New Death player needing help!

[AverageBoss]

4 minutes ago, Vitch_EGS said:

Yeah cheers man that's what I'm going to do I think. Going to grab the holiday box, Nighthaunt ally set, 2 boxes of Skeletons and and Vamp on Dragon. Have a Necromancer all painted and all but will happily use the Wight king for 1000 pt Legion of Death games the extra bits of Nighthaunt will be nice for the future too.

Cheers again for all the help, seriously relived to have a plan set in stone now. Had been driving myself insane trying to think what to get before just getting the nerve and asking on here hehe.

For a bit more than the dragon on its own you could pick up the FEC start collecting box. The crypt horrors can be built as varghesists if you are interested in more vampire units down the road.

You could then just sell or trade the ghouls off if you are completely uninterested in them.

[Vitch_EGS]

Yeah was thinking that but just going to stick to the single model at first I think not to break the bank too bad. As much as the new lore for the FEC  kicks ass the crypt horrors I have I wasn't too happy with and I feel like I'm getting dangerously close to too much to work on in one go.  Having faith in myself with this amount due to getting a 40k force finished up for the first time in.. well ever in over 10+ years!

 I'll keep the king handy though for the future defintely, just have no idea how I would want to paint them up. 

[Kimbo]

Great advice from everyone! Thank you so much. 

The one thing that bugs me though is the fact that they are so so split and then the talk about a new book...im not so keen on investing alot of money on an army that is unclear atm...need to think about this..or am i over reachting? 

 

Cheers! 

[smucreo]

8 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

If you and your playgroup are fine with non-GW models, mantic sells a great looking set of 40 skeletons for 50 USD.

Getting the holiday box I linked above could also work. Mix the Grave Guard into your regular skeleton units. Give the Wight King a staff to make him a skeletal Necromancer. At that point you are utilizing the entire box.

Any other GW models you need could be gotten for 20%ish off from various 3rd party sellers.

How many extra spears are there in the skeleton warriors sprues? Is it plausible to disguise grave guard inside their ranks or will some people call me out for it? I'm asking because I might want to get that box myself if I can transform them without much hassle haha. And how would one go about transforming the wight king into a necromancer? I do have one but I might consider converting it to get myself a skeletal necromancer because it sounds so much cooler haha

[xspire]

1 hour ago, Kimbo said:

Great advice from everyone! Thank you so much. 

The one thing that bugs me though is the fact that they are so so split and then the talk about a new book...im not so keen on investing alot of money on an army that is unclear atm...need to think about this..or am i over reachting? 

 

Cheers! 

Any new release is a longer time off than people are making out, nothing has been confirmed on GWs schedule for Death at all which could mean over a year. It actually makes sense that they would get updated around the same time as GH2018/2019 as they need quite a big overhaul, with points changes and not just warscroll changes.

That being said, none of the current models will be going away - so if you like the look of death then it's not going to be a bad investment - put it this way, death isn't going to get any worse, it can only get better from here.

[AverageBoss]

7 hours ago, smucreo said:

How many extra spears are there in the skeleton warriors sprues? Is it plausible to disguise grave guard inside their ranks or will some people call me out for it? I'm asking because I might want to get that box myself if I can transform them without much hassle haha. And how would one go about transforming the wight king into a necromancer? I do have one but I might consider converting it to get myself a skeletal necromancer because it sounds so much cooler haha

There are 12 spears in a box I believe. Though your banner and musician wont be holding one, and most people arm the unit champ with a sword to help him stand out more visually. Further, if you build a smaller 10 man unit, you are better off with swords and will have all the spears for them leftover. 

As for Grave Guard, you will want to ask your local players. I personally use a brick of GG with no modifications as skeletons with spears, and have done so since WFB days. Nobody here has a problem with it. I did it because I prefer the armored look of them, over the pretty bare actual warrior models.

For the Wight King, I would just remove the sword and/or shield (or shave the sword down to a dagger), and give him a staff.

[smucreo]

33 minutes ago, AverageBoss said:

There are 12 spears in a box I believe. Though your banner and musician wont be holding one, and most people arm the unit champ with a sword to help him stand out more visually. Further, if you build a smaller 10 man unit, you are better off with swords and will have all the spears for them leftover. 

As for Grave Guard, you will want to ask your local players. I personally use a brick of GG with no modifications as skeletons with spears, and have done so since WFB days. Nobody here has a problem with it. I did it because I prefer the armored look of them, over the pretty bare actual warrior models.

For the Wight King, I would just remove the sword and/or shield (or shave the sword down to a dagger), and give him a staff.

thanks, 4 extra spears + one extra from the musician (I already have a champion and a banner in the 10 skeletons I have) mean I only need to buy 5 extra spears, so I guess it's not that bad. I guess I can always give them regular skeleton warrior heads ( i think i  the skel warriors sprues there are lots of extra heads) and mix their torsos and shields and they won't stand up that much... but I want to be sure so I'll ask as you say! 

[xspire]

Just now, smucreo said:

thanks, 4 extra spears + one extra from the musician (I already have a champion and a banner in the 10 skeletons I have) mean I only need to buy 5 extra spears, so I guess it's not that bad. I guess I can always give them regular skeleton warrior heads ( i think i  the skel warriors sprues there are lots of extra heads) and mix their torsos and shields and they won't stand up that much... but I want to be sure so I'll ask as you say! 

If you can get some plastic rods from a hobby shop (usually 5p each), you can remove the hilt from the swords you aren't using to make spears. Carve some chips and battle damage into the rods. Otherwise you could ask around some friends for any spare spears from their bits - It can be cool to have different spears from different races, the 'out of the box' death aesthetic assumes that all death forces are dead humans but that doesn't have to be the case. If you're got a few friends I'm sure they can all spare at least one weapon from their bits box.

[smucreo]

47 minutes ago, xspire said:

If you can get some plastic rods from a hobby shop (usually 5p each), you can remove the hilt from the swords you aren't using to make spears. Carve some chips and battle damage into the rods. Otherwise you could ask around some friends for any spare spears from their bits - It can be cool to have different spears from different races, the 'out of the box' death aesthetic assumes that all death forces are dead humans but that doesn't have to be the case. If you're got a few friends I'm sure they can all spare at least one weapon from their bits box.

i found them in ebay, though the bits I'd need are a bit expensive, but oh well.

[Sception]

I don't know if I'm too late here, but I would strongly recommend holding off on converting grave guard into skittles.  For one, they really do look very different - sure they're all skeletal, but the grave guard have much heavier and very distinctive armor & skirts, so IMO they just look kind of weird as skeletons.  Sort of like you wouldn't use Chaos Knights as Marauder Cavalry even though they're both just 'chaos humans riding horses'.

And even from a purely mechanical perspective, we're kind of expecting the deathrattle battle tome to be coming pretty soon now - I would be surprised if we haven't seen it by the end of the first quarter 2018, and it could easily change the situation pretty significantly for grave guard.  It wouldn't take much to make them desirable as a unit on their own, and even if they don't get much better on their own they're likely to be required elements of several different formations.

You're likely to eventually want them, and when you do want some, you're not going to want actual grave guard, actual skeletons, and some grave guard models that count as skeletons, all in the same army.  It would be a confusing aesthetic mess.

[smucreo]

34 minutes ago, Sception said:

I don't know if I'm too late here, but I would strongly recommend holding off on converting grave guard into skittles.  For one, they really do look very different - sure they're all skeletal, but the grave guard have much heavier and very distinctive armor & skirts, so IMO they just look kind of weird as skeletons.  Sort of like you wouldn't use Chaos Knights as Marauder Cavalry even though they're both just 'chaos humans riding horses'.

And even from a purely mechanical perspective, we're kind of expecting the deathrattle battle tome to be coming pretty soon now - I would be surprised if we haven't seen it by the end of the first quarter 2018, and it could easily change the situation pretty significantly for grave guard.  It wouldn't take much to make them desirable as a unit on their own, and even if they don't get much better on their own they're likely to be required elements of several different formations.

You're likely to eventually want them, and when you do want some, you're not going to want actual grave guard, actual skeletons, and some grave guard models that count as skeletons, all in the same army.  It would be a confusing aesthetic mess.

You are not late, I'm holding off until late December to buy the box. I guess it comes down to if I can convert them enough for them not to look like Warriors, which I guess it can be done by putting unarmored or broken heads on them and mixing pants. I already have some skeletons and two of them not counting the captain look very heavily armored compared to the rest, so it's not like normal warriors are all bare-chested and not wearing helmets.... plus they will be using spears so that's an extra thing that can differentiate them. 

But I'll consider it! As I said I have to try and see how they look, and if it's not that convincing and they don't blend that much I'll hold off and use them as Grave Guard

[Sception]

It's not so much the heads as it is the upper and lower torsos.  The skeleton models are, well, skeletons.  The grave guard models are skull and skeletal arms on a body of robes and armor.  The skirts in particular make them feel completely different from skittles, imo.

I'm not super averse to counts-as, I'd allow my opponents to do it, and would consider it myself if I weren't fully stocked on skittles from the old fantasy battle days.  But I wouldn't do any heavy converting to your grave guard that would make you feel bad about running them as grave guard when at some inevitable point in the future grave guard are worth running again.