There’s a Vampire in the Office

It's been a while since I took a stroll around the office to see what everyone's been working on recently. For many people, the new Empire models have proven very popular and there are countless kits sitting on people's desks waiting to be worked on over the course of several lunch breaks. Andy Keddie, also known as the Turquoise King due to his excessive use of Hawk Turquoise, has not been tempted by the new Empire models though, and has decided to continue work on his fledgling Vampire Counts army. He claims that he's allergic to feathers and moustaches, which is why he chose to stick with them, but we think he just likes the idea of overthrowing the world with a tide of Undead minions.

Andy: Some of you may recall my Warriors of Chaos army that I was using in our office Warhammer campaign last year. The leader of my army was Amelia - a Bretonnian Paladin that had fallen from grace and become a Champion of Chaos. Towards the end of the campaign, she suffered a rather fatal injury at the hands of the Vampire Counts, but because of her martial skill, the Vampire Lord decided to resurrect her as a one of his thralls. Of course, this gave me just the excuse I needed to start a new army [Andy rarely needs much of an excuse to start a new project - Dan].

I knew that I wanted loads of Skeleton Warriors and a Terrorgheist in my force - those were my only requirements. So I wrote a 1000-point army list including as many skellies as I could, the uber-bat, and a Hero to lead them. Conveniently, just after I'd painted my 1000 points, the new Vampire Counts Army Book came out with a host of new miniatures, so I bought myself a couple of boxes of Black Knights and set to work on them, too.

Because of my army's links to Bretonnia, I made quite a few conversions across the army. The Skeletons carry Bretonnian shields from the Men-at-arms kit, and many of them still wear tin helmets. Similarly, my Spirit Hosts are made from Bretonnian Archers, and my Black Knights have been converted using parts from the Bretonnian Knights kits. I even used the dead Knight from the Grail Reliquary as the unit champion.

I think the only thing I do regret is that I didn't have the new Citadel Paint range when I started the army. I painted quite a few layers onto each Skeleton to get the look I wanted, which can now be achieved far easier with the new Shades. Ah well, there's still many more Skeletons to paint...