A Rare choice option for the Tomb Kings armies, the Screaming Skull Catapults.
With so many lovely and terrifying options for Rare choices in a Tomb Kings army, I sometimes felt that the Screaming Skull Catapult was overlooked. The models are great, but can be a problem to assemble, and being all pewter glued to pewter, they could be fragile. I always liked the idea of having some sort of war machine in the Tomb Kings army, and one which can shoot over the heads of regiments always meant they could be positioned behind the army, whilst the rest of the army didn't have to worry about getting in it's way.
The models themselves are great. The idea is to have a bone constructed, walking, shooting, undead war machines, an idea reused by GW in the Ossiarch bonereapers army. The Tomb Kings version shoots piles of skulls which magically burn fire, and scream at you at the same time! You can also upgrade to Skulls of the Foe, effectivity shooting back the skulls of your enemies, presumably also screaming and on fire as well!
Anyway, back to the models. They were fun to paint. One problem I did encounter was that a second hand e-bay purchase was missing the feet! So to counter this I built up the base with millput to suggest that the Screaming Skull Catapult was partly buried in the sands.
Enjoy :)
I placed both on the chariot sized bases to make them sturdier.
This one was missing the little beard on the left side skull, so I just added millput to suggest a little mound of sand.
The crew are the same for both, so I only photographed one set.
Left side view.
Excellent looking catapults Lee, great cover for the missing pieces as well, they look like they were intended to be that way, when I read the title I was expecting the really old 80's version, but really like the look of these updated ones, they fit a lot better with the Tomb Kings aesthetic
ReplyDeleteThank you. I thought that the solution to the lack of feet worked well too.
DeleteYes, the old 1980's Screaming Skull Catapults were quite small. I have a couple awaiting repainting. I had quite forgotten that GW had reused the name, and had to double check in the Tomb Kings book.
Ohh, what's not to love about these? They look terrific, and I think you made some clever decisions with milliput. I love them
ReplyDeleteThank you. I was wondering how to overcome the lack of feet and then I was reading in the Tomb Kings book about how some armies were buried under the sands, awaiting summoning. So I thought I would just use some milliput to suggest just that.
DeleteYes, we also agree that your solution to mask missing parts works well and looks very realistic for the desert setting. We didn't know this imposing type of catapult, which we like for the richness of details: the idea that the base is a pair of skeletons of beasts (which ones?), with a curly tail is spot on. And they throw screaming and burning skulls! What is the maximum range of these war machines? Since they fire not in a straight line, can they also target targets hidden by an intervening terrain?
ReplyDeleteThank you, glad you liked them. It is quite an imposing model. I don't think the skeletons as the background for them states "The chassis of the catapults were carved to resemble the skeletal remains of a vicious desert predator". (The second Tomb Kings book, p41). So there are either carved from the bones of other creatures or stone, to resemble an, unnamed, desert predator.
DeleteThe Screaming Skull Catapult is classed as a War Machine (stone thrower), so the range is standard,I think 48 inches. I don't have the rule book to hand and can't recall all the rules for the last two editions concerning stone throwers, a lot of the rules kept changing over the years for things.