A Very Tempting Start: Ossiarch Bonereapers Mortisan Elite Spearhead
We had one of those classic hobby chat moments at the end of May: one link dropped, one box revealed, and suddenly the whole conversation turned into army-building math.
Michał kicked it off with news that he’d already gotten an SMS from Konrad confirming a preorder reservation for both Spearhead and the new General’s Handbook. A strong start.
Then came the important part: the new Ossiarch Bonereapers Spearhead: Mortisan Elite.
Our first reaction was not exactly subtle. Pegie’s response was immediate and extremely honest: these are beautiful bastards. And honestly, fair. The box just looks great at a glance, and for an army like Ossiarch Bonereapers that matters a lot — if we’re going to build toward 2000 points, it helps when the foundation already looks this cool.
But after the initial hype, we moved quickly into the real question: what does this actually do for an army list?
The early feeling in our chat was very positive. Michał’s take was simple: whatever the exact warscroll details end up being, this looks like a seriously strong base for a full 2k army. That’s probably the most interesting part of this release from an army-building perspective. Even before digging deep into points and exact synergies, the box gives off the vibe of something that can become the core of a proper force rather than just a self-contained side format purchase.
Pegie immediately started thinking in the most sensible direction: compare warscrolls, check how the new Spearhead rules work, and see whether the box is just pretty or actually efficient. There’s still a bit of time before the next games, so this is exactly the kind of release that invites some list theorycrafting before anyone starts gluing models.
One interesting detail that came up early: this new Spearhead apparently doesn’t work off command points. That alone makes it worth a closer look, because it suggests a different play pattern than some of the more familiar Spearhead forces. Whether that ends up being a limitation, a balancing factor, or just a different kind of internal engine is something we definitely want to examine once we have all the rules in front of us.
Ender also pointed out something that feels very telling: there are only 9 miniatures in the box, which usually means one thing — the contents are probably meant to hit hard. Low model count boxes tend to live or die on quality, not quantity, and that fits the Ossiarch style pretty well.
And this is where Michał’s practical experience matters. He mentioned that he’d already had the chance to play against all of these models in “bigmar” league games, and his verdict was straightforward: they are powerful. That doesn’t automatically solve the whole army-building puzzle, of course, but it does make the box more interesting than just a pretty new release. If the units are already proven to be strong on the table, then a compact Spearhead built around them starts looking less like a novelty and more like a genuinely efficient entry point into the faction.
So where are we landing on this one?
Right now, our feeling is that Mortisan Elite looks like a very real contender for “best kind of starter box”: small model count, strong visual identity, and a good chance of scaling naturally into a 2000-point army. We still want to compare warscrolls properly and see how the Spearhead rules package changes the way it plays, but the first impression is extremely strong.
Sometimes a box arrives and we think, “nice models.”
This one feels more like: nice models, and maybe the beginning of a whole army.
If one of us ends up pulling the trigger on Ossiarchs because of this release, honestly, nobody in the group will be surprised.