Serpent Society

Change of plan! The lizardmen list that I put together last time around was going to use Salamanders and Riverguard from Mantic Games. Instead, I’ve bought some Snakemen from Frostgrave’s Ghost Archipelago range to use as Ghekkotah proxies.

 Ghost Archipelago Snakemen – What’s in the box?

As with every other Frostgrave kit I’ve seen, the box contains some round bases and a set of 4 identical sprues. No command components on a separate sprue. This makes sense for a skirmish game but means I’ll need to do some conversion work when it comes to bundling them together as a unit.

 Snakemen components

Each sprue includes 5 bodies and 10 heads. None of the heads are duplicate designs so you can use all the heads from 1 sprue across the bodies from 2 of the sprues to get 10 variants before taking weapons into account.

The weapon options are a bit of a mix.

You get 2 shields and 2 spears per sprue so you can make 8 snakemen with spears and shields.

Alternatively, there are 4 hand weapons. You also get 2 left hands clutching daggers. This gives you 8 snakemen with swords and shields and 8 snakemen with dual weapons.

There are also 2 great weapon options, allowing you to field 8 snakemen with two-handed weapons.

If, like me, you’re looking to form the models into units, you get enough options in 1 box to make 2 ranks of 4 for any of the melee weapon options. However, if you do opt for a unit with shields, your other models will have to be dual weapon or great weapon wielders.

 Ranged units are a different story.

You get 2 bows on each sprue and 1 crossbow on each sprue. This will get you a unit of 8 archers but only 4 crossbowmen from a single box. Since each box is 20 models, they can’t all be ranged units.

Since I’m looking to substitute these for the skinks with bows from 5th edition Warhammer in my army list, I’ve got 8 unused models from the box. At least, I would had I not picked a troop of Ghekkotah Warriors by mistake.

Assembling my Snakemen as Ghekkotah proxies

Since Ghekkotah Hunters use blowpipes in the rules, none of the models are an exact match to the list as written. As I’m already stretching the ‘counts as’ rule for substituting models, I’ve decided to just build the snakemen with a mix of weapons and deal with unit structure later.

For game purposes, I’m treating the units as follows:

My Ghekkotah Warriors troop will have a mix of 8 melee weapon models and represent a rabble of lesser lizardmen supporting my Salamander Primes in battle.

My Ghekkotah Hunters regiment will be made from the other 12 models. Ranged models will go at the front to make it clear these are the ranged unit in my list. Everyone else stands behind them, ready to step forwards if close combat looks likely.

Final thoughts

Overall, I like the Snakemen kit. For a skirmish game, it gives a great mix of weapon options to switch in and out of your warband.

For a rank-and-file setup, there’s enough repetition of options that you can get blocks of infantry that look like they aren’t a mash-up of models.

I could easily see myself getting a few boxes of these to make a Snakemen army with some core melee regiments supported by archers and crossbowmen. Maybe add some artillery by swapping out the crew of some orc catapults or bolt throwers. For now, I need to get these painted up as Ghekkotah proxies so I can get a 500-point Kings of War reenactment of the 5th edition Warhammer box.

As for scores…

Ghost Archipelago Snakemen – 8/10

A good kit with options that serve both skirmish play and rank-and-file gamers. The only let-down is that I can’t make all 20 models as ranged fighters.

It would have also been nice to get enough shields that I didn’t have to make over half the box as not-spearmen. This is a minor quibble if you’re going rank-and-file since you’ll need more than 1 box and most likely want at least 1 unit of archers or great/dual weapon wielders for every spearman unit in a large army.