Doc's Undead

Hi i dont know if this is the right place (if not then feel free to move it) but after much thought and it being my birthday tomorrow i have finaly decided on making a undead warband and if i get enough money maybe a skaven. Anyway getting back onto topic while i make my warband do any of you have any tips for me.

Doc

Well, I don't know about TIPS, but I can tell you how I put together The Ebon Tower Legion, and see if that helps.

I consigned myself to not wanting Dire Wolves at any point - every strategy I'd read said they weren't worth it, and frankly I agree. So, my model list consisted of a vampire, necro, three dregs, a handful of ghouls, and a handful of zombies.

My initial list featured 2 ghouls and 8 zombies (I like the Night of the Living Dead approach, as long as you don't need too much mobility out of your warband early on) but my long-term goal was to cycle out a zombie every single game and replace him with a ghoul. I also planned on getting a Warlock at some point, so I added him to the list too.

I'm initially a 40K player, and I decided to use circular bases for everyone, as this is a skirmish game, and I don't require any of my models to pull double-duty in WHFB. I also think circular bases look nicer. For important characters, I would be using more scenic 40mm bases, but for most everyone else I'd be using 25mm bases. I decided my Necromancer and Vampire deserved the big ones, while my dregs were unworthy of such large basing - also, large bases don't fit as well on the table as the small ones, so I DO realize I was inconveniencing myself by doing this... However, I'm far more into aesthetics than I am gameplay.

My vampire was a combination of pieces - The model herself was the female vampire noble from the Vampire Counts line. She's a single metal model in a blister pack. I really liked the sculpt, and I've always liked the idea of a beautiful villain. I based the 40mm base with a few pieces from one of the Citadel Hero Basing Kits that had little mounds of resin skulls. I put her forward on the base, and behind her mounted a banner with the Ebon Tower Legion's heraldry on it - it pretty much looks like the icon next to this post. I painted her to match, making heavy use of the new Citadel washes.

You can KIND OF see her here ... admittedly, it's not the greatest shot. Also pictured is one of my zombies, and a small scattering of my ghouls.



My necromancer was an experiment for me... I had seen a greenstuff MASTER who goes by the name Scrybor who posted a tutorial on how he makes all the neat filigree on his Space Marine conversions. I decided to try the technique by creating a elaborately decorated cloak for my necromancer. I styled the character off an old D&D character of one of my opponents and best friends, who was a bookish sort with a skeletal arm from a necromancy accident. I cobbled together a Bretonian footman for the body (they have long hauberks that kind of look like robes if you greenstuff over them), and put on a nasty zombie arm o one side, and an arm holding a staff in the other. From my Empire Militia sprues, I grabbed a head that didn't have an elaborate hat - I'd be greenstuffing a hood over his head anyway. On top of the staff, I put a book-on-a-stick from the Empire Flagellants sprue, and atop THAT, I put a zombie head. All of that went on a 40mm base (mostly because I screwed up the greenstuff cloak, and it stretched out, making him bigger than a 25mm base could accommodate) with a tombstone I got from a pack of Halloween decorations at a craft store.

My dregs were very simple - I cobbled together three angry looking outcast-style characters from the Empire Militia spues, and did some weapon swaps off of the flagellants, chaos warriors, and a few other miscellaneous sprues to give all three of them an interesting pairing of mace / mace.

You can (again, kinda) see them here :



They're all three in there behind the pile of zombies - yes that is a tyranid scything talon on one of them, I'll explain later.

Ghouls were fun - all of my ghouls are straight out of the new ghouls box set recently released for the new Vampire Counts army. I have a couple of the old metal ones, but I think these look far better and they're far more customizable. I initially didn't like the sculpts too much, but they've really grown on me

To denote different henchmen groups with them, I've been using slightly different color schemes on them. I have a main group of 4, The Harvesters, who I colored an ashen-fleshtone to make them look a little sickly, but still living (remember, in this setting ghouls aren't undead). Another, I largely used regular flesh tones to make him look vibrant and alive... he's the one covered in blood in the top picture. Lastly, I have the one I call "skulltaker" because he's dual-wielding skulls. I used Rotting Flesh as the predominant color in his body to give him a sick green look.

Finally, my zombies. I like to make my zombies look like the disorganized collection of random corpses that they really are, so I started with a box of Vampire Count Zombies, and then kit-bashed a few of them from there. I have 8 (and these are on square bases, because I did them before I decided to use round bases for everything). Amongst the conversions and various paint jobs, I also like to make my zombies look like they're ex-soldiers from other warbands. Hence, the one I've got with a chaos shield and tyranid scything talon for an arm - he's a dead Cult of the Possessed mutant that I animated!

My zombies are:
- Evil, rotten looking guy in typical zombie arms-out pose
- Another evil rotten one, but this one with a sword and arrow sticking out of him (not like he notices!)
- A sword-and-shield zombie with a broken foot, staggering around, too dumb to drop the weapons he no longer knows how to use. He still wears the uniform of his old military unit.
- A fallen zombie attempting to get to his feet again. An axe still protrudes from his back!
- A hungry hungry zombie, tearing out and eating his own entrails. Ew!
- A bone-wielding zombie in green and yellow who has the femur of something VERY large in his hands!
- An ex-chaos Mutant animated for my uses. He still has a strange talon for an arm!
- A hatchet-wielding zombie, taking a swing with the gore-caked blade

You can see a few of them in the picture above.

For painting, I primed all of mine white, and made heavy use of the new Citadel Washes. These things are AWESOME, so if you can get out to a local GW store, get some of these!!! They're painting miracles in a bottle.

Above all, have fun with them! The Undead, imho, are a warband you have have a lot of fun adding personality to, and can be very creepy when you do it right.

VERY IMPRESSIVE & well thought out reply, ebon_tower. There's not much I could add to that...but I'll try anyway. Where you go with your War Band is more a matter of what kind of Guy you are. If you're strictly a gamer & the minis don't much matter, I can't give you much advice...rules have a certain effect on moi . HOWEVER, if you're into the minis, there's LOTS to talk about.

Other than Goblins [LOVE Goblins] the Living Impaired are my favorites...SO I've done [& sold ] a few. My favorite so far is a sort of Strigoi style with a feral looking Vampire, lots of Ghouls, a weedy looking Necromancer, & surrogate Dire Wolves...the War Band had a nautical feel SO it had Dire Rats in lieu of the Wolves. The idea is to envision what the back story is, draw an image of how the War Band in that story would look, AND then make the minis look like the image. Having fun with the project will make ALL the work worthwhile. SO HAVE FUN!

Ah, backstory!

I'm a lore-junky myself, although I'm not 100% on the Warhammer world. I do my best though. Honestly, how the empire fits all together is my weakpoint in WH Lore.

That said, I was in love with how Vlad Von Carstein silently built an undead army for years under the nose of the Empire, and how Mordheim, taking place 500 years before current era, was during his bid for power before he revealed himself as the Vampire Count himself.

So, I made Baroness Cyndane, my vampire warband leader. She's Baroness of a small barony in the southern end of Sylvania, and not particularly well liked by the count. He sees her as an overly ambitious thorn in his side that will only be obedient as far as it's not in her best interest to betray him. Acknowledging her power and battle prowess, though, and her will to gain favor with him, he sends her to Mordheim to gather Wyrdstone for him, promising her power and favor in return. With this carrot on a stick in front of her, he accomplishes three goals : he acquires Wyrdstone for his unspeakable necromantic deeds, he occupies the baroness with a task that will distract her from her own bid for power, and lastly, if she's killed in the City of the Damned... well, then he doesn't have to worry about her anymore, does he?

Cyndane is not so daft that she cannot see what's truly happening, but also sees the city as her best chance to salvage some power for herself. Secretly securing some Wyrdstone for herself, she's attempting to build a loyal power base in her barony. She swears one day, all of Sylvania - indeed, all of the empire - will fly the banner of the Ebon Tower.

Calling upon her bookish necromancer, Valaquin, she begins forming a warband. Valaquin is not warlike - rather, he's a student who can be accused only of wanting to know all there is to know... including forbidden knowledge. As Neitzsche said, "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you." Still, whether he can be deemed innocent or not, Valaquin did as he was instructed, and raised a warband from the graveyard just outside of town. His thinking was, if the soldiers are already dead, they will not suffer pain or fatigue, nor greif or fear. They would not require food or water or rest, but rather a handful of expensive - albeit easy to transport - ritual tools and reagents to keep animated.

My dregs are devoted man-servants and devotees. Marcus was shown mercy for the crime of murder for his eternal servitude to the baroness. Wilhelm was taken at an early age, and raised to be the baroness' own house boy. Björn was a delusional mad man who imagined drinking the blood of his victims would grant him vampiric powers like his dark mistress.

And off they went, into the dark streets of the City of the Damned...

Ebon Tower has already given you some good advice (i´d like to see the necro by the way), but personally i would go with more than two ghouls in my starting warband. Just reduce the number of zombies. Ghouls are your only henchmen that can get XP and become heroes, so it is a good idea to get some early on.
My advice for a starting warband is:
Vampire
Necromancer
3 Dregs
4 Ghouls
5 Zombies
To afford that you can only buy cheap equipment - but that should not be a big problem.

A lesson I learned painfully late in the game - we're 7 games into our 21 week campaign, and I have yet to see a LGT roll...

Hi the plan for a undead warband has been delayed as i didnt get any undead models,so i will have to buy them one at a time which i think is better because it gives me more time to convert and paint them. By the way for the necromancer i was thinking of this model from reaper unless any of you have a better surgestion.


Doc

That my good man, is an excellent choice!!

Character, dynamic and pleasing to the eye.

VERY COOL mini! The shard in her staff could be done up in a Wyrdstone effect...definitely has possibilities.
Doing the War Band up one or two at a time has a lot of good points. As you develope a feel for the subject, you can pick up JUST the right mini for what you want to accomplish AND it affords you the opportunity to lavish attention on each piece...also works REALLY WELL if, like moi, you don't have a helluva alot of $s.

This is another Reaper [I LOVE Reaper's stuff] Bad Babe I've developed a fondness for:

Aaaaargh!

Stop showing those GORGEOUS Reaper figures!

My wallet can't stand it anymore!

Must... resist...

must... resist...

Buying and painting one mini at a time sounds like a good plan.

Now, I don't know how much painting experience do you have, and although is temping, IS VERY TEMPING to start with the MAIN CHARACTERS (as usually they are the best models), if you are just starting to paint, maybe will be wiser to start with a couple of "henchmen", so you can elaborate a color scheme you like, and gain confidence for the Heroes.

Best wishes.

magokiron wrote:

Now, I don't know how much painting experience do you have, and although is temping, IS VERY TEMPING to start with the MAIN CHARACTERS (as usually they are the best models), if you are just starting to paint, maybe will be wiser to start with a couple of "henchmen", so you can elaborate a color scheme you like, and gain confidence for the Heroes.

Best wishes.

EXCELLENT ADVICE! EVEN for a VERY experienced painter, it's a good idea to start with the less spectacular minis. You'll find with each piece you'll get a bit better; SO...if you start with the pretties, they'll be, at least slightly, less well done than the henchmen you did last.

Im going to practice on some empire that i got yesterday then use them for Rieklanders as this will be the first ive done anything model wise. Im now going to go back to the reaper site and look for some more minis i like.

Doc

Just keep in mind that if you use Reaper minis... or any non-GW minis for that matter, you can't play at your local GW store. It's not a concern for most, but it's a concern for some, and worth noting.

ebon_tower wrote:

Just keep in mind that if you use Reaper minis... or any non-GW minis for that matter, you can't play at your local GW store. It's not a concern for most, but it's a concern for some, and worth noting.

That dont matter because i wont be playing there its too far away but thanks anyway. Btw is it worth it to get one or two Direwolfs to help out my vamp or do you think he/she will be able to handle him/herself.

Doc

My vamp's never had a problem handling herself... usually I find Ghouls make a good enough companion. Just don't string her out solo, and you'll be fine. The prevailing thought on Dire Wolves is that they cost way too much for a non-XP gaining unit. I tend to agree.

That said, I took Sprint on the baroness, so she moves 18" when she runs now. Generally, I use this to dart from cover to cover. Also, I hang her back and only use her massive burst of speed to reinforce a particular group of warriors if they run into trouble and need the big guns for support. If you can keep her relatively in line of sight and towards the back middle of the table, she can be dang near ANYWHERE in 1 turn with Sprint. Left flank, right flank, whatever.

Sorry its been so long since iv last posted but i have managed to get on the computer very much, only to check peoples topics not to actualy post anything. Anyway iv decided not to buy that models yet but to make a unique one instead the same goes for my vampire. So here are my ideas

Vampire:
I see vampires to be more monster then human but still seem human anothe not to be killed on site so mine will be on the feral side but not like a strigoi.

Necromancer:
I have a couple of ideas for this one; the first being that he has a Undead Tome/Book; the second being that he has a extreamly 'boney' hand.

I have some more but my mum wants to go on so ill post them later and please tell me what you think (not that theres very much at the moment.

Doc