Oldhammer fun with the Nightmare Legion and metal zombies followed by a dash of heresy

With the influx of new old models I decided to shove all the other projects aside and have a little Oldhammer fun painting the Nightmare Legion. Now I remember the day my friends and I bought this box set (along with Ruglud's Armoured Orcs, Skarloc's Wood Elf Rangers and some other stuff) at the only store we knew that carried GW in quantity. It was about an hour's drive so visits where confined to birthdays and special occasions. After the others left Warhammer I took over their miniatures only to sell them on years later. Now they are back in my possession. I love this unit, particularly the helmet of the unit champion, and I've been dreaming about repainting them for quite a few years now. Here are the results.

Welcome back to my collection Nightmare Legion.

I started of with a basecoat of Vallejo Game Air Skeleton Bone Primer. Then I painted the metal bits Leadbelcher, the wooden bits Dryad Bark and the dark bits German Grey. For the cloth I wanted a washed out greyish blue so The Fang was a logical choice. The models where given a heavy wash of Agrax Earthshade and a drybrush of Ironbreaker. Then I carefully retouched all the bone with Ushabti Bone and then Ushabti Bone with Dead White. The cloth was lit up using The Fang followed by Fenrisian Grey with a third subtile highlight where I added Dead White to the mix. I stuck the shields on planning to snip off the centre orb only to discover this to be more difficult than anticipated. So I switched tacks, masked the painted models and just used an airbrush to make a subtle red transition. This also helps give the Legion a dash of color. In the end these guys looked really clean so I took what I have left of my Modelmates Rust and added some of that - all the while mumbling 'less is more'.

I love the Champion's helmoet. GW should do a full unit of guys with helmets like that. 

I grabbed a picture of their old banner from the Stuff of Legends website and edited it in Photoshop to a washed out black and white, the right size for printing and my banner technique. Then I used paint to paint over the black and white print, thickened the banner with PVA and stuck it on the banner pole with superglue (after cutting it to size obviously). As a last step I added highlights to the commander's and champion's swords making those look sharp within all the rust. I finished off applying a coat of Vallejo Polyurethane Varnish Matt to tie everything together and protect the models. I also couldn't quite stop adding a lot of grass to the bases to add more color.

You've got to love the internet for easily providing access to these kind of examples. 

Here is the picture I used to paint my banner, who knows, someone might get a use out of it.

Old zombies are hell to paint, but fun to stick on the table.

As the Nightmare Legion is not quite the only bit of pretty Oldhammer stuff coming my way recently, I also couldn't resist adding a few zombies to my army. These are some of the very first models I bought and also some of the (IMHO) hardest models to paint. I opted to go for a bit of a Nurgle approach to these ones using P3 Traitor Green over German Grey Primer as a base. I had a lot of fun painting bones sticking out and went for added blood to give them some character.

Every time I played undead I've been annoyed at the state of my Corpse Cart, this touch-up should help. 

Last but definitely not least (and most definitely not Oldhammer) was my corpse cart. Before Age of Sigmar and my full return to fantasy I bought a Vampire Counts Army box as a nostalgic holiday painting project. I found Warhammer Fantasy 8th unplayable because of the pervasive meta-list-build-whatever-nonsense and the players it attracted. So the army was just meant to have a bit of fantasy fun without ever seeing a table top. While cheerfully working the box I managed to glue the Corpse Cart together the wrong way round and stuck the driver to a base to hang around as a regular Necromancer. Now that I'm actually playing fantasy battles in the Mortal Realms I have quite a lot of use for my Corpse Cart. Unfortunately it looked like this.

The Corpse Cart pre-touch up with some freshly basecoated Nightmare Legionaires behind it.

As it is rather fiddly I didn't expect it to survive paint stripping so I decided to rebase and (try to) touch up the paint a bit. For the base I used my greenstuff world roller to make some paving stones. I added coarse sand around this, but while painting opted to cover that with Vallejo Dark Earth Paste (I just took a real shine to it recently). Then I went to town on the rest of the model.

I used to see 'just add blood' as a 16 year old's way out, but these days I think that properly added blood does actually enhance a model.

I washed the drybrushed zombies with Athonian Camoshade first and then gave them another wash of Agrax Earthshade, covering the rest of the cart as well. Then I drybrushed the wood with some Karak Stone to make it look a bit older. I touched up all the dead bodies on the cart with a few thinned down layers of Zamesi Desert. I touched up the bell on top with some nice metals and took care to edge the metal bits holding the cart together making them stand out more. I added the driver to the cart again, giving him an interesting position on the front. As the final step I used my favorite method of adding blood and gore to a miniature to make this disgusting looking cart even more gruesome. Now I can slap this model back on the table without feeling a twinge of embarrassment at its state.

Next up: me pulling out hair as I try to decided between finishing up my Moonclan Grots, painting my Necromunda gangs or getting started on those High Elf chariots.....decisions, decisions....oh I could also.....