Themed Tomb King Help

[Petsuchos]

Recently, I have been looking into creating a second army for myself while I work on my Chaos Dwarf army (which is taking forever). One of these was the Tomb Kings. However, I'm not personally a huge fan of Egypt and its history. I do however, think the Inca are really cool. Fortunately for me, the Inca are enough like the Egyptians and the Tomb Kings specifically that I could make an Inca inspired Tomb King army work. I have a few dilemmas that I would appreciate some advice on.

First, there are no horses in the Andes or in South America (at least originally.) and Horses really aren't very good to ride into battle when your teetering on the edge of a cliff. That said, one of the most effective Tomb Kings units is the Chariot, which involves horse. Now, the idea of a Chariot being draw by skeletal Llamas is really ridiculous and doesn't keep with the history of the Inca since they never used Llama for battle, just for transport. Now, that doesn't mean I can't have Chariots in my army. At the very least, I can include a Tomb Prince/King on a "Chariot". The emperor of the Inca was carried about on a palanquin by his soldiers. An Inca Tomb King riding to battle on his palanquin/Chariot works fine for me, but what do I do for other chariots/horsemen? Do I have the chariots be the palanquins of the Emperors mummified ancestors? What to do?

Secondly, the Inca, though skilled in metalworking, never managed to use any of the harder metals (Iron, Copper, etc..) only Gold and Silver. This is a problem however, as the Skeletons carry with them swords, something not possible with only Gold and Silver. Spears work fine, as those can be manufactured without hard metals, but what do I do if I want hand weapons on my Skeles? The Inca carried clubs into battle quite often along with spears, but were am I going to find enough clubs to equip my skeletons without buying another entire regiment box of something I wont use?

Along with that, though the Inca did recruit members of low-land tribes who were proficient with bows, most of their missile forces were comprised of soldiers with slings. Leave the bows, or if not, what do I use for slings?

The Tomb King Skeletons are naked. They having nothing but their weaponry. The Inca however, for the most part, lived in the Andes were the nights get quite a bit colder than in it does along the Nile. Their soldiers wore much clothing and wore a lot of ornamental jewelry. How much of this should I model? Their helmets, and maybe some jewelry, or should I go all out and give them entire suits of clothing?

My last dilemma lies in taking special and rare choices. Tomb Guards and Carrion are easy to conceptualize as, well, tomb guards and Andean condors. The other choices present more of a problem. A bone giant I could fit into the back story even if I have to stretch it pretty far to do so. The Screaming Skull Catapult and Tomb Scorpion, however, pose a much great challenge. Firstly, I hate the models for both of these units. I think they look ridiculous. Secondly, to my knowledge, the Inca never used any form of catapult or artillery, nor are there many scorpions in the Andes. What to do? If I am losing my chariots, I certainly don't want to lose out on the other two all-star units of the TK list.

Please, any criticism or advice you have to offer is welcome. I appreciate your help!

[Xerxxes]

Hmmm. Inca themed Tomb kings would probally work pretty well, but i think youd have to be willing to sculpt a lot of feathers! For your chariot...Thats a hard question, what to use to represent them. Something that would fit on the same size base and look like it had a suitably nasty charge. Maybe a pack of jaguars or something, though iv'e no ide where you would get the models.

AS for hand weapons, they used obsidian, mostly, yes? Take the striaght swords, and the axes off the sprues, nick up thier edges with a sharp knife to get that chipped stone look, paint them shiny black with some lighter highlights, glue on a feather here and there and there you go. Should be pretty easy, actually.

Slings would be pretty easy to sculpt from greenstuff, id think, but not sure itd be worth the trouble unless you really dont want bows. Youd also want to sculpt little ammo pouches for thier rocks and depending on the amount of slingmen that might use a lot of green stuff.

Tomb gaurd are all clothed. But they are pretty spendy, and rather rigidly posed, i dont think youd want all your foot troops to look like that. Personally i dont think it'd matter much, clothes rot away pretty fast, specially in a jungle. The only mummys they find there are up high in the andes where its cold, yes? slap a few feathers and maybe a loincloth or two and they should be fine, they are dead, they dont care that its cold.

Make the scorpion into a gaint spider. They have some really freaking big ones there, and i could see those inca priests breeding a few for size and feeding people to them, the big jerks. Plenty of ways for a spider to come out of the ground, in loose leaf mould of a jungle, or modeling one as a huge trap door spider would be neat. Or you could just say "It came from Above" if your in a heavily forested map, lol. They make a couple pretty big spider models, one for the vampire kingdoms, i belive, and theres a few more for the Lord of the Rings game. One of those models is shelob, i think, but shes really big. Either way, there should be something your hobby shop could get you that would work.

Lastly, for a catapult..Hmm. Maybe get your self an empire cannon, or mortar, paint it up rusty, swap some skulls and skeletal arms into the bodies of the crew and have your self some poor cursed spanish conquistidors. Just use the catapult rules and it should be fine, right?

Good luck with your army, it sounds like an interesting project and will probally keep your busy for a while. post some pics in a few months if you get a unit done.

[Phoenix]

Sounds like a nice idea. Im not sure though, with an Inca theme being as precise as you want it to be, that Tomb Kings are the way to go. Mainly i think because the fluff you want to stick to eliminates many of the best TK units (Chariots, Scorpions, Catapults)
I hate to say it, and may get quite a bit of backlash, but i think Vampire Counts may be the way for you to go.
Firstly, spear armed skellies are poor in a TK army, whereas in VC then are more worthwhile as you can increase on unit size. Therefore your spear weapon matelral fluff would be more suited.
Also things like their fell bats (condors) and you should be fine using carrion for the models.
As for the resy tou could use many models to represent your characters, so there will be more choice for a look to your characters there, as almost any character can be made to look VC with the right paint scheme.
Admittedly you still wouldnt be using their cavalry, but they still have some other nice units to choose from.
Just my opinion, but i think if you stick to your fluff with a TK list, it will be quite poor.

[Petsuchos]

Firstly, thank you both for your replies.

@Xerxxes: The spider idea is great. Wrap it in some bandages to give it that mummified look, and there you have a Tomb Scorpion. Unfortunately, GW doesn't sell the Shelob model separately, or that would work really nicely. I might just have to scrounge around the web for some other manufacturer.

Your thinking of the Aztec as far as the obsidian goes (mostly.) but thats not a half bad idea. I probably won't be taking a whole lot of archers, and I probably won't make them all slingers. I just wanted a few to differentiate from regular TK some more.

I really like that cannon/catapult idea. It would be fun to make it really mossy, rusty, and overgrown, maybe with its former crews skeletons bound to the machine by plant-life.

@Deciever: That was my biggest worry coming into this is that my theme would be too restricting. I quite like some of Xerxxes ideas though, and if someone else chimes in with there idea (especially if we can figure out how to make Chariots work.)

On the bright side, I have found a a palanquin I really like. Just need to make some Skeleton bearers instead of those nurglings.

[Phoenix]

I actually started posting at about the same time as Xerxxes, but it took me a while as my connestion is quite poor. Anyway, after i had posted i read through whet Xerxxes had wrote and he does have some good points. I did say i wasnt happy about suggesting to hand you over to the Vampires, so if you think you can use other models and still stick with the Tomb King army that that would be great.

[Blacknight]

If you are looking for bits for either slings or feathers contact any gamers you know who collect skaven or empire. The empire are all fops so have large amounts of feathers(which most players will never use) and the skaven box hand slings in it (I think, or the skaven mordheim box did).

I like the idea of the inca tomb king army. There is a white dwarf (I have it at home so can get the number) which had a big article on the amazons just after the lustria campaign came out. All the cavalry were riding on converted sabre cats from the ogre kingdoms hunter and some were done as tigers while others as jaguars.

Ohh and not having screaming skull catapults is not the end of the world, I am not including them (or bone giants) in my themed army as they were invented after the reign of my king (King Phar first dynasty)

[Xerxxes]

Heres a link to some spiders you might like The Lord of The Rings: Fall of the Necromancer
Hopefully i got that link to work. Its the spider queen models from the lord of the rings, and mixed with the shelob model, some of them, anyways. Are you sure they dont sell a small box with just her and frodo in it? i thought i saw that at my local chop, a while ago. Either way, there are some other gaint spiders in the lord of the rings sets, and maybe the goblins have some in WFB?I Think youd have to get them some square bases though.


Hmm. Ive been thinking about your Chariot problem, instead of working, actually. As i said before, it seems like you need something that looks about right on a chariot base, and appears suitably menacing on a charge. After reading up a bit more on the inca, i had a few ideas. One is a bit silly, but might be fun. Get yourself a few balls of about 3 or 4 inch diameter and put a little squad of skellingtons behind them, pushing them. Sorta of a "Indiana Jones" look. Im not sure how they would justify the 8 inch range, but hell, they are magically animated slellingtons, perhaps these ones used to be message runners, lol. Big stone balls, smashing through the forest, covered in moss and the blood of thier too slow opponents. Particularly usefull to push down from those mountain cities they seemed to favor.

Next idea, get something like the lizardmens stegadon, a large creature they could ride. OR something like the lizardmens salamander. a few skellingtons herding along something large and dangerous with pokey spears. They'd act as the "Crew" and the beast would act as the "Chariot" you could model things on the beast itself to represent things like champions and banners and such. Again, ive no real idea what youd use as a beastie, but id recomend you check out the Lizardmen site, ad they seem to be based heavily on aztec and inca backgrounds. They also seem to have a lot of units with those clubs you mentioned, you might be able to find some of them from a lizardmen player, or online. Warhammer - Lizardmen Check out the coloumn on the left, under lizardman units, there might be something there that strikes your fancy. Again, good luck.

[Silmerosse]

I have to say that I'm kind of curious about the fluff that you plan to use for this as it was my understanding that the only "natives" of the new world had scales or pointy ears. Where did these guys come from and how did they get there?

[Petsuchos]

Thank for all the great replies guys!

@Slimerosse: Some historian have speculated that various people from Asia and Africa sailed too and made contact with the Americas, specifically South America. As such, I wanted to conceptualize this as a expeditionary force of Nehekara that was sent out in the very distant past of that civilization. They landed in Lustria and set up shop using their advanced magic and technology, all the while becoming a distinct cultural entity by mingling with the native populace and without any contact with Nehekara. I need to work on it, but thats essentially the idea.

@Blacknight: Didn't think about the Skaven. I'll see what I can find in regards to that. Empire feathers is a great idea; funny I didn't think of it, I really love those feather caps. :yes:
Really, I was mostly worried about not being able to take any of the special troops, and just ending up with some heros, skellies, and Carrion. I don't have to take all of the best units, just some.

@Xerxxes: I really like that stone rolling idea. Its definitely goofy, but IMO, there is always a place for humor in warhammer. That said, your idea inspired me. While it wouldn't be keeping entirely within the Incan setting, its not too far off; giant, animated, rolling Olmec heads with a few skeletons to give it a pushing start, and maybe a few skeletons fused to the stone swiping at people as it goes by. Extremely goofy, but could be kind of cool. See here: http://www.werner-forman-archive.com/Image106.jpg

I am still kind of like (not really) the idea of palanquins with my TK's ancestors born into battle. I'm really on the fence about the chariots right now. I originally thought to use Cold One chariots, but then I realized that any sort of Chariot is really impractical in any sort of mountainous terrain.

A pack of mummified Jaguars might be kind of neat, and would also tie them back into the original TKs (Egyptian mummified cats and all.) plus would go with the Carrion/Spiders, but then, that might be overdoing the "Mummified animal" shtick.

Thanks for your help so far, I am getting a lot of really great ideas.

[Blacknight]

Just had another thought for your tomb scorpions, in one of Matt Reilleys books, Temple, which is set in and around Incan / Aztec empire there is the Rapa's. Giant cats like a leopard but alot bigger. There were really scary life-size stone statues of them everywhere in the book. Animated versions of these could work for your tomb scorpions or as an aside Ushabti.

I think there is a bit of fluff somewhere in the tomb king book about one of the kings sending his fleets across the great sea or some such. Might have been to lustria.

As an aside there is a human race that predates the lizardmen living in lustria.. the Amazons, though who knows how they survived. (another issue)