Hobby Update: Smashy Skeleton Warriors

Up now are some Skeleton Warriors with two-handers, to bolster the ranks of the Undead!

My test unit.

The models are from the Oathmark line of miniatures. The idea caught my attention over the summer, and I picked up two boxes to idly hobby on, and started doing so. Overall, the box looks like a great way to start on some skeletons! You get 30 minis, with shields, hand weapons, spears, and even bows! Unlike a lot of the boxes / sprues I’ve worked with recently, you can build up the full unit with any of the available options. Huzzah!

A horde's worth.

You might have noticed that two-handed, hefty weapons is not one of the options from the sprue! I needed to do some conversion work. The spears would be good places to start. I didn’t want to use the shields at all (since the rules describe it as a weapon-swap), so ended up trimming (or trying to trim) the skeleton’s shield hands. This was difficult as the shield’s grip was sculpted into the hands themselves. I then mixed up and rolled out a thin layer of green stuff, cut that into strips, and wrapped those around the hands and spear shafts. In my mind, the wraps would be a way for aspiring necromancers to make sure the skeletons didn’t drop their weapons on big swings. It also helped hide the poor trimming job I did! Arms were then arranged and cemented together in a variety of poses.

I still have a lot of bits from my Warhammer Fantasy days, and so raided some Chaos Warrior hammers for my first test regiment. A clip near the hammer’s head and a clip along the spear shaft worked pretty well, and I only ended up with a few doofy angles. The test unit worked and looked well enough that I started in on the next horde.

One of the regiments.

For that next unit, I then clipped off a lot of Chaos Marauder flail heads to make some long maces for the smashing. That join was a little harder, so I tried filing down the round mace head and then using a hand drill to create a bit of a divot for the spear shaft to adhere to. That worked alright, but was pretty time intensive. About this time, I attended Dragonfall and got a third box of Skeletons as one of the prizes. I have about another horde’s worth assembled already, but before I got too crazy and committed all 90 of the Skeletons to this project, I resolved to finish these units up fully and try them out on the table. So here we are with the hobby update. 

The other regiment.

So, why in the world am I building so many smashy skeletons? Trevor over at Data and Dice is a frequent opponent of mine, and we have both come to respect the lowly Penitents of his Brothermark army. At just 75 points per regiment, they unlock, and with their innate CS, they can occasionally spike some dice and deal good damage. If they don’t spike, it’s still a lot of drops to play around with, extra Unit Strength for scenarios, and lots and lots of Nerve for an opponent to hew through.

For just 10 points more, my Skeletons get a bump to Nerve, gain Fearless and Lifeleech 1. Since the Penitents main drawback is unfortunate wavering and then gumming things up for your own line, this seems like a worthwhile price to pay for some more resiliency!

I’ve said a few times that I want to try some Undead MMU, and these guys will be integral to that approach. I've had a few misses over the last month for games, but we'll try to get these on the table to get some testing in soon!