NACHT DER UNTOTEN 15mm style!

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I've been playing Call of Duty: World at War Zombies on the train home in the evening this week. Had a blast with this and want to recreate the feel of these games in 15mm. So, I need some appropriate 15mm WW2 US troops to beat off my Rebel Minis Nazi Zombies.

A WIP photo from January

I was hoping the latest WW2 US releases from Flames of War including the Devils Brigade and Late War Assault Platoon would supply some cool miniatures - only find that they are essentially just repackaged and rebadged versions of previous miniature releases - with the odd new fig thrown in. All very much 'emperors new clothes'.

The 'fluff' on the FOW website for the Assault Platoon platoon says "They were specially trained in reducing enemy strong points and bunkers using demolitions, bangalore torpedoes, and flame throwers." Not so much fluff as 'fluffing' as there is not one demolitions, bangalore torpedo or flame thrower figure in the pack, but instead several guys on their knees with entrenching tools. Which reminds me of a sketch from Eddie Izzard's Definite Article live show.... "I got done for assault, and I was running away! Assault is motion towards, I feel… it takes an accusative".

Not the first time FOW has badged one guy with a shovel, three guys buying newspapers, four walking the dog and six weeding the lawn as an assault pioneer platoon or similar.

So we turn to Peter Pig, who have some really laudable WW2 ETO American Infantry. My favourites from the range and absolutely perfect for fighting Nazi Zombies are Pack 60: US with SMGs.


This pack just hits the button with some classic US soldiers in great poses which ooze character. Plus, the figures really look comfortable and experienced holding and using their weapons - not always true of Pig but more so with the many of the recent sculpts. But this can be said of and is often worse with other manufacturers lines. Anyhoo....a couple of the carbine troops, the LMG being carried and fired at the waist and we are done - ready for NACHT DER UNTOTEN 15mm style!

The video above from the XBOX360 game will give you a flavour of the game action. The iPhone version is subtely different, with more of a bunker setting than ruined farmhouse and much more claustrophobic as a result.

Cheers
Mark
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WWW2 Germans

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Just a quick post to say that I've fired off a small order to Peter Pig before their prices go up on the 15th. I've asked for a couple of packs of WW2 Germans with Assault Rifles to use as WWW2 Nazis.

Peter Pig 15mm: PBI range pack 550

Peter Pig 15mm: PBI range pack 66

I've also included some Panzerfausts - not for tank hunting, they will be armed with proximity fused shrapnel warheads to counter the Zombie threat. Of course, a few months earlier the Panzerfaust warheads were filled with the 'Z' Virus and fired at groups of advancing Soviets to turn them into a mindless rabble. Nazi science could not predict the terrible wrath of Hell they would be sowing....turning friend and foe alike into ravenous, brain eating monsters.

A new battle is being fought on the plains of Poland and at the gates of Berlin. Not for victory or defeat but simply survival!

PopQuiz: If you could get a sprue of WWW2 german heads to convert these miniatures - what heads would you want? German helmets with gasmasks? Field caps with gasmasks? Field caps with goggles? Leave your own ideas below.

Issue Wehrmacht WW2
M35 helmet and gasmask

Cheers
Mark
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These Nazi Zombies Can Go To HELL!

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....If they didn't already come from Hölle!

Todays post is a work in progress. I'll be updating throughout the day in between painting these %$$###k'ing Nazi Zombies.

I honestly thought this was going to be a fun aside. Tip for Mike or anyone producing Nazi Zombies - they are DEAD! They would have been stripped of kit, no webbing! Please, no webbing! Jim Bowen's superb Gotterdammerung range got it RIGHT!

OK, as these were Zombies I started with spraying them with a Humbrol enamel Field Grey from a can that was mmm##pphh years old. Worked a treat. I used this several years ago to great effect on my German 'Stalingrad' collection after noticing in photos of German troops at Stalingrad that they were covered in tons of dust - this seemed a practical instant method of highlighting & weathering the miniatures at the same time!

I thought to myself Nazi Zombies - lot's of grey masonry and earth dust on them - do the same.

This time I added an extra step - basecoated Field Grey, washed with a watered down Citadel Badaab Black. With the first batch, I slapped over the whole miniature - MISTAKE! Rather than defining the creases, seams, folds etc - it just made the entire uniform dark green - %$$###! Had to go back and drybrush the lot Field Grey again.

Lesson learnt, I used a smaller brush to add the Baadab Black where necessary on the remaining 30 odd figures, then drybrushed the lot with Citadel Fortress Grey.

Where I am now doing my head in, is having to paint all their boots and webbing black. But I've come up with a quick and easy technique......thin the black so that it's semi opaque and brush it liberally over the boots and webbing straps/ammo pouches - what you'll find is that the Field Grey comes through on the highlights making the black leather look worn.

The straps of the webbing have three surfaces - top and two sides, with a small brush you would probably have to paint these with separate strokes, but with a semi-opaque 'wash' - thicker than a Citadel wash, and a size '6' brush, the black runs into the sides and colours but the top and edges but again, gives it an instant highlight/worn look - which will be further enhanced by the final drybrushing.

Whilst at it, I thinned the black paint a little more and then ran it into the deepest creases, over the facial features to create depth and along seams, before drybrushing the figures with Fortress Grey, including hands, faces and hair. If you think you've overdone it on the webbing a quick Badaab Black or Gryphone Sepia will rectify.

UPDATE:

Features. I now used Vallejo Camouflage Green to drybrush with a 'o' size brush over the hands and faces, then added Vallejo Elf Flesh to the green and lightly this time drybrushed again.

At this point - the figures look pants! I am completely and utterly disheartened! Time for a Vodka!

UPDATE:

Refreshed, I dappled Elf Flesh on the ends of the severed limbs followed by GW Scab Red, then slightly thinned the Scab Red to stain the mouths/faces, fingers and some areas of the uniforms and boots.

All is forgiven. The 'blood' effects have brought the minis to life (so to speak!). They look GREAT (for Zombies) and I'm bloody, ;-) delighted.

THOUGHTS:

I could have made this easier on myself and had fewer steps - I know for the next batch. In fact I'm tempted to go full 'Hollywood Field Grey' - use GW Adeptus Battlegrey as base and use GW Gryphone Sepia, Graveyard Earth to shade/highlight.

The bareheaded minis are great, can't fault them at all. The heads with German helmets are I'm sorry to say, sad representations of the Wehrmacht M35 and looks far closer to the Spanish M26. Some better than others. Luckily I have several old Battlefront Germans whose heads will be given up in a greater cause for the next batch. The peak caps of the officers - mmmmmm - I left these minis out of this round of painting and again, will use spare German heads with helmets and field caps instead.

I'm encouraged enough to convert a sample of a Modern Zombie young lady running with telephone handset and severed cable that Mike sent me. I'm going to give her a sidecap and change the outfit with Green Stuff to turn her into arespectable imitation of a 'Luftwaffenhelferin', and go through my Peter Pig and Battlefront minis to see who else can be converted in a Zombie Nazi!

Cheers
Mark
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Zombies Draw First Blood!

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Those Rebel Minis Nazi Zombies have drawn blood! They ARE true Zombies! Cleaning up the jackboot on one of them, the hobby knife slipped and sliced across the top of my left forefinger ##@@% ****@K!!!

I love 'em even more!

Is there a Doktor in the house.........

UPDATE:

Bloody Zombies! Grrrrrrr! Sneaking up on them again tomorrow and adopting a 'cinematic' approach with the paintbrush - more Inglorious B'stards than Der Untergang.

Cheers
Mark
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It's all gone a bit Abominable!

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Finished my Abominable Snowmen (Green Eyed Minis) - painted and based. God have they have turned out good! Heather thinks they are the best miniatures I've painted. But she said that after trudging through a snowstorm on the way home last night, so her judgement may be suspect!

Ok, so bouyed up by my success, I decided at 10pm to start painting Rebel Minis' Nazi Zombies. In the study I have second thoughts - too late to start paint spraying methinks....maybe, but sitting in the desk tidy waiting for a lick of paint is Herr Doktor Von Klumpenstein the projenitor of the Nazi Zombie menace!

The figure is a Flames of War 15mm WW2 German Officer. He was available a couple of years ago in a command figure pack - 2 different command figs for £1. I bought two, the other specifically to be Kurt 'Panzer' Meyer (as he appeared at Mariupol, 1941).

With only a small conversion - turning his MP40 into a Blaster rifle, he would make a great Sci Fi Commissar or Commander figure!

Nazi Zombies on the workbench tomorrow night!

Cheers
Mark
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