Vampire Count Army of Votchnaya, Lord of Dark Forest

Well, I was painting the bats on my bat swarms individually and after about an hour highlighting on the first base, I thought sod it - this is taking forever!

So... I decided to just drybrush them. I didn't want them too bright nor too colourful, so I only did one layer to just define their shape. I didn't want to make them look grey either as alot of my figures will end up looking that colour, so I decided to use a bluey grey (Shadow Grey) for the drybrush. Not sure if I should do another layer or not?





The other nice thing I hadn't noticed was that the base of the gravestone has a few little animal bones and a skull lying around, which have picked out well and add a nice bit of interest to the base (the big animal skull is made up from the skellie sprue).

I would leave them as is, looks good as they are. You were seriously trying to paint each bat??

Aye! I got it into me head that if I did they'd stand out more as individual bats. Would probably have looked good too, but I'd still have been doing it on Judgement Day.

Already missed it! Or are we talking 21/10?

Missed it? How do you know we're not all dead?

Can't be, harold couldn't be wrong.

A couple of quick updates - most of the stuff I have been doing is in the bulk troops, so there's not been much to photograph.

I am getting through my cairn wraiths, but money restraints mean I'm two wraiths to go before I complete the unit, but here they are at the mo (I'll write some fluff background when they're done...):










Bah, come out dark again


I'd already painted two of the wraiths in grey robes rather than the ethereal clours of my spirit hosts, as I wanted to make them look like a different unit to the spirits and didn't just want another luminous green bunch of men.

With the banshee, I decided to make her skin glow green, to tie it in with the ethereal troops as well as doing the robe to fit in with the wraiths. Think it works ok. Only two figures to buy and paint now for this unit - they're not much cop in regiments of more than 5 really anway.


I've also magnetised and put a slide base onto my bat swarms. These movement trays done in the usual way I do the bases for all troops have helped to really bring all of the army together visually.




And yes, I know I've been saying it since I started this plog, but I have very, very, very nearly finished my bloody skeletons!





Seen here with that vamp conversion I did. I've decided to stick with hiscolour scheme and finish off the last bits on the model - he can lead my skellies, which should number 40 but 1 has gone missing somewhere (casualty of Rory!). Still, 39 is a nice round number with a hero added.

All I need to do is add shields and touch up the back row (you'll also see the standard on that row that is still ongoing) and then sort out all the skellies positioning - I've made them so their spears gradually dip down to horizontal the nearer to the front rank you get (although I've not ordered them properly in these pics, so you can't get the sense of it).

Oh, and I need to sort out the metal sheet on the tray - the magnets on the skellies are so powerful, it's pulling the sheeting up from its adhesive.....


When I've finished these skellies, I think it'll be time for a 'work so far group shot', to see how the army looks all together (still not got it all out in one go to look at it).

Nice. Putting the rest of us to shame atm. I will start up again, soon as the weather turns. Honest.

Tornadoes and massive thunderstorms predicted later in the week

Not a whole lot to report, but I have cobbled together 10 zombies (see them in action in the latest battle report, where they last for a whole 1 turn!).

I did have ambitious plans to do different skin tones and what have you to make them look more rag tag, but I had to face reality and drybruish them as quickly as possible as I have 65 to do for the unit! Still, another 10 and I can actually field them in a game, so I'm getting there.


Here's a sample few:






You'll note that they're all mantic Zs that I'm doing - they're far easier to paint and IMHO actually look more scary than the GW efforts with the comedic giant hands. I have 30 mantic Zs in all, so I'll get those all done like these using my quick drybrushing method. They should look decent enough as a whole unit.

They're painted with a basecoat of dark angels green, followed by a drybrush catachan green and then gretchen green (or 'Castellan Green' and 'Deathwold Forest' respectively, in new money). All very quick. The rags are going to be painted in one of 3 different colours: grey/black, purple or possibly brown, but I want to limit the palette to make them look better as a unit.


I'll update with the progress of these as and when but I'm determined to push on to the unit minimum so they're at least playable.

Cool. I like them.

When you say they lasted one turn, was that one of Dan's turns?!

You could drybrush them to a fairly light colour then apply different colour washes. That would mix up the colours of the unit a bit and shouldn't take you long to do

I had thought of doing something like that, the only problem I find with washing a light colour is that they can end up looking kind of luminous, a bit like they've been done with enamels, if you get what I mean - sort of patchy. That is probably more down to my lack of skill with inks, I accept....

If you put a wash of a couple of different colours on it might look ok. give it a real watered down Devlan Mud (or whatever it's called now) afterwards. If it's really watery it should just colour it slightly - take the edge off

Yeah, will give that a whirl.

I like those and I'd agree, much better than the GW ones, the poses are much better too.

Colour scheme looks good, like you say would be nice to add some variety somehow but the quality you have there is great, especially for a horde unit

Updates on the Zombies:







There's 50 of them there, about half of which are properly finished and the rest in some stage of drybrushing (the only way to paint this many of the buggers in any kind of decent time!).

Leaving off these for a bit, but I am planning another unit of 50 of them to go with these. I should be able to field a 100 strong unit then if I ever need to.


I'm also getting to finish my wraith unit, albeit in a very slow manner. Two to do and they'll be done. A bit of a push and these will be done in a day or so (when that day is though....). Again, yay for drybrushing!




Fluff to be put in when the units are done.

Good stuff, keep plowing through them!!