Frostgrave: Zombies

Since I intend to play a necromancer in Frostgrave, I might need some zombies sooner or later, which will be awakened by the master and his apprentice. As luck would have it, Chaosbunker boss Dennis had a few Mantic Games zombies left over and I always wanted to see what you could get out of these minis with some simple methods.

First of all, I have to say that I am absolutely amazed by the models. The details are sharp, the casting quality good and the material is easy to work with due to the slightly higher degree of hardness than I'm used to on GW models. Only the space between the fingers of the corpses proved to be tricky, but that's nothing a little sandpaper couldn't solve. In total Dennis could give me parts for three zombies and a ghoul (which I will also paint as an ordinary zombie). Here you are spoilt for choice, because the zombies come in enough different parts to create many different poses with different impressions. Should it be a wobbly zombie, or someone who hasn't been dead that long and can still run? I assembled and painted two of them in the classic shuffler pose.

I wanted to keep the painting as simple as possible, but I can't help myself and from a certain point on I drift off again and again into too much attention to detail. However, this method still works quickly without creating a sloppy impression of the painting style. The skin was washed in three steps. First completely with Ogry Flesh, whereby I took care to pull most of the wash into the recesses. Afterwards I applied Baal Red, but this time I didn't cover the whole model with it, but aimed specifically at the recesses. In the third run I traced the deepest cavities of the zombie again with Leviathan Purple, which gave the mini a nice cold look. Some of the zombies still had guts hanging out or open areas where you could see old muscles. I covered them with an ancient GW color: Red Ink.

In the last step I placed highlights on the skin with thin lines in white. You don't have to be very careful or very accurate. Edge highlights are perfectly sufficient for zombies and create a picturesque style, which works quite well on the tabletop. With the clothes I wanted to try out different colors first, but decided again for a simple approach - the black fabric scraps were first painted with a 1:3 mixture of Sombre Grey from Vallejo and Matt Black from Armypainter. In several steps I added Sombre Grey until I used it only. The final accent, partly simply set as a dot, consisted of Sombre Grey mixed with white.

Of course, you can still put a lot of effort into it. For example, I have painted the area around the eyes blue again to create a magically controlled impression. Originally, I wanted to paint the eyes in a way that they had a glow effect, but when that failed, I simply returned to the standard. Maybe it will work next time.

Since you need a lot of critters for Frostgrave, I think I'll have some more zombies to test and develop the technique bit by bit. This will also benefit me with the other inhabitants of the ruins of Felstad, such as skeletons, golems and other animals from the bestiary.

   The Chamber of Necromancers was a safe place to delve deeper into his studies and Archibald was grateful that he did not have to take the next step in the training of necromancy alone. He was assisted by his Master Balthasar Tenebris, who had just resurrected a corpse, only to return it to death a few moments later.

   "Now you." Balthasar said to his apprentice.

   Trembling, the young man approached the corpse and stretched out his hand over the dead man's face. Carefully reciting the magic formula, he spoke the words while a faint glow formed in the center of his hand.

   "Excitare in conspectu meo invenit."

   For a moment that seemed endless to Archibald, nothing happened. But then a finger on the corpse began to flinch barely noticeably. The head of the corpse lay in a torturous slow movement in its neck and it's eyes opened flickering. A moaning followed, with the air of his breath emerging from the mouth of the zombie, which he had sucked in with the recently worked invigoration. The moaning changed and what had just sounded like a sigh changed into a hateful hiss.

   Archibald withdrew frightened as the hands of the undead tried to reach for him. Now Balthasar stepped forward, touched the zombie calmly on his forehead and said, "Non cesses.".

   Robbed of life again, the body of the zombie slackened again and sank back onto the stone table.

   "The undead serves always those with strong will, Archibald. Concentrate not on the magic itself, but on the command inherent in it." said Balthasar.

   Although Archibald didn't fully understand him, he nodded, but his master was too experienced to let him get away with it. Yet Balthasar smiled as he noticed the embarrassment of his disciple.

   "You will understand soon enough what that means. Until then that means 'Repetatio est studiuorum', my disciple." the master necromancer encouraged his apprentice and Archibald prepared himself for the next attempt.

Greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino