With the parameters set for my series of Warhammer Fantasy based challenges, I leapt into action, reanimated with motivation and an unhealthy witchlight glowing in my eyes.
Where to start?
The Bretonnians were already without unpainted models; the Wood Elves and Skaven probably needed the guidance of new army lists before making decisions about units and basing, which left...
...the Vampire Counts, my first actual army, built around the frankly excellent value Skeleton Horde and Skeleton Army boxed sets in all their late 80s glory and added to over time with a mishmash of units cobbled together from what I could lay my hands on cheaply.
This is the army, of the many I 'started', that actually got painted. This is the army that battled my housemates' Wood Elves and Orcs through university. This is the army that I took to the GIMPS gaming club in Sheffield 20 years ago and went to my first ever tournament with.
However, somewhat appropriately for the risen dead, this army is showing its age. Not only in some of the classics sculpts, but also in the low effort and frankly shoddy approach I took to painting them, valuing speed over skill.
A good example of these are the skeletons at the core of the army. Most were done with nothing more than a black base with a hasty white drybrush over it. Shields were plain black with a drybrush of silver, whilst weapons and armour were sliver with black haft. I hadn't even put a design on one of the banners (the other one, a metal Grenadier model, was painted by my brother).
Basically, they were a bit rubbish.
On top of that, there were numerous breakages, missing shields and limbs and ropey bits of painting to address
The first order of business was to address the colour of the bones, and for this I employed the somewhat appropriately named contrast paint Skeleton Horde, which turns out to be really useful for painting skeleton hordes.
Completely by accident, my old rush job of drybrushing had actually created the underpainting effect that when combined with contrast paint becomes the 'slapchop' method, and so with bones covered, shields tidied up and weapons and armour given a coat of Agrax Earthshade to make them a bit rusty looking, the Skeletons quickly got to a point where they are now not going to embarrass me.
They're not going to win any prizes either, but that's not the goal here.
I also decided to draw a clear line between my spear-armed armoured skeletons (above) and my more basically equipped horde. It remains to be seen whether Warhammer: The Old World allows skeletons to wear armour, but I thought that having a definite visual distinction between the two units would be good.
Therefore, as well as the spears and armour I set about giving the larger unit some white accents in the form of raised crossed bone insignia on the shield that would fit them, and skull transfers (I'm still working with only 40k decals) on the flatter shields.
Additionally, I reworked the unit standard, removing the paper banner and replacing it with a cobbled together construction from my bits box.
I'm not sure if the plain white is a bit much, or whether even if it is the skulls need some chipping to not look so new, but for now I'm happy with both units.
I might also return to the gravestone unit fillers (Renedra plastics were a godsend to the early days of Cheaphammer) and give them a brighter drybrush to get the details to pop a bit more.
With the skeletons done to a point I was happy with, attention turned to the zombies.
Good grief, what was I thinking!
These had been 'painted' with Goblin Green skin, Bestial Brown clothing and liberally daubed with what I presume to be Devlan Mud wash.
Here's a closer look at them in all their shiny horror.
Frightening stuff.
I didn't want to go through the laborious task of stripping all that plastic (always a much harder task than with metal), especially as the models underneath are not very good anyway.
And so I set about highlighting the flesh with
Elysian Green, adding a bit more variety of colour to the clothing (still generally browns, but more varied), picking out wood and rope to be different than the cloths and giving any metal a tidy up and coat of Agrax Earthshade for rustiness
The final result is still not amazing, but at least they done look like someone has defecated on them any more.
In addition to the unit proper, which includes a few non-zombies amongst their number, I also tidied up the newly-risen dead I used for summoning purposes, ekeing out every scrap of value from the single box of zombies I bought.
I have the means to do quite a bit more of this to up the numbers of raised zombies I can field before I'm done. I think that might be the last task I do when I think the well of my Undead bits box has run dry.
Cheaphammer was driven by me just not having the money to add whatever I wanted to my armies, I'd also never kept my focus and so my collection of miniatures was always somewhat eclectic. This meant that when I finally joined a gaming club I repurposed miniatures from other abandoned projects to allow my Vampire Counts to get to the standard 2000 points for gaming.
This led to the creation of my Spirit Hosts.
Empire Free Company painted grey, drybrushed white and stuck onto bases with gravestones to become Spirit Hosts.
At its core, the idea for this unit was sound. However the colour I'd painted them made it look like they were unfinished rather than ethereal.
One coat of Hexwraith Flame later and they're much more spooooky.
This is still a cheap as chips unit concept, but it works well enough. If I was using Age of Sigmar Nighthaunts or Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead in exactly the same way, this would be a much more effective concept.
I'm tempted to see if I can use cotton wool to add mist to their bases for a more ethereal feel, but as it stands, I'm happier with these than I was as it's much clearer what they are meant to be.
The only other miniature I've worked on is this one, who is a conversion of my old Liche (just a head swap) I did when I was trying out Guildball with unofficial miniatures.
All I've done here is rebase him for use as a Necromancer. I also rebased the team mascot (a bat hovering over a gravestone) and have put it in one of the units of skeletons.
And so, most of the grunt work on improving this army is done. There are some areas to potentially revisit, but for now I'll turn my attention elsewhere.
Conveniently this actually gives me just about enough to field the 1000 point army necessary for the first scenario of Circle of Blood, led by Renar the Level 2 Necromancer.
I think I'm probably about 50 points short, but I'm now painting the skeletons and zombies that I never got round to, which should easily fix that issue.
On the subject of painting, I'm counting these as almost every model here has had an almost full repaint. Admittedly in many cases this was a wash or coat of contrast, but they are models I've painted.
Obviously, I won't be taking anything off the Lead Mountain, and I'm not counting the Necromancer or gravestones.
However, it does feel like I've hit the ground running on this challenge.
Acquired: 0
Painted: 97
Lead Mountain: 890
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