Vampire and Crypt Ghouls

My Vampire Counts army is coming along nicely, ready for the release of Island of Blood. Here are some pictures of the crypt ghouls from the VC battalion box. I decided on a leviathan purple wash which has come out quite well.

I used the painting guide on the GW website so the bones are 'cathlan brown - bleached bone - devlan mud - skull white' which I actually prefer to the method I used to paint the huge unit of skeletons finished earlier in the week. I also learnt from my mistake and laid off the skull white for the final highlight so they retained the colour of bleached bone.

Yesterday I started on my first character, the ubiquitous winged vampire, and I'm pleased with the results. I have found red armour so difficult to paint in the past and as I scoured various forums for tips, I finally came across a viable method. In the end, the armour was 'mechrite red - red gore - blood red - baal red wash'. By avoiding the recesses of the armour (in classic 'eavy metal style') the effect was dark enough for what I wanted.

The wing was tausept ochre follow by various watered down highlights of dheneb stone, elf flesh and bleached bone.

As I was painting, little areas of paint kept coming off so naively I decided on a purity seal finish. After reading the horror stories of 'the frost effect', I shook the can vigourously and ensured it was at room temperature etc. and even did a test model. Then it happened. On drying, 'frost' appeared on the leg of the vampire and on the cloak. I managed to rescue the vampire by adding another wash of baal red on the leg and badab black on the cloak.

Why would GW continue to sell the purity wash if the frost effect is so commonplace? I admit I had one of those 'it'll never happen to me' moments and thankfully the 'frost' was limited to two small areas but for those who regularly finish minis with a seal, it must be like Russian roulette!

On a trip to a GW store today, I purchased a varghulf and Konrad von Carstein to add to the army. I've also got some dire wolves to finish as well as some zombies and skeletons for those raise dead moments and then I'll finally have a solid WFB army to take on what I imagine will be many skaven and high elves armies.

Vampire Count Skeletons

With all of the excitement surrounding the release of the 8th edition of Warhammer, I though it only appropriate that I jump on the bandwagon by attempting to paint up an Vampire Counts army. I've already got a unit of zombies completed and now a unit of 30 skeletons. Whilst it's not very original, I do like the red theme from the army book, so I decided to follow suit. I'm not brave enough to add a design to the banner yet - if anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate it!

I still struggled with highlighting large flat areas of colour (the red shields mainly) because the border between the colours seems too obvious. Whilst I should water down the paint and grade the colours more, with 30 rank and file skeletons, I didn't bother.


I've got the crypt ghouls, corpse cart and more zombies (from the battalion box) left to paint up as well as Vlad von Carstein and a winged vampire and some dire wolves. Choices, choices.


I'm debating whether to purchase the new Island of Blood box set when it's released on 4th September or whether to buy the Warhammer rulebook. I quite like the look of both the Skaven and High Elf armies in the set but I didn't even finish painting up the contents of Skull's Pass! Dilemma. I still have mountains of minis waiting to be painted, but I know that's not the exception but the rule amongst other gamers.