GeekDad paints! Flesh Eater Courts warband for Warcry

With nothing else to occupy myself with in the evenings, my newfound Warhammer Warcry hobby has taken on a life of its own. During Lockdown in 2020, I finished painting the Catacombs starter set and decided that next I would focus on building and painting as many Age of Sigmar warbands as I could to fight in the depths of the fiery catacombs.

So far in my quest to build, paint, and battle as many warbands as I can I have managed to assemble:

So, now is the time for the unholy, degenerate Flesh Eater Courts.

The Flesh Eater Courts are horrifying zombie-like monsters, degenerate cannibals afflicted with madness, and they make a great warband for Warcry. According to the books I read, they see themselves as gallant lords, even as they devour the flesh of interlopers. A ghastly and ghoulish assortment of ravenous flesh-eating monsters, they make a fearsome band of fighters, and the models deliver a look and tone of gruesome evil. This is a hard warband to get right, but I think in the end I managed to choose a theme and overall color scheme that worked.

Bringers of Death

The armies in Warcry are broken down into four Grand Alliances: Order, Chaos, Death, and Destruction. Each order has an accompanying book with includes all the fighter statistics for the armies of that order. The Flesh Eater Courts belong to the Bringers of Death and that book includes 12 Flesh-Eater fighter types allowable in Warcry. For my warband I used six different types of fighters.

To help build my warband, I picked up a copy of the Bringers of Death book and the Flesh Eater Courts Warcry box set as well as an Abhorrent Archregent model to be my leader. The Warcry Box set comes with loads of Flesh Eater Courts models, mostly puny Ghouls, but also three more interesting bigger models. You have to choose how you want to assemble these; the 10 ghouls could be straight forward ghols, ghasts, or ghast courtiers, and each of the three larger models could end up as one of six different fighter types.

Building and Painting

At first I couldn’t decide how I wanted to paint the warband, but seeing as the set came with lots of models I thought I would try out a few different styles, and the ones I liked best would then be used for the larger models. Using some contrast paints I had, I set about using four different flesh tones, Plaguebearer Flesh, Guilliman Flesh, Skeleton Horde, and Nighthaunt Gloom. I then experimented with combinations of Shyish Purple and Volupus Pink for the bits of hair, cloth and sinew on their backs and finished the base coats with a skeleton horde on the bones sections. I then used an old bristly brush and drybrushed over all of each model with Longbeard Grey, before applying a highlight of White Scar and finishing off with a Emperor’s Children on the brighter areas. I also used some technical paint Blood for The Blood God and Nurgles Rot to add some gore and gloop to proceedings.

After finishing painting the models I then needed to add them to bases and, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to make these bases stand out. To do so I used some skulls, lots and lots of skulls. 94 small plastic skulls in total, that each needed to be individually glued and placed onto their bases. I then dipped the bases in PVA glue, trying desperately not to get glue on the skulls, and covered the lot in Battleground Gravel. I then sprayed the bases black and used some greys, whites and stone-toned paints to give them a more “nocturnal” feel and painted silver around the rim of each base to make them stand out from opposing armies.

Having painted the models and the bases, I then assembled my warband as was really pleased with the finished result. For the larger models I opted to focus on the blue and pink theme for the winged Flesh-Eaters, and for the landlocked Crypt Horror I used the plague bearer flesh paint scheme. And for the large, winged Crypt Infernal I used a special skull-themed hero base from my Citadel Hero Bases set, and then added more skulls, because why not?

1,000 Points Warband

With the assembly and painting complete, I now had my 1,000 points Flesh Eater Courts Warcry warband ready to go. I just had to select which fighters would be in my starting roster. Using the models I had, I went through their abilities and costs and came up with what I think is a pretty decent group of fighters.

All Flesh Eaters have access to two core abilities:
Feeding Frenzy [Double] Heals the fighter as long as they’ve taken down an enemy.
The Royal Hunt [Quad] Bonus move and attack actions with a boost to attack characteristics.

The Abhorrent Archregent would be my Flesh Eater Courts leader, they have the two main abilities mentioned above as well as the leader ability Bringer of Death [Triple] which buffs up friendly fighter movement, as well as two additional abilities: Unnatural Vitality [Double], and Stir of Black Hunger [Triple]. For 220 points this warrior has 28 health and not bad defenses, but the abilities mean they can heal themselves, boost allies and deal more damage, making them a solid choice for the leader.

The Archregent would be supported by the fearsome looking Crypt Infernal. 300 points is expensive for a single fighter, but with 30 health, 10 movement and the ability to fly this makes an excellent second-in-command. Although, in this setup, they would count as a hero rather than a leader, so you might not get all the benefits of their leader abilities.

I then had to choose to use either the winged Crypt Flayer, who cost 235 points, but has the same added maneuverability and flying abilities of the Crypt Infernal.

Or the Crypt Horror, who cost less, but has the ability Chosen of the King [Double]. This adds two to the attack characteristics of a fighter if they’re within six inches of the Leader. To begin with, I’d have both fighters in the roster and swap between the two until I could afford to use them both in the same battle.

Finally, the warband is completed by adding in lots of Crypt Ghouls. At only 55 points, they’re essentially cannon fodder, but great for swarming the enemy; with pretty decent movement, as well as the Feeding Frenzy ability, these could be quite fearsome monsters in a clinch.

In total, it’s just under the 1,000 points. Having played a couple of battles using this warband, they’ve fared well against bit hitters like Ironjawz Orks and Stormcast, but not so well against the multitudinous enemies like the Skaven and Seraphon. For moving forward and expanding the wardband, I would add in more Ghasts, and use some as Crypt Ghast Courtiers. Again these would have to be classed as heroes and not leaders, but they would still have the extra health and attacks, making them more effective than just the Ghouls.