and the rifleman at the front is the partner of a flame thrower guy that is being used in a different project and looked lonely by himself.

Thanks for reading.