Dem Bones, Dem Bones - Dysartes

Another series, another army. My current Warhammer army, Dwarfs, can be described hy some of the following words: Resolute, slow, tough, hard-hitting, war machine orientated, stubborn. While the Dwarfs are a nice army to use, I'm looking for something a bit different for my new army. After a bit of a think (during a lecture, of course 1), I came up with the following guidelines for selecting a new army:
  • Must have magic - After playing Dwarfs, I'm certain there's a section of the game I've been missing out on.
  • Must be quick to paint - With only a month to paint and model each section of the army, I'd have to be able to get them sorted quickly, whilst still having them look good.
  • Gunpowder not permitted - After much of it being used by the Dwarfs, I feel its time to give the heavy artillery a break.
  • No pointy-ears - The traditional anti-Elf bias remains, I'm afraid.
  • No Chaos - There's way too many Chaos armies out there. I'm not going to be another one 2
OK, so bearing in mind these guidelines, what does that leave me with?
  • Bretonnians and variant lists
  • Lizardmen
  • Orcs & Goblins and variant lists
  • Vampire Counts and variant lists
  • Skaven and variant lists
  • Tomb Kings
From this short-list, I realised that I had the Tomb Kings army book on a shelf somewhere, so I dug it out and took another look at it. The revisit made me realise why I'd considered them before - the sense of an Undead Egyptian army.3. The heavily ritualised way of undeath, the strong religion and the Ushabti models all served as additional factors to help me with this choice.

In order to have a legal Tomb Kings army, I'd need three things: a Tomb Prince, a Liche Priest to act as a Heirophant and two Core units. While I think the models for the Tomb Kings themselves are really nice, I'm not such a big fan of the Liche Priests - they look a bit comical too me, and they don't seem to have preserved themselves that well. Instead, I decided to "borrow" an idea from the first Tomb Kings list to appear in White Dwarf - using the old Empire Light Wizard as a Liche Priest.

I'd also be looking to sort out as much of the core of my army as possible with this first batch of purchases, seeing as it is the biggest individual investment in the force that I'd make. The batallion box provides me with four of the units I'll be wanting in larger games, for a mere £50, which has got to be a good thing in anyone's book. Given that, my month's purchases look a little something like this:

ItemMethod of PurchaseQtyCost
Tomb KingBlister1£6
Light Wizard on FootMail Order1£4
Tomb Kings BatallionBoxed Set1£50
Total Cost£60


This months purchases allow me to put the following army together:

ChoiceUnitNo.Equipment & UpgradesCost
HEROTomb Prince1Great Weapon, General, Armour of the Ages139pts
HEROLiche Priest1Heirophant, Cloak of the Dunes, Dispel Scroll160pts
CORESkeleton Warriors10Bows80pts
CORESkeleton Warriors22Hand Weapon, Shield, Light Armour, Standard, Musician, Champion223pts
CORESkeleton Light Horsemen8Bows, Standard, Musician133pts
SPECIALSkeleton Chariots3120pts
Total Cost855pts


As a base for my army, that isn't bad at all. I'll be looking to add a second unit of archers soon, as well as expanding the Skeleton Warrior regiment to around 30 with the remains of a Warrior boxed set. While there seems to be a lot in the list, there isn't really anything with a lot of hitting power, as even the chariots are unlikely to break a regiment on the charge. On the other hand, most of the units are tough enough to survive around of combat if the enemy get a charge in, which is handy.

While I haven't had chance to use the army yet, I'm pretty happy with the way they're looking thus far.

Possible options for next month
  • Another box of Warriors?
  • Tomb Guard?
  • Tomb Scorpion?
  • Ushabti?
  • Mounted Liche Priest?
1, I seem to do my best wargaming thinking during my computer science lectures. Strange, but true.

2, Unless I do a Malal force, anyway.....

3, The fact they had a decent plastic batallion box had nothing to do with it, honest.....

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