Vintage Citadel Undead Army [PICS] [PIC HVY]

[DeafNala]

WOW...a trip down Memory Lane! You did an EXCELLENT job bringing some really cool old Living Impaired Lads back to life...in a manner of speaking. VERY WELL DONE...& thanks for the memories!

[Pil]

Thank you all!

AWESOME!!

Have you checked out some of the old alternative armies undead models? There are a few rather nice ones... 

I saw someone (was it you?) post some undead dwarves the other day, they were quite nice but I'll stick to what I have for the moment.

Re Dungeon Monsters

Back in the day they were exciting.  I remember getting that set new as a young gamer and thinking they were the coolest thing ever.  Thankfully both sculpting and painting have come a long way since then.   But even the older stuff can look good when well painted as you have shown. 

Now, off to see if I can find some of those skeletal ogres....

I can imagine, 1981 is old even compared to Citadel's 1983-84 pre-slottas. I ordered the Skeletal Ogres from Ral Partha Europe but they were much cheaper somewhere in the US (7 USD for two as opposed to 5 GBP each), I can't seem to find any of them back though, but they should be somewhere (though probably not that cheap anymore), good luck tracking the down!

[rob_alderman]

I hope you don't think I'm referring to the Flintloque Undead models. Alternative Armies also have quite a diverse High Fantasy range including some Undead from the late 80s and early 90s. They used to be one of the 'big Nottingham companies'.

http://alternative-armies.com/Legions_of_the_Dead.htm

You can order the miniatures seperately and you said you needed musicians, there are musicians in some of these packs...

[Pil]

Thanks for posting, I did think you meant the Flintloque ones but these are much more appropriate. I'm not incredibly impressed by the sculpts but I think for regiments they should be fine. Especially the archers are quite nice.

[Blue in vt]

 

A truly exceptional collection and well painted...I love the consistency of your paint work and the way it pulls the whole lot together...love it!

Cheers,

Blue

[B. Basiliscus]

Terrific! Astounding! Marvelous! Gorgeous!

Truly epic achievement you have here.
I really like the ghostly faces painted on some of the shields.

[D@rth J@ymZ]

Nice work on assembling and painting this old school horde. Very impressive.

[Bloodysword]

Love your army.  I'm also a fan of mixing a variety of manufacturers to give variety.  What other army do you use to fight them? 

[oldskoolrebel]

Stunning, absolutely stunning!

When you're using old school miniatures, why don't you use old school rules?

[Pil]

Love your army.  I'm also a fan of mixing a variety of manufacturers to give variety.  What other army do you use to fight them? 

Thanks fior the comment! Though I do have a Lizardmen army this army will have to fight whatever my opponent brings to the table. It's meant to be a legal army for WFB 8th edition so I can basically play anyone with an army.

That said, I still haven't finished reading the rulebook yet and I've had very few games in so far.

Stunning, absolutely stunning!

When you're using old school miniatures, why don't you use old school rules?

To be honest I never really saw a problem with the way the WFB rules evolved. I liked 7th edition, at least the core rules, and I like 8th edition as well. What I liked less was how all the army books incorporated lots of army-specific special rules which overthrew the balance which seemed to exists in the 7th edition core rules.

I'm wondering what the future has in store for the Tomb Kings but their 8th edition army book will be one of the earlier releases (sometime this year) so I'll find out more then

I'm also interested in trying out Kings Of War, shich is of course also not very old-school, but I haven't looked into that yet. Though chances of playing it are increasing with Neldoreths efforts of making 'missing' army lists for the game!

I read through a good part of the WFB 3rd edition rules once and they're very interesting but I also think they might be a bit too complicated and tedious. That and I wouldn't be able to find an opponent easily. I do really like the 3rd edition approach to the army lists which seemed to have more variation in equipment within an army and less 'special' units.

[oldskoolrebel]

Cheers for the reply Pil

I only have experience of 3rd Edition through playing WFRP. However I do have experience of 4th Edition- it was the first ever wargame that I bought.

I still remember the day I first entered a GW with my dad and we played Warhammer 40K. The wonder, the magic! Shortly after this my dad gave me the choice of the Warhammer 40k or the Warhammer boxset. Because I was reading Lord of the Rings I opted for Warhammer. Ahh the memories! Sad as it may seem I did like the spell cards and the winds of magic deck.

We never painted any miniatures at all, instead we just played the game. Ahh those where the days.


As I said before lovely army! A while ago I bought a whole load of those plastic skeleton miniatures off of fleabay, they came assembled and painted- some have pretty funky metallic purple weapons. They really do need a repaint and I might just add it of my list of things to do. How o you achieve the awesome 'dirty' look of your skeletons?

Cheers
Andy

[Damien]

God what a beautiful army, I love the fact that you mixed minis from different companies. I really like the bases for the catapults integrating all the minis makes it into a small diorama, the calvary looks awesome, Ral Parhta Ogres look really good (I have to get some of those) but the Grenadier Giant just tops off the awesomeness of this army.

Just all around great stuff, that is why I come to this forum.

Thanks for showing this
Damien

[Pil]

As I said before lovely army! A while ago I bought a whole load of those plastic skeleton miniatures off of fleabay, they came assembled and painted- some have pretty funky metallic purple weapons. They really do need a repaint and I might just add it of my list of things to do. How o you achieve the awesome 'dirty' look of your skeletons?

I started playing in 4th edition too but after a few months 5th edition was already released. As said I think each edition thereafter addressed some of the pronblems of the previous edition, though it wasn't always an improvement of course.

Looking back I quite liked the magic 'card game' with the Winds Of Magic cards (rebound, magic duel). The spell cards and magic item cards were less interesting. That said, I really like that you can have everything in the book and do't need all the extra stuff nowadays. A few years ago we tried to get into 2nd edition 40k and it was quite hard to track all the cards down because half of the rukles back then were printed on cards and not in books.

All of my plastic skeletons were also assembled and painted. In the end this saved me heaps of assembly time so it was a blessing in disguise. Before repainting an old skeleton I clean off some of the really visible mould lines, mostly on the skull, legs, arms and rib cage. Then I base the model with sand, give it a shield (where appropriate) and a black undercoat. The bone is done with three drybrushes:
1) Vallejo Game Color (VGC) Charred Brown (Citadel Scorched Brown), this drybrush can be sloppy and wet, almost like a basecoat but not quite.
2) VGC Earth (Citadel Graveyard Earth), this drybrush has to be medium-dry but it's still ok if it's a bit wet.
3) VGC Bone White (Citadel Bleached Bone), make sure this drybrush is dry.

This takes care of the bone, nothing less, nothing more (a skeleton without weapons is considered finished at this stage). The dark colours and the sloppy drybrush make for a dirty look. Also variations between the coverage of the drybrush give a slight variation in bone colour.

This bone colour is also the base for the rust (for metal bits like weapons and shield rims) & verdrigris (for brass bits on characters).

Rust:
1) I paint the metal bits with the previous Citadel Generation Orange Ink. It's the one that comes in the pot on the right (but with a white cap):

It's OOP and unfortunately VGC didn't copy this colour but you can probably find a suitable alternative.
2) I paint the armour with Badab Black Wash (if you do your verdigris first you can combine this step with the last step of the verdigris)
3) Drybrush with Citadel Boltgun Metal, this doesn't have to be an even dry drybrush, it can be a bit patchy, just don't let the metal cover too well.

Verdigris:
1) mix up a bit of old Citadel Jade Green (can't find it on Coat d'Arms) with Bone White (still on the wet palette) to make it lighter (white may look even better but since I already had the bone on my palette I used that).
2) wash the verdigris bits with the diluted Jade Green mix
3) when the wash is dry, (dry)brush the verdigris bits with old Citadel Shining Gold (Coat d'Arms Bright Gold). This colour is very different than the current Citadel Shining Gold.
4) Wash the armour with Citadel Badab Black Wash

Altogether several easy steps to paint old armour for lazy people like me, good luck!

Damien> Thank you very much! I'm very pleased how the catapults turned out, this is the way I always imagined them to be and reminds me of the old 'Machineries of Destruction' pics of Orc and Goblin warmachines on a single base .

[JollyBob]

This is incredible. Pil, you are a master. 

It makes me want to dig out my half-finished dry undead army and complete it. Mainly built from the plastic boxed set, and about 1/3 the size of yours but oooh, so tempting...

Just out of interest, how did you find the old Grenadier Undead Giant to put together? I have had one sitting in a box for about 15 years now, and its become an annual ritual to get it out, dry-fit it, think longingly about completing it and then put it away again. Some of the pieces (the wrist in particular) seem very flimsy joins to me.

[Pil]

The giant was a bit of work to put together and I did it over several nights. None of the bits really gave me a lot of trouble though as long as you pin everything and take your time to let glue and putty set.

I first put together the chest halves with one pin in the middle connecting the breastbone with the vertebral column.
When this was dry I connected the ribs together with MagicSculp.
When the putty had cured I gave the inside of the rib cage a spray with black undercoat as I wouldn't be able to do that later on.

When all was set and done I connected the rib cage to the hips (which also have the left lef attached) with two pins (if I recall correctly), one on each side.
When this had dried I filled in the gaps in the belt with MagicSculp.

With the MagicSculp cured I glued the model to the base (the feet and scenery already glued to a chariot base), pinning the left leg to the left foot and inserting the right leg between the hips and the base (with the foot), the right leg was the only part not pinned apart from the lower jaw. There was a gap between the right leg and the right foot so I extended the blunt edge of the leg a bit with MagicSculp, you can see this in this picture:



Before sticking on the arms I pinned the right hand to the right arm with a short pin.
Then I pinned the arms to the body.
Since the body has holes for the arms to be inserted in I placed the pins below the hol, in the armpit.
After pinning the arms I sculpted the chainmail on the shoulder with MagicSculp.

With the model nearly finished I pinned on the sword and the dagger with very short pins.
Finally I glued the lower jaw to the skull and pinned the skull to the neck.

It's quite a complex model but if you take your time (don't try to assemble this in a day) and pin everything you can pin then it shouldn't give you any trouble, good luck!