Zomtober 2026 week 3 - the name of the gaaaaaaaaame

 Another Sunday means another pair of zombies for Zomtober:

Not much to add that hasn’t already been said in previous posts, these were built and painted for Mordheim by my teenage self, and have now finally been finished and had their eyes painted in.

Finishing this pair brings the Tally up to:

58 vs 296 = -238

Or it would have done, if I hadn’t split a set of Victrix foot knights with a pal, so actually finished the week at:

58 vs 312 = -254

Unfortunately, my plans to do something additional this Zomtober have stalled a little - I did the conversions, primed them and base coated the flesh, but between being busy, tired, and generally distracted by converting miniatures for a Black Death City warband that’s all I’ve managed and now we’re only a week away from the final deadline!

Zomtober 2026 week 2 - more of the saaaaaaame

Another Sunday in Zomtober, another pair of Mordheim zombies spruced up after twenty-something years:

I know, I know, removing the head kills the zombie in most fictions, but to reiterate I built these when I was but a teen, and the idea of a zombie fumbling around looking for it’s missing head was (and still is) funny to me.

These sculpts are a bit of an odd duck - there’s some lovely details on there, like the back and ribs of the chap on the right, but they’re also kind of clunky (as was the style at the time) and the arms connect via a tiny ball and socket joint, which looks a little odd. Not so odd that I won’t add them to the horde though, which brings the tally to:

56 vs 296 = -240

What’s next? Well, I’m currently building a warband for Black Death City, and have something for yet another game on my painting tile, as well as the next batch of zombies, so who knows…

[question]: May I kill them now sir?

While I haven’t been chugging away painting zombies for Zomtober, I’ve also been working my way round some other odds and ends on my painting tile, the most recent of which is this sassy droid:

I mean, technically he was finished before the most recently posted zombies, but they got bumped up the posting queue due to the Zomtober Sunday deadline!

For those of you that haven’t played Knights of the Old Republic, HK-47 is hands down the best droid in all Star Wars media, a sassy assassin that refers to organics as meat bags, and so I figured an HK series droid would be perfect for some Star Wars Stargrave action. Yeah he’s technically thousands of years old by the time of the Jedi Purge, it still works.

Being a bendy WOTC mini, some of the detail was a little shallow, but some very careful panel lining made the details look a lot more defined, before I went crazy weathering him up to make him look like he’s been through the (star) wars.

Finishing him brings the Tally up to:

54 vs 296 = -242

What’s next? More zombies, hopefully!

Zomtober 2026 Week 1 - Braaaaaaains

Unbelievably, it’s October again already. As happens every year, I suddenly realised this fact right at the end of September, and so had to scrabble to get something ready for Zomtober. I was tempted by another themed month as I have occasionally done previously, but struggled to find one that I liked and was also manageable in the time I had. I’ve got over a hundred painted modern zombies already, so that wasn’t particularly inspiring for me, although very doable due to just being a case of plucking minis out of the lead mountain to paint; on the other hand my various other plans like making some flower/fungus infested zombies inspired by Hell’s Paradise for Ronin of Shadow Deep would require a lot more time consuming conversion work, and weren’t something I really wanted to rush, so they were out of the running too, as was a brief dalliance with the temptation to make some zombie Stormtroopers…

So I went digging through various drawers and boxes looking for inspiration, and in a box of bits that I used to make some Zombieslayer inspired conversions back in 2023 I found the zombies that I built and painted for Mordheim when I was 18 or so, and figured I could paint them to add to my raggedy Warhammer Fantasy zombie unit. And here are the first two:

These were built with Mordheim in mind, so I gave very little thought to whether or not they would rank up neatly or not, instead going for as many classic zombie movie arms outstretched while groaning braaaaaaaaaains poses as was humanly possible.

These were painted some twenty years ago, potentially with one thin coat of those little starter set tester pots of paint you used to get over a white basecoat, which is not in fact my style at all these days. Somewhat disappointingly though, slapping a dirty wash over the whole lot and then a light drybrush closed the gap between my painting then and painting now a lot quicker than I’d like to admit! Once that was done, some colours looked fairly good as they were (being basically an accidental slap chop paint job) and only needed a little bit more painting to tart them up, whereas others like the red shirt of the chap on the left I had to re-paint the layers of much more thoroughly to get it to where I was happy with it.

Then it was a case of adding some weathering and a fresh coat of blood, painting the eyes and they were good to go.

Speaking of the chap on the left in the red shirt, he’s had… quite a day. Here are how the minis looked last night having had some grass added to their bases while I was supposed to be writing a shopping list:

And here is how they looked this morning after breakfast, when it turns out my son knocked a tardis display case over onto them:

Most of the batch were fine, but this particular chap got the worst of it:

Some very careful superglueing and a sneaky touch up of paint to hide the joins and he was back on his feet though. 

Finishing this first pair brings the Tally To:

53 vs 296 = -243

I did say that this was chosen as that manageable option in the time that I have, so at the very least I aim to post a pair of these zombies every Sunday, but of course I also got excited and have already got something else on the go, so here’s to hoping I can finish that in time.

Speaking of getting excited, the launch of Black Death City came to my attention in our Salute trip group chat, so I’m currently musing over the idea of making a warband of knights that are hideously sick with the plague and cursed by demons but through hubris believe that they are actually protected by their faith and doing the Lord’s work, and I already have a mini that I could use for that as a starting point… no