Skullvane Manse Lair of the Astromancer
October 21, 2011 by warzan
@tinracer writes:
Just spied on warseer is the next terrain release for Warhamer Fantasy from the architects at games workshop. This new piece of empire real estate is large, good for giving your battlefield some needed line of sight blocking and something you'll have to plan your movement around.
Coming with an options to cap the tallest tower, castle or observatory, means it could be good for armies other than Empire without having to call in DIY SOS...
Plus with the couple of raised walkways this is prefect as a fulcrum for Storm of Magic games.
If it's up to the usual games workshop standard this should be a strong model and great value.
Thanks to @tinracer for this, what do you guys think?
![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
Sigh…. I have so much Warhammer terrain at this point that I really don’t need anymore. This piece will have to go on my Christmas Wishlist.
Building rules often get overlooked in WHFB, but I can see this piece being an awesome place to garrison my Dark Elf Crossbowmen. They’d basically have Los over the whole table, and If you managed to get a warmachine in there (in deployment?), you could really command the field.
Why wait until Christmas? There’s one on evilBay right now: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Games-Workshop-64-51-Warhammer-Fantasy-Skullvane-Manor-Lair-of-the-Astromancer-/182198524668
Looks great. But how much is it gonna cost……….
It looks like £46 on the image
Yeah, it seems very reasonable especially from GW
I find their terrain has been very well priced lately
Aye, the garden of morr is great, for the price its awesome
I’ve taken a closer look at the image, it does, in fact, say 46GBP
might get this so my monolith can have a cover save 🙂
I always think GW terrain is cool funky look, good price and lots of options. I have a lot of time for gw terrain, great if you dont like self build option from card/plasticard etc
I’m wondering if I could rework the tall tower into something more spooky, like a proper haunted house. Just don’t want it to get too scooby do!
This will sit perfectly next to my temple of skulls.
Nice, but all the skulls again :(, don’t they realise that if they done away with them they would sell more?
i hear you. A fabulous piece of dark fantasy architecture cheesed out to the max with He Man skulls…
It might be the case, the pictures suggest this, but I’m not sure, but some of those skulls are optional. We’ll see I guess.
Um… guys. It’s called SKULLvane so I better get some skull with this.
Hah, Just realised that as well lol
Maybe I did chose the right time to get in the Warhammer Fantasy. The tower looks quite big. It certainly is a center piece model for the battlefield. The skulls go a bit overboard, but this looks quite kitbashable with the other scenary plastics.
It looks like it’s got a small pier which indicates that the tower is by water or in an area where there’s tide. I’m quite liking it.
Not sure that’s a pier. If it is then those stairs are below water or you’d need a ship to get onto it properly.
Which again gives the impression that the tower is near a body of water affected by the tide. The stairs are for low tide and the pier (there might be a better English word for small pier) for high tide use.
Then again this is GW, so it might have nothing to do with those 😀
Why does an Astromancer need a big telescope?
Is he compensating for something?
And how did he get planning permission? No one in their right mind would allow him to build atop a very spikey rock. So unstable and what with elf and safety and all! I dunno, red tape ain’t what it used to be.
Like the parts but somehow jumbled together makes it not so good for me.
As well as the unecessary iconography that won’t be mentioned. If the Astromancer had not gone to the trouble and expence of huge carvings that will only add to the weight of the precarious structure, he could have had an even BIGGER telescope! lol
That takes my breath away.
GW terrain, usually due to the fact that they have to heavily compete with other terrain makers, are well priced. Even the ones that seem expensive, when you actually see it, you realise you’re getting your monies worth.
GW need to release a converted-boat inn for fantasy, i’d buy it 😛
It says the tower can be assembled in several ways, perhaps without skulls. The other skulls could be covered over with modelling putty
one of these days I’ll build a complete new gaming table packed full of the recent GW terrain
would be interested in buying if the Skulls are optional , but as is the peice is unusable. wish GW would lose the skull and spike fetish.
Wouldn’t say the piece is unusable but I agree about GW’s skull/spike overuse.
TBH even if optitional I would be less likely to buy as I have no need for a boxload of spare skulls.
I was wondering about how glyphs and astrononmical signs would be more appropriate. But that would mean someone having to design some
With skulls they can just add on stuff from their existing stock. Is a lot simpler for them to do that.
Really want this.
It’s highly likely that I’ll simply leave off (or cut off, if it comes down to it) the storey on the tower with the skulls on it, leaving a very nice, if slightly smaller, building.
If it weren’t for all the stupid skulls everywhere, I’d actually consider buying this.
Welcome to the world of Skullhammer.
This is the Skull manse of the Skullmancer on the Skull Mountain above the imperial city of Skullsdorf next to the great river Skull which runs out to the great Skull ocean where dreadfleets covered in skulls plough the briny waves in search of more skulls to adorn their ships.
The truth is out there Skully!
It takes some skull to make puns like these
Almost hate to say it, but looks good and not to badly priced.
Here are the 3 rules that all GW sculptors are taught and have to recite from memory at the beginning of each day:
Rule #1 – If you ever reach the point where think you’ve put too many skullz on it, immediately triple the number of skullz on the model.
Rule #2 – If you ever run out of space to sculpt skullz, sculpt skullz onto the existing skullz. Smaller skullz can be placed inside the eye sockets of larger skullz for maximum skullage. A skull-on-a-skull-on-a-skull is considered to be the holy grail of good design.
Rule #3 – Whichever employee sculpts the most skullz this year will receive an all-expenses paid weekend with a dozen porn stars of their choice.
Think you will find that it is leave granted to visit an ossuary of choice 😉
GW
Putting the Scul into sculpting! lol
What is the reason so many skulls everywhere? scenarios are great but they should change a little inspiration, I should have small sculpted mythical battles in place of the huge skulls
someone tell the He-man fan enough of the skulls, it looks childish, without those things i may of considered buying the building
… ugh, it’s items like this that ruin news sites for me. “come and read all the latest news on our site” and then see the bajillion comments by people who think that skulls look stupid. GW have been doing chaos spikey bits and skulls for 30 years. The only fools here are the people who still buy GW stuff and complain about the skulls and the only people even more stupid are the people who whine even though they have no intention of buying GW stuff. HW don’t make generic stuff they make skull stuff for their games that feature a lot of skulls. In case you didn’t notice on the way in – they like skulls.
Haters are gonna hate and GW are gonna sculpt skulls and photos of upcoming products will be ‘leaked’. OK that last part was a lie. GW actually make unique accounts and send a dodgy page to random sites to make it look random and then call BoW and tell them where to looks for the ‘random’ stuff.
Oh and please stop bitching about the skulls it’s a waste of time and effort and you are deluding yourselves if you think GW will change their style because of a comment on the net.
Oh who am I kidding…. Bring on the next ‘leak’ and get ready to moan about the skulls, altogether now…
Oddly enough most people seem to be saying they would buy this if it wasn’t for the skulls and having a bit of fun while they are about it.
Which is far from bitching then running out to buy..
Astromancer: Skulls
Chaos: Skulls
Empire: Skulls
You get the idea.
It is just plain lazy when there is a vast wealth of alternative iconography to tap into imho You are entitled to love skulls just as we are entitled to have a giggle about GW’s skullmania 😉
🙂 Yeah I realise I was on the hyperbole train there. I don’t mind the skulls myself and I see it as GW’s signature so that they can differentiate themselves from all of the other scenery makers out there. I also think it’s their way of making an extreme gesture to labour the point that Warhammer isn’t based on a particular historical time period as a reaction to people who constantly try to pin their game down. I think it also helps in relation to the LOTR/Hobbit licenses as they need to be able to show that the ruins of Osgiliath isn’t Warhammer scenery. It’s fine for us playing at home but for catalogues they need to be able to demonstrate to the licensing company that piece of scenery ‘x’ is in no way tied to the LOTR license. I guess that after 20 plus years in the hobby I like the familiarity of GWs terrain and I expect gigantic skulls to add to the surreal factor. I’m sure the skulls on the side extension can be left out but there’s a giant armoured skeleton as part of the base that won’t be as easy to remove.
GW design meetings must read like a conversation between Little Britains Lou & Andy:
“So what design elements shall we incorporate into the model then?”
“Skulls”
“Are you sure? Dont forget we just did the Gardens of Moor which was heavily skull influenced. How about some elements of Byzantine or French Baroque architecture?”
“Skulls”
“Ok, Skulls it is then”
“I LOOK A PILLOCK”
Hmmm, gives me an idea This pecie of terrain+ The garden of morr+ The lower part of the witch tower+ A hammer= A ruined nicodem observatory for a malifaux board, I could probably get it all second had for cheap even if it is badly painted and built because I’m taking to it with a hammer. Good idea?
Clearly lacking a sufficient number of skulls.
I Protest on behalf of the lower jaw, the most under represented physical element here. I mean what a bunch of lazy gits. Poor lower jaws. Always getting tossed aside into the sculpting rubbish bin. What, does no one likes sculpting bottom teeth? Is the mandible such a challenging shape that the sculptors just don’t want to risk exposing their lack of total control over their medium? Or just a general laziness and lack of follow through? And what happened to the canine teeth? (Don’t even get me started on the molars.) Does everyone in the warhammer world file their canines flat??? Here is for lower jaws, and atomically correct teeth.
As much as you want to slag GW, their terrain is the best on the market at least as far as quantity of plastic and crisp detail go. Stylistically speaking, it’s subjective.
Waiting for Darrell’s un-boxing and building of this before I run off to GW 🙂