Hosts of the White Palace

[Solaris]

Chapter 1
In the Age of Myth he awoke, revived from his deep slumber by the rampant Winds of Magic. Looking around, he saw the familiar sights of his tomb in the White Palace, yet everything was... different... The Winds that he had known so well were no longer there. In their place was something stronger, something purer. This place was Death incarnate. For a second he wondered if he had suffered Final Death and arrived in the Underworld. 

Then the memories started creeping back. He remembered the fierce battles they had fought to defend their ancient homes from the Usurper and his cohorts, and how it had all come to naught. The Usurper had defeated Settra the Imperishable, infiltrated the Underworld and consumed its ruler, Usirian. He had left the land in ruins and returned north with all who would follow him. Not long thereafter, the World That Was had ended. 

Sehenesmet sighed, producing a sound reminiscent of the creaking of old, dried out leather. If only his Lord, and the other Old Gods, had realized the scope of the Usurper's plans. Maybe then they would have brought back their most Ancient servants, servants who did not care much for another turf war in Nehekhara, but who certainly had an interest in the preservation of the Old Pantheon and the World That Was. Maybe then things would have been different. 

He could feel the dormant minds of his followers all around him, still ready to rise at his call. While slowly climbing his old bones out of the sarcophagus, he activated them. He was going to need their assistance. 

His Vessel, the most recent of his masterpieces, still stood guard over his throne, the throne of the Vizier of Quatar. Sehenesmet elevated himself into his Vessel, and transferred his awareness into the pathways of the giant structure. The ancient stone Animated, and a cloud of dust spread as it started moving. The other statues in the throne room came to life as well, and he was pleased to hear the clattering movements of his servants outside. He could perceive the presence of the Usurper far away, a presence so strong that it left no doubt about who ruled these lands. 

Walking out into the strong sun, and seeing the grandeur of the White Palace, built into the cliffs of what used to be the entrance to the Charnel Valley, reinforced his belief in what had to be done. The Usurper had ruled long enough - it was time for his undeserved rule to come to an end. It would be no small task. 

The first step would be to understand the situation - to figure out the nature of this new world that he had awoken in. Sehenesmet set out together with his minions to investigate the surroundings of the Palace.

***

Hi, and welcome to my painting log! Here I will detail my (slow) progress as I gradually rework a Tomb Kings army that I bought second hand years ago in 7th edition, upgrade some units I speed painted for a tournament last month, as well as add new things to the army. I will also post any odd bit of fluff that I write for the army, I have a general story line that I plan on progressing and fleshing out as I go. Some pictures of what I have finished so far:

***

Concubines of Djoser (Tomb Banshees)
When High King Djoser, founder of the city of Quatar, was entombed deep within what would later become known as the White Palace in the year of -2647, his dead family members, closest retainers and concubines were buried with him. His retainers, whether mighty champions or renowned scholars, were all powerful men of noble birth, and were killed in a ritualistic fashion by the priesthood and mummified so that they may forever be preserved at the great king’s side. His concubines, simple commoner girls that had happened to catch the king’s eye, were far less lucky, and were simply left in the antechamber as the tomb was sealed shut. It is said that they were shrieking in terror as the tomb was closed, and continued to do so for days on end until the oxygen ran out, and they died an agonizing death. Now their spirits rise again, and they shriek once more at their cursed existence while serving their lord in unlife.

Desert Spirits (Spirit Hosts)
Every now and then, mortals get lost or misled trying to cross the desert. This inadvertedly leads to the demise of these unlucky individuals, as the desert is a harsh and unforgiving place. Wandering around for hours, or sometimes even days, the desert gradually saps the strength from these individuals, until they are little more than husks, shadows of their former selves, being led around by mirages and offers of salvation whispered into their ears by the winds of Shyish. The whispers gradually intensify, and as the final strength leaves their bodies, they embrace the salvation offered and their souls join the winds of Death, whispering offers of salvation into the ears of other unfortunate victims of the desert.

Skeletons
Out of the army of Quatar, only the most accomplished earned the honor of being recruited into the ranks of the soldiers of the White Palace, where they served directly under the city’s ruler. Throughout the centuries, legions of warriors have served and passed away, and as the ancient kings of the White Palace rise again, so to do their servants.

[Ademo]

What a cool unique take on death! The alt colour spirit hosts are really awesome! Great job.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[SoulQuake]

Nice!

[Solaris]

Chapter 2

Strange colors and twisted geometries extended endlessly in every direction. Though he had no eyes to see with, he could somehow perceive them, yet when he turned his attention and tried to scrutinize them, they were gone. It no longer puzzled him – though he had by no means mastered this strange domain, he had experienced it before. Such was the nature of the fabric of the Void. He drifted along its bizarre dimensions, ever aware, ever watchful for the faint echoes of that presence which he sought. Others tried to catch his attention, tried to imitate his objective, tried to mislead him. There were many entities in this realm that preyed upon those weak of will. He knew this all too well, and he would not fall for it. ‘Vizier…’ As he entered a new region, where space itself seemed to twist and bend, he felt something tugging strongly at him, forcefully pulling him back to…

Sehenesmet drew in a sharp breath of air as he came to his senses, though being undead, he did not need to, and the air simply passed through the cavity in his chest where his lungs used to be situated. Habits from his time as a living human being were not easily erased. In this, he was similar to all of the others – as one passed the threshold between life and unlife, ones mentality stagnated, and major changes could no longer occur. He opened his eyes and examined the one who had roused him from his meditation.

‘It is not yet time’, he said. ‘Why did you waken me?’

‘I’m sorry, Vizier’, said Pabasa, Sehenesmet’s aide and the former leader of the Stoneshaper guild. ‘The scouts have reported sightings of something we never imagined finding in these lands. I think you should better see this for yourself.’

Sehenesmet knew not to take Pabasa’s advice lightly. For centuries, he had proven to be an excellent servant.

‘Very well’, he said. ‘Take me there.’

*****

Tomb King Neferka watched from atop his chariot as his minions excavated the large purple stone. Even from his vantage point above the ravine where they had found it, he could feel how it surged with necromantic energies. If even he could feel it from this distance, then the relic must be cataclysmically powerful. He turned to Siptah, his High Priest, and asked:

‘Is it genuine?’

‘Yes, my King, it is. This is the Arkstone of Perpetuity.’

He had heard the legends, of course. The royal stone that could bind and direct the Winds of Shyish themselves. It pained him greatly to aid the Usurper in this way, but not even he, with the famed chariot regiments of Tebtunis at his back, could go against the direct orders of Nagash. Surely nothing good would come out of delivering a treasure such as this to him. Grinding his teeth, he spit out:

‘Very well. Bring it back.’

Neferka promptly turned his chariot and set off towards his Necropolis, his entourage struggling to follow suit.

*****

Sehenesmet watched from afar as Neferka’s skeletal slaves started hauling the huge amethyst back to Tebtunis.

‘There is no doubt about it – that is the Arkstone. It was good that you brought me here’, Sehenesmet said to his aide.

‘But how could such a thing end up right at our doorstep in this world, when we spent so many centuries in the World That Was searching for it?’

‘The ways of Qu’aph are mysterious. Perhaps our need was not large enough. The Gods are truly smiling upon us today – this is a great blessing. We must not let it fall into the Usurper’s hands.’

‘What do we do?’ Pabasa asked, though he already knew the answer.

‘Prepare the legions. We march to war.

***

Spoiler: All the units I speed painted / rebased from the previous owner.

Spoiler

Some stuff from the tournament I mentioned in my first post, where I managed to get second place. Many of the units I had to speed paint in order to make it for the event, and in a few cases I even kept the paint job from the previous owner that I bought the army from. I'll write what I did after each picture =)

Ghettra the Impoverished:

Rebased and added two extra horses.

Sphinx:

Painted to a basic standard. I'm thinking of redoing the fleshy parts on the Tomb King on top, since mummified muscle should look different from mummified skin. Does anyone have any ideas on what colors might be suitable?

Tomb King and Liche Priest:

The Tomb King I painted to the basic standard. The Liche was painted by the previous owner, I just rebased him. I don't like this one at all, but I wanted a mounted Liche and this was the only option available to me. I do have a mounted Liche model as well, but it is glued into a pillar of sand for some reason, and I'm afraid that I will ruin the model if I try to break him out from there. Does anyone know a good mounted model to base a converted Liche Priest on?

Skeleton Warriors:

These guys were painted by the previous owner. I just gave them a weapon swap, since I changed my list from having 10 Skeletons with swords to having 40 Skeletons with spears.

More Skeleton Warriors:

These guys I painted from scratch, same basic paint job as the Necropolis Knights. I might switch out all the helmeted heads at a later point.

Skeleton Horsemen, unit 1:

Rebased.

Skeleton Horsemen, unit 2:

Rebased and added command group.

Necropolis Knights:

These guys just have some basic paint slapped on them - base colors and washes.

Tomb Scorpions:

Rebased.

My full army, with the trophy plaque:

So now I basically have a full list painted to a basic standard. I think from now on I'm going to alternate between painting new units, and touching up old ones and bringing them to a standard I am happy with.

[Solaris]

Thanks guys! I'm afraid that's a problem of mine - I just can't bear to do things the "standard" way. When I make an army, I have to figure out something unique and execute it, otherwise I'm just not inspired.

Spoiler: Recap from the aforementioned tournament, game by game, as well as a discussion on my list and on how it performed. Contains a couple of pics that I managed to take during the games =)

Spoiler

Some details and a short recap from the tournament. I'm basically copying this from a forum post at the Khemri forum, that sadly seems to be dying out now. If you are interested, there are several good tactics threads regarding Tomb King units over there though, check it out! =) The discussion regarding Necropolis Knights and Tomb Scorpions, as well as Skeleton Warriors and Spirit Hosts, is based on a list-building discussion we had there. I ended up going with the Scorpions, since at the time I did not have enough models to field another 3 Necro Knights. The list I played was the following:

Settra (general)
Royal Warsphinx (artifact rolled at random every game)
Tomb King
Liche Priest
40 Skeleton Warriors, spears
5 Skeleton Horsemen
5 Skeleton Horsemen
3 Necropolis Knights
6 Spirit Hosts
Tomb Scorpion
Tomb Scorpion

So, I ended up in second place with the above list. In 3 games out of 5, 3 more Necropolis Knights would have been preferable to the 2 Scorpions, in 1 game the Scorpions were my MVP, and in the last game the result would not have been affected if I switched them out.

Fast recap:
Game 1: Take and Hold vs an Archaon list with Varanguard, 10 Chaos Knights, a Bloodsecrator, a Juggerlord, 5 Bloodwarriors and a bunch of Reavers. I got the ring of Immortality on the Sphinx, screened his charges with my horsemen to waste to combat potential of Archaon and the Varanguard, then stalled Archaon with the Sphinx, out of reach from my objective. Meanwhile, I butchered the rest of his army with my remaining forces, took his objective for a major victory, and then ganged up on Archaon and killed him. He managed to kill my Sphinx in the end (a second time due to my artefact), which pulled the score down from a clean 20-0 to a 18-2 victory for me. Scorpions didn't do anything of note here, 3 more Necro Knights would have been great, if only for increased survivability, since they at one point suffered 14 wounds, only to retreat and regenerate two models back up to full strength.

This is early in the game. The Spirit Hosts brutalized the Chaos Knights on the left, and the Necropolis Knights the ones on the right, through the Horsemen. Necro Knights were then manhandled by Archaon, retreated with 14 wounds taken and regenerated to full strength. The 3 Varanguard in the middle took the Skeletons down to less than 10 models, and were then worn down by them and the Horsemen until Settra could assist.

A little later. After this, I used the Horsemen and the Sphinx to delay Archaon, while the rest of my army swept across the field to kill everything he had left in his deployment zone.

Game 2: This was probably the most enjoyable game of the tournament for me. I played the Border War scenario against a Sylvaneth player, that eventually ended up winning the tournament. He used a list with a lot of magic, and had included a Loremaster of Hoeth with a formation that let him keep the Sylvaneth allegiance. The Loremaster was basically a buffbot for his Spirit of Durthu. He ended up teleporting 6 Kurnoth Hunters halfway across the field and sniped Settra on turn 1. Ouch. From that point I knew that trying to murder him was going to lose me the game, so I went for another approach. Since he had overcommitted his army to one flank, I took the objective on the other flank with a unit of Horsemen, and took his home objective with my Scorpions. By positioning strategically, I managed to prevent him from teleporting back home (he has to teleport to within 3" of one of his Wyldwoods, but has to be at least 9" away from me). I also ran my Sphinx around the field (got the teleport cloak artefact), and put it inbetween his main force and his home objective. This meant that I got two full rounds of holding his home objective with my Scorpions, which led to me winning the objective game. Back home, I stalled him for turn after turn by retreating and blocking his path so that he had to slowly fight through my units one at a time. He never reached my home objective in time, and we ended up with a 19-18 objective score in my favor, netting me a 15-5 victory, which was then reduced to a 10-10 draw because of him kill 1900 points of my army, and me only killing something like 200 points of his army. This would have been a crushing defeat without the Scorpions.

Game 3: Played Blood and Glory against an Ironjaws player. He ran across the field, wasted his charge on my Horsemen, and got wrecked by Spirit Hosts, Necropolis Knights and Settra. It was a bit scary when Settra was attacked by a mob of 10 Brutes (Settra opened up a charge lane for the Brutes by killing too many 'Ardboys in my turn), but through some miraculous save rolls I ended up suffering 6 wounds and living. I withdrew Settra, countered with my Skeletons and wiped him out, then took all four objectives and boarded him. 20-0. The result would have been the same if I had 3 Necro Knights more, but it would probably have been an easier game for me.

Game 4: Gifts from the Heavens against a Stormcast player. He had a 15 man Retributor unit that he teleported, which was the center of his whole list. He also had a lot of Judicators. He took his home objective, then teleported the retributors onto mine (he cheated unknowingly, thought he could teleport them at any point in the game rather than in his own hero phase). I proceeded to wreck his whole backline, while keeping my Spirit Hosts and Skeletons just out of reach of the Retributors. My plan was to kill everything else, then return for the Retributors, but due to some incredibly unlucky charge rolls with Settra (failed 3 times with 3", 4" and 5" charges) I didn't manage to do this in time, lost 15-5 in objectives and brought it back to 13-7 with kill score. When we realized after the game that he had cheated, we decided to change the score to a 10-10.

My deployment. My plan for this scenario was to place my whole army in the center, with fast units in the front and slow units in the back. Once the objectives dropped I would divide my army in two and surge for them. With the opponent playing a list with 15 teleporting Retributors, this deployment also allowed me to use less important units as meat shields for my more important units.

My opponents army. 20 Paladins in total. He also had 6 Prosecutors with spears that can't be seen in the picture.

Game 5: Three Places of Power against another Settra list, with Spirit Hosts, a Coven Throne, Mortis Engine and 5 Blood Knights. I baited him to commit to one flank with the Sphinx early on in deployment, since he is basically the perfect objective capper in this scenario. I then put everything else down on the other flank to hardcore deny him, got the first turn and instantly capped 2 objectives with my LP and Settra, which I held throughout the whole game. He opened up a whole in my screen, and charged his Blood Knights into my hyperbuffed Necro Knights (+2 to hit, +2 to wound and with Righteous Smiting). Big mistake. I killed them all immediately, then used Settras Incantation on them to fly over the remains of his battle line and charge his Settra in the back, together with my Scorpions. I killed most of his army, while tanking his other flank with my Sphinx and Skeletons. In the end, I won out in objectives, and only lost my Horsemen and a Scorpion. It would have been a 20-0 sweep, but I was tired and made a bunch of stupid mistakes which reduced it to a 17-3. The first two he let me remedy, but after that I got frustrated with myself and didn't want to remedy them anymore - if I forget something, it's my problem, and I deserve to take the consequences. This led to me forgetting a couple of charges, and leaving my Spirit Hosts cooped up in a house the entire game. Bringing them out for two turns of combat would have made one hell of a difference in the final score. Oh well.

All in all, I ended up with a score of 75 (maximum 100), while the Sylvaneth player won the tournament with 78 points, and my friend who went there with me took third with 74 points. It was a very enjoyable event, and I really look forward to the next one!

The most effective unit varied from game to game. In terms of killing things I'd give it to the Necropolis Knights. Those guys, when buffed by Settra and the Sphinx, just absolutely wreck face. Overall, though, I would hand it to the Horsemen. Being fast, disposable and surprisingly survivable, these guys were just super useful in every single game.

Least effective would probably be the Tomb Scorpions. They always did their job, but in some scenarios, and against some opponents, there just simply was no job for them to do, and in those cases they became a rather lackluster support unit for the rest of my army.

In general, I would say that each unit in the list performed its job well. Settra did what Settra does best. The TK on foot helped out a lot by providing support where needed, both in terms of using his command ability and in terms of bringing in some damage to support combats. The Sphinx tanked a helluva lot of damage, and often acted bait on one flank while the remainder of my army mopped up the other flank. He also did some decent damage. The LP did his job as well, providing some nice utility, capping objectives and switching between offensive buffing (Righteous Smiting) and defensive buffing (Mystic Shield) as needed.

The Horsemen tanked scary charges (Archaon), took objectives, killed things on their own (Prosecutors and, surprisingly, Varanguard) and, a lot of the time, died to protect my important work horse units. The Skeletons did well enough, and switched between tanking duty and killing duty. I'm actually on the fence about whether switching 6 Spirit Hosts out for 30 Skeletons was a good idea or not - Everything the Skeletons did, the Spirit Hosts could feasibly have done as well. I think both versions of the list would have performed similarly. In the end, the main reason I switched was due to time constraints with painting.

The Spirit Hosts performed their job well, which means killing things without competing for the love and care of my heroes (aside from the odd Mystic Shield). In particular, they were charged by, and promptly butchered, 5 Chaos Knights in game 1, and gradually slaughtered 20 'Ardboys over the course of two turns in game 3. The Necropolis Knights were absolutely stellar, and compete with my Horsemen for the MVP spot. Give them the chance, and they will beat people's faces in.

The Tomb Scorpions were a bit iffy, mainly because there are so many conditions that need to be fulfilled for them to be useful. There either needs to be a lightly guarded objective for them to pounce on, or an unprotected support character for them to attack for them to have a purpose, and that is simply not going to be the case in every game.

In the end, I would switch the Scorpions out for 3 more Necropolis Knights, either increasing my existing unit to 6, or adding another unit of 3. I would have to experiment with both options in order to decide. I would also experiment with changing 30 Skeletons for another 6 Spirit Hosts, and see how the list performs then.

Cheers!

 

[Solaris]

And now we finally caught up with where I'm currently at (sorry for the quad post, I figured dividing things up might be a good idea).

Built myself a Necrotect =) I was planning to use the masked head from the Necro Knight kit, but it's just way too big and looked weird, so I changed into the current one. Quite happy with how he turned out.

Next up for painting is Teos Warbringer, Herald of High King Djoser:

Base coated:

Finished banner:

I also got a package the other day, shipped all across the Atlantic from Alaska to Sweden!

Package (and my whisky glass, promptly poured by my girlfriend when she saw the state the package was in):

Contents:

Turns out things weren't nearly as bad as I feared Though the packaging wasn't the best (some parts were lying loose inside the box, which isn't exactly ideal since the box didn't hold together through the journey). A few things fell apart, but they should not be too hard to fix. The worst damage is actually due to the sloppy assembly, which ruins the detail in some spots with excessive amounts of glue. Either way, that's something you have to expect with second hand models, as I've come to learn. I got enough extra bits and pieces to make up for it.

I'm really excited to get these on the table, they will allow me a lot of flexibility in list building.