Tomb Kings Bone Giant with Bow of the Desert.

 In the second of the Tomb Kings army books, the Bone Giant, recategorised under the umbrella term 'Necrolith Colossus', is able to be equipped with a 'Bow of the Desert'. What this was was essentially a large bow with the same effect as a bolt thrower in the game, although terrifyingly the Bone Giant could move and shoot with it in the same turn if desired, and no armour saves were permitted against any wounds cause by the bow. . In addition to this, the Bone Giant benefited from the Tomb Kings rule of 'Arrows of Asaph' (as all Tomb Kings archers do) meaning that:

"Units with arrows of Asaph special rule never count any bonuses or penalties to hit when shooting, regardless of the source of the modifier' (p28, Tomb Kings army book, 2011).

Games Workshop never released a miniature for a bow wielding Bone Giant. The Bone Giant itself was the same miniature which was released in 2002, and as far as I recall was never converted over to Finecast before the range, and Warhammer, were retired (but not for much longer it seems!). So I, as others have done, decided to convert an existing Bone Giant.

There are several good examples on the internet of bow wielding Bone Giants, and the computer game Total War:Warhammer II has one with a very fancy looking bow, akin to the Ushabti bows and the High Elf Repeater Bolt Thrower. Rather than buy either of those just for parts I decided to convert a much simpler version of my own.

I first removed the Bone Giant's khopesh swords, and drilling a hole through his right hand. I chose to make the Bone Giant left-handed, as all the other archers in the Tomb Kings army are! Through the hole in the hand I inserted a brass rod, which I then bent into shape, and glued in place. Next, I glued a much smaller piece of brass rod parallel to the back to act as a bow string. Finally I added some green stuff around the hand to look like a hand grip, and more green stuff at the top of the bow to suggest bindings, as well as give extra strength to, and hide, the join between the two pieces of brass rod.

For the quiver I simply used a javelin case from the Tomb Kings chariot set. I removed the javelin tips and replaced them with green stuff sculpted to look like arrow fletchings. The quiver was glued onto a green stuff sculpted strap across the body, also adding a skull scarab to the front to look like clasp.

Painting the Bone Giant was straight forward, and fun as I love painting the Bone Giants. I just followed the same dusty paint scheme for the rest of the army. As a footnote, I decided to pose the Bone Giant in a manner which suggests he was stalking the desert looking for a target. I did this, rather than have him shooting the bow as I liked the look of movement which the Bone Giant model has, and also it seemed a lot of hassle trying to repose the model for a look I wasn't really keen on or I thought suited the model. Finally, I selected the big skull hat as I hadn't used it on the other two Bone Giants, and it gives the model more height and importance.

Enjoy :)

Bone Giant with Bow of the Desert.
As mentioned above, I do like that it looks like he is searching for another target, and I think it suits the advancing pose of the legs and body from the original miniature.

Side view showing the bow.

Rear view of the quiver.

Head with hat.

The three Bone Giants!

More Tomb Kings for the next update. I am rattling through the painting, with several units awaiting photographing, some more awaiting varnishing and basing, and yet more on the painting table!