With the Dagon cult well underway, my attention has turned to the second gang for my growing Dracula’s America collection, the Dark Confederacy. Nothing has reached the painting table yet, but the planning is in full swing, and this is often where the character of a force really begins to emerge.

Rather than building the gang from a single range, I am planning to combine figures from several collections to create something that feels unique. The core will come from the official Dark Confederacy miniatures, but they will be joined by Quantrill’s Raiders from North star Miniatures. The mix should produce a force that looks less like a uniform military unit and more like a band of cursed veterans, outlaws, and restless dead who have gathered beneath the same tattered banner.

Among the characters waiting to join the gang are a sinister Stitch Doctor, whose gruesome talents ensure that even death is not always permanent, and a grim Gravedigger, a figure who seems perfectly suited to a world where the dead rarely stay buried. Both add plenty of narrative flavour and reinforce the Gothic horror that sits at the heart of the Dark Confederacy.

There are also two more additional blister packs providing me with heaps of option/

Visually, I am aiming for faded Confederate greys, worn leather, rusted weapons, and equipment that has seen decades of hard use. The basing will contrast with my Dagon cult, replacing swamp mud with dry earth, dead grass, broken fencing, scattered gravestones, and abandoned homesteads. I want the gang to look as though it has marched straight out of forgotten battlefields and neglected churchyards, carrying the bitterness of the Civil War into the supernatural frontier.

One of the great strengths of Dracula’s America is that every faction tells a different story. The Dagon cult represents ancient cosmic horror lurking beneath the swamps, while the Dark Confederacy embodies a nation haunted by its own past, where old loyalties, old hatreds, and old ghosts refuse to die.

For now the project remains firmly in the planning stage. The figures are assembled, ideas are coming together, and the gang is beginning to take shape on paper. Before long, these undead veterans and their macabre companions will be riding out across the Weird West, where every lonely crossroads and abandoned cemetery offers another opportunity for darkness to rise once more.

The real centrepiece, however, will be the Pale Rider. Cloaked in dark, weathered clothing and mounted on a ghostly horse, he is the very image of death riding the frontier. Whether viewed as a supernatural gunslinger, an immortal Confederate officer, or one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Pale Rider radiates quiet menace rather than theatrical horror. He does not need to shout or threaten. His presence alone suggests that someone’s final reckoning has arrived. I am looking forward to painting him in muted tones, with an emphasis on cold greys, faded black leather, and a spectral mount that will stand apart from the rest of the gang while still tying into the army’s sombre palette.