Starting a Vampire Counts Army.

A few months ago, I bought a collection of Vampire Counts from someone on TMP. Sadly I forget who. Anyway, it was a nice collection of old figures. I bought it on a whim, because I can't turn down a good deal.

About a month ago I decided to paint up a single unit of the VC. I went through the collection and came up with 20 plastic skeletons. I never really looked at them back then as I was strictly a Empire player. As I sorted through them I really started to like them. They have a lot of character. They were already assembled but needed some minor repaits. I am really gonna like this project.

So here's pics as I go through my painting.

For plastic figures I glue lead fishing weights to the underside of the slotta base. This helps keep the figure stable and gives it some heft. I also glue on sheet metal base stands so I can use magnets in my storage and movement trays.

The top of the base gets Medium gel with sand. I also randomly scatter on rocks and stuff.

I primed them Army Painter Leather Brown, and went right to a dry brush of GW's bone colored paint.

Then I very light white highlight.

Skellies paint up fast.

A few bits of armor. I will stipple brownish red paint on all exposed metal for rust.

Got the bases all painted.

Shields are next.

Just need to flock the bases as my last step.

And we are done, so I thought...

I have some old GW movement trays, lined with sheet magnets. I painted the edges to match the base of the skeletons.

The Movement stand holds 25 figures, but I only painted 20. So there was an empty row at the back of the base. I came up with the idea of filling up the space with gravestones.

So I mounted some gravestones on slotta bases and painted them up like the rest of the unit. Then it occurred to me that I've seen players do this sort of thing to stretch out there units. Unit filler is the term I think. And here I thought I was being all clever.

I put together a quick little diorama. I painted the back ground on some pink board and flocked a base for it. Using GW trees and the Garden of Morr set, it was good to go.


I really really liked the skeletons. So much so that I bought an unopened box off ebay. I'm now painting up my 2nd Warhammer army in 25 years. Yeah I'm slow.