As part of my fantasy battle collection, I have an old Vampire Counts Warhammer army that I painted some years back. At some point, I need to organize it for T9A. My army has a dead elf and beasts theme. All my zombies are actually various animals I imagine one would find in a horror movie grab yard (bats, rats and snakes, oh my!). I decided I needed more zombies for my future T9A Vampire Covenants army.
While searching on the web for who knows what, I came across 15mm dire wolves from Splintered Light (I think). I thought these would make nice units of wild dogs for fantasy gaming (I had not decided on their use at this point), so I ordered some packs. They arrived and I set them a side.
While looking for some figures for FOW, I came across the packs and decided I would work on them, since they would be a quick paint job and I could get them done. Looking at them more closely, I decided I would use them to add to my Zombie horde (which was too small to be a horde!). Decision made!
I glued them to some extra 20mm square bases. I then added ballast to them with white glue. Sprayed them all with some Krylon black. I then hit the dogs with a grey dry brush. After that, I drybrushed up the bases, painted the sides brown and added some tan static grass (this matches them to my existing Vampire army). Dull coated them all and now I have a few more figures to add to the horde. I could have simply used these for other purposes. It is not a bad idea to use easy to paint animal models to your army as single model fillers or just cheap crap troop replacements. Sometimes, it is just a question of using your imagination. Units like these can help you get an army on the table quickly!
- Manteuffel