Militia Agnostica: DEADITES! – The Army of the Dead

I jump around quite a bit within a project, I believe its in large part to ADHD, but projects for me are rarely linear and organised, and often different parts of the project will move forward at different times.

In this instance I Decided to push on with a handful of skeletons to use them in RPG’s with my kids and test the basic paint scheme.

Yep, Contrast Skeleton Horde did the trick. The contrast paint range has its issues for me, but there is no denying that its a super fast way to knock out an army.

And ultimately I have to accept a number of limitations, my fine motor skills are not great and coupled with a bit of dyspraxia I’m just happy to get colour down lol

The ghosts were a three step process.

1) Base Coat with Moot Green
2) Wash with Hexwraith Flame
3) Dry Brush with Gauss Blaster Green

The results are fast and easy – and I really like the vibrancy of them

With the priming done it was time to apply a very rough slop of paint to the bases to act as its base colourization.

To do this I just slopped on some Contrast Aggaros Dunes and then stippled a bit of Contrast Militarum Green in places.

This would give a decent foundation for the ground cover to be stuck too, and it goes down fast!

I have a range of custom bases that I 3D print for these projects. They are designed to have two pence coins glued into them to increase the weight (and magnetic properties) of the miniature.

They are all rounded (or Oval) because I love the aesthetic, and the bases sizes start from 32mm, as I see basing as a canvas for miniature armies so I like to have them oversized to let the minis breath and add little bits of narrative to the bases.

I really like sheet cork as a basing material. Its fast and fun to play with and can really help bring a base to life. Its create for breaking up flat areas or for important minis you can build it up the raise the miniature above the fold so to speak.

For a little extra character and narrative I dug out a couple of packets of grave stones I had lying around. One set was Plastic from Renedra, and the other set was Resin from Green Stuff World.

I try to think strategically when it comes to basing and painting. Because the ghosts were going to be quite a flat paint scheme I didn’t want them to have the same priming technique as the skeletons.

The ghosts would be primed with Seer Grey only, while the skeletons would be first primed black, then given a Zenith of Seer Grey to help pre shade them.

So above you can see models being grouped based on the priming they are about to receive. Also the bases for the ghosts would be primed separately so they could also be zenithed – this way all the bases in the entire army would match – helping to tie things together.

The OnTableTop Spring Clean Challenge is a superb community drive to finish off stalled projects. I didn’t participate in 2022 and I really regretted that as it had a big impact on my ‘Hobby Wellbeing’ for the rest of the year where it was difficult to work up the mojo to fire up a project.

So I made an extra effort to join in on the shenanigans this year! And it has been a blast!

Ever since watching the Lord of the Rings – Return of the King, I have fancied putting together an army of the dead. A ghost army that would glide through opponents cutting them to smithereens!

I picked up a couple of boxes of night haunts a few years back with this intention, but hit a brick wall on the project as I just couldn’t decide on a manageable paint scheme for them. So … they sat in a drawer!

Two other movies also act as a big inspiration for me and that is Jason and the Argonauts and of course the unforgettable Evil Dead 3 – Army of Darkness.

I’m also a bit of a fanboi of the Wargames Atlantic plastics range and had some boxes of skeletons to hand, so my plan of a mix of dry bones and etherial ghosts started to come together!

A few years back I grew tired of trying to keep up with ‘Official Meta’ in games. I just don’t have the time or the inclination to be constantly harassed by new releases and ever growing complicated rulesets.

So I decided to take control! I would build armies I liked the look of or found interesting and if I wanted to play them, I’d either home brew some rules for fast play, or I would change the rules of another game to accommodate them. I play for fun and story telling, so opponents vary rarely have an issue.

I’ve done a few of these now, (Elves, Dwarfs, Lizard Men, Demons, Ratmen etc) and something I’m trying to do now for each of them is create a simple Armybook with some basic guidelines to how they play – but more on that another time!