Oathmark – Skeleton Infantry

I managed to get my hands on two sprues of the Skeleton Infantry for Oathmark in trade, and as I like the design of them, I thought I'd cover them in a review. So this is not going to cover a whole box, but only the sprue.

These add to an already extended range of Oathmark plastic kits, covering Elves, Dwarfs, Greenskins and Humans. And are out there on the market, along with a few other undeads made from plastic in 28mm:

• Wargames Factory / Warlord Games Skeletons
• Wargames Atlantic Skeleton Warriors
• Mantic Games Skeleton Regiment
• Deathrattle Skeletons (who recently took over from the pretty decent Skeleton Warriors from 7th edition)

So what caught me with the Oathmark ones? First of all, they are generic and can be used widely, not overdrawn like the Mantic ones, not the Harryhausens like Wargames Factory or Atlantic ones, and not 32mm+ as the most recent Games Workshop iteration.

The full boxed set covers six of these sprues. That's how the sprue looks like, covering five skeletons with a broad variety of weapons, you get five different bodies, eleven bodies, bows and quivers, hand weapons, spears, shields and a banner / standard.

We start with the five different bodies and as usual with these kits, I am going to mix the weaponry, to show you a bit of each, what is possible with this kit. This will end up in building a small warband rather than a regiment, but with two sprues I would be far from that anyway.

From left to the right, I gave them a spear, the banner pole, a bow, an axe and a sword. The ball joints of the arms and shoulders make for more dynamic poses, compared for many other plastic kits that have flat connection surfaces for arms. This way the whole arm can rotate far more freely and not only alongside the body.

We're already at the point of adding final touches, handing three of them a shield, the archer a quiver and the top bar for the standard.

And for the last step, the heads. Again, quite freely posable due to the small connection area. The bronce age style really makes them very generic and flexible in use.

With the comparatively long list of undead boxes in the beginning, we of course have to show you these skeletons next to some other undead miniatures. From left to the right, the classic Warhammer Skeletons, Mantic Games' Skeleton, Oathmark Skeletons, the skeletons build from the Frostgrave cultists kit and the Mantic Ghouls.

That's how the freshly risen undead warband looks like. I really like the poses, you're able to create.

And there are quite a bit of spares after assembly, so your bitbox is going to grow by a few parts.

The heads were okay, but I tought I could improve them even further. Games Workshop covers as part of their terrain range a well filled set of plastic skulls (340 in total!) for about 20 GBP. I took a few of these and used them instead of the original ones, and I am more than satisfied. Especially those with the loose jaws really bring it home.

Conclusion
At 25 GBP you pay a bit less than a pound per miniature. So these are both great for skirmishers, either a warband of their own or to boost your NPC/monster pool, but work very well as a regiment builder. With the Revenants box, North Star added an elite option to their undead range, and I assume we can expect cavalry in the future as well (which would be a big plus, as plastic skeleton horses are hard to come by).

In direct comparison, this kit is among the cheapest options for plastic skeletons. Games Workshop's recently released Deathrattle Skeletons sit at 1,82 GBP per miniatur, Mantic at 1,12 GBP, Wargames Atlantic at 0,81 GBP, former Wargames Factory now Warlord Games at 0,83 GBP and Oathmark at 0,83 GBP as well. And with 30 miniatures per set among the ones with the most miniatures as well.

Casting is well done, options are broad. It could come with another banner top or an option for a musician (no, we're not going to join the discussion if skeletons can toot, just give them a drum), but that's pretty easy kit bashed or substituted from on of the other plastic kits. As mentioned above, I really like the generic nature of this kit, making it very versatile. And I am a huge fan of replacing the heads with the citadel ones.

Oathmark is a brand of North Star Figures and Osprey Games.