Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you all well. I have two lil’ updates for you today, starting with some reinforcements for my Son’s Mythic Army:

On the left we have King Eurytus of Oechalia… I think! The Mythic Battles folks had him down as ‘Eurystus’, but I can’t find any reference to that name anywhere… Eurytus on the other hand, is a renowned archer who, depending on the author, might’ve challenged Apollo to a shooting contest & got killed for his hubris, (a common theme in Greek Mythology), or possibly he was killed by Heracles as part of a feud over his daughter’s hand, (another common theme).

Next, we have Marsyas – a Satyr who rocked it on the double oboe… (that is an actual instrument, and not a fantastic innuendo by the way). He is famous for challenging Apollo to a music-off, and guess what, he lost & got killed for his hubris… by being flayed alive… I’m getting the feeling that Apollo was a bit of a bell-end, and that the ancient Greeks disapproved of hubris!

Finally, we have a trio of Satyrs – ‘Lustful, drunken woodland gods’… (Wudugast?). Interestingly, in Greek mythology, Satyrs were depicted as men with horse ears & tails, and it was actually the Romans who went with the whole goat vibe… who knew!

All were painted mostly with contrast paints by my Son, (with a little help from me on the most fiddly bits)

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Ok, so now for something of mine – not much to show, just a single model, but he’s a proof-of-concept for a whole new warband and a long-overdue exploration of Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago.

I was honoured to be invited to join a collaborative Ghost Archipelago project a few weeks back, and have been kicking around ideas since. I knew I wanted to use minis that I already own, and also that I wanted the warband to be unusual and cool, with an oldhammer vibe and a strong pirate theme. I had a good look through my lead pile, and a promising line of possibility involved a load of Pantheon of Chaos minis that I have been sitting on for far too long. I really like the Beastmen in the range – they are proper Realm of Chaos Beast-Men rather than the Broo that modern GW peddle, and I started thinking about the H.G. Wells classic ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’… In that book, the eponymous doctor experimented with stitching together beasts and elevating them to near-humanity. It’s a cool story but is quite a different kind of sci-fi to the Pantheon of Chaos range, so the PoC minis didn’t really fit the theme very well…

Until, for laughs, I sculpted a Tricorn hat on one of them – a particularly imposing chap that Knightmare Miniatures call ‘C’Chak the Silent’. I got some good feedback on the Facey group, and while the hat helped to prove that they could look more anthropomorphic, I didn’t think it went far enough to ‘humanise’ the mini – it still looked too Chaotic (with a capital ‘C’)… After thinking it over, I decided to go all in and over-sculpted proper clothes onto the chap. I then applied a weathered & ‘sensible’ paint job, and I ended up with this:

Now, I may be biased, but this guy doesn’t scream ‘Realm of Chaos!!’ to me any more… instead he has a humanity about him, despite his bestial form, and he has a nautical flavour to boot! In short, I’m very happy with the result, and as with all good warbands, we have fluff… with apologies to H.G. Wells:

“The noble Heritor Edward Prendick & his crew were en route to the Lost Isles – like all Heritors, Edward felt the inexorable pull of the Crystal Fountain, the source of all his powers. During the journey, their ship got caught in an incredible storm & they were wrecked on a lonely and mysterious island, where they were subdued and captured by bestial men loyal to the nefarious scientist Dr. Moreau. The Doctor was obsessed with animal/human hybridisation, and he proceeded to experiment on Prendick and his crew, keeping them drugged while he surgically altered them into parodies of humanity, before conditioning them to obedience in ‘the House of Pain’…

However, the Doctor had not reckoned on the superhuman fortitude of the Heritor taint, and was thus unprepared when an enraged Prendick managed to regain enough awareness to break his bonds & take his revenge. Now inhabiting a huge reptilian frame & with Heritor strength, Prendick made short work of the Doctor, crushing the man’s skull before tearing off the hand that had caused him so much pain… Prendick wears that same hand on his belt as a reminder of how he became the creature he is today, for the cruel truth is that, along with his crew, his humanity is slipping away piece by piece. Every day it gets harder for them to remember their lives as men and women, and every day they grow closer to the beasts they resemble. Now, accompanied by those of the Doctor’s former experiments that retain enough awareness, Prendick and his crew continue their search for the Crystal Pool. Their quest is simple – they seek the pool in the desperate hope that it can restore their stolen humanity…”

So that’s all folks – there will be plenty more on this warband, but first – Fembruary!! I’ll be adding some serious muscle to my all-girl Banshee gang, while my Son will be adding some fab females from the Mythic Battles: Pantheon range… I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys do!!