But you're a dyed in the wool Dwarf player I hear you cry ! not at all , I have been furthering the cause of short bearded folk in the world of Pannithor for the last couple of Years but I do have other irons in the fire , so to speak.
However , this article is about a whim , a fancy that took me as I had entered a Tournament , so what I hear you cry ? this was a 2300 point Tournament run in the Heart of England ( well Wallsall) by the inestimable Steve Hildrew. As it was his first event and there were to be a lot of new players there that might not appreciate facing a wall of endless Brock Riders I decided to do a couple of things - reduce my plastic pile of shame a touch by using some of the sprues I have lying around and see if I could produce a viable army with the minimum of effort.
But first what to choose as my Army , the vast majority of the sprues I have lounging about are Human of various flavours , so it would need to be a human based army. I have several Kingdoms of Men , Brothermark and Rhordia armies already so the choice came down to Northern Alliance or Varangur. As my other Half has an enormous Northern Alliance Army I went with The Varangur.
A List I needed as well , so I trolled the database of KowMasters page for a high performing Varangur List and came upon Tom Robinsons List from the Clash At Kingston , Varangur -Check , 2300 Points - Check , mostly Human - Check so I downloaded the list , changed the name on the top and Hey Presto ! a list.
So the Night Raiders were constructed from Frostgrave Cultist , Frostgrave Soldier bits with hooded heads , the bow arms were added in case I wanted to use them as bow armed in another list so they could be multipurpose Generic Evil infantry guys.
Once assembled the models were sprayed black , then drybrushed with Foundry Charcoal Grey. The hoods and gauntlets picked out in a triad of GW Reds and the bows and weapon hafts Foundry Spearshaft brown with the bows getting a lighter layer of Foundry Boneyard over the top to make them stand out , faces were done in Foundry Flesh, weapons painted in Scale 75 Gold metallics and then the whole thing washed in Agrax Earthshade for a dirty appearance , no pristine followers of Evil these. the three units took one and a half evenings to complete , bases being sand & Slate , painted black and drybrushed grey with AK Scenics snow mix and some sponge foliage glued on, nice and simple but quite effective.
Then it was on to the Cavalry , the Horse Raiders were made up Gripping Beasts Arab Light and Heavy Cavalry armed with a mix of bows and spears and with head swaps from Frostgrave Barbarians , Fireforge Mongols and their own arab heads.
Again , once assembled they were sprayed Black , drybrushed grey with details picked out in Red , Brown and Gold. All the models then received an Agrax Earthshade wash to reduce the brightness. They were then based the same as the Infantry.
The Sons of Korgaan began life as Gripping Beast Gothic Elite Cavalry as I though that the fully armoured horses would fit well with a high defence shock unit , These guys are not modded in any way , just built out of the box as they come and I even decided to give the two units standards in the form of the nice Draco sock flags that come on the Sprue. due to the amount of armour they are toting they were sprayed black then drybrushed in Scale 75 gold metallics over a Vallejo Tinny Tin base before the red and brown details were painted on , again an all over wash of Agrax Earthshade to tone down the bright colours and replace the stark black edges of the undercoat was applied. Basing was as per the other units.
On to the Characters , there are Two Frostfang Lords , Magnilde of the Fallen and a Lord on Horse ( a new fangled thing allowed by the Clash of Kings 22 changes)
The Two Frostfang Lords are made from two ordinary Frostfang riders but with heads taken from the Frostgrave Barbarian sprue to make them more fierce looking. I also painted them to look a bit brighter than the rest of the army as I thought higher ranking guys would have access to ablutions.
And Magnilde is well , Magnilde , I have had this model since I received it in a goody bag at a tournament somewhere and used this army as my motivation to find it , build it and paint it , Simples
Just painted Grey , Red and Gold to blend in with the rest of the Army.
The Final Model was that of Sliksneer , the Mounted Lord that leeds the Horse Raider Formation "Slicksneers's Shriekers" This Guy was kitbashed from a Fireforge Byzantine cataphract and a Frostgrave Barbarian head , simple but effective. His horse was posed on the slate base to make it slightly more dynamic and then he was painted Red and Gold to match the rest of the Army.
Hey Presto ! My first Varangur Army !
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