Once upon a time in the misty past there was a regiment of renown. It was not an ordinary regiment, in fact it was not even a regiment. It was a company, and it was cursed. And it was renowned for being dead. Good for discipline, that.
Now the regiments of renown have disappeared, and the cursed company has long since jumped off the shelves of Games Workshop stores. Many of the regiments had very characterful models, though many of those are possible to capture with some conversion work and even MaxMini heads in the case of Pirazzo’s lost legion.
But the Cursed Company filled a niche that will be hell on earth to replicate by your own conversions and sculpts, because skeletons are hard to do, and sticking an orc skull on a human skeleton just looks idiotic. So where can we buy non-human Undead nowadays apart from luxury Cursed Company relics off Ebay?
Especially skeletons are sought after. :mask
The Nagash End Times book allows Chaos Dwarfs, amongst others, to get a Necromancer and start summoning Undead. Not too shabby for an army of evil and mysticism like ours, on the face of it. Yet we can’t have all human skeletons as our Undead slaves now, can we? We’ll need at least Greenskin skeletons, with everything else Undead as a bonus.
So, are there small manufacturers that provide customers with non-human Undead? And would you buy some from Forgeworld if they unexpectedly got the bright idea to churn some out?
I have a small army of undead goblins, made by adding skeleton torsos to Goblin legs and adding an orc skull for a head. Replaced the weapons with goblins weapons. Looks a little weird due to the lack of a jaw on the skull, but they are definitely not human-looking. Never quite finished the army off.
The skeletons from HeroQuest have good proportions for Orc skeletons, but the skulls will need to be changed for sure. There are Orc skulls around (sans jaw, as mentioned). I recommend either sculpting your own Orc skull and casting extras, or you could add a jaw fairly easily as it only needs a little green stuff added to the bottom of an existing GW Orc skull and cast that. I suggest getting some Instant Mold from Cool Mini or Not or some other vendor. They are pretty durable and reusable if you screw up.
I’ve got ~30 models from the regiment in question, all of the command guys plus a bunch of extra undead Dwarf and Orc models… but they’re mine, my own… my precious!! And I wants them!!
disclaimer As usual, just to be very clear I’m not suggesting that you cast copies of GW models unless you’re planning to only use them for your own in-home use… even adding a jaw to a GW Orc skull and casting that is still copying their model, even though it’s a derivative.
About $75 cheaper than what I paid for that exact amount of models… As the cursed company units does not include humans old metal human skeletons probably can be blended in the mix! I plan to make 2 regiments of my 15 cursed company that way.
At the price in the ebay link, well, blending them out with humans make for 2 regiments for, say, $75 each, it’s below in price what GW take per witchelf these days…
About $75 cheaper than what I paid for that exact amount of models… As the cursed company units does not include humans old metal human skeletons probably can be blended in the mix! I plan to make 2 regiments of my 15 cursed company that way.
At the price in the ebay link, well, blending them out with humans make for 2 regiments for, say, $75 each, it’s below in price what GW take per witchelf these days…
Last time I was building a Vampire Counts Army, I scoured the internet high and low for interesting models, mainly for Zombies but also for Spirit Hosts and Character models. I wasn’t looking directly for skeletons as I love the GW skelly kit so I didn’t see anything Dwarf-like, but Reaper do have a huge undead range on their site so it could be worth checking them out. Some of my favourite models are by Bob Ridolfi, Werner Klocke and Bob Olley. The Razig range is a really nice Pirate Skeleton themed brigade of skellies.
A lot of people just go with Mantic zombies for raising because you can buy so many of them cheaply. Around 100 or so on avg per game seemed to be a good number. They could double up as cheap counts as hobgoblins too.
If you wanted dwarf themed undead maybe buy some of the older 6th/7th edition plastic dwarf warrior kits (pre- bfsp) and zombify them up/ add skulls and beards etc With your G.stuff skills you could do some really nice stuff like this CoolMiniOrNot - Unit of Undead Dwarf Skellies by Spanky 100
And lastly - the Carpe Noctem forum is awesome , I’m sure people there are more knowledgeable than me and will gladly try to help out if you ask them
@Wolf: Thank you! Nice, that’s perfect for the Greenskin part of an Undead slave force. Great find.
I won’t try any Undead soon, but I’ll sure take all feedback here into consideration to make a varied unit. Undead are quick to paint to a satisfying standard, if nothing else.
Zombies: No chaos dwarf zombies. Zombies a relatively fresh corpses and thet need to come in large hordes. Chaos Dwarfs live long, rarely die and when they do their clan will gice them a proper burial. Some will properly even be offered to the fires of Hashut.
So actual chaos dwarf zombies could only happen if a large group of dawi zharr gets killed in combat. But we are always so few and zombies are weak.
But hordes of slaves we have. Countless die in the mines every day. Regiments of slaves and hobgoblins get killed as grinding meat shields to save their masters. There’s something to raise, to tire the enemy further before the CD finish them off.
I could also see a large herd of slaves ritually slaughtered to be raised as zombies before war. A chaos dwarf army is slow anyway, so zombies would be smart. No need for food, rest of anything.
Skeletons: Again I think the Dawi Zharr really honor their dead. And skeletons come in large groups too. What they really bring back their dead to fight again as mindless slaves? I could see dead Ironsworn (disgraced already) being brought back or prophets bodyguards. Like those ancient skeleton dudes from TES: Skyrim. But they should have stats as graveguards or those killing blow tomb king fellows. I guess you could use FW models and just give thwm a super heavy weathering.
Victims of the Curse: As Mallorn suggested, the minute necromancy started flowing everywhere I think the Dawi Zharr would put everything into reanimating the stone sorcerers. Either to harness their power, have them as allies (lesser members of the counsil will bring back ancient leaders) or as slaves (Astrogoth wanting to stay in power wouldn’t want to strong mages back). But everybody will want reanimated sorceres for some reason.
Perhaps not the entire priesthood and acolytes of Hashuts temple. They might see the curse af the will of Hashut. Seeingit as sacrillege to try and reverse the process of the curse.
I agree, slaves should probably be the base for any undead hordes in a Chaos Dwarf army.
Perhaps not the entire priesthood and acolytes of Hashuts temple. They might see the curse af the will of Hashut. Seeingit as sacrillege to try and reverse the process of the curse.
Bloodbeard
The conservative part of the priesthood might argue:
*Who are we to question the will of Hashut?
*What if there is a hidden agenda with the silently screaming ones… what if their blessing is to become stationary conduits of Hashut’s magic or sphere of influence?
*Are we entirely sure that petrified sorcerers really count as dead, or are they living rock or something in-between? Can we be certain? What happens when you try and raise living as you would raise the dead?
*Are parts from eventual broken statues used as talismans and in that case what powers do they grant? Are we talking powerstones or talismans of preservation here?
*How would we explain to the Clans that their honored ancestors are walking enslaved golems? Can we risk a civil war in these turbulent times?
*IF we can make them walk again, are they sane, insane or braindead?
Perhaps we could petrify something else first and try and animate that in a magiscientific way beforehand. We would then be wiser about how to proceed with the matter at hand. For instance Final Transmutation could be used on force-fed ogre slaves and if we fail to animate them we could atleast melt them down and pay for the experiment?
As for the Sorcerer-Prophet statues, I think it’d be better if they came alive all of their own at the End Times rather than being awakened through ritual. That’d make them an unexpected wildcard.
Also, pieces from broken statues being used as talismans is a great idea.
Breaking open Chaos Dwarf tombs or mass graves would likely be seen as sacrilege, but how about the unburied, the fresh corpses of warriors on the battlefield? A few of them could turn up in Undead thrall units, but almost all Undead would be slaves or enemies.
Would there be slaves to raise outside of battlefield graves? I’d have thought all/most slaves that died within CD fortresses/cities would be processed into food for the living slaves.
On the topic of petrified sorcerer-prophets, I agree with Admiral, it’s more likely that the saturation of Death magic would be harnessed by them to animate themselves (correct me if I’m wrong, but when they’re petrified, they aren’t killed and are still conscious/aware of their surroundings, they’re just unable to move due to now being made of stone).
... (correct me if I'm wrong, but when they're petrified, they aren't killed and are still conscious/aware of their surroundings, they're just unable to move due to now being made of stone).
Dînadan
that sounds so horrible like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state I don't even want to think about it.
Herby
This is Warhammer we're talking about, so would be apt...
Would there be slaves to raise outside of battlefield graves? I'd have thought all/most slaves that died within CD fortresses/cities would be processed into food for the living slaves.
Dînadan
Yes, but every Chaos Dwarf army would bring with it a large camp following with chain gangs of slaves shuffling forward beside the columns of warriors, monsters and smoke-belching warmachines. The slaves are needed to perform menial labour, they're needed to dig, to carry and to tow heavy things into position.
They're also needed for food, since living slaves makes a decent fresh meat supply, and they can even be used as meatshields and unwilling warrior rabble if possible. Add to this the slaves which Chaos Dwarfs capture whilst on the campaign, and you'll have lots of slaves close to the battlefield, watched by cruel Hobgoblin taskmasters and the occassional Chaos Dwarf, who probably appears like a devil out of hell to the miserable slaves.
Death rates amongst the camp follower slaves would be high due to malnutrition, exhaustion, cold, thirst and disease, not to mention capricious, disciplinary and ritual violence or encounters with enemy warriors and the monsters of the Warhammer world's fauna. So there'd always be some fresh slave corpses around for a Chaos Dwarf Necromancer to use. He'd just have to grab them before they goes into the meatgrinder.
On the topic of petrified sorcerer-prophets, I agree with Admiral, it's more likely that the saturation of Death magic would be harnessed by them to animate themselves (correct me if I'm wrong, but when they're petrified, they aren't killed and are still conscious/aware of their surroundings, they're just unable to move due to now being made of stone).
Dînadan
that sounds so horrible like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state I don't even want to think about it.
Herby
Yep. It's grimdark, and thus perfect for our evil Chaos Dwarfs. Serves 'em right, eh? :hat off
On the topic of petrified sorcerer-prophets, I agree with Admiral, it's more likely that the saturation of Death magic would be harnessed by them to animate themselves (correct me if I'm wrong, but when they're petrified, they aren't killed and are still conscious/aware of their surroundings, they're just unable to move due to now being made of stone).
Dînadan
that sounds so horrible like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state I don't even want to think about it.
Herby
Yep. It's grimdark, and thus perfect for our evil Chaos Dwarfs. Serves 'em right, eh? :hat off
Admiral
On a less grimdark note, I can imagine such sorcerers coming alive and berating their living successor in the manner of a sitcom Jewish mother, having witnessed everything that's gone on between petrifaction and awakening.:P
Being serious though, depending on how quickly they awaken I can see either
1) civil war braking out as the awakened sorcerers try to marshal their forces and try to wrest control away from the living sorcerers (and each other) only dying down once a Settra analog emerges to bring everyone into line
or
2) there being a lot of 'accidents' involving smashed petrified sorcerers to pre-emptively prevent #1
... (correct me if I'm wrong, but when they're petrified, they aren't killed and are still conscious/aware of their surroundings, they're just unable to move due to now being made of stone).
Dînadan
that sounds so horrible like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state I don't even want to think about it.
Herby
This is Warhammer we're talking about, so would be apt...
Dînadan
True. And like I said "I don't even want to think about it." Imagine you are such a petrified Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer. Damn! What kind of hell that might be?! :mask
Herby
Worse, just imagine at the point of petrification you had an itch and it didn't go away when that part of you turned to stone. :o
