The Cattle Are Lowing

I haven't been posting much over December, because instead of taking one unit at a time, I tried to complete my entire Beastmen army all at the same time.

You know, like a sane person would.

In fairness, this army was started a year ago, where I needed some allies for my Warriors of Chaos. I told myself I would post an update, just as soon as I finished off the rest.

One year on...

To begin with the Gor, the bread-and-butter of any Beastmen army, and still my favourite models of the herd. These guys have been on quite a journey - from Warhammer Fantasy Battle to Age of Sigmar to Old World. That's a lot of bases to clip off and reattach! Twice!

Nothing too taxing here (once all the base admin had been completed). I needed more command models, so some Gor got upgraded to musicians and standards.

Controversially, I've moved away from the ubiquitous snow bases and gone for a scrubby grassland.

To stretch out 40 Gor into two units of 25, I needed some fillers, and the Giant kit had plenty of leftovers for me to cannibalise.

A simple use of spare heads for this one - the Gor must have taken down three giants (or one giant with three heads, we've all seen Monty Python).

The second one has a bit of a cow barbeque going on (clearly there's no bovine solidarity among the children of chaos).

It wasn't just rebasing - I had to pick up a paintbrush too. These Beastmen came from the original Battle Masters game (sort-of the Heroquest answer to Fantasy Battle).

Despite being smaller, monopose and slightly-goofy looking, I absolutely love these models - and was pleasantly surprised by the detail on them. Some of the shields still had their original stickers on them, so I kept them visible and just distressed them a bit.

Most of these Battle Masters were kindly donated by Monkey, although his dog did get hold of one of the models and savaged it in the way that only a miniature poodle can. I replaced the leg with a mutated limb, and left the bite marks and hard-earned battle scars.

Because of their size, I was considering fielding these guys as lesser-beastmen Ungor (although their prominent horns might gouge the narrative out of that idea).

Moving on to the biggest painting project: the elite Bestigor. I was on the fence about these guys - I seem to remember them being effective in Fantasy Battle, but they cost twice as much as Gor, and their great weapons may be a liability in combat.

At least they'll be soaking up lots of attention, since you wouldn't want these guys to get the drop on your units.

I was also concerned that their 'overhand sweep' stance would make them all look a bit monopose. But having assembled them all and seen them close-up, I think there's sufficient chaotic jumble in there.

The Bestigor have the privilege of heavy armour, which I assume is scavenged and stolen (I can't imagine metallurgy is a big thing in a Beastman herd), so I went to town with the Typhus Corrosion and orange drybrush to make it look as rusty and weathered as possible.

I went with Skragg Brown as their skin/fur tones, to distinguish them from their smaller cousins. After that, it was the usual browns and washes for the horns, hooves, bones and belts.

Half of these Bestigor were bought already assembled, and the previous owner had converted the banner from a great axe. This does put the standard bearer at an odd angle, but I'm glad about it, since I have used the Bestigor banner bits elsewhere, so everything gets to look unique.

I wanted to hold back a couple of Bestigor, as they will come in handy for special characters and charioteers, so a couple of smaller unit filler were required.

One double-width unit filler was more pieces from the giant kit (I quite like the mini-herdstone), which can be a replaced with a single-space unit filler (just a skull on a rock) for when I want to include a character in the unit.

Speaking of characters, this Beastlord was added to the army last year, armed with the Mangelder (before I realised it was a rubbish weapon with a cool name), so it was swiftly replaced with The Axes of Khorgor.

Another classic model is the Bray Shaman, who seems mostly composed of bones and robes, but retains that two-dimensional charm.

For the final character, it seems a Battle Standard would be a useful asset. The actual model seems weirdly difficult to purchase, so I promoted one of my spare Bestigor. The standard itself comes from the Ironjawz kit, where the severed Beastmen head seems quite appropriate.

Coming into the home stretch, the monsters. Starting with the mighty Ghorgon (a proxy Taurox from Mierce Miniatures). This was a rebase, but clipping the resin model off his base was somewhat nerve-wracking, as I'd really glued it on there.

So naturally I learned my lesson and really glued it onto its new base (please don't change systems again).

The Cockatrice was an easier prospect, as I had built it during a moment of uncharacteristic wisdom. Magnets held the beast to its Age of Sigmar base (so it could be moved onto a Fantasy Base), so I just needed to align an Old World base and fix new magnets in the right place.

Last, but far from least, was the Razorgor. This was a 3D print, as the cost of the hideous official model is beyond even my sense of humour. I really like this one, and they're very effective in the game, so I'll have to see if there are ant variants I can add to the pig pen.

And with that, the army is done! It was something of a scramble (but who doesn't find themselves freehanding a flayed human skull on Christmas Eve?), but it makes for a very satisfying finish for the year - after all, it's all about the painting tally.