[Archive] Tomb Kings using VC Skellie Conversions!

CheTralfara:

I’ve decided to start a Tomb Kings army using almost entirely new plastic models. In other words, no disproportionate over-sized skeletons in this army.

My core skeletons will be built mostly from Vampire Counts Skeletons. I have assembled a test model below.

His weapon is actually made from a shortened Great Weapon from the VC Grave Guard kit. His shield is the only official Tomb Kings bit, and will be glued on after painting…





What do you think? More to come…

Skink:

I don’t like the old skellies as well but this still looks like a VC trooper to me… It lacks the crowns, jewels, and the egyptian looking stuff to make it look like a TK soldier.

CheTralfara:

I think the crowns look far too Tomb Guard too me… I’m actually going to use a few of those original TK heads on my Tomb Guard.

I know GW has the core all dressed up, but I picture the core as being made up of the grunt warriors, regular denizens, and slave classes of society. Plus, this guy does have gold bracelets on his arm.

The rotten brown/grey mummified withered coloring I’m going to be painting on these guys will also help separate them from VCs.

nitroglysarine:

I agree, the standard grunts aren’t the tomb guards, they are the the slaves who died.

I think it look better than the normal guys. I like them!

I think the only reason GW fancy up the grunts is to make them different enough from VC skellys to make them distinct, and maybe the harsher minded of us could say that it ‘could’ force some to buy two lots of models when they could work easily as either :-/

Skink:

Fair enough!!! What you’re going to do for light/heavy cavalry?

Besides, egyptian slaves building the pyramids were anyways wearing some sort of cloth around their head and big necklaces… What I’m trying to say is that some more character on a mini helps loads to make the unit look awesome… IMO of course. Your skellie just looks… raised in Sylvania to me!

Thorne:

I personly think the tomb kings range looks far too ornate to be the slaves and more standard tomb king skeleton warriors they are supposed to be. These tend to fit the bill far better. I personly have studied this period a hell of a lot and think these work better than the tomb king models. I do however think that they need some kind of basic hood. It’s a great start

cornixt:

I think the shield goes a long way in making it look TK. When painted, I expect it will look even more appropriate.

CheTralfara:

Another example of a 2nd VC skellie turned Tomb Kings…

This one uses the open-mouthed skull from the Soul Grinder sprue. I had to cut off the spike and cut away the post on the neck join. The skull is the exact same proportions as the VC skeleton sprue skulls.

I think the scale-mail armour really suits the TK look.







I have hard time believing that Egyptian slaves were covered in jewelry. Closest thing to bling would be a ball and chain… but maybe I’m wrong.

The headdress heads are too big and disproportionate for these guys… maybe on the champion. I will probably mix those into the Tomb Guard, once I see what their proportions are like.

I don’t think anyone but royalty and commanders would wear such headgear though. That’s why I tend to like the bare-skull look. Besides, this way I get to pay tribute to Harryhausen films (Jason & The Argonauts… a childhood favorite of mine).

Skink:

no, no, no, I don’t mean that Egyptian slaves were covered in jewelry (course not:)). I expressed myself badly, Warhammer is not history (even if it takes some imputs from it), and your first skellie lacked some TK flavour! That’s it. I’m sold on the second one though, the scale mail really sells it :cheers

I’m curious to see more!

Thommy H:

I have hard time believing that Egyptian slaves were covered in jewelry. Closest thing to bling would be a ball and chain... but maybe I'm wrong.
Actually, archaeological evidence suggests that Egyptian "slaves" were more like an underclass of skilled indentured serfs. They probably still wouldn't have had jewellery, but it seems like they weren't miserable wretches in chains dressed in rags, as in the popular imagination. Like many ancient cultures, the Egyptians didn't see slavery as an elaborate punishment, but simply a necessity for maintaining their civilisation (which it probably was, to be fair). So Egyptian slaves would probably have been valued and possibly even respected by their masters. Not that that was much comfort to them, I'm sure, but you take my point.

Anyway, it looks like these conversions work fine - you're right about the scale armour looking right, but I'd be careful to steer clear of any chain mail. It just won't look right, since Tomb Kings are based on a pre-Iron Age culture.

CheTralfara:

There is only 1 pair of skeleton legs with just a little chain mail. Wouldn’t chainmail be made from the same material as the weapons and nails in the shields?

Anyway, I could always cover it up with greenstuff scale mail. I’ve gotten really good at it since using it on Chaos Dwarfs :slight_smile:

nitroglysarine:

You could add a link/chain to the bracelet, walla it becomes a slave manacle?

Thommy H:

Wouldn't chainmail be made from the same material as the weapons and nails in the shields?
Chainmail doesn't appear in before about 400 BC, so a Bronze Age culture wouldn't have had it. I sort of assumed (and then implied) that was because of the material used, but it seems that that's not necessarily the case; I would guess that access to more advanced metallurgy was a factor in its invention though.

All that said, everyone seems to paint their Tomb Kings' weapons in silver even though Ancient Egyptian's weapons would have been bronze.

CheTralfara:

For a little historical acuracy, I’ll definitely turn the chainmail into scale mail and paint the weapons bronze :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tips Thommy. Feel free to let me know any other ways I can get them to match Egypt, as the army moves along.

Kered:

What you could do is give your leader weapons and ornaments of iron.The Ancient Egyptians had forges capable of making bronze but unable to smelt iron, but there have been uncovered a few lavishly decorated items made from iron taken from meteorites and as such were probably very valuably and sacred.

Thommy H:

Yeah, that’d be a really nice touch actually. Bronze Age civilisations used to have little trinkets of iron like that. Literally no one would notice, but it’d make a cool narrative for a character model.

Ishkur Cinderhat:

So what you do is actually buying a box each of the VC skellies and TK skeletons and then mixing the parts to get a single regiment of TK skeletons…? Or how do you get your hands on enough TK shields?

Alfract:

So what you do is actually buying a box each of the VC skellies and TK skeletons and then mixing the parts to get a single regiment of TK skeletons...? Or how do you get your hands on enough TK shields?

Ishkur Cinderhat
im not sure how CheTralfara is doing it, but i hear the best way to get shields is to buy TK chariots as it comes with 8 or 10 shields per set

Necrotique:

He’s probably eBaying them.

Personally I think they look very TK, cause honestly, most of the slaves’ garb would have rotted away by now leaving them very bare looking.

:cheers

Baggronor:

I’ve got a bunch of TKs shields hanging around, I won’t be using them. PM if you’re interested, think I have 2 box sets worth or thereabouts.

I think the skellies look great, the thing that always bugged me about the Tks skeletons (apart from the fact they’re 9 feet tall ;)) was the generic weapons.