Mining for Lead-Undead Part 2 Characters

Back in the day, I was hesitant to get into another army due to costs.  My green tide of Orcs and Goblins was consuming most of my budget for wargaming which was not much. I focused on the green ones and lurked around the undead section of the blister displays admiring the figures, then two events happened that pushed me into necromantic collecting.

The first was the release of the plastic skeletons.   

This was a breakthrough in undead miniatures, they were inexpensive and in many cases a better quality than some of the lead at the time.  Games Workshop released them initially in two sets.  Most are familiar with the large 40 pc Skeleton Undead Army which contained 30 foot troops, 8 mounted troops and a chariot with 2 crew in the previous two pictures.   

The lesser known box, Skeleton Horde, was actually released first.  It consisted of 24 foot troops and was made up of the same skeleton body sprues that were in the Skeleton Army boxed set.  All it lacked was the horse sprues which would stick around well into the 2000’s until plastic became the norm for miniatures.  This put great hordes of skeletons within my price range.  

The second was an opportunity to venture over to Jolly Ole England!  I graduate from college in 89 and went to Europe with my family on a vacation that they had been saving several years to pull off.  That gave me access to somewhat better pricing, yes even with the poor conversion rate of the dollar back then there was a little bit of savings over buying in the US.  I'm always looking to pinch a penny!  On top of that I stumbled into a toy store one day to kill time while waiting on a train and found a wall of blister packs, most of which were on sale!  Talk about heaven!  I only wish I had bought more!  I picked up at least one if not two army boxes.  I visited a couple of Games Workshop stores which was a novelty since we didn’t have any back in the states.

Lastly I made a pilgrimage to the Orc’s Nest which I had seen numerous adds for over the years in the early White Dwarf issues.  A great trip on multiple accounts. I digress, how about those painted troops you ask?  Here you go, a few characters to wet your appetite.

A couple of Marauder characters with the Necromancer and Vampire.  I'm pretty sure I have the Liche to complete the Trio.

Here is the big dog, the original version of Nagash!  I did some conversion on him to raise up the arms in a more menacing, mid spell casting pose.  

I have several more character figures but they are all in unpainted states such as a 2nd edition Heinrich Kemmler The Lichmaster, a Marauder Lich, a 4th/5th edition Red Duke and mounted/foot Blood Dragon vampire as well as an old Night Horrors vampire.  I also have a couple of those "someday" conversion projects like a Lucrezzia Belladonna to mount on a Red Duke horse and use as a female vampire.

Next post the mounted troops.