Zomtober 2025 week 4: back on theme

 For the final week of this year’s Zomtober, we’re back on theme with some Napoleonic zombies:

Perry bodies with Wargames Atlantic bits, I made a drummer mostly because the idea of a zombie with a massive drum strapped to it struck me as funny. I used a piece from the Elite Companies box to make the zombie lurching forward, arms outstretched, and was pleasantly surprised at how good it ended up looking. 

Although these conversions are basically compulsory for anyone playing Silver Bayonet, when I initially started my project I wasn’t going to make any, as I figured I already had plenty of generic zombies painted that I could use, but once again I was tempted by the number of different hats on the Wargames Atlantic zombies sprue!

Here’s the back too, as ever. The main benefit about painting zombies is that you can get pretty scrappy and messy and they still look good, I’m going to have to really focus up when I get back to painting things that aren’t the walking dead!

Finishing these brings the Tally to:

30 vs 247 = -217

Excitingly, Zomtober has actually doubled my painting output year to date! My miniature storage boxes are somewhat difficult to access at the moment though, so everything I’ve painted since we moved in are currently stood on the board game shelves:

What’s next? Warriors of Athena (now officially announced) has been my focus since the summer (although that has mainly shown itself via the medium of ordering miniatures rather than finishing painting anything), so that’s what’s next up on my painting tile. On the other hand, as is often the way, I’m fighting the urge to start a new project - a chain of events and ideas have left me fighting the urge to start a project set during the Third Crusade, so watch this space…

Zomtober 2025 week 3: a brief diversion…

 Moving away slightly from the Silver Bayonet theme this week, I present a zombie cowboy:

Apologies for the picture being so dark on the face, this was hurriedly taken this morning while it was starting to rain! Here’s a WIP pic from last night that I sent a buddy that proves that I painted the face:

This is an odd entry this month, as I have literally no use for a zombie cowboy (although I do own a copy of Dracula’s America), but it was one of those times where inspiration struck while converting some other zombies, as the Wargames Atlantic heads with cowboy hats were so cool I couldn’t resist! The rest of him is straight Great Escape Games Gunfighter, which are such beautiful clean sculpts that they are a real pleasure to paint!

I also painted the back too, as is traditional.

To keep things on the Silver Bayonet theme though, I also painted this Ghostly Norman Horseman:

One of the nice things about reaching an age and having been in the hobby for a while is that I’ve hit the point where if inspiration strikes me, I’ve probably got something in the backlog that would be suitable (which is handy, as otherwise I’ll order new miniatures, and that initial rush of enthusiasm may well have waned by the time they get here). This singular knight, for example, was thrown in during a trade made on the Lead Adventure Forum at least fifteen years ago, if I recall correctly.

Here’s the other side. He’s come out a little bit chalky (my pot of GW white is basically a globby brick at this point), but done is done, and he’ll look snazzy enough on the table if I ever get round to finishing my Silver Bayonet warband. You’d think this is a three step paint job, but as ever, I made things more complicated than usual by drybrushing several successively lighter layers onto the grey base coat in the hopes that would then show through the ghostly layer, but in hindsight I probably would have gotten much the same result just washing it onto a flat base coat, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. 

Finishing these two miniatures brings the Tally to:

27 vs 247 = -220

Next - more zombies!

Zomtober 2025 week 2: roamin’ remains

 Roaming, like Roman, right?

Another themed offering for Zomtober, this time some zombified romans:

I know, technically they’re meant to be skeletal Romans, but this is what I’ve got.

Like last week’s Vikings, they’re a mashup between some Warlord veteran sprues (handily, they come with campaign worn and battered equipment) and a mix of bits from the Wargames Atlantic zombie sprue and the Frostgrave Cultists. Some parts are straight swaps, while others got spliced to attach zombie arms to Roman shoulder pads. Yes, I know, the Centurion’s sword isn’t historical, but I figured that it would help him stand out a bit more on the table. 

I’d planned to do a few more figures with shields, but didn’t get round to it, which is probably for the best as putting the aged transfer onto the one I had was a nightmare last night. I’m not sure if it was an old transfer, a bad transfer, or just the fact that I only know where my Micro Set is (the Sol is probably somewhere in a bad in the garage), but it wasn’t plain sailing. There were white edges, clear bits that weren’t looking very clear, and one side that kept lifting, but with some cunning repainting, judicious application of varnish to try and stick it together, and them some hefty (perhaps too hefty) weathering, it looks just about palatable, which is the low bar that I shoot for. Speaking of a low bar, don’t look too closely at their glowing eyes, they’re a lot better looking at arms length I promise.

Here’s the back too! Just about visible is the one Roman where I cut off a leg and twisted it to give that classic dragging leg zombie look (which I think was a tip in a Peachy Tips video), but for ease and speed I skipped it on the rest, and I think they look just fine.

Painting these brings the Tally to:

25 vs 247 = -222

Now, if I was a smart guy, I’d have rationed these out and posted one a week to hit the Zomtober target of weekly posts, but that’s not how I roll - and to be frank, I’m also quite enjoying that I’m well on the way to doubling my total painted for the year so far in just one month… Next: more zombies, I hope!

Zomtober 2025 week 1: historical edition

Well, to a certain degree of historical!

With the release of the latest Silver Bayonet expansion featuring the rise of undead from Britain’s history, I figured that was the perfect prompt for a themed Zomtober this year, so I present my first offering, some zombie vikings:

They’re made from a mashup of Gripping Beast vikings, Wargames Atlantic zombies and Frostgrave  cultist parts (an idea shamelessly stolen from someone else on a Facebook group, as I’d forgotten that they had some nice undead bits). Some feature straight part swaps, others have had parts spliced from two sprues to make it look like there’s a zombie arm wearing armour, for example. If I were to do it again, I’d probably splice all of the arms, as the ones without chainmail on one arm look a little uneven, but it’s not so jarring that I wouldn’t use them in a game. 

Looking at these pictures as I write this post, I realise you can’t really see the shield, which is probably for the best - I went a little overboard weathering it (and the sword, for that matter), and so had to go back and freshen them up a little first thing this morning before everyone else in the house got up. 

With regards to the Silver Bayonet, these guys are likely to stand in for quite a few enemy types in the new book (Danish, Norwegian, and even Scott potentially), as I received my book after I placed an order for some sprues, and if I’d had it before I would have probably ordered up some generic dark ages types to zombiefy! On the other hand, I already have those nice generic zombies that Gripping Beast sell painted up, so I can probably cover most bases between them all. I even used the same glowing eye colour on these ones too, so I could pretend that I’d planned that all along!

Painting these (as well as bringing an end to my months long painting drought) brings the Tally to:

19 vs 247 = -228

Next: more zombies, hopefully!

Zomtober 2024 Week 4

 Another Sunday, another painted zombie:

The last of the TTCombat zombie halflings that I had prepped, this time wearing a fancy hat.

I did have plans for a big finish for the month, but unfortunately work and family got in the way somewhat and my extra stuff wasn’t ready by deadline day. Ah well, they’re half painted, maybe I’ll get them finished off next week…

That means that post-Zomtober, the Tally now stands at:

54 vs 192 = -138

And after a couple of years, the zombie unit looks like this:

That’s nearly a legal minimum size unit! 

Zomtober 2024 Week 3

Another week, another zombie (he types for the second time, as apparently Blogger is having a day of it and rather than publishing this post just wiped the whole thing, so I’m starting from scratch):

I decided to quickly convert another zombie beastman this week to get back on the Zombieslayer theme - he’s a fairly simple conversion, being just a reposition of the original miniature rather than adding any specific zombie parts.

The arm hanging off by a thread (that I realise you can barely see in these pictures, annoyingly) was something of a happy accident - where I was cutting the shield arm off to reposition it to look like it is dangling uselessly rather than being brandished, when I went to pin it back into place, I realised that leaving the central pin showing would look like a bone of strand of gore!

If the gore looks wet, that’s because it is - it was applied about three minutes before this picture was taken, and then I had to go out in the rain to photograph it!

I also have this chap to offer, a backup that was painted just in case I wasn’t able to convert and paint his bestial brethren in time for the Sunday deadline:

Another TTCombat zombie halfling, this time looking like a tiny zombie publican.

As well as finishing these two miniatures, the Tally has taken some swings in other directions too:

@tmcllghn_paints sent me some heads for a conversion for the Alamo project (because apparently I’m of an age where I want to convert things based on something I’ve seen in a picture in an Osprey), but there’s a whole mini left there so it counts:

I also discovered that a friend’s partner had expressed an interest in trying out miniature painting, so after picking his brains in the car after coming back from a wildlife park last week I pulled together a gift of a sprue of Vikings and a handful of LOTR minis to have a bash at.

All in, the Tally now stands at: 

53 vs 192 = -139

What’s next? At least one more zombie, hopefully!

Zomtober 2024 Week 2

 Another Sunday, another tiny dead thing - or two, this week, as they’re even tinier than the last one:

Two zombie halflings, rising from their tiny graves. The one on the left had some indeterminate facial features (I suspect what I mistook for jowls May in fact have been intended to be a moustache), but a generous dose of blood makes it all better. I know, I know, bloody zombies don’t really make sense when they’re rising from the grave (as opposed to being a fresh corpse reanimated) but as ever rule of cool wins out over science when we’re talking about our little dollies…

And the back! These are probably going to be making up the back ranks of the unit, but I put an equal amount of effort into every mini, front and back, regardless. 

Finishing these two brings the Tally to:

51 vs 205 = -154

Two weeks down, two more to go!

Zomtober 2024 Week 1 - the tiny dead…

It’s the first Sunday in October, and that can only mean one thing: Zomtober!

My original plan was to convert some more zombie beastmen to supplement the Zombieslayer inspired unit from last year, but time has conspired against me and I haven’t made any headway on that yet. However, having broken the seal on using non GW models in my Warhammer armies (Super was right) I figured that I could quickly paint some of the TTCombat zombies from the mystery box a friend and I drafted to bulk up that unit until I can make some more themed ones, the first of which looks like this:

I was originally tempted to paint them up like a Night Goblin, but figured I’d stick to neutral browns both for speed and also so they’d blend more into the finished unit.

At first glance they look like some sort of monk or priest, but then you see the chains and it raises some questions, I guess they were a naughty halfling in life…

Painting them brings the Tally to:

49 vs 205 = -156

Th king about it, if I finish Zomtober, I’ll hit my yearly challenge of averaging at least one painted mini a week, nice!

What’s next? I’ve got enough TTCombat zombies prepped that I’ll be able to hit all four weeks of Zomtober, but I still live in hope that I’ll be able to convert and paint some more thematic zombies. Now to find a 25th hour in the day, and also one of the old metal Minotaurs with a double handed weapon for a conversion that I’ve had knocking round in my head for years…

Zomtober 2023 Week 5

And so Zomtober 2023 comes to a close, this week with two zombies:

Here’s a slightly different angle of the chap on the right, as it’s a little tricky to see what he’s doing from head on:

And here they are from the back, where you can see that they are painted in the livery of the two provinces that the Empire troops come from in Zombieslayer, Talabecland and Reikland:

Annoyingly in the notes that I took during my reread of the novel, I noted down the colour schemes, but not the names of the provinces, assuming that I’d just remember, which obviously I couldn’t when I went to look up some painting references! Luckily I was able to reverse engineer ‘Talabecland’ from ‘mustard and burgundy’…

This pair of conversions came about from me having a root around my bits box and pulling out a couple of old starter set Empire spearmen (from a starter set that I never owned, but that’s not the focus of this). Looking at the armour on one, I wondered if I could bisect him across the waist, and then Frankenstein him with zombie bits to make two Empire zombies. Which started like this:

And ended like this:

As I started cutting, I realised that the spearman’s front and rear plate armour were not the same lengths, so rather than a straightforward straight cut, there was a certain amount of knife angling, and then rebuilding waistlines with green stuff, which is pleasingly unobtrusive on the finished model. I also sanded down a zombie head to fit the hat on at a jaunty angle, since just because your guts are hanging out not doesn’t mean you don’t want to feel pretty right?

Painting this pair brings the Tally to:

33 vs 112 = -79

I did originally have plans for a bigger finish than just ‘two zombies’, but I kept getting outbid on minotaurs on eBay, and spending most of last week in Germany didn’t leave me enough time to work on the zombie wyvern conversion that I’ve had planned since starting this project…

After two Zomtobers, my zombie regiment so far looks like this:

8 more and it’s a legal unit! Although you always need more zombies…

Zomtober 2023 Week 4

Here’s the partner to last week’s submission for Zomtober Week 4:

Just a zombified Beastman enjoying a meaty snack.

This one largely came about as a result of my wondering how well glued together these minis were, and while gently seeing if there was much give to his shield arm snapped it off at the wrist. Once that was gone, I removed his weapon and repositioned the head to look like he was earring from something that was in his hand, and a little green stuff completed the look.

His snapped off hand then got replaced with a zombie hand holding a small length of rope (I think it originally held a skin covered gong that had previously been taken for a chaos space marine conversion), which I covered up the rope texture of with green stuff to make it look like another length of viscera.

This weeks submission brings the Tally to:

31 vs 112 = -81

Also, it’s still Sunday in Germany (where I currently am), so I technically didn’t miss the posting deadline!

Zomtober 2023 Week 3

Another week, and another Beastman zombie inspired by my recent re-read of the Gotrek and Felix novel Zombieslayer:

The posing of the conversion made it very difficult to get a decent photo of, but deadline day is deadline day so this is what I have. I didn’t add any injuries to the model (unless you count the repositioning of the head to give him the broken neck zombie look), so painted him to look like the cause of death was a swift axe to the neck, probably delivered by an angry chap with a bright orange crest of hair.

Pretty much stock from behind, but buried in the middle of a unit no one will notice that!

The conversion started with me seeing just how well attached the limbs were on the salvage minis I’d bought, and one of the archers arm nocking an arrow popped clean off (snapping the arrow clean in half too, which I dutifully picked out of the carpet and stashed in my bits box). This mini however I carefully nipped the hand off to replace with something a little more undead than the sword he was originally modelled with. I was originally going to give him a generic grasping zombie hand, being happy with the existing position of the bow looking like it was absent-mindlessly dangling, but then thought it would be funnier to have a zombie archer than still had an arrow ready to go, but clearly had no idea how to use it. Which led to me removing the weapons from and carefully drilling through a zombie hand and then using the salvaged parts of the previously mentioned broken arrow to practice glueing onto the tiniest of contact points:

Those of you that follow me on Instagram will have seen that I was also working on another conversion at the same time, but as we’re going to Germany in Half Term to visit my wife’s family I’m saving him as a buffer, so no more pics of them until next week! Although while writing this post, I realised that I’d forgotten to include a WIP pic of the conversion in last week’s post, so here’s that as a bonus this week:

A little bit of green stuff and a couple of part swaps can go a long way!

Painting this week’s submission brings the tally to:

30 vs 112 = -82

While digging around looking for parts for a potential future conversion today, I came across these:

My original Mordheim zombies, that must have been painted when I was 19 at most. I’m torn between stripping them to repaint, or just trying to paint over the top to match them to my current painting style. Well, that or just quietly putting them back in the Mordheim box, as they’re very much sculpts of their time aren’t they…

Zomtober 2023 Week 2

Another week, another deadline met! This week’s submission is pretty much a proof-of-concept for this year’s theme, or ‘can I transform salvaged beastmen minis into suitable zombies in the style of the novel Zombieslayer’. And I think the answer to that is yes:

It’s a gor body with the head and hand snipped off and replaced with a beastmen skull and a zombie hand (from the standard topper in the old zombie regiment kit) respectively. The skull bit was originally from the dryad kit I believe, and was covered in vines that needed carefully snipping and filing off. A little green stuff and voila, gaps filled!

While I had the green stuff out I decided to hack a slice out of his gut and model on some tiny insides spilling out from under a flap of skin, as it feels like every good Gotrek and Felix novel has at least one enemy taking a wound to their abdomen and their intestines are described as ‘looping out’. 

Brief aside - zombies go on 20mm bases while gors usually live on 25s. I wasn’t sure the body would fit on the smaller base size, but I think with some careful positioning he should rank up alongside his fellows.

Then it was time for a fairly straightforward paint job, although I couldn’t resist adding some texture to his loincloth to add a little visual interest. My original plan was to have the skull entirely drenched in blood (as I always feel like zombies having any fully skeletal bits feels a little odd and out of place), but in all honesty I quite likes how the bone and horn came out so I ended up only mostly dousing him in blood. It looks so fresh and shiny in the pictures because it’s literally still wet in the pictures…

So, as you might have extrapolated from this and other posts, I managed to acquire a box of scrappy secondhand beastmen from eBay:

A mix of gors and ungors, in various states of disrepair. Some of them had been converted to hold marauder weapons, which I didn’t notice in the initial listing, but not the worst thing in the world as I’m only going to rip them off anyway. 

Acquiring these and painting one of them brings the Tally to:

29 vs 112 = -83

While the last two weeks have largely been a last-minute scramble to get things finished and photographed on the Sunday, I’m hoping that won’t be the case all month as I have the next two conversions already pretty much done. But then again, I’m now out of black spray. And going to Germany in a couple of weeks. Last minute scrambles it is then…

Zomtober 2023 Week 1

Also known as ‘what do you do when you realise midway through September that the first Sunday in October is also the first day in October, and you’re pretty busy’ - that’s right, you paint half a zombie!

A pretty simple conversion, cutting down one of the weapon wielding arms that I’m probably never going to use to try and make it look like he’s pushing himself up out of the ground.

I don’t know how well it worked (especially as that side ended up getting mostly obscured by grass), but he’s built and painted and done and now joined his friends from last year’s Zomtober:

But why does a freshly raised zombie have blood all over him, I hear you ask? Maybe it’s old blood from his wounds opening up as he scrabbles out of the grave, maybe he bit someone’s ankles, whatever you need to sleep at night. 

As previously alluded to here on the blog, my plan for this year’s Zomtober was to do themed entries around the zombie army in the Gotrek and Felix novel Zombieslayer (that I recently finished during my re-read of the entire series), which involves a horde of undead beastmen (and even the occasional zombie Minotaur!) besieging a castle. Unfortunately, my bits box is lacking in gors, but luckily I’ve just been able to win a scrap lot on eBay to cannibalise for parts - although shout out to Mik of Miksminis (not that he posts there anymore, look him up on instagram!) for offering to send me some from across the pond!

I suspect that next week’s will be as last minute as this week’s post, which involved desperately googling ‘how to get stubborn superglue out of pot’, which revealed apparently putting it in hot water is the way to go. And thus:

So, at the end of Zomtober week 1, the Tally looks like:

28 vs 100 = -72

Luckily that Heresy order still hasn’t turned up, otherwise the Tally would look even worse. He says, having previously admitted to having ordered more miniatures for Zomtober… 

(And for anyone wondering where the next instalment of my monthly Last Days game is, fear not, I played it last night, but haven’t had a chance to write it up yet, having been busy getting this post up!)

Zomtober 2022 week 5

And here we find ourselves back to our more traditional posting slot of almost too late for the deadline, but still squeaking in with another completed zombie:

The freebie zombie from GW actually painted up really nicely - regardless of how you feel about them having a gravestone in their back and a stake through their heart, it’s a nicely sculpted mini that takes paint exceptionally well, plus it has enough details to add a bit of visual interest without being so busy that it’s a bear to paint.

But what’s that there’s more? Not much more, admittedly:

A quick raid of my bits box and I was able to make a zombie bursting forth from their grave. Whereas the rest of the zombies got plain grey ‘city rubble’ bases, this one got some grass and moss as I wanted to really make it look like it was breaking through the ground, upending some plantlife, rather than just being a hand with some sand stuck to it as it might have looked otherwise. 

One of the reasons I wanted a very short zombie like this was that I also dug out a dreg that I converted way back when I was probably eighteen, that has his spear levelled in suck a way that he’d never rank up with other miniatures. Unless he’s behind someone like this hand, that is…

However, the dreg didn’t get finished, as Friday night became ‘desperate last minute Halloween costume making’ rather than the usual ‘painting and a cup of tea’:

See also Saturday morning, painting something a little bigger than may usual scale so that my son could be Toad from Super Mario:

He was very happy with the costume, even if his toadstool hat with all of its stuffing made him overheat somewhat (also, my wife sewed a complete Starfire costume for our daughter, which is even more impressive than this that I made).

But I digress - not content to have just a hand as my additional submissions, I pressed on Sunday evening to get this handsome chap finished:

The Mordheim Necromancer! Apologies for the terrible photos of him, he’s come out looking fairly washed out, but that’s more to do with taking pictures in the dining room on a Sunday night than anything else. Although on that note I took all of the miniature photos in this post at the same time, so I’m not sure why the Cursed City zombie came out with good looking pictures while the rest didn’t!

In hindsight, maybe I should have weathered up the Necromancer’s robes too, but on the other hand I’m assuming as an actual living chap he probably takes better care of his robes than the shambling hordes he’s bent to his will.

Skull! It has a rune carved into it, so some Carroburg Crimson smeared in and around it gave it a suitably grim and gribbly appearance.

So, in total this Zomtober we have the start of a unit of zombies:

Which if you add to the skeletons that I painted way back when means I’m probably approaching having more points of Undead painted than Skaven, so I’d best get back to painting some ratty boys!

All this Mordheim painting had me browsing eBay, and so after painting the Cursed City zombie I treated myself to the Ogre from that game:

He’s a nice sculpt, who doesn’t look particularly like he’s from AOS, so will make an excellent Ogre Bodyguard as being me I’ve obviously started thinking about a challenge where I paint up all of the Hired Sword options from Mordheim just in case I ever play it…

All in, this brings the Tally to:

73 vs 65 = +8