Flagellants #8 and #9

Same models, slightly different colors...


One last guy, and I'll be done with the Flagellants of the Apocalypse.

The beggar

Admittedly not the most glorious figure of my Empire army, but quoting WD 138 about the Flagellants of the Apocalypse:

It is now a common sight in the Empire to see warbands of penniless zealots whipping and beating themselves as they travel from village to village, begging scraps of food and preaching their nightmare vision of doom and despondency.

"Pennyless" and "begging food", perfect match for this model! (MM62 reference CZ6).

Monk and standard bearer

As mentioned before, the MM65 range is limited to five models, and since I intend to field a unit of 10 flagellants, I'm trying to find alternatives for the second rank.

This monk comes from the MM62 citizen range (reference CZ7): I've simply glued on the base the back banner of the flagellant plastic sprue... and that's it!

Flagellants #4 and #5

And here is the whole range of MM65 flagellants:

I'm now working on the second rank...

Flagellants #2 and #3

Compared to their imperial colleagues from ranges MM60 to MM62, MM65 models (flagellants and Reiskguards) are really big; that's why most of them won't stand on the usual piece of cork.


I really like the masochist librarian :)

Pfeildorfers: inspiration and testing

After reading Mad Alfred's unofficial sourcebook for WFRP on Pfeildorf, I've decided to base my Empire army in the former capital of Sudenland, and now Freistadt of Wissenland, partly because I had the feeling that I was not bound by the official (and rather dull) grey and white color scheme of the province, and partly because dwarfs have lived in Pfeildorf for generations, which gives me the opportunity to add some Marauder dwarfs to this army...

Map of the Empire with Pfeildorf in red (White Dwarf 146)

There isn't much information about the troops residing in Pfeildorf. We only know that the Guild of Lamplighters and Watchmen patrols in the different districts of the town. We also read that "the Guildhouse employs its own militia, who are armed with a spear and wearing a leather jerkin. The militiamen also wear a red and white armband on the left arm to distinguish them from the Watch." This simple detail gave me the overall color scheme of the army: red and white (not very original I'm afraid), but also an idea to use some of my MM62 citizen.

And here is a first MM62/CZ23 reference:

Now, for the Watch, I plan to use fighters from the MM60 and MM61 ranges with a more pronounced Renaissance style, painted in red, white and additional colors, and featuring the arms of the city, three arrows, as a remembrance of the day when a mysterious archer saved the besieged city of Adlerhorst by shooting down the three leaders of the orc invasion. Since then, the city has earned the nickname of "Pfeildorf" or "Arrow Town".

Needless to say that I also intend to use this part of Pfeildorf's history to gather a small band of archers, mere townsfolks equiped by the Guild of Bowyers and Fletchers to defend their city.

Mad Alfred's map of Pfeildorf

Below the first member of the Watch (reference MM60/F25): after a first attempt (failed), the arrows have been replaced by arrowheads, much simpler to paint! I'm still hesitating on adding something in the red area. Or changing the arms again. We'll see...


Referring to the gazetteer at the end of the sourcebook, we can see that Pfeildorf is a 6800-inhabitant town, with a garrison composed of 75a (elite) and 500b (average) troops. Obviously, the militiamen and the watchmen belongs to the latter. For the former, my guess is they come from the guard of Castle Alderhorst, located in the ancient district of Alderhost, and official residence of the Grand Baroness Toppenheimer. In her absence, Commander Baron Ulrich von Bernau is in charge of the castle guard, which is fortunate as I haven't found yet any decent MM62 miniature to represent a noble woman. As for the elite troops, my intent is obviously to use my MM65 and MM66 reiksguards.

Mad Alfred's map of the barony

As I'm not sure to be able to paint the coat of arms of the barony, I may borrow the coat of arms of the ancient Sölland, a golden sun, showing the nostalgia of the baroness's Court for an age when Pfeildorf was the capital of an Electoral province of the Empire, and not a free city ruled by merchants.

In the religion section, we can read that Pfeildorfers are a devout people, and that the Church of Sigmar has special prominence in the city. This will give me the perfect opportunity to paint a warband of MM65 flagellants. For them, it will be easy: just browns, greys and muted greens.

As mentioned in the beginning, dwarfs and humans live in good intelligence in Pfeildorf. But a small number of Halflings have also settled in the city and its surroundings, and (quote) "like the resident Dwarfs, many of Halflings have lived here for generations and have greater allegiance to the people in Pfeildorf than they do to their brethren living in the faraway Moot." Now I have a pretext to paint some MM64 references :)

Mad Alfred's map of Wissenland

Finally, even if Pfeildorf is a FreiStadt, it is located in the now reunified Wissenland, not far from the StaatStadt of Nuln. We can easily imagine that for the protection of the city, the merchants of Pfeildorf have been able to acquire one or two warmachines forged by the Imperial Ordnance based in Nuln. As I mentioned before, I'll probably use the MM13 Dwarf Siege Gun for that.

As you can see, I'm just starting. There is still time for suggestions ;)

And now for something completely different

Errr... not so different actually, since I've just finished a Squat instead of my usual dwarfs. Except the base (Dust Game) and the flag (GW), this Warlord is a "home-made" miniature produced by Dark Sensei (if you want one, contact him at this address: le_dark_sensei at yahoo dot fr). Very nice sculpting job, full of details, worth the number of hours spent on it.

 

Next time, my first attempts to paint Empire models...

New year, new army

OK, time for a break in this neverending dwarf painting story: after collecting the whole Kaon the Idolator army, then a few tens of Marauder Dark Elves, then 2 to 3 thousand points of Jes Goodwin's Wood Elves, and of course a bunch of Skaven, I've finally decided to paint... an Empire army :)

As a former player of the Warhammer Role Playing Game,  I've always liked the Empire described in the Enemy Within campaign... quite different from the one depicted in Warhammer Fantasy Battle from the 4th edition, where Karl Franz rules as the undisputed leader of a united country.

In "my" Empire, I imagined smaller armies, with poorly equipped militia, brutish soldiers, greedy mercenaries, and noble houses fighting each other, unaware of the very distant Chaos threat. Actually, checking the 3rd edition Warhammer Armies supplement, the introduction to the Empire section corresponded rather well to this vision.

The Emperor maintains his own Imperial Guard, and each province within the Empire also raises small standing armies, supplemented by town militia and peasant levies. In addition to these forces, there are the feudal retinues of provincial nobles and the various secular and religious orders of knighthood.

An army might represent either the full military might of the Empire, led by the Emperor at the head of the Imperial Guard and supported by Templars of all the knightly orders, or just the standing army of a single Elector state, bolstered by mercenary contingents or Templars of the local cult.

Obviously, what we saw in the White Dwarf issues preparing the release of the 4th edition of WFB was the army of the Empire in full glory: bright colors, impeccable uniforms, pistoliers, handgunners,  and war machines that would make the most hardened dwarf engineer blush.

White Dwarf 151 (July 2012) "The Imperial Army Advances"

Don't get me wrong, I like the job done by the Perry brothers on these models (I've even started to collect a small force of them), it's just that it doesn't fit with what I have in mind for the Empire.

So, my army won't use anything from the 1992-1993 Citadel range. I guess I could have selected instead the imperial range sculpted in the 80s by the Citadel team, which includes great models for town militia, peasants and mercenaries. Unfortunately, the number of fanatics is very limited (one or two models), and the cavalry has an historic flavor that I don't like... which leads to my final choice: Aly and Trish Morrison's Marauder Miniatures.

Compared to Citadel, the range is rather limited (which is good for an obsessive collector), but also rather expensive (less good), even for poorly sculpted models. In summary, we have:

• 30 fighters (MM60), 
• 5 fighter command models (MM61), 
• 30 citizens (MM62), 
• 6 halfling militia (MM64), 
• 5 Reiksguard knights (MM65/1), 
• 5 flagellants (MM65/2), 
• 5 mounted Reiksguard knights with 2 models of war horse (MM66), 
• the Emperor riding Deathclaw, 
• 1 Imperial Hero riding a Pegasus (MB15), 
• and a few unreleased models, 5 wizards and 1 warrior (check here if you're curious). 

WANTED: DEAD or ALIVE

I'm mainly after the hero on pegasus, plus a few fighters and citizens (check my Want list if you want to sell some), and of course the unreleased models (the fighter and possibly one wizard), but all in all, I think I've gathered enough miniatures to field a 2000 point army.

The main issue I have is the lack of shooting troops: within the MM60/MM62 range, there is only 1 handgunner (F7) and 4 archers (F10, F19, CZ18, plus CZ9 with a bow tied in the back), and absolutely no crossbowman. Problem: I need at least 10 of them to comply with the minima defined in Warhammer Armies. It will probably end with some simple conversions of duplicates, unless I violate my self-imposed constraints and incorporate some Citadel models. I also plan to add at least one warmachine, but the dwarf siege gun (MM12) will do the job without much effort (conversions of MM62 models should be easy to make the crew).

In the end, regarding the Empire army list, my painting priorities should be the 20 mandatory Helblitzen, followed by 10 Armbrustschutzen. I'm also planning to work on at least 10 Reiksgard knights, 8 to 16 Fleglers and 5 Bergjaeger. For the cavalry (most probably Stadtsknechtes), the Reiks Kanone Batterie and the characters, we'll see later.


I still have to define a color scheme for the army. Next year ;)

PS. Hmm too bad these illustrations were not in color. Still a great inspiration for an imperial force: