Hobby Update: Undead Skeletons

Back in 2021 and 2022, I hobbied up a bunch of Undead on round bases. The idea was to buy into some movement trays, and then have a nice multi-system army to play around with. I like the idea, but am not playing any other games, and do want to explore the Undead more in Kings of War. So the bulk of these are being moved onto unit bases, and next up are some hordes of appropriately Mantic Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Spearmen!

The Warriors, with a bonus ASB. Deus Vult, I guess.

I originally hobbied these up in 2022, aiming to build up a base for a multi-system Undead army. However, after sitting in a box, unused for nearly two years, I decided to commit, and use the Mantic skeletons for Mantic’s game. I can always buy more skeletons if I need them, and the Oathmark and Wargames Atlantic models are looking really great.

The Spearmen.

The minis all have stands, and having done up bases for them already, I decided to just snip the edges of the base away, sand things down a bit, and glue them to a new unit base as this approach required the least amount of work! Things were glued down, some terrain paste was applied here and there to help hide the worst joins, and then all the spots in between the minis were painted up with the usual grey rocks and varied brown muds. It took a session to clip and sand everything, an session to paste bits in between, a session to paint, and then a final session to add the fog effect.

The Spearmen again, I guess? I had two pictures.

Crunch-wise, the Undead Skeletons have the same mechanical split as general infantry units for oh so many other armies. Skeleton Warriors are the baseline, and the Spearmen have Phalanx. Phalanx can be very strong against certain lists (strongest so far it seems against my own Herd, unfortunately) and getting some recent discounts, they will likely get the nod more often than the basic Warriors for most Undead Commanders if Ii were to hazard a guess.

The Warriors recently got an update as well though, to let them swap weapons as well to get some CS. Because they have beat up on my so often, I can’t help but notice the similarities between CS Skeletons and Brothermark Penitents. For just 10 points more you get Lifeleech, and bump to Nerve as well as Fearless. This seems worth exploring as well, though I will likely need to convert the minis to make this happen. 

I am absolutely not an Undead whiz, but I am quite bullish on Skeletons, generally. In metas where bow shooting is prevalent, I think Skeleton blocks could edge out Zombies as go-to units for cheap unlocks and main-line units, as the survivability is noticeable. While Mhorgath does seem like the more competitive unique pick, ASBs and Zuinok both play very nicely with the basic, non-Revenant skeletons. Skeletons definitely look to have their uses, and with so many units of them in my collection now, I will endeavor to get them all on the table soon!