What Do I Need?
The heroes have already met quite a lot of undead creatures, but there are plenty more to come.
They've realised that there are two main groups; recent undead raised by the necromancer Vadin, and creatures dating back to the fall of the Abbey, presumably created by the intense magical effects released.
In terms of minis, general skeletons and zombies will always be useful, as will ethereal types that can work as spectres, wraiths or even ghosts.
All of these are available in Reaper Bones and I might have something in my WotC prepainted minis collection (Burning Skeletons and Chillborn, for example).
I'll look through stuff I've already got painted or part painted, and see what I can use, but, inevitably, I'll need to add to the collection. Fortunately, I've a lot of prepainted WotC minis, and a lot of unpainted Reaper bones.
First Up, Skeletons
Out of this lot I've managed to paint up or complete, including basing, seventeen skeletal undead creatures. One of these, the Undead Elf, required no work as I completed them as one of my Palette Cleansers back in 2021.
I'd already got a few completed skeletons back in 2015, they do need rebasing though, and I need more than them. To accompany them I found some part painted skeletons still on their broccoli bases, and a number of unpainted ones.
I started with the unpainted minis (the tiefling is a WotC prepaint, but it needed a lot of work, so it's effectively starting from scratch), prepping them with a bit of mold line removal, base removal and pinning, then a good wash in hot soapy water (they are the original white bonesium, and it needs to be cleaned to take paint properly). Then they were given a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone. As I mentioned regarding the Heroes, this really helps bring out the details. Next, a white dry brush and then on to colours.
I used my Army Painter Speedpaints, which do have the potential to reactivate, so it's one coat only here, which should encourage me to get these done quickly and not over complicate the painting.
APS Pallid Bone for the bones and then yellow and green for the cloth and shields. These were mixes based on Zealot Yellow and Orc Skin to match the finished skeletons, with various other shades added to give variety and make them look grungier.
The first batch after Speedpainting
When everything was dry, they were given a light coat of Colour Matt Varnish to seal the Speedpaints, then a dry brush of VGC Off White on the bones.
I experimented with some Vallejo Effects paints, Dry Rust and Rust. I'm pleased with the results, an improvement on my usual Dark Flesh and Fiery Orange.
I also drybrushed VGC Desert Sand around the feet, cloaks etc to give a dirty, dusty look, but this didn't come out very well. However, it did highlight the wood texture on spear shafts, so I used this an all the wood. Remember, "we don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents".
I treated the dwarf and the halfling as individuals rather than matching the rest of the skeletons. I've more of these minis (Reaper Bones SKU 77561 and 77562) so at some point I might do some converting to give me even more dead adventurers. It was nice to reunite them with their elven chum.
I'm particularly pleased with the WotC undead tiefling. The original mini is mostly just dark metal armour and bone. I wanted to add a bit more colour, and looking carefully, I decided that they must be wearing some sort of tabard; it's not all just armour. I used Army Painter Speedpaint Red for this, and blue for the wide belt. After a quick varnish to seal the Speedpaints I lightly went over the details in VGC yellow; the idea was to make it look like embroidery that had faded and worn away in places.
Old Bones
I took the opportunity to update some older painted and part painted minis. In most cases this means rebasing on clear rounds, with possibly a bit of detail and/or shading adding. These are the 2015 skellies, to which I added a batch that I must have started and abandoned.
Once the bases were sorted I gave the bone a coat of APS Pallid Bone. Some of them needed a little more to make them match the first batch, but essentially it was just a case of varnish then drybrush of VGC Off White.
The armoured skeleton is Reaper Bones Barrow Warden 3 (SKU 77348), I part painted it years ago in rather uninspiring steel with brown boots and bronze trim on the pauldrons. Even the shield was steel. It was too monotone and dull, so I used APS Gravelord Grey to shade the armour some more, especially the mail coif, APS Grim Black on those bat wing shoulders and I painted up the skull shield using VGC Bonewhite, Off White and Dead White.
Once finished, I daubed some of the VSX rusts on the armour, and now I'm really pleased with the results. A fitting leader for the skeletons.
So now I've got sufficient skeletons, not just for the game, but for future in person D&D games. I've also got roughly the same in unpainted and part painted skeletons, this time with a red and yellow livery, not to mention various scythe wielding skeletons, skeletal monsters and even dragons, so plenty more to expand the collection if I want.
I'm not tackling any of these now, but I do potentially need some more fleshy undead. That might be next, or possibly some scenery.