Starting a Death Army

[Number6]

Hello everyone,

I am starting to build my first army for AOS.  I fell in love with the models from Grand Alliance Death, and have been collecting some sets for about a year now.  I have one each of the Start Collecting boxes (Malignants, Skeleton Hoards, Flesh Eater Courts).  In addition I have, 5 Blood Knights, 10 Zombies, 10 Skeletons, 1 Cairn Wraith, 1 Tomb Banshee, 1 Necromancer, and Isabella Von Carstein (now simply a Vampire lord).  Some I need to convert to round bases, but all need to be built.

I want to keep things themed towards Vampire Counts, and am thinking of building them a little different than the boxes suggest, since they come with sprues for other models.  

So, discarding how these kits are intended to be built, I am thinking of these options:

Neferata or possibly Manfred (instead of Arkham the Black).    

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. (instead of Abhorrant Ghoul King on Terrorgheist)

Coven Throne instead of Mortis Engine. 

Vargheists instead of Crypt Horrors.

With the sets, I can also build 10 Black Knights, 10 Hexwraiths, or a combo of each.  For fluff, I am thinking Black Knights, although Hexwraiths look cooler and better for play.

 

I am interested in everyone's thoughts on this.  I know I can bring any, but want to keep to a general theme. 

 

Thank you,

Number6

 

 

 

[TerrorPenguin]

Sounds good. In all honesty I wouldn't make up twenty of either hexwraiths or black knights as I don't think you'll end up taking that many. Ten of each will probably do it.

Or you could get some vampirey heads (wulfen, spite revenants) to convert some of the black knights to blood knights (disclaimer - never done it, don't know if the scale will match the other blood knights you own).

Youll always need skellies and you could proxy the ghouls as zombies.

[deynon]

Magnets everywhere so you can choose each time what to play^^

I know that it can be sound a joke, but models like the DZ/TG and their riders; the Dread abyssal and their dread, the horrors/vargheist/crypt flayers; coven throne /mortis engine... all these are models whose with magnets can be hanged with a little bit of work and at the same time giving a vast amount of different options.

[Celestant651]

Personally, I chose Arkhan but after I made the Manfred model without the dragon.

[Bradifer]

Maganetize the rider's butts for the Mortarch Mannfred/Nefrata/Archon.

Also, don't put that Mortach Dread Abyssal mount thing together quickly, I heard its SIGNIFICANTLY easier to paint the skulls inside first before you assemble.

Magnetize the rider and the head for the Zombie Dragon/Terror Geist.

I found Hexwraiths useful as an annoying fast flying tarpit.

Black Knights were just kinda useless.

I would say only build them if you know you're gonna use them, otherwise they might be useful if they ever release a Vampire/Skeleton/Death Battletome.

 

If you're into playstyle, you can always proxy a unit before you buy/built it, just use something similar size and find a friend to play w/ proxies. 

Since you have a lot and can get overwhelmed, I find its best to keep all the unbuilt stuff in one location (box/drawer etc.) and as you finish building/painting, pull it out and put it on the finished shelf. Psychologically it feels better than seeing a bunch of stuff you have to do.

[Number6]

Thank you for all the suggestions.  I magnetized a lot of my 40k models in order to switch out weapons, so I have the materials.  It usually takes me putting together to see if it will work.  It is good to know that that is a possibility.  

Also, thank you for the suggestion of building it in sub assemblies.  I was looking at the Coven Throne/Mortis Engine model, and figured it would be hard to paint fully assembled.  A lot of the models seem to have some good depth to them, so I will definitely benefit from taking my time to look at how each needs to be painted and assembled. 

Thank you again,

N6