Warhammer - Tomb Kings

Hello everyone, as promised we have the next post showcasing some more more of my rediscovered Warhammer collection!

In this post we will have a look at my Tomb Kings of Khemri. The army was started when the Tomb Kings first came out in what the internet informs was 2002. This means this army is about 11-12 years old.

At the time I pretty much only played Dark Elves (I was and guess still am very mono army when it comes to collecting!) in fantasy so it was my first proper experience of using a different army. I got them all as new releases hot off the press and painted them up in record time, having them live for their first few months in the GW display cabinets down in Poole.

If I remember correctly the army was finished in several months and saw action in a few games to moderate success. The only part of the army which is missing is a casket of souls. It was the centrepiece of the army but its use was short lived. Back in circa 03/04 (if I remember correctly) I left it behind at my local GW and when I came back to collect it... it had disappeared never to be seen again.

So without further ado, here is the army!



In the army we have a unit of skeleton warriors, some horsemen, a liche priest, tomb swarms, ushabti, charioteers and the Tomb King and a Tomb Prince with the battle standard.

I went for a very simply unifying colour scheme for the army. Blades were silver but any other metal was painted gold, a bronze (brazen brass perhaps) base, a predominantly shining gold colour with flesh wash and highlights with mithral silver (ah the good old paints!)



The Ushabti are fantastic models and in my opinion still the best ones in the Tomb King range. They have so much character and really scream Tomb Kings for me. I'm not sure if the fluff has always been as it is now, but I love the image of them being the Tomb Kings bodyguard in life and then becoming this in death. I always thought they were statues came to life back in the day!



The heads of the ushabti portray various Khemri gods. Cac't recall which are which though!



The other main colour in the army is the white. It would have been glorious and bright back when they were all living, however now the colour is faded and dirty with age. The skeleton swordsmen all have the Khemrian helmets and the swords. If I recall correctly you didn't get many in the box so I had to borrow them from wherever I could!



Here we see the Prince and the King in all their splendour. The gems are all bright blue and red often in alternating sequence. Sadly the photos don't do them justice but they look wonderfully shiny in the flesh!



The bone in the army is painted to be bleached by the Khemrian sun. No drybrushing, everything was highlighted by hand (it probably drove me mad).





Here we have the tombswarms, another model for me which have so much character and importantly... are very easy to paint! A little bit of blue black highlighting and they are pretty much done!



Here we have the Liche Priest with lots of red in his armour and weapons to signify his seniority. I always felt the Liche Priest models were some of the weaker ones in the Tomb Kings range. I'm not sure if they had different sculptors to the Tomb King models, however the casket of souls priest was much better.



A close up photos of the skeleton light horsemen. On the banners hanging from the icon I made an attempt at some Khemrian hieroglyphics.





A close up of the skeleton warriors. They were one thing really lacking in my army, I only managed to paint 17 of them and clearly got a bit fed up of painting all the bone!





The combined Von Carstein and Khemrian army! Perhaps they need a Nagash to lead them...



I couldn't resist adding a quick Praetorian photo at the end. I've been getting to work on a couple of Taurox and am very much liking how they are progressing.

The Prime will be for the new highland scions while the regular Taurox will be for another squad in a platoon, as such it will have red and green on the squad colours (to match the chimeras).

I'll get back to some more Praetorian posting soon, but still to come there are some Dark Elves, a few Bretonians and a Battle Fleet Gothic fleet...

Thanks for reading, as always comments very welcome!

Warhammer - Von Carstein Undead

Don't worry, your eyes don't deceive you, this really is another post only 11 days after the last! I remember the good old days when they'd be every couple of days. Ah well, what can you do!

Anyway, this post is going to be the first of several slightly different posts looking at other models in my warhammer collection. In particular models from a good 10 years+ ago.

This post will be about a converted Von Carstein Vampire Counts army I started putting together almost 12 years ago when I was about 16 (if I remember correctly I had glandular fever at the time and a lot of time on my hands). They were a project I embarked upon as I was starting to lose interest in the hobby, consequently the army was never properly finished or expanded and never saw the field of battle in anger.

The thing I enjoyed the most about the Von Carstein vampire blood line was that essentially there still Empire. The nobles had all turned to vampirism and their soldiers were forced to fight in life and then subsequently in death! As such I wanted the army with the uniforms and colours to have a real Empire feel to it.

The army was led by Manfred Von Carstein. The model pictured is such a fantastic model, capturing the nobility of the fallen lord in the more classical Gothic vampire style. I'm not a fan of the new vampire models, aesthetically they don't really do it for me. You become a vampire and all of a sudden everything you wear is super spikey and oversized? Sorry ain't buying it. I'm sure many will disagree, but this model hands down beats any of the newer ones.



Showing the army's age, at the time of construction you could have grave markers which you would use when summoning more minions. I used them as an opportunity to get creative with some left over bits.



You have the hanged zombie and another still crawling around the floor. I think they add a nice bit of character to the army though I don't know what you would use them for now.



The old black coach model is another classic. Still great looking and fits in perfectly with the aesthetic I was going for. Inside the back is a coffin with a powerful vampire inside. The coffin itself I'd painted in a dark marble with gold details.



For the infantry I had 20 zombies and 20 skeletons. The thinking as previously mentioned was that they were all alive Von Carstein infantry and so fight for their undead lords in death as they would have in life. Given this and that they haven't all been interred in the ground their uniforms etc are all still in reasonable shape.



The slightly newer members of the undead, the zombies. I viewed them as being more of a milita or peasant rabble pressed into service when the Empire and Dwarves etc came looking to end the Von Carstein line. Once again would have started off as human infantry before being pressed into service in death.



Another close up of the skeleton infantry. I've got to say I loved putting this army together at the time and I'm pretty sure I love it now. So much character and such a striking colour scheme. Not sure what I will do with it now though, it's currently sat in a box feeling sorry for itself. Perhaps the new Nagash book and the phenomenal model might persuade me to get back into fantasy, or perhaps ebay might come a calling. Who knows!

Now unless you have been pretty belligerent in looking at these photos you would have noticed some undead of a different variety lurking in the background... Watch out for the next post when their Khemrian cousins will be featured!

Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your comments!