The Swamps of Deadmire - Faction Spotlight

Hey Folks!

Today we’re checking in with a Spotlight on the full Deadmire Faction, giving a full rundown for those of you who want to field a full force of these shambling foetid corpses!

The Big Picture

As we stated in the reveal, our aim with Deadmire Part 2 was to fill out some of the holes remaining in the Deadmire faction after the main faction landed back in September 2022. Part 1 contained a horde of infantry and line-troops, but was missing some appropriately imposing and flavourful leaders & characters - with the arrival of Deadmire Part 2, we’ve worked to address this.

Here’s the full faction, collected in all their rotten glory - 

Troops, Archers, Cavalry, Brutes, Behemoths, Leaders and War Machines - all together and ready for war. There’s enough unit types here to offer a tonne of variation and army-styles, across a variety of systems.

Bumping the Numbers

In total, there’s 45 individual models between Part 1 and 2, a sizeable collection by any means - but, if you’re looking to bulk things out even further, things get seriously large with a bit of mirroring and duplication, here’s what we’d suggest if you’re looking for an enormous zombie horde, without a distracting amount of duplicate sculpts:

30 Restless (12 Original, 12 Mirrored, 6 Duplicates)

10 Deadwalker Soldiers (8 Original, 2 Mirrored)

10 Deadwalker Soldiers (8 Mirrored, 2 Duplicates)

10 Deadwalker Archers (6 Original, 4 Mirrored)

10 Mouldering Protectors (5 Original, 5 Mirrored)

5 Dread Horsemen (4 Original, 1 Mirror)

That’d create a core of 75 troops - plenty for even the mass-est of mass-battle systems! More than enough if you’re playing something like Saga, OPR, or similar wargames.

Adding on to this, you’ve got your characters and behemoths - That corpse wagon, flanked by a pair of risen dredgers, would look fantastic at the centre of a horde of 30 shambling restless zombies - a worthy centre to any undead army!

5E Integration

Another cool part of the Deadmire Part 2 release is the double-stacked Faction Supplement. To deliver the smoothest experience for y’all, this book contains stats & lore for the entire Deadmire Collection - including redesigned & rebalanced stat blocks for all the models from Part 1.

There’s a wealth of resources in here, giving you a tonne of content from which to build a host of experiences with the Deadmire undead. The original Adventure ‘Dreadlights’ still stands as a perfect starting point here - escorting the Engineer Lunden through the swamps offers an extremely atmospheric and terrifying introduction to the faction - just imagine the terror your players will feel when they find out they’ll need to travel back through the mire, this time without the aid of Lunden’s mighty wagon engine!

Expanding from the Deadmire

So, you’ve already painted all your Deadmire minis, but your endless hunger for filthy rotten undead is not yet sated? No worries, here’s a couple recommendations for factions and miniatures that will provide an interesting and thematic addition to the cadaverous army -

The Covenant of Grief

Soiled and languid ghosts, oozing with despair and malice and led by a Queen riven and tethered by sorrow… Yep, sounds like a decent match for Deadmire. The Covenant of Grief would serve an interesting allied detachment - particularly, the Mournwraith set - the multipart version contains a tonne of skinny arms and strange weapons that fit wonderfully with Deadmire - the kitbashers among you could even bolt-on some restless zombie heads for maximum visual cohesion!

Rotten Beasts

Although not strictly undead, the Gorgon Catacombs set contains two models that would be great additions for a Deadmire project - the Enslaved Moose and Enslaved Bear. Both of these desiccated wild beasts would be right at home in the rotten swamps, or barrelling through a horde of restless undead.

Aspects of Unlife

Lastly, if you’re looking to add some dread entities that embody the very spirit of undeath, then the Eternal Legions has a few models to fit the bill - the enormously imposing Grave King, and the trio of Hellions would happily fit as centrepieces for a Deadmire force.

There’s even more cool projects to be cooked up with Deadmire, (swamp board anyone?!) and even more units you could create with a little light kitbashing. We’d love to hear your own ideas and suggestions in the comments.

Additionally, we’d love to hear what you think about the state of Deadmire as a whole - did we meet our objective to ‘finish’ the faction? Or do you have any suggestions for future units or characters to fill an important niche we might’ve missed?

Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoyed this faction spotlight!

Cheers,
Bestiarum Crew