#Orktober… Sorta.. Dark Alliance Miniatures Product Review

It’s #Orktober… so here are some zombies!

In fairness, I’m told by some wiser heads in the blogosphere (Hi Roger) that #Zomtober is also a thing, so let’s have a bit of that too…

Halloween is on the horizon and the one thing scarier than other people’s children turning up at your doorstep in facepaint demanding sweets is, of course, zombies – now, I ran a game back early in lockdown testing out Apocalypse Earth: Black Ops rules, which is basically our more detailed small unit action of the main rules, combined with the “Zombie Mode” solo rules in the main rulebook, and it was tremendous fun. So, now we’re (sort of ) free again, I figured we could scale the idea up, on the big table with more troops and MORE ZOMBIES.

To Ebay! Dark Alliance have put out a couple of boxes of 48 figures heavily modelled on The Walking Dead – well, it looks that way from the box art – and we picked up one of each for a mere tenner a pop. That’s 96 figures, plenty to get started with. We went with a new trick for basing – 20mm washers. These really give extra weight and presence to the models and weren’t too expensive either, coming in at about a fiver for a bag of 100. Superglue attached the figures – and occasionally fingers – to the washers.

Next up, spray prime grey with a vague attempt at zenithal priming, dusting them at a distance with a can of white, and then we mixed up a base coat – part Wilko’s Granite Dust house paint, part cheap flesh tone craft paint, bit of water and a few drops of Windsor & Newton Matt Medium. Each zombie got two thin coats of this (wonder where we got that idea), and then a thin wash of Vallejo Smokey Ink, and another thin wash of Army Painter Green Tone to give the flesh that necrotic, diseased look.

We went with a fairly straightforward palette, starting with blue – those bits got done with a light blue house paint, Wilko’s Duck Egg blue, and then painted over with blue craft paint (Chiltern Arts Ultramarine, to be exact). This acted kind of like Citadel Contrast, sort of like a wash, but it definitely worked. We mixed a white from bone craft paint and Granite Dust house paint, thinned down and then painted that on, before doing the black/ grey bits with either Vallejo German Grey or Wilko’s City Break grey house paint and then overpainting with Chiltern Arts black, thinned down. This gave a nice depth and definition.

I picked out some accent colours on some of them – blonde hair, painted yellow and washed with thinned down Vallejo Skin Wash, and red on a few ties done by Dan with Vallejo Hot Orange and Red Ink. I also stippled on some thinned down crimson which gave the illusion of dried blood. A final light drybrush with bone craft paint sealed the deal and then it was basing – painted the bases with brown craft paint and then PVA, dunked them first in thin dried soil and then sand, before finally a light drizzle with flock. Then out to the shed for varnish and done!

BRAAIIIINS…..

I do like these figures, and aside from a little flash, they paint up well. The kids in particular are really creepy:

Imagine that turning up on your doorstep – “Trick or treat”

I think this one is probably my favourite sculpt, the teddy bear and the slightly inhuman angle of the neck are gloriously spooky!

..Although some of the female zombies are… optimistic, shall we say? X-D

“I ALWAYS wear my most alluring underwear/ Daisy Dukes to Sainsbury’s, you never know who you’ll run into”

So, aside from “Sexy Zombie Prostitute” or whatever the hell the designers were thinking, these are good figures, easy to paint up and available at a decent price- have a hobby knife to hand to deal with the flash but otherwise all good.

After the upcoming game we’ve also got something else planned – as soon as he saw them, Dan just said “Yonkers”.

The undead horde about to overrun some hapless Holy Soviet Army conscripts…

So yeah, that’s going to happen (for those who haven’t read World War Z, The Battle Of Yonkers takes place when the US Army tries to take on the zombie infestation in a stand up fight and – spoiler alert – things don’t go to plan).. stay tuned, I know Dan has been playing with some urban terrain ideas based on Mel The Terrain Tutor’s tutorials.

Stay safe and thrifty out there, and if you’re storing petrol in your kitchen don’t be surprised when your house burns down…