Hobby WIP: Undead

While working on my Militia, I realized that I didn't really have a plan for actually multi basing them. All their little stands were going to cause me some issues. I didn't feel I had a steady enough hand to remove the stands with a knife without cutting myself up pretty good or destroying the model... neither of while were appealing side effects. Facing an obstacle but no real time constraint, I kicked the can down the road.

Like (I would assume many hobbyists), I have accumulated some undead models over the years. As I was inventorying what all I had, I realized that with a few purchases, I could easily make a small Undead army. I also realized that those purchases would be a mix of manufacturer models, and that the mix would let me test out some basing ideas I had for the Militia. I decided to jump on in. Be wary folks, the undead approacheth!

I mean, to be fair, they are coming this way, but they're shambling, so....

I had a good number of Games Workshop skeleton bodies and bits from various purchases. About 2/3 are already painted up and could count as Skeleton Warriors. The other 1/3 I could easily convert to a regiment's worth of Skeleton Archers. And I had picked up some Hordes Bane Thralls months and months ago since they seemed like cool models.

The new purchases were multiple packs of Reaper Mini's Skeleton Warrior Archer and Skeleton Guardian Archer, which will let me make another regiment's worth of Skeleton Archers. The other purchases was a Regiment of Skeleton Warriors, and a solo mini from Reaper: Darkrasp, Evil Priest because wow is that a good model for a necromancer.

The undead are going to let me play around with Milliput and my usual Vallejo Paste and see what good techniques might be to base the Militia.... and get a nice little undead army as a bonus.

Needs a few more models...

The Skeleton Warriors are mostly a "proof of concept." I have enough old Games Workshop models that I only needed a handful of Mantic models to make the units I wanted: 1 Regiment and 2 Troops... with enough spare models to do up a Regiment of Skeleton Spear Phalanx sometime in the future! With so few models, I tried just a little putty to join the stand to the MDF base, and then scrapped some Vallejo paste around to make the base a little more rugged.

They probably all came from the same graveyard.

The Skeleton Archers were a second approach, embracing more of the putty and paste and trying to see how awkward it will be to work with in slightly closer quarters, and see how little rocks and terrain might work. Since so much of the unit is from mono-pose Reaper models... the unit has a bit of an "Attack of the Clones" feel to it so far. I tried to reposition a few arms here and there, change orientations, and add quivers in a variety of spots to help break the units up. We'll see how they look all painted up and with the other GW models...

I started on these guys ... wight away. Yeeaaaahhh

Last up were the Wight Hordes. The models came with slotted bases, which I had built them on a while back. Were I building these out of the box, I'd ignore the bases and file off that slot bit on the models. As you can see... it's hard to camouflage the stand itself. I think I'll need to add something (flock, bushes, who knows) to the base eventually in order to complete it and get it looking good. I haven't really decided on a basing scheme for this little army contingent yet, so we'll see how the unit progresses.

So for these, I mostly just played around with cork board and large amounts of Milliput, seeing how/if I could incorporate larger height differentials into the larger MDF base. Unfortunately, with the bases of the models themselves to work around, it's a little rough.

The models I'm working from the first pic on should get me up to around 1000 points, with some Mantic Zombies and another regiment's work of Skeleton Spearmen yet to go. Those units have a lot stands on the models... so I'll get the basic technique down with all this stuff, and then be ready to move back to the Kingdoms of Men Militia or finish off the Undead Spears/Zombies.

I've had some cancellations recently, but hopefully I'll get another game played (and written up) soon!