"...The Arm Of A Zombie Reached Up And Pulled A Lever."

"Clanking mechanisms that had lain dormant for ten centuries creaked into life."

These two 28mm scale Ghosts form part of the "twenty six detailed and fully assembled miniatures in coloured plastic" found inside the "Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf King`s Quest" boxed game by "Mantic Games", and initially appear in the boxed set's sixth adventure, "Turned Around". Each desperately dragging a heavy ball and chain, the restless spirits haunt the corridors of an ungodly crypt located at the farthest end of the scenario's rotating rooms and are able to "Walk Through Walls"...

Initially primed with two coats of "Vallejo" Black, both figures were heavily dry-brushed with Heavy Charcoal before having their crippling encumbrances 'picked out' using a combination of "Citadel" Ironbreaker and Nuln Oil. As I wanted the metallic objects to appear somewhat ancient and soiled I then applied some "Mig Productions" Extreme Rust Wash to them, and blended it in with the help of a delicate dry-brush of (more) "Citadel" Ironbreaker.

"The Ion Age" WIPs - The Muster Patrol Trooper has had all his base layers blocked in

I've rather embarrassingly actually owned an unpainted Undead "Kings Of War" army for several years now, and one of the main reasons I bought "Dungeon Saga" was so I could paint up a number of its decaying denizens and subsequently use them for "Mantic Games" tabletop mass battle rule-set. As a result, I've found myself becoming increasingly irked by the large paving stone bases upon which the Necromancer Overlord's minions stand, and with these two miniatures finally decided to take the plunge and re-based them upon the 20mm square bases predominantly used by Undead infantry troops.

In addition to finally finishing my pair of Ghosts, I have also made some significant progress on the first two Muster Patrol models I want to add to my current meagre-sized 15mm Prydian Army by "The Ion Age". Approximately four years ago I actually decided to start a weekly painting challenge for three months by 'picking' a painting subject based upon the turn of a playing card every seven days, and perhaps unsurprisingly ended up painting a small collection of figures from across a variety of ranges. These days I'm more concerned with monthly painting targets, yet felt the principle was still sound, and so have set myself the target of finishing forty points worth of the marvellously characterful science-fiction figures over the next thirty-one days instead.

"Bolt Action" WIPs - A German soldier, Rommel and a British Tommy

I have actually 'borrowed' the points system from the annual "Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge", and have been using its methodology to track my painting output over the past few years. For 15mm scale models I'm going to need to paint up a fair few foot soldiers as they only weigh in at two points each. However, as vehicles are worth six points apiece you can expect a handful of vehicles to promptly appear too so as to supplement my total tally over the next few weeks. To begin with though I'm hopeful this nearly-finished Standard Bearer, along with his Captain, will get me off to a reasonable start...

Lastly, I had the pleasure of attending "Warlord Games" Open Day on Saturday 22nd September 2018, and amongst my loot managed to not only bag the event's two free "Bolt Action" miniatures entitled "War Without Hate", but also their Western Desert Campaign Book's special figure of Rommel. I actually ended up buying quite a bit from the Nottingham-based manufactuer's Second World War range, as well as a few "Konflikt '47" weird war infantry units too, so expect plenty of vampires, werewolves, zombies and armoured exo-skeletons in the near future.