I got myself a new army, my seventh one already. I fell for my plastic addiction once more despite resisting it for, say... a month or so at least?
But to be fair, I did sell my untouched Skaven out of the way to make room for the newcomers. What did I get, then?
Stormcast Eternals, of course!
Behold my army theme: Lord Boremund's Lost Stormhost, the Scarlet Sentinels!
What I have at the moment are the Starter Set Stormcasts and a Lord-Castellant with a Gryph-Hound, but as my brother also has the Starter Set force I decided to take a bit of a different route in modifying my army's appearance so our armies won't look like copy/pastes of each other...
My brother's Stormcast Eternals were assembled the way they come in the box and painted green & gold. I promised myself: "Now that I for once have a low model count -army I will put extra effort in converting them to look totally unique!"
And that's exactly what I did. As you can clearly see in the grainy pics above, my two cohorts of Liberators are bare-headed, armed with axes and carrying furs on their equipment. I wanted to go for a very mundane and human look with these celestial warriors on purpose. There are so many bright and heavenly paint schemes out there for the sons of Sigmar that I decided to make my stormhost a bit more natural and gritty.
There's a certain backstory I've come up with to explain this quite savage theme. Let's hear it!
Scarlet Sentinels, the Lost Host of Boremund
A stormhost of Stormcast Eternals that God-King Sigmar cast into Ghur, the Realm of Beasts to reclaim lost Realmgates and to establish a foothold for later invasion. Lord-Celestant Boremund led his Scarlet Sentinels on a victorious campaign across the Blackfeet Plateau, reconquering many Realmgate sites and driving the hordes of savage beasts and Chaos worshippers out of the region.
He personally laid the first stone in the construction of an imposing fortress that was carved into one of the majestic Frostmist Mountains to uphold and enforce all he had achieved, until such time that his Lord and Maker would send more Stormhosts to aid in properly reclaiming the Realm.
Time flew past without any sign of reinforcements. The war raging in the Realms of Fire and Life had the full attention of Sigmar and his allies.
From the safety of their impregnable Frostmist Citadel the Scarlet Sentinels guarded their achievements and defended the retaken Realmgates against savage invasions from orruks, brayherds and forces of Chaos time and again, but little by little they lost ground as their numbers dwindled too fast to be replaced in time by the time-consuming Reforgings in the Realm of Azyr.
The last reports from Boremund and his legions were received just before their fortress was besieged by a massive Chaos warhost intent on leveling it to the ground. No word has since been received from the Scarlet Sentinels...
...until this day. Now the Lost Host of Boremund has appeared once more, battered but determined. Their mission is still as clear as the Twin-Tailed Comet of Sigmar in the vastness of the skies: to take and hold key locations in the Realm of Beasts until their Maker sees fit to release them from their duty!
My brother's Liberators are armed with Warhammers, so I chose to equip mine with Warblades just to be able to use different weapon stats than him, and then there's the fact that axes have blades as well! This particular unit's Prime was given a hefty Grandblade to wield in battles for deadly effect, and it looks suitably brutal as it comes from an Ogre bits box.
I ordered some Space Wolf heads for cheap from ebay (okay, that's not so unique) as I like the human aspect of Stormcast Eternals in general; Yes they're hulking immortal demi-god warriors from the Heavens but in their core they're human beings, chosen for their heroic traits and deeds in their previous life as normal inhabitants of the Nine Realms. They represent everything that is good and noble in Mankind, and I like that idea.
Despite all that glorious speech, to make them look more savage and mundane (there is a savage side to each human being, after all) I gave them fur cloaks from the Chaos Marauder box, as well as a couple of lion heads from the old High Elf Chariot kit. They've survived in the wilderness of the Realm of Ghur for Sigmar knows how long, and that has to show on the models!
The second unit of Liberators also have Warblades, but their Prime is armed with a Grandhammer! After finding that oversized spiked mace from the remnants of a Minotaur kit I simply couldn't resist the urge of arming one of my Stormcast with a weapon bigger than life itself. Looks suitably grand to me!
Let's take a moment to inspect the choice of colours. My brother's force is clad in golden armour, so I chose silver/steel. He has green as his heraldry colour, I settled on red. Looks reassuringly bloody, warm and aggressive for a group of giant men who roam through snowy tundras and mountainsides looking for evil things to cleave at. And it kind of makes them look like Roman legionnaires, which is cool.
Their hair and beards just had to be black, I know not why. I never considered any other options (okay, I thought about ginger but it was very brief) as the black just sits nicely with the steel/red combination, and looks very manly.
Their bases are probably going to have some kind of cobblestone or stone tiles that I'll paint on them soon, to represent them walking around in their Frostmist Citadel. The tiles and cobbles could crack here and there to allow for chunks of rock, rubble and some roots to pop up. Their fortress has been under heavy assault on several occasions, after all!
Both of these finished units are going to score points for the Grand Alliance of Order in the ongoing Season of War, but we'll see if they can actually make it to the battlefield in time to affect the tides of war.
That's all for today, I'll be back soon with some terrain I have made.
Until then!
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti