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 Lord Damocles wrote:
It doesn't look like the dragon skeleton is at all similar to the traditional style of Warhammer Fantasy dragons.

Nor is there any evidence of mummification on the dragon (or riders...), which you'd probably expect from such a high status mount.

It might have fallen by the wayside since back when they were introduced, but iirc the Liche-Priests were specifically not mummified, and not even typically undead, instead doing some sort of life-prolonging alchemy and such, which probably accounts for the "pale smurf" complexion of this particular example.

There are 2 kind of undead in Khemri, those who achieved immortality via magic which are mainly the last generation of priests

And those reanimated by the curse of Nagash

... What if I just cut its wings and play it as crocodile?

 Sotahullu wrote:
... What if I just cut its wings and play it as crocodile?

No flying for you then!

 Sotahullu wrote:
... What if I just cut its wings and play it as crocodile?

Sounds like a Warsphinx with extra steps.

Tyel wrote:
Maybe its contrarianism, but I like the dragon.

I'd agree with others though that transporting it would surely be a nightmare.

Those wings looks super tacked on. Would have been a great crocodile.

The king said "I wanna ride a dragon!" and rather than dare displease him by telling him they don't have one, the liche priests cobbled together something close enough out of bits they had lying around and passed it along.

 Shakalooloo wrote:
The king said "I wanna ride a dragon!" and rather than dare displease him by telling him they don't have one, the liche priests cobbled together something close enough out of bits they had lying around and passed it along.

They had one in Warmaster.

JSG wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:
The king said "I wanna ride a dragon!" and rather than dare displease him by telling him they don't have one, the liche priests cobbled together something close enough out of bits they had lying around and passed it along.

They had one in Warmaster.

Did it have a crocodile head?

I feel we'd get just as many people complaining about TK being one dimensional if it was a stone construct. Makes sense that a powerful empire with snobby kings and priests would also obsess with dragons.

 RustyNumber wrote:
I feel we'd get just as many people complaining about TK being one dimensional if it was a stone construct. Makes sense that a powerful empire with snobby kings and priests would also obsess with dragons.

The complaints aren't that it's a dragon...

the complain is that this model looks like a bad combination of good ideas
and given that several different designers worked on the individual parts without the "big picture" in mind and some parts even just being a test model as proof that one is good enough to work for GW, the model does look exactly like that

and here the main problem is not the model itself but simply how much effort GW put into the TOW release as just combining stuff they had around to make a new centerpiece model (despite Khemri already having one) does not add much confidence and just makes it look much more that GW want quick nostalgie cash and nothing else

Not Online!!! wrote:
So basically it's only bretonia that got fethed over with a lack of plastics for heros and lords and the trebuchet.

The more things change the more they stay the same

I like the fact that regardless how you build the dragon you got a foot hero ontop.

Bretonnia gets old plastic, metal and resin and new plastic and resin.


Tomb kings gets old plastic, metal and resin and new plastic and resin.

Problem? Beside selective memory conveniently forgeting stuff that dont fit your claim.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RustyNumber wrote:
I feel we'd get just as many people complaining about TK being one dimensional if it was a stone construct. Makes sense that a powerful empire with snobby kings and priests would also obsess with dragons.

We get complains regardless of what

Gw could design and give for free army for everybody exactly how people want and dakkadakka would still be filled with complains. This is dakkadakka. It lives by complaining. Don't have enough complaining and servers shut down from lack of energy

Just 2 pages late with the passive-agressiveness Tneva. Slacking?

And as an aside, compared to the TK range bretonia even with new foot knights has still more higher quality plastics.

But GW aren't about making equal factions in terms of plastic.

I would imagine the calculus was Brets and TK have the most pent up old world demand because they were completely cut and Ebay has long been stripped of affordable alternatives.

Then each faction get a certain amount of frames.

The amount of frames for each faction won't allow all the basic units to be redone - and if, for example, you only did Archers for TK the cavalry and spearmen would look more ridiculous in the same army.

So you're left with completely new units that match existing aesthetic and centrepiece characters that do too.

The "dragon" sure come with mixed emotions.
Cut the wings and I would robably really like it as a thematically sensible and cool mega aligator.
Now its just a bad sculpt that dont fit the theme, and that makes me also question the throne bit balancing on the spine. I mean, is it supposed to fly with a lord balancing on that throne?

In my opinion GW is concerned that if they give Bretonnians, which did not get an update after their 6th ed army book and have therefore been more starved of new models than any other faction (bar Chaos Dwarfs ), a big, shiny lord on flying horsey, they have to match that with an equally impressive character kit on the Tomb Kings side. I have a hard time believing that any reason other than parity in the draw the few new plastic models a faction gets should possess would lead to an army that did get an 8th ed update complete with the requisite centerpiece monster to get another centerpiece monster with its Old World release.

I'm not terribly happy with that idea. I think it sends the wrong message. Something that plagued Fantasy was that the updates armies got back in the day were few and far between, and then often enough instead of necessary range maintenance a big part of the update was a huge centerpiece model for an army whose core models, the things without which no army can be built, could not hope to match the style and quality of the new, shiny centerpiece. What we're seeing with Tomb Kings is a perpetuation of that problem. The army gets a very limited plastic budget and has specific needs, and whoever is in charge of greenlighting stuff at GW is either not aware of those needs or simply ignores them. It's not encouraging.

 Geifer wrote:
I'm not terribly happy with that idea. I think it sends the wrong message. Something that plagued Fantasy was that the updates armies got back in the day were few and far between, and then often enough instead of necessary range maintenance a big part of the update was a huge centerpiece model for an army whose core models, the things without which no army can be built, could not hope to match the style and quality of the new, shiny centerpiece. What we're seeing with Tomb Kings is a perpetuation of that problem. The army gets a very limited plastic budget and has specific needs, and whoever is in charge of greenlighting stuff at GW is either not aware of those needs or simply ignores them. It's not encouraging.

The Skeleton Warrior kit was originally released in 1998. The TK sprue was added in 2002. Just let that sink in for a moment, and then laugh or weep knowing that TK will be using a 25 year old kit in 2023, as part of their range to launch a new game.

They looked dated when the plastic Tomb Guard released in 2011, and they look extremely dated next to the new dragon. I fear we won't see updated kits, because why bother? Spend that plastic budget on a new centre piece, one new unit, job done.

 Geifer wrote:
In my opinion GW is concerned that if they give Bretonnians, which did not get an update after their 6th ed army book and have therefore been more starved of new models than any other faction (bar Chaos Dwarfs ), a big, shiny lord on flying horsey, they have to match that with an equally impressive character kit on the Tomb Kings side. I have a hard time believing that any reason other than parity in the draw the few new plastic models a faction gets should possess would lead to an army that did get an 8th ed update complete with the requisite centerpiece monster to get another centerpiece monster with its Old World release.

I'm not terribly happy with that idea. I think it sends the wrong message. Something that plagued Fantasy was that the updates armies got back in the day were few and far between, and then often enough instead of necessary range maintenance a big part of the update was a huge centerpiece model for an army whose core models, the things without which no army can be built, could not hope to match the style and quality of the new, shiny centerpiece. What we're seeing with Tomb Kings is a perpetuation of that problem. The army gets a very limited plastic budget and has specific needs, and whoever is in charge of greenlighting stuff at GW is either not aware of those needs or simply ignores them. It's not encouraging.

Or it's what sculptors like to sculpt. Whoever decided what tk gets liked idea of dragon. That gets thrown to fluff writers and then to ruleguys. Bretonnia leader wanted foot knights.

They don't look at army list and decide what army needs. It's what miniature department wants to do. Maybe they don't want to do bog standard skeletons.

Odds are bret & tk teams dont even know much of what other is doing to even let it influence what to do...

but it is not what sculpture like to sculpt, but just a model merged of different single parts to get a large centerpiece model

like the palanquin was designed with a dragon in mind
and it is a Dragon instead of a Crocodile because someone was sculpting a bone Dragon and not a TK monster

and another person merged those 2 and the 4th edited some small details in

Sathrut wrote:The Skeleton Warrior kit was originally released in 1998. The TK sprue was added in 2002. Just let that sink in for a moment, and then laugh or weep knowing that TK will be using a 25 year old kit in 2023, as part of their range to launch a new game.

They looked dated when the plastic Tomb Guard released in 2011, and they look extremely dated next to the new dragon. I fear we won't see updated kits, because why bother? Spend that plastic budget on a new centre piece, one new unit, job done.

Is it really that new? I think we can further emphasize your point by adding at least 4 years. The basic design is very similar (identical?) to this kit:



Which in turn is very similar to this old kit:

tneva82 wrote:Or it's what sculptors like to sculpt. Whoever decided what tk gets liked idea of dragon. That gets thrown to fluff writers and then to ruleguys. Bretonnia leader wanted foot knights.

They don't look at army list and decide what army needs. It's what miniature department wants to do. Maybe they don't want to do bog standard skeletons.

Odds are bret & tk teams dont even know much of what other is doing to even let it influence what to do...

Surely potential sales must be a deciding factor? GW is pretty business savvy and I'm sure they'll sell lots of crocodile-dragons but I'm really struggling to see how it's going to outsell a new skeleton warriors kit.

The weird think with skeletons is that they are one of the most common fantasy models out there. I think a big part of GW's early success was that their generic fantasy figures were some of the best values out there. I was buying GW figures long before I bought any of the rules.

That dragon is one of the most impractical designs I've ever seen. Maybe the markup on it makes it worthwhile and the run will be modest, further enhancing its perceived value.

Sathrut wrote:


The Skeleton Warrior kit was originally released in 1998. The TK sprue was added in 2002. Just let that sink in for a moment, and then laugh or weep knowing that TK will be using a 25 year old kit in 2023, as part of their range to launch a new game.

They looked dated when the plastic Tomb Guard released in 2011, and they look extremely dated next to the new dragon. I fear we won't see updated kits, because why bother? Spend that plastic budget on a new centre piece, one new unit, job done.

Maybe it's a deliberate nod to the Tomb Kings being the army of antiquity?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Maybe it's a deliberate nod to the Tomb Kings being the army of antiquity?

Made me laugh

 Ohman wrote:

I would say these are actually better kits than the "new" TK skellies.

Build it without the wings, and declare that the Liche Priests found a Deinosuchus fossil (it might actually be about the right size; anyone care to estimate how long this thing would be in "real life"?) and animated it. If your opponent complains about the fact that it's flying with no wings, point to the skeletal wings on the original, ask your opponent if he or she *really* thinks that those "wings" are capable of supporting anything, and then recite the magic incantation: "A liche priest did it."

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/11/19/sunday-preview-machine-vs-machine/?utm_source=CUSTOMERS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WH_19th_November_Preview_&utm_content=&utm_term=

And on Warhammer Community we’ll be taking closer looks at the Necrons and Adeptus Mechanicus, investigating the Combat Phase in Warhammer: The Old World, and continuing the Christmas competition.

 Fayric wrote:

Now its just a bad sculpt that dont fit the theme, and that makes me also question the throne bit balancing on the spine. I mean, is it supposed to fly with a lord balancing on that throne?

Is it supposed to fly? The wings have no membrane.

As per Liber Necris, the magic involved in animating a Skeleton effectively replaces the soft tissue. So it does have membranes, of a sort.

The old skelly's did break at the waist alot. the newer ons didnt have manny weapon options as the old ones. And the upgrade tk spreu did have the bows, quivers heads and shields and if i remember right did have some scimitars and ofcourse the command stuff.