Sunday, September 16, 2018

The beginnings of the Söllsguard

The knights of the Söllsguard are noble warriors who swore allegiance to the Elector of Sudenland. After Grand Baroness Etelka Toppenheimer agreed to relinquish Sudenland' Electoral status and the province's independance, the Söllsguard remained to her service, with barracks in Castle Alderhost, official residence of the Toppenheimers in Pfeildorf,  and in Castle Mecklenburg, outside the village of the same name, where Baroness Etelka holds her Summer Court.

The Söllsguard foot knights are protected with ancient armoured suits of full plate, and armed with heavy swords, maces or halberds. The origin of the coppery tones of the armours is unclear, but some scholars think that they may be of dwarf  craftmanship, and would date back to old alliances between dwarf kingdoms in the Grey Mountains and the lords of Sölland. In any case, these armours are treated with great care by their owners, and the damaged parts dutifully restaured, even if it sometimes means replacing the mysterious alloy by more ordinary steel.

OK, time to start a new regiment! I plan to use extensively and possibly exclusively the five Reiksguard models released by Marauder Miniatures: like the MM65 flagellants, they are incredibly big compared to the rest of the imperial range, and I am not sure I can mix them with older Citadel fighters. I'll try to vary the colors of the NMMs to give some variety to the regiment...


This model is a test for an online contest hosted by the francophone Warhammer Forum. Not sure yet I can participate, but the objective is to paint the elite troops of my Pfeildorf army, namely foot knights (MM65), mounted knights (MM66), war machines and heroes. We'll see...

11 comments:

  1. Nice! The copper armour really stands out, great idea. I will test it some time ;-)

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  2. Hum, je vais casser l'ambiance : l'armure pourrait sans doute avoir plus de punch. Je trouves tes métaux "gris" plus percutants...
    A mon avis, c'est une histoire de contrastes : ils ne sont pas assez violents sans doute. Sur ton F14 par exemple, les valeurs claires des dégradés sont plus larges et les valeurs sombres plus profondes.
    Passe les deux en niveaux de gris, et tu devrait voir ce que je pointe...
    Bon, ça reste au delà de ma portée maintenant que j'ai perdu la main, mais j'ai confiance en ton talent :D
    Bon courage !

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    1. Noté. Je vais essayer de corriger ça sur les suivants (celui-là c'est fichu). Merci pour les conseils !

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  3. Classe... Les chevaliers de cette série sont monstrueux, ils debordent bien de leurs socles !!!

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    1. Ouais, je ne vois pas encore bien comment je vais réussir à faire plusieurs rangs de ces bestiaux...

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  4. Excellent! Looking forward to seeing more of these :)

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    1. Thanks Kym. The others should follow within a couple of weeks

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  5. These models are truly large. Big even for chaos warriors. Mixing them with the other fighters ranges was problematic for me and ended up looking kind of... odd in my opinion.

    Personally, I think they make excellent heroes on foot. But for a regiment here are some ideas for variety: sculpt A (sword+dagger) and sculpt D (flail+shield) can be converted easily to hold a banner/ regiment standard, they are also the most easy to repose the arms and swap out the weapons. With some work you can convert sculpt E (halberd) to be holding a sword and shield in a defensive posture. Sculpt C (hammer+open helmet) you could remodel the head to be a closed helmet, and swap the hammer for a greatsword.

    Hope that gives some ideas! Love your work btw, it inspired to spend quite alot yo make my own old school empire army :)

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    1. Thanks for the tips. I have already converted a flail + shield model into a standard bearer armed with a hammer. Painting should follow soon. Your idea for sculpt E is great, I need to check this one. And yes, hammer could be replaced by a double-handed sword. But more difficult to put in a regiment. Anyway, thanks again for the tips, I'll try a few things suggested here :)

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