Undead Archers – Harlequin Miniatures & Bones Fillers

Another small unit for Kings of War. Undead archers. Something I’d not even thought of until Marouda told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted some archers for her undead army, so I painted these suckers up.

Black Tree Design Skeleton Archers

Harlequin Miniatures Skeleton Archers

Black Tree Design Skeleton Archers

Harlequin Miniatures Skeleton Archers. Again.

 

The stars of this little show are obviously the single blister worth of Harlequin Miniatures Skeleton archers that I had sitting around from the early 1990s. The company either changed their name or sold most of their stuff to Black Tree Design years ago now. Not that it matters here. These figures are definitely on the very chunky, very heroic side of things, but they’re also very nice sculpts, and while they lack the fine detail of something like the Otherworld Skeletons or WGF’s plastics, there are no worries that these guys will easily break from normal game handling. They’re still available, it seems, but with just the three sculpts in the range, there’s little point in trying to make an entire unit or expand this one using them. For me at least in this day of easily available and reasonably-priced HIPS models, metals are great for individual sculpts and character, but I’ve largely moved beyond buying multiples of the same sculpt to make up units – at least when I can avoid it.

Skeleton Archer Troop for Kings of War

Other angle of the Skeleton Archer unit.

The Reaper Miniatures here are the Skeletal Archer figures from the 1st Bones campaign, and like the others that I’ve shown are good for roleplayers, kids, and unit filler. As usual, I’ve put the nice figures up front so the Bones aren’t as noticable. I also gave the unit early-1990’s style “redwood” bows, which both give the figures a splash of colour (it fits in with the army scheme) and draws the eye away a little from bad Reaper sculpts.

War Machines of Minas Tirith

Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet

Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet

I’ve finished a pair of War Machines for my growing Gondor army. As fate would have it, right after photographing these guys the other day I won a second one of each on eBay, so I’ll have to do a followup post to this one in a month or three when they’ve been paired. I think two of each should be plenty – both for games of LotR and KoW.

Gondor Avenger Bolt Thrower

Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet, Avenger Bolt Thrower

My very small Gondor artillery battery.

I’m not entirely sure which crewmen go with which artillery piece, except for the guy with more bolts, but it hardly matters anyway. Like a lot of the LotR range, and the Gondor/Minas Tirith stuff specifically, they’re straightforward models that aren’t anything flashy, but look good en masse and on the tabletop.