Heyhey, here's two dead-cold, bone-hard facts: it's spooky season and skeleton warriors rock. That much we know. So I decided to write a big old review article, comparing three rockin' skeleton warriors plastic kits.
Background
I do love the image of an army of skeleton warriors. Maybe it all started when I first saw this:
I believe it was somewhere in conjunction with a friend's Heroquest set. So since my childhood this illustration by John Blanche is one of the definitive images about undead armies. Then you add the famous Harryhausen skeleton warrios from Jason and the Argonauts to the mix as well as Army of Darkness, the best depiction of an army of the undead in motion. This in my mind covers all the important basics on what an undead army should look like.
Even though I never owned a Warhammer Undead army, I do own the army book, and I love the look of an Undead army of that time.
Powerful vampires aren't necessarily my thing, but I do like the lowly skeleton warrior. Skeleton warriors strike that balance of being creepy, but they also have a lot of comedic potential. Kinda like goblins. My personal preference goes into the direction of the naked skeleton warrior, armed with a shield and a scimiar or something like that. Bare-bones, if you will.
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| The granddaddy of them all, and to this day maybe an example of a perfect plastics box. |
Whilst I'm not necessarily a proponent of having all figures in plastic, somehow I always viewed plastic as a very good medium to cast skeletons in. They don't have to have perfectly natural poses because they are unnatural by na- ...by design. Their lack of clothes or muscles. which would have to be sculpted so they fit the specific pose you choose. makes them ideally suited for posable, multi-part plastics.
The Kits
In recent years we were treated to two new skeleton warriors plastic sets: One by North Star's Oathmark plastics range and two by Wargames Atlantic. To make the overview more complete, I also throw Warlord's (formerly Wargames Factory's) offering into the mix, because they got this re-release under the Warlord banner and they are a very interesting set in themself. I didn't get any GW skeleton kit, because we're all intimately familiar with GW's figures and know their properties. (Spoiler: They're good quality.)
Warlord Games Warlords of Erehwon Skeleton Warriors
Many years ago I got two boxes of Skeleton Warriors from Wargames Factory's Myths&Legends range. These skeletons were part of the deal with Warlord Games when Wargames Factory folded and now are sold under their Warlords of Erehwon label.
They're sold for EUR 26,50 / GBP 22.00 for 24 skeletons now. The sprue got recut a little (shields and bases are on the skeleton sprues now; a second style of shields apart from the classic round hoplite shields was added), otherwise they're just as they've been.
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| This is what my ancient boxes look like. What's inside hasn't changed much though. |
And quite remarkable they are, because each skeleton consists of 6 parts (legs/pelvic bone, ribcage, left arm, right arm, skull, feet[!]), plus a weapon and a shield and possibly additional bits like a quiver or a sheath. The sprues also come with a funky little bit which depicts a bit of groud with a skeleton emerging from. The spine of a skeleton's upper body will fit the little hole in the base plate.
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| The backs of the hoplite-style shields have some nice detailling. |
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| Variety of weapons, including a spear with a broad blade, the small thing I believe is a sheathed dagger, and the delicate thing in the lower right - most bafflingly - seems to be underarm claws. These were omitted from later versions of these figures. There also is a sprue with swords and one with longer spears with counter-weights. |
The casting quality is excellent. They are believably 28mm-sized, and rather delicate. Another interesting detail about this set: open hands. The weapons aren't cast into the skeletons' hands, but you place them there. This gives a LOT of possibilities for variety and posing, but, as we all know, open hands make assembly more tricky when it comes to natural looking poses.
The sprues come with a variety of weapons, including kopis-style sabres, straight thrusting swords, long spears AND bows. There is little in the way of additional bits, but there are shethes for the swords and quivers full of arrows for skeleton bowmen. Shields - as mentioned above - are large, round hoplite-style shields.
he box also came with square plastic bases. This is a picture of the later, recut all-in-one sprue:
Everything's on one sprue now, nothing changed about the models themselves. Some bits have been left out (like the underarm claw!), on the other hand they added a new style of shield (lower left) and two or three new skulls with helmets. The original skulls (including the old favourite with badly-aligned jaw) are all still present And great skulls they are. The all-important "arm with pointing hand" was also kept. Flat bases were replaced with the then-modern Wargames Factory tall bases. Pretty sure Warlord use the same sprue unchanged.
Assembly certainly is a bit fiddly, but posability and the variety of armaments is pretty neat.
The whole kit is great for spare parts in general.
Big Pros of this set:
.) Posability
.) Fine casting
.) Weapon variety
Downsides of this set:
.) Fragile
.) A bit of a bother to put together (so much so many people refuse to work with these figures)
Particularities:
.) Very classic, extra bits to make half dug-in skeletons.
.) Great for spares (and spears!)
.) Square Bases are included.
Oathmark Skeleton Warriors
On to a much more recent release of plastic skeletons - Oathmark Skeleton Infantry.
What sets these apart from the other sets in this review is that they come with rudimentary remains of clothing and armour. These skeletons come with many more helmets on their skulls and some body armor of vaguely Gallic style. The box of 30 skeletons costs EUR 30,00 / GBP 25.00.
The sprues come with several equipment options such as swords (and 2 axes), spears and bows(along with quivers), along with a variety of round shields of different styles.
A sprue will let you build 5 skeleton warriors, there is plenty of each weapon so technically you could equip all of the skeletons with each of the weapons and make the full 30 skeleton archers, 30 skeleton spearmen, etc. from each box. there are enough bare and helmeted skulls to go with either option or a mix of both on all the skeletons.
Each sprue also includes an extra bit to turn a spear into a banner pole.
Here are two sprues worth of Oathmark skeletons assembled:
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I built them with a mix of weapons; the banner is made from paper and hand-painted. The skeleton in the very left I made to illustrate that you can indeed build them in very bad poses as well. :-P Just as a warning, I totally did not mess that one up.
In general, poses are much more limited than on the Warlord skeletons. Assembly is faster though, even though removing the mold lines proves a bit trickier. The casting doesn't seem as crisp, and sometimes it can be a bit tricky to figure out what the clothing (or rags) are.
Big Pros of this set:
.) Weapon variety, plus the option to arm all warriors with the same weapon.
Downsides of the set:
.) Not very pretty skulls, unfortunately
.) Mold lines can be tricky to remove, and aren't always easy to tell apart from ragged clothes.
Particularities:
.) Armour!
Wargames Atlantic Skeleton Cavalry & Chariots
Just ever slightly more recent a release is Wargames Atlantics' Skeleton Cavalry and Chariots box. Not perfectly in line with the idea of this article, but this box also includes skeleton warriors on foot, and I thought it's more useful to include these than do one more box of skeleton infantry. Especially since it also includes that.
Wargames Atlantic released a box of skeleton infantry (EUR 30,00 / GBP 25.00 for 32 skeleton infantry) prior to that, which come with slightly different shield options and some different weapon options ("Builds include up to: 8 bow men, 8 pikemen, 8 swordmen, 24 spearmen or many combinations." - Wargames Atlantic's Website).
This box however goes much more in a direction of GW's old Skeleton Army box, by including skeletal horses and chariots. As usual with Wargames Atlantic, it's rather cleverly done: The sprue includes the skeletons (riders, infantry and steeds as well as weapon and head options). We get 5 sprues of those:
Each one contains 2 horses, 5 skeleton bodies (1 of them wearing a cuirass and chin guards), 4 shields, 5 swords (a mix of kopis-style and straight swords), 2 bows and 5 arms wielding javelins/spears. Skull options include 5 bare skulls and 4 skulls with helmets. All the armour and weapons are somewhat greekish in style. Including a lovely pelte-style, crescent-shaped shield. Each sprue also includes a horned, animal-like skull which can be used to put on top of one of the spears as a quasi-banner, or to put on the hood of the leader's chariot!
Three of the skeletons' bodies are posed in such a way that they depict riders, the other two are standing on the ground, albeit pretty statically, with legs apart, so they can fit the horses as well if need be.
The box contains a total of 25 skeleton warriors, 10 horses and 2 chariots. If built 'out of the box' we get a few options: Up to 10 skeletons on foot and up to 10 skeleton cavalry OR up to 2 chariots with 2 crew each, 6 skeleton cavalry and 6 skeletons on foot. Or a mix thereof.
The two chariots come on separate sprues, undoubtedly because they'll see use with differnt kits in the future.
I really like those. Not only because its plastic chariots(!), but also because we even get two variants on each sprue: with sides covered or all open (for an extra light chariot look!). Of course a little part of me would have liked to see chariots made from bones, but I'm perfectly okay with the chariots being just reguar ones.
They don't look ragged, weathered or aged at all, but that can be done during the painting stage. Chariot assembly is very straightforward, as is skeleton assembly.
These being skeletons and plastic figures, of course you can get pretty creative converting these chaps. One of the things you may want to consider is turning horse-riding skeleton bodies into infantry or chariot-riding skeletons. All you have to do is cut the ankles and reposition the feet so you can stand them on the ground and either cut the legs at the hip joints or just bend them a little, so they don't stand as widely-spread. I did this with a few of the extra rider bodies and ended up with this lot:
6 skeletons on foot, 6 cavalry, and 2 chariots with three crew each, just because I wanted to use all the bodies in the box. The two studded shields used are nicked from the Oathmark skeletons box. Since I used two shield arms (left and right on each) to make a driver for each chariot, I also added some basic reins in the end, drilled holes into the drivers' fists and slung them through.
Big Pros of this set (considering the skeleton warriors only for now):
.) Most modern feeling of the kits in terms of ease of construction and prettiness
.) Good variety of shields
Downsides of the set:
.) You'll be left with unused bodies unless you convert a little.
Particularities:
.) A little bit chunkier/robust
.) some armour thrown in
.) horn! (toot-toot, parp-parp)
Just for completeness' sake, here's a picture of Wargames Atlantic's regular sprue from their Skeleton Warriors box:
32 models per box, two interesting things: The aforementioned sarissa-like pike (sadly only one in 4 can be equipped like that), slightly different shield pattern, but the main thing being that fourth skeleton who comes with separate legs. Now that sounds like fun. Maybe I should pick up that box after all.
Comparison
Now for the direct comparison of the three kits. First off, I like them all. The Warlord Games skeletons are delicate beauties. I can absolutely understand if people aren't willing to put up with them. To me though, they look the closest to actual skeletons and how they were portrayed in Jason and the Argonauts. And I really like their skulls too.
The Oathmark skeletons aren't necessarily 100% to my taste, given how they wear some armour and raggedy remains of clothes. However, I appreciate the different style of their kit, the banner pole and the fact that you can build them all to be armed the same. Their skulls are really not that pretty, but there's a remedy for that:
I suggest getting that box anyway. Or something comparable. Years ago I got a big bag of skulls from Hasslefree, but the GW Skulls box is good fun and rather useful in general. Or of course you can use spare skulls from other skeleton boxes. Either way, when I build more of the Oathmark skeletons I'll probably use skulls from different sets.
Using the Wargames Atlantic Skeleton Cavalry and Chariots box in this review rather than their Skeleton infantry box wasn't the most methodologially sound move on my part, but oh well. How many skeleton warriors on foot do I really need? And that set had me hyped right from its announcement. I was very happy to be able to grab one at Austrian Salute this year from Roll-the-Dice's trade stand.
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| Early WIP shot of a happy skeleton. |
I'm very happy with that kit. There's so much stuff not making a lot of sense about skeleton horsemen (without saddles and so on), but I wouldn't wanna have them any other way, and Wargames Atlantic know that. The WA skeletons probably combine the best elements out of being pretty, variety of armament and quick assembly/robustness. If I had to choose one set and one set only, Wargames Atlantic probably would be my go-to.
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From left to right: Warlord Games, Wargames Atlantic, Oathmark. The latter mostly looks smaller due to pose and smaller skull. In terms of size, all of them fit very well. |
The fact remains that skeleton warriors are cool, and plastic is a material that's very well suited to depict them on the tabletop. It's great how we're spoilt for choice in that regard right now, and I hope to see more such sets in the future. Maybe eventually I will end up with an Undead army after all?
Right, I hope you enjoyed the review and found it interesting. If you have any questions, comments or indeed commission enquiries, feel free to let me know via the comments section, the Battle Brush Studios Facebook page, on Instagram or via e-mail.
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