Take A Closer Look At The Shambling Empire Of Dust For Kings Of War
June 30, 2016 by brennon
Mantic Games have shared some more up-close images of the Empire of Dust, also known as the Ahmunites who are coming for Kings of War. We saw a sneak peek of these last week and now you get to stand amongst the ranks of the dead...
I do like the scarab blue colour although I think that it could have done with another spot colour to brighten them up.
Infantry
Inside this army you're going to be getting some standard rank and file which is great as well as some special surprises to give the army its edge and keep it within the theme of ancient Egypt.
As well as Infantry with spears and HUGE shields, possibly the coolest thing about those soldiers, we also get to see some of their warriors bringing bow and arrow to the battlefield. Take a look at the archers.
Additionally if you want to smash aside your foes with more brutality then you could also team up alongside their infantry bringing some great weapons into the fray.
One set of miniatures that we did know about from previous releases was the Mummies which you can see below swathed in bandages.
These are some seriously warped and battered looking undead with a few spot pieces from the kits that separate them from the other undead in the range and giving them that Egyptian vibe.
Monstrous Warriors & Screaming Skulls
As well as the regular foot troops they also showed off some larger models like the ones you see below which appear to be heroes in their own right, each of them looking a little bigger than the regular soldiers. I like the spellcaster in the centre and the warrior standing to his right.
Protecting them as they battle alongside the long dead we also have these hulking warriors.
Here they are with big two handed weapons, and they're looking awesome. You can also arm these fellows with ranged weapons if you prefer too according to some of the images over on social media.
Last but not least we have the Catapults which will be raining down fire upon the enemy and making them quake in their boots at each magically aided shot that lands within their ranks.
Overall a very cool looking army but is it one that could have done with a different lick of paint? The bone and blue is looking neat but as I mentioned earlier I think another spot colour could bring them to life (so to speak).
What do you think?
"Protecting them as they battle alongside the long dead we also have these hulking warriors..."
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That colour scheme! The minis look nice enough but that painting just looks bizarre, the bones look metallic and you can’t make out any details…
What a shambles…. Geddit?
Feel the same about the colour scheme. I can’t make out anything and there’s no blaming the camera this time, the photos are decent quality.
Not a fan of the revenants blocky two-handed weapons. Otherwise it all looks grand.
Should be available to order next week apparently.
I really can’t tell if they’re good or not…
They might be good @elromanozo , but I don’t think they’re up to Tomb King standards… if they still exist, that is.
Now that I’ve had a closer look at these, I’m liking them more. The paint scheme certainly does them no favours. I’d like to see them on the sprues, or assembled, but unpainted. They’re not up on the site yet, at least as far as I can tell.
They’re also not as good as the revenants, which I’m still going to buy a bunch of. They actually look better than GW’s skeletons, although they are not TK themed.
They have rules, points values and stats in the new General’s Handbook, as do Bretonnia, so they are still hanging in there for now…
il n’y a pas de rois des tombes
I think the problem is that the blue is too over powering and the gold too muted making it hard to make out details. I think they’ll look better with a less bold blue, some of the kilts/rags/etc painted as off-white cloth and a richer gold on the metal parts.
I can’t say that I’m too impressed, unfortunately.
Perhaps not all that surprising, to be honest, given that Mantic certainly has taken the adage “you get what you pay for” to heart.
I hope the archers never have to shoot something that isn’t on their left. Anyway, they’re about on par with the rest of Mantic’s stuff, although with regards to their actual quality, if I didn’t know better, I’d say some of the models were on a 15mm scale due to the lack of detail on some (the Mummy troops and the Big statue guys certainly). The 2 handed weapon troops look the worse; the spearmen are fine; the archers are ok, although their positions indicate a design flaw in not being able to rank them up easily; the command group… Read more »
Fallen short for me on closer inspection.
On close inspection of the pictures, the details looks pretty good. Not GW standards, but you pay for that. The problem is this super-blue, super high-contrast paintjob they did. You see the blue, but then everything else looks like heavily shaded white/silver. My biggest issue on initial inspection of these figs is I can’t immediately tell they are undead. I can’t actually make out enough of the facial/body details to tell its a skeletal creature rather than a living person. In an undead army, the focus of the paint job should be on what identifies them as undead. For a… Read more »
Nice points there!
Over all those are rather good.
Those tomb dwellers doesn’t look like undead, more like some kind of metal creatures. No, I don’t care much for that paint scheme.
And the models, well I think GW’s old Tomb Kings looked much better then Mantics version.
They look great, the big guys with axe’s remind me of the stargate’s Apophis jaffa dog soldiers.
They look neat but, my concern is that these might be metal/plastic hybrid kits and kits recycled from existing armies. If you look closely at the legs of the Empire of Dust skeleton infantry they look exactly like the current Undead infantry. Looking at the bodies of the Empire of Dust heavy infantry with the masks on, they are exactly the same as the Elohi of the current Basilean army. The catapult is the same as that in the Undead army it just has that Egyptian crest on it. The mummies are the same as that in the Undead army.… Read more »
There’s no ‘might be’ about it.
Many of the kits are confirmed to be metal add-ons added to existing kits. Skeleton plastic lower bodies are used for the skeleton spearmen/warriors and revenants which are then given metal torsa.
I do not think the Enslaved Guardians (the large/monstrous infantry) share Elohi legs though. If you look closely, they’re not very similar at all. The Elohi have much smaller tabards for once. I assume the Enslaved Guardians are new sculpts wholly in metal, like the recent metal Zombie Trolls from Mantic.
Well, I like them.