The Jaghar

As usual I periods of intense activity and long breaks, so it might not surprise you too much if I come up with another update, the third in just a week (must be a personal record)...

I found myself with a spare few hours before taking my flight back home so I decided to give my King a suitable companion: a dangerous Jaghar, the beasts known as the Princes of the Plains.

I know, I know, a Sabertooth is a bit of a cliché for Ghur, but since I first laid eye upon the Griph-hounds kit I have wanted to make something similar with them.

The name Jaghar is not as obvious as it could might at first sight. I imagine the Five Tribes to speak a very degenerated form of Reikspiel, the mythical language of the World-that-Was, which is basically medieval german... In my few years of german studies I picked up a few words that were very useful in my long career as a DM for WFRP and I thought it would be cool if all the names of places and animals of the plains were basically very primitive german words.

The word for Hunter in german is, as most of you probably know, Jäger, which I just twisted into Jaghar, the hunters of Ghur.

The conversion itself was pretty simple. I used the Griph-hound of the Lord Castellant as a base, just got rid of all the harnesses and proceed to resculpt the neck and muzzle. It took only a few hours but I 

am happy that my Wandere King is now accompanied by a suitable Prince!

And with that I shall park my sculpting tools for a while, now it's time to paint the King and his (un)friendly companion!

The Wanderer King - finished conversion

Very quick post just to show you guys the final result on the Wanderer King.

As you can see all I did was changing the shoulder pad to the one with the snarling lion. I was undecided until the last minute as some people raised a very good point about the eagle being an appropriate choice for a native american themed warrior, but in the end I simply prefer the silhouette of the model this way and I think it does not detract from the overall atmosphere of the model.

I also added some trophies to the spear shaft to reinforce the shamanic aura and finally tidied up the last few areas I was not too happy about.

I can say that I am very close to be 100% happy with how this turned up, which I can almost never say about any of my conversions!

I am truly excited to start painting this guy, hopefully in the next few weeks.

The Wanderer King 2.0

Hi all!

Just wanted to share my last conversion: the Wanderer King is reborn!

This was an extensive conversion, representing my outcast Stormcast Lord worshipped as a demigod by the inhabitants of the Appalathian Plains.

Orar is his name, the Son of Or, and in the legends of the Five Tribes he used to be a favourite among the children of the God-King until he disobeyed his commands and returned to his ancient lands to rescue his long forgotten people from the coils of the Four-Headed Snake.

Now he is a wanderer, forced to roam the plains of Ghur like a prophet, teaching ancient secrets of fire and steel to those who are brave and faithful. He is the Keeper of the Promise, returned to this world challenging the divine decree to spread words of hope and redemption, to tell his people that the time of Fulfilment is close at hand and Or will soon return to cleanse the lands with the untamed power of the celestial storms.

I am particularly proud of this conversion, which took quite a long tome to complete and presented some interesting challenges, like sculpting the cloak and adding lots of intricate details while still make it easy to paint. 

The idea was to transform the Stormcast aesthetic into something more primal and savage but still clearly recognisable. This particular warrior of Sigmar has spent decades wandering in Ghur, incapable of returning to Azyr and was thus forced to make do with the resources of this savage lands. His armour plates are interwoven with animal hides and leather, claws and fangs of dangerous beasts adorn his figure. I wanted to give the impression of a shamanic warrior, pulling together aspects of the civilised azyrite culture with the raw and crude garments of the rest of my Sons of Or.

Big inspiration for the model came of course from the mythological figure of Odin, who often roamed the lands of Midgard dressed as a humble wanderer, his true powers only visible to those with faith and keen eyes.

The model is not yet 100% finished. The shoulder pad with the eagle is just temporary, I am waiting for the more iconic snarling lion one to come in the post. I am also likely going to do a bit more work on his weapon, perhaps hanging some more trophies and bones to the shaft as befits a shaman of his calibre.

The pictures are admittedly not the best but I will take more before starting with the painting.

Wild men and Untamed Beasts

I had great plans for this bank holiday weekend.

The time had come to ride my bike again, bask in sunshine and hang out with friends. Of course none of this happened since I caught an awful cold and I spent most of the time sneezing in bed alongside a pile of used tissues.

It's not all that bad though as I at least had time to go back to some sculpting and painting.
Yesterday I saw the preview of the new chaos warband for Warcry: the Untamed Beasts and the idea of chaotic savages of the wilderness of Ghur awoke the inspiration to keep going with my Sons of Or.

The new Untamed Beasts fro Warcry are chaotic tribes of the Ghurian Wilderness. Image courtesy of Games Workshop Ltd.

So long story short, here you have another warrior of the Appalachian Tribes

It is again a pretty simple conversion from the golden kit of the Kairic Acolytes with a collection of bits from savage looking bits from a variety of kits (bonesplitters, beastmen Ungor and chaos blood reavers) with some green stuff to enhance the savage and wild aesthetic of the tribes.

Though I am a very slow painter the Sons of Or are a project I am very fond of, dating back to the very first days of AoS, and I still try to find the time to keep working on them and make them a playable warband. Sooner or later I will find the courage to go back to my Wanderer King and do him justice.

Here is the warband as it stands now: