Age of Fantasy: Building Paper Armies, Part 5 (and some added units)

More paper miniatures for Age of Fantasy! This time, with things being a little bit different thanks to posting some added rules and units. One thing which has long bugged me with the Vampiric Undead list in AOF is that it combine the WHFB Vampire counts with nearly every single 'Death' army in Age of Sigmar, barring the Nighthaunts and Ossiarch Bonereapers. This, as a result, has made this list positively massive but at the same time has made things a bit less focused. Still, looking at the sheer variety of undead as a feature and not a bug and, with October coming up soon, time to get spooky once more.

Vampiric Undead

Known in WHFB as the 'Vampire Counts' and in Age of Sigmar as the Legion of Nagash (which inherited many of their units), the Vampiric Undead list consist of a staggering variety of undead units, ranging from expendable zombie hordes to the rank-and-file skeletons which form the (heh) back bone of the army, alongside other units such as Ghouls, Wraith and even bat swarms. With the evergreen popularity of undead and vampires in the collective consciousness there is no shortage of miniatures when it come to all manners of undying monstrosities. This list, once further expanded with some key units and other cool paper minis, is really more of a conglomerate of different factions. Want to do an all-skeleton list with Necromancers and Liches, completely ditching the Vampire angle? You can! On the other hand, if someone want to lean into the vampiric angle some of these new units can really help set it apart from the hordes of skeletons.

Skeleton Units

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As previously mentioned, the Skeletons are the core of the various sub-factions and styles of the Vampiric Undead. They are simple, cheap and efficient: more intelligent than dumb zombies (despite having no brain left), they can hold weapons and fight as efficiently as they did while alive and come in a wide variety, from spearmen to cavalry to the newly added archers. In general, the new guys should probably be restricted to an all-skeleton army just to give them something to disgusting it but that's minor details.

• The skeletons come from the various bundles by One Monk/Mayhem in paper, which can be found on Drivethru RPG.

Of course, as mentioned the archers are a new unit type which add some ranged attacks to an otherwise mostly melee army, while the Skeleton Cavalry are a cheaper version of the Skeleton Knights allowing for cheaper mounted units.

Name [size]	Qua	Def	Equipment	Special Rules	Cost
Skeleton Archers [5]	5+	6+	Bows (24", A1), Hand Weapons (A1)	Undead	45pts
Upgrade with:
Sergeant					+5pts
Musician					+10pts
Battle Standard					+10pts

Name [size]	Qua	Def	Equipment	Special Rules	Cost
Skeleton Cavaliers [5]	5+	5+	Hand Weapons (A1)	Fast, Impact (1) Undead	80pts
Upgrade with:
Sergeant					+5pts
Musician					+10pts
Battle Standard					+10pts
Replace all Hand Weapons with:
Bows (24”, A1) and Hand Weapons (A1)					+10pts
Lances (A1, Impact(1))					+15pts

Vampire Counts

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If skeletons alone don't tick your funny bone, then there's always the special units which thematically are more associated with Vampires. A court of ghastly and gothic creatures can be yours to command with the Vampires, while the the newly added units can increase the variety of Vampires fielded. The key mechanic of vampires is the Furious mechanic, which grant them +1 attack when charging as they become frenzied with bloodlust. Where the skeleton and zombies are cheap and weak, Vampires have high quality and defense.

• Many of the vampire units are from Roads of Apocalypse, namely Armies of Undead faction the by the underrated Distrigillator. These can be found and bought on DrivethruRPG.
• Meanwhile, the old Vampire Lord can be found in the Undead Sampler from One Monk/Mayhem in paper here. The regular Ghoul also come from this. I forgot what specific One Monk set the Wraiths are from.
• The Bat Beast, Bat Horrors and Ghoul Horrors come from the PERMES Winged Ghouls set.

The new vampire units can be used to make a more elitist Undead army with a strong focus on the charge, which is something that the core AOF army list lack. However, its worth noting these guys are not rank and file troops and shouldn't be used as such.

Name [size]	Qua	Def	Equipment	Special Rules	Cost
Vampire Warriors [5]	3+	3+	Hand Weapons (A1)	Furious, Undead	95pts
Upgrade with:
Sergeant					+5pts
Musician					+10pts
Battle Standard					+10pts
Replace all Hand Weapons with:
Halberds (A1, Rending)					+10pts
Great Weapons (A1, AP(1))					+15pts

Name [size]	Qua	Def	Equipment	Special Rules	Cost
Ghoulish Skirmishers [5]	4+	5+	Bows (24”, A1), Hand Weapons (A1)	Furious, Undead	75pts
Upgrade with:
Sergeant					+5pts
Musician					+10pts
Battle Standard					+10pts
Upgrade with:
Scout					+30pts

Age of Fantasy: Building Paper Armies, Part 3

More paper miniatures for Age of Fantasy, which is totally not streamlined version of a certain game made in a certain European country that is getting increasingly crazy about copyrights despite ripping off a shitload of other works and never giving them any money.

High Elves

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Ah, High Elves: the pinnacle of 'Elven smugness'! Fortunately, this is an army with good support from One Monk/Mayhem in Paper, with paper miniatures available both in free and paid form. Several of the free versions can be found somewhere in their hoard but they also can be bought. Considering how much I've used this stuff, I have opted to buy the Elven Alliance bundle from Drivethru RPG. In the future I might have to rework these, as there's talk of expanding that army with new units from a rather similar-but-legally-distinct faction from a certain controversial game which has replaced the classic fantasy battles. Yes, I am currently taking the piss out of a certain company over their copyright nonsense. Can't you tell?

• Warriors and Archers are taken from the Basic Infantry set, while the Elites are from the Heavy Infantry and other mods included with the pdf. They also have musicians and command units with banners and all that. Overall, there basics are all mostly covered. There's also cavalry in there, which is good because a lot of armies lack options for good cavalry miniatures. Its all in the bundle.
• Shadow Sisters and Shadow Brothers are recolors of the previous Wood Elves stuff, giving them a different style from the white colored and clean base troops while still remaining elven. Their colors are darker, which fit their more stealthy purpose but still have splashes of blue and gold to fit the High Elf theme, replacing the obvious green associated with Wood Elves.

This is such a good lineup that I intend to make High Elves my first AOF paper army, alongside my friend's Mummified Undead.

Shadow Stalkers

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The Shadow Stalkers are one of the more unique armies from Age of Fantasy, truly moving away from the roots as a copy of a certain Nottingham company and into the realm of a mixture of original content and Mantic Games. These are creatures of nightmares, with a theme clearly built around horror iconography: think of them as grim dark Halloween critters. They are classified as Undead due to their mechanics but my interpretation using what I found is a bit more eldritch and plays into them being able to field Lovecraftian horrors. The way I see it they are unliving, never-born monstrosities animating scrap, dead flesh and whatever else. They are the things that go bump in the night. Beware the Shadow Stalkers!

• The various Scarecrow are taken from this set.
• The Shadow Stalkers take cues from many different designs by the underrated Distrigillator. There's some really, really weird shit in the Dukes of the Underworld which are used to represent the various eldritch monsters.

Not a bad start, even if the army list is still small right now.