Core Values

Thematically Appropriate

I mentioned last post that I had an army theme.  It's probably worth elaborating on a little.  For various, not overly interesting to anyone else roleplay based reasons, my army is going to be a necromancy only army.  So no vampires (in a Vampire Counts army!), no vampiric things (like varghulfs), no units I think are ugly and certainly no living things!  (Beyond the necromancers themselves, that is.)  It's probably (definitely) not the best way to play a Vampire Counts army, but I'm not playing to win, I'm playing with friends.  (This may change.  I'm a competitive bugger.)

So what am I allowed then?  Well, basically it's skeletons, zombies, skeletons riding things and spirits (there are quite a few of these).  Largely, we're talking non-sentient undead.  Your classic shambling hordes, backed up by some ghosts.

The Points Problem

Talking of shambling hordes, that leads me on to the point I want to complain about...  Points.

In Warhammer, each model is worth a certain number of points - which are a rough measure of how good the model is.  So a zombie (possibly one of the worst models in the game) is worth 3 points, while a master necromancer is worth 165.  Or, put another way, you get 55 zombies for the cost of one necromancer and if they fought, they'd be roughly equal.  (Well, not really, but that's the basic principle.)

In order to make it a war game, not a "massively expensive single model fighting another massively expensive model" game, there are requirements to how much you have to spend on each bit of your army.  They are:

Core Units: At least 25% of your total.
Characters: No more than 25%.
Rare Units: No more than 25%.
Special Units: No more than 25%.

So if you want to take part in a 500 point game (a tiny skirmish), you need at least 125 points worth of core units.  Savvy?  The basic cost of my core units are:

Zombies: 3 points
Skellies: 5 points
Dire Wolves: 8 points
Ghouls: 10 points

There are minimum unit sizes involved, but you can see that the easiest way to 125 points is ghouls.  Each model (and they are all roughly the same size and painting difficulty) is worth 1.2 dire wolves, 2 skellies or 3.3 zombies.  That's a lot less painting (and £££s) if you go ghouls!  Unfortunately for me, ghouls are living.  And, in my book, kind of ugly.

Ghouls.  Not my idea of the undead.

So they're out.  Dire wolves, in contrast, are undead wolves.  They're fast (something not many undead are), not terrible at combat and are proper undead!

They are also butt whipping ugly.

Seriously, what the fuck is that? It looks like an undead squirrel.

That's not even the ugliest one.  So they're not going in.

Which leaves me with skellies and zombies.  The models of these are fine and they fit the theme.  Unfortunately, they are also the cheapest two units, which means I've got to paint a ton of the buggers.

How many I hear you cry?  Well, let's work it out!

A unit of skeleton warriors has a minimum unit size of 10 and a basic cost of 5 points per model.  So that's 50 points.  But we can upgrade one skellie to a champion for an extra 10, one to a musician for 10 and one to a standard bearer for 10.  So that's 80 points.  Furthermore, one unit of skellies per army can carry a magic standard worth 25 points.  As I've only got one unit, let's add that in too!  (There's even a thematically appropriate one for them to carry that costs 25 points.)  Our skellies are now worth a spiffing 105 points!  And I just happen to have a unit of them I made earlier!

105 points of technically legal skellies.

Now, some of these guys are painted better than others as I got Andy Law to teach me how to paint them mid-way through, and you can't really see them because of the terrible photo, but you get the idea.

So we're a little short.  The easiest way to get those extra 20 points would be to stick on an extra 4 skellies, but that would mean only having a single unit of infantry.  So let's not do that.  Instead, lets do some zombies.

Clearly not painted by me.

I've only got my zombies half done, so that's a GW image.  These guys (and they are ALL guys, you'll note) have a minimum unit size of 20 and cost 3 points each.  Thus, a unit of zombies has a basic cost of 60.  We can upgrade one to standard bearer for 5 extra points, and a musician for an extra 5 as well.  So that's 70 points.  Making for a core total of 175 points!  Woo-hoo!  That's more than enough.

Maybe.

You see, because of the 25+/25/25/25 rule, for the maximum deployment value, I need to spend as close as possible to 175 in each category.  This is actually easier for me than it might be, as the units I like are pretty evenly spread across the types.

Characters.  This one is easy.  I need a wizard for my army (it's literally the rules).  Cue Master Necromancer (cost 165).  There are a few upgrades available for him, but sadly none that cost 10 points.  Bah.  Oh well, pretty good.

Rare units.  Cairn Wraiths and Tomb Banshees can be taken as a rare "monstrous infantry" unit at a cost of 50 points per model (they are damn scary) and minimum unit size of 3.  So 150.  But one wraith can be upgraded to a banshee (the unit champ) for 25 points.  Result!  175.

Special units.  There are a couple of skeleton cavalry units in this group, but the one I have currently is a group of five hexwraiths, who each cost 30 points for a total of 150 points.  As is the way, one can be upgraded to be the unit champion, called a hellwraith in this case, for 10 extra points.  So 160 points then.  Oh, and did I mention I'd actually painted these guys?

Could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire.  And they're already on fire.

I'm pretty pleased with this unit.  You can't really tell because of the crappy photo, but they are almost competently done.  Almost.  Lets have another look, with apologies again for the crappy camera work.

160 points of soul reaping terror. And painting clutter.

Now, the maths doesn't strictly work (as the 175 points worth of cairn wraiths are slightly over the 25% total as a result of the necromancer and the hexwraiths being slightly under), but let's ignore that.  Based on this set-up, I've got a working army of 675 points!  I'll need to stick a few extra skellies in there to make it strictly legal, but that's not too bad.  Plus, I'm only a few models away from actually having it painted.  Talking of which...

Previous Total Points Painted: 0
20 Skellies (inc command group and banner): 105
5 Hexwraiths (inc one Hellwraith): 160

Total Points Painted: 265.

Yay!  Only 410 to go...

Yay?