Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire Undead Warband

‘The dead clawed their way out of the frozen ground, animated by hatred of the living, their souls screaming as they stood for the first time in decades... theirs would not be rest until the last enemy lay slain at their feet’...

With the current Covid-19 lockdown keeping me at home, I've been digging through my backlog!

In future posts I'll come back to the other bits I've been painting, but this time I want to concentrate on a warband I've painted that comes from the Warhammer: Underworlds Shadespire game.

Undead, and in particular Skeletons have fascinated me ever since seeing Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts as a child - when the teeth of the Hydra are sown into an instant army of skeletons, set against Jason and his crew! 


These models are a joy to paint, each one tells a story on its own - from one clawing its way out of it's grave, to one with half a skull, the victim of a previous battle perhaps?  

Painting was relatively easy - from a black undercoat, I built up the bone colour to be quite aged and worn, rather than a bright bone colour, using the following recipe:

Basecoat: Stormvermin Fur
1st highlight: 50/50 Stormvermin Fur / Ushabti Bone
2nd highlight: Ushabti Bone
3rd highlight: Terminatus Stone

The blue robes were:
Basecoat: Kantor Blue
Shade: Coelia Nightshade (this adds a deeper blue/green shade that I like)
1st highlight: 50/50 Kantor Blue / Alaitoc Blue
2nd highlight: Alaitoc Blue
3rd highlight: Hoeth Blue
4th highlight: Russ Grey

I wanted the metals to look weathered, old and rusty, as if they'd been buried for decades.  To achieve this I used:
Copper;
Basecoat: Screaming Bell
Wash: Nuln Oil
1st highlight: Sycorax Bronze
2nd highlight: Stormhost Silver

Steel / Iron;
Basecoat: Leadbelcher
Wash: Nuln Oil
1st highlight: Ironbreaker

All of the metals then had 'spot washes' - picking out dents, creases, nicks in the blades etc. of Nilakh Oxide to give it a corroded look, and then a final thin wash of Dry Rust from Army Painter.

The robes were then given a light dry brush on the edges of Tallard sand, to 'dirty' them up slightly.

The final touch is the snow - I use Valhallan Blizzard - dabbing little amounts in places where snow would collect on the miniature itself as well as the base ties the whole group together, to make them really look and feel like they've just scraped their way out of the ground and are now shambling to war!

the next thing to paint up is an army box I won from Alchemist's Workshops in a draw back in 2017 - The Blade Of The Blood Queen - more skeletons!

Im going to use the same palette of colours again, so hopefully they'll come out nice!