Dave's Skittering Skeletal Horde (200 pts)

This month brings the "meat" of the army. No wait, that's not quite right... let's say the backbone of the army... the skeletal horde!

Slow, expensive and poor fighters overall, what Skeletons lack in skill they make up in pure fear factor. Their unholy presence will send shivers through the enemy battle line, helping to keep enemies at bay while you perfect your strategic maneuvers and ultimately helping you scatter your foes to the wind when you drive the charge home.

Skeletons also have a surprising amount of staying power for such a lightly-armored regiment. Unlike Zombies, which fall apart en masse the moment they are defeated, Skeletons must be ground down to dust, slowly and steadily. Good thing for them that they are so easy to resurrect! In fact, Skeletons get the best use out of the various revivifying Necromancy Spells: Summon Skeletons and Raise the Dead both raise the same amount of either Zombies or Skeletons, despite the fact that Skeletons are worth twice the point value as Zombies! When cast on an existing, fully-upgraded Skeleton Horsemen unit, you could be raising new combatants worth nearly 30 points each! That's quite a force multiplier, which means Skeletons are really a must in any Undead army.

So let's take a look at the Skeletons painted up this month:

5x Skeleton Horsemen (Shields, Spears) ~ 110 pts

9x Skeleton Warriors (Spears) ~ 81 pts

Now, there are technically only supposed to be 9 Skeletons in the Skeleton Warrior regiment. I painted up a 10th Skeleton, because that gave me an even 200 pts (and he will be in the "expanded" version of the army, if I manage to get some more painted up before the end of the competition). These were quite enjoyable to paint. I love the old Skeleton Warriors especially... they have an strangely goofy feel that I find is so essential for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4th Edition. With the Skeleton Horsemen, I had a decision to make. I actually own boxes and boxes of the old plastic Skeleton Horsemen (which are actually all equipped with spears). At the same time, I really wanted to include as many of the old metal Horsemen as I could find. As a result, only one of the Horsemen is actually armed with a spear!

I also tried to attach one of the old sticker banners to the Skeleton Horsemen regiment, but the results were somewhat disappointing. The sticker banner really doesn't fit the dimensions of the standard bearer, resulting in nearly the entire model being hidden behind the banner (and the nearby musician being knocked off his skeletal steed). My sticker banner was also cut incorrectly, resulting in the picture being cut off or the banner being lopsided. It all looked a bit silly, as you can see:

For the final army shot at the end of the competition, I'll see about fixing or replacing that banner. It would be a shame to just throw it away as I actually really like the design. Perhaps some careful cutting will make it more appropriate for the model. We'll see!