Warlords of Erehwon Skeletons - Fiddly but fine - Part 1: Assembly

You may have seen a video from a well respected YouTuber who had a bit of an issue with the Warlords of Erehwon plastic skeletons. You bought the boxes, and then found that video, and are now sinking into a morass of despair. Worst models ever, I believe was the hyperbole on the video. He's a damn good terrain maker, but he is not the most patient of fellows.

Well fret not! I am here to save you. For yes, they are fiddly. But with a bit of strategy, planning ahead, and choosing the right tools, you can actually assemble them in a timely manner. Please read the whole thing before starting; it will be important!

Fun fact, these sprues were previously by Wargames Factory, and the sprues I got in my Warlords box were still marked with Wargames Factory. I even had an old Wargames Factory sprue to compare to. The old ones were a slightly different shade of grey, and had a bit less plastic flash around the hands, but were otherwise identical. I think later Warlords boxes have reworked the frames a little, but the parts should all still match.

So first things first, the right tools.

A cheap pair of snippers off any old Chinese junk site (Aliexpress, Bangood, etc) are a good start.

Failing that, duck over to the bathroom and steal some supplies from there. A fingernail emery board and cuticle snips are also great for this sized model.

Grab a pair of tweezers while you're there if you do not already have some on hand. And I hope you have a modelling knife.

For glue, you want a precision plastic glue. Do NOT use superglue, you will hate yourself if you try with fiddly plastic models like these (see: YouTube). My favourite plastic glue is Revell Contacta. But other people swear by some brush on Tamiya. Anything that is a plastic glue with a precision applicator will be fine though (but not super glue, also known as CA glue. Really, just.....don't. Please?).

So, rip into that box, and snip off a ton of parts, all excited like. Just like I did!

Well, good job dummy. You've (I've) already screwed up. Don't do that. I actually did a bunch of stuff less optimally when I started, bumbling through and learning as I went. By the time I was on the last sprue I had perfected the method as per below, and was humming through them.

Look closely at the sprues. You'll find there are a few numbers next to the feet and legs. Turns out, those feet need to go with the same numbered legs, otherwise you are in for some awkward twisting to get things to fit neatly. So #1 feet with #1 legs, etc.

That is the only specially keyed part of the sprue. Other than that, anything can go with anything. Check out the back of your box, and think about what you want your skeleton minions to be armed with, and how you want them posed.

For me, I was heading in to Cancon 2020, for Australia's biggest Kings of War tournament, Clash of Kings Australia. And I wanted a lot of units of skeleton spearmen. I had one unit already of a mix of original plastics citadel skeletons from the 80s, mixed with a previous sprue of Wargames Factory. They were also done very fast and loose (on the tabletop painted is better than unpainted in a drawer, and I am notoriously terrible and getting projects done. So all the corners get cut. All of them).

So having tried to rank up spindly skeletons previously, I knew a few things. I did not want any arms, weapons or shields hanging over the edges of the bases if possible. And I should probably set the front rank back a bit from the edge of the unit so they do not tangle in enemies when they clash.

I also wanted to match "styles" of spear and shield, as you have to use two different styles if you want all your skeletons armed with spears. So I matched up what I guessed was the "right" spear with the "right" shield. They might actually be wrong, who knows. But at least I'd be consistently wrong.

I went with the bottom row. Spears with the slot in the head paired up with the large circular shields. And the slim spear head with the fancy shield.

So one of the many tricks with assembling these is to use a production line. Plastics glue holds well enough after a few minutes, so if you work on 6 models at a time (one sprue worth in the old Wargames Factory sprues), you can do one step 6 times, and then come back to the first model again for the next step and it should be holding well enough to work on.

But before you actually cut anything off the sprues, remember the numbering I told you about before. And also, to minimise clean up (remember, we want to minimise effort as much as possible), snip the pieces off strategically. Use the flat side of your cutters hard up against the part so that it cuts as flush as possible. You do not want to have to come back and clean up the points where it was connected if you do not have to. I mean you can, but I did not want to.

One part that this was hard to get good clean cuts with was the spears, as they were so flexible on the frames. I did go back for a quick polish with the emery board for those.

So snip out your parts, keeping the feet with their corresponding legs. You will also note there are a two different styles of torsos. I wanted to mix it up as much as possible, so I cross multiplied the legs with the torsos. So set out a top row of legs #1-#3, and a bottom row of #1-#3 repeated. Then each column has one of each torso type. I also ran the spears/shield combos alternating as well.

The hands/arms on my sprues needed a bit of flash removal, so I did that on the sprue before snipping them off.

So after all your snipping, you should have 6 piles. Each pile will have a base, a feet pair, leg pair, torso, head, left arm, right arm, shield, spear, and head. Or whatever equipment combo you have planned. Do NOT snip the crossbar off the feet. You need that for strength. I learned that the hard way. It is a bit ugly and unfortunate. You might be able to come back after they have finished glueing at the end and snip them off, but I just covered them with basing material after assembly to hide them (see blog post Part 2, coming later...)

Let us number each of these piles from 1 to 6.

You will now begin assembly, building from the ground up.

Starting with pile 1, and going through 2 then 3 etc all the way to 6, just glue the feet onto the bases. Nothing else. The feet are not very flush, and the crossbar between them sadly does not sit against the base. So you are looking for a small dot of glue on the balls of the fet and the heels of each foot (in fact, on one of the numbered feet not even the heel touches the base). With plastic glue, you only want a small amount. Just enough for the plastic of one part to melt a little bit and fuse with the other piece.

Good job! Look at those toesies, marching along.

Next up, the feet. Hopefully you have been organised enough to keep track of which pair of feet went with their required legs. For this step, I just put a tiny dot of glue inside the small hole in the feet. Then, using tweezers, I pushed first one then the other ankle directly down into the hole.

One they are both in, you might find on or the other ankle is sitting out a little to one side. I found this mostly on the rear foot. To fix that, I just squeeze it together with the tweezers.

Again, you are starting at number 1, and going through doing this to all of them before you move on to the next body part.

Next up, the torsos. Again, small dot of glue in the hip hole (oo-er), and plonk the torso on. For each skelly, 1-6.

At one point I was trying 12 at a time, but it was more monotonous and did not give you nice natural points to take a break. I do not recommend it. Plus, it is harder to keep track of the correct parts. Especially if you bump your table or knock your paper.

Now we take a little detour. You want to attach the arms to the shields before they go on the body, otherwise you can end up with arms in positions that the shields will not attach to well.

These are quick to line up. Glue on each shield 1-6, then put the arm on each 1-6, rather than glue and arm each.

Taking the detour at this point gives those torsos, which might have had a little more glue than other parts, and will be holding a bit more weight, a little more time to dry.

Now the spears. This is probably the most awkward bit, but thanks to the magic of plastic glue, fairly forgiving. I will also be using the Power of Pythagoras here. Three points of contact for the spear/arms. With spindly delicate parts like a spear, and a mild bit of weight of the spear, you are not likely to get good results with arms waving spears wildly in the air. At least not good enough to last a few games with them. I put a dot of glue in the shoulder socket and in the palm, then put the arm on the shoulder. Hold it at the angle about where you want it to be and line the spear up next to it before pressing the spear into the palm. The base of the spear should be touching the ground, or a foot, or a leg or knee or somewhere else on the model. A tiny speck of glue dabbed down there, too, will be enough to lock it all together. You might have to hold it for a few seconds in that pose while the shoulder starts to firm up. Careful as you put it aside, it will still be a bit delicate. Then, as usual, repeat for models 1-6 before moving on to the next part.

Heads go on next, again starting at 1 and going through to 6. I chose all the plain looking non-cartoony skulls for the most part, with one helmeted guy in there and I think just one of the cartoon guys for something a little different. Similar to the shields, I do a dot of glue on the neck hole of all 1-6, before putting the heads on in that same order, rather than glueing one head on at a time.

Once the heads are all on, you are nearly there! Similar to the spears, I went with multiple contact points for the shields. I tried to make sure in addition to the shoulder, there was a spot touching somewhere else. The edge of the shield against the thigh, the hand against the chest. Just something to give it a bit of extra strength. Also, I was keeping each spear type with the same shield type. Do not forget what pairings you were going with at this stage.

I would point out that you do this from model 1-6 before moving on to the next body part, but that is it, you are done! Go take a break; get out of your chair, look at something distant to relax your eyes, walk around a bit. Then come back and start again on the next sprue when you are ready!

Then take another break, and get back into it again!

Keep going until you run out of sprues or go insane. I think I still have one sprue left, so you know what I did....

Next up, painting the bastards! Again, it was for speed, foolishly giving myself very little time after submitting my list for Clash of Kings to get them ready. So corners were cut.... on to part two!