Wraiths, Werewolves and Ghouls are fine, but what an Undead Army needs are zombies! For my initial 1000pts. army I’ve added a couple of regiments of freshly raised, brain seeking corpses.
Mantic’s zombies and ghouls have a similar look. There are some differences, but from a distance they mostly look like a stupid, shirtless mob.
To help differentiate them on the table, I decided to decorate the zombie bases with tombs and the like, as if the zombies had just raised from the graveyard.
At first I wanted to use GWs Garden of Morr, but when I started with this project it was long out of print and I refused to hunt eBay for an overpriced copy. Since then, GW has decided to bring it back as a web only product. I’m glad they did, as it’s an amazing and characterful kit. I’ve bought one, which I might use for future additions to the army or use it as scenery, who knows.
Anyway, I wanted graveyard themed bases for my zombies, so I bought a couple of Renedra’s Gravestone kits.
I built quite a few zombies in whatever poses I thought looked good, removing them from their circular bases and then used Blue-Tack to mockup the zombie/gravestone distribution on the bases and took reference photos for when it was time to build them. Then I glued them to a few depressors to paint them assembly line style, as I did with the Ghouls.
When it came time to paint them, I went with a pale purplish tone to add another layer of differentiation with the ghouls, who have a pale green tone. My go to washes are from Secret Weapon Miniatures, but for whatever reason I decided to give GWs washes a chance and I bought a bottle of Druchii Violet. And I have to say, they’re awesome.
Don’t get my wrong, I like Secret Weapon’s washes, but they require a more careful application. GWs washes on the other hand, can be used almost carelessly and you’ll get a really good result. Which is great for projects like this, where you want to paint fast. I did have a little fun, blending the purple wash with other colours in some areas, but overall it was just a matter of applying the was and letting it do it’s magic.
With all the flesh done, I painted the wounds, bones and clothes and then Army Painters dark and strong tone as I saw fit. Some of the flesh areas also had little touches of Army Painter strong tone if I thought they needed a little more definition.
The gravestones were airbrushed with two tones of gray and had a couple of drybrushes of lighter shades. And then I carefully applied Secret Weapons Soft Body Black wash to the recesses to add definition. Nothing more.
While the zombies where still on the depressors I barnished them and then applied GWs blood effect and Nurgle’s Rot. Usually I’ll do it with Tamiya Clear Red, but as I was in a hurry I went with GWs blood, and it looks great too.
Once it was dry, using the reference photos as a guide I glued the zombies to the bases, adding some more blood to the bases where it made sense.
I finished the two zombie bases just a couple of hours before my first Kings of War match, which was against another Undead player and we finished in a draw. It was a really fun game, and the only reason I haven’t played more KoW games since is that I still need to paint a few minis.