Age of Sigmar

Lord-Ordinator Vorrus Starstrike

Masters of celestial engineering, the Lord-Ordinators are wise men who have shaped the Mortal Realms through the word of Sigmar and the readings of the heavens. When their sharp and serious minds cannot remould reality to their whims, they take up their hammers and march to war, hewing the future with each blow as a master mason shapes the stone of a temple to Sigmar’s glory. Striding to battle in sigmarite armour, Vorrus Starstrike wields hammers that strike with thunderclap force. It is his solemn duty to read the stars above, using the truths there to engineer fate on the battlefield.

I bought the mini to have a more suitable stand in for Trachos the companion of Gortrek. Considering his background I painted him a bit more gaunt and haunted.

Trachos is a Lord-Ordinator of the Celestial Vindicators left broken and traumatized after several perils in Shyish. He is the last survivor of his chamber and feels that the only way to restore his honor is to return to Azyr with some form of treasure. Wouldn’t you know it, he soon came upon Gotrek and decided that fancy rune in his chest would do the trick. Initially distrustful of him and the assassin Maleneth, he intended to follow their quest to find Gotrek’s axe and let them die to take the tune for himself. As time passed though, his mind soon began to heal and he became more and more like his old self. By the end of his adventure, he was a quiet but friendly warrior with the occasional snide remark. When fighting he tends to loudly sing in a fractured off-key tone. Not even Gotrek could fix that.

Asian Fantasy

Since years I am interested in Asian warfare. Ancient Japan and China was always a place special to my imagination. Asian warfare, especially Sun Tzu and the Bushido Code of honour had fascinated me for years. I have countless books about Samurai and Chinese armies.

As far as miniatures and miniature games are concerned I was less enthusiastic. That changed when Clan War was coming out back in the 90s. Great setting and - at that time - great minis. Unfortunately their later minis were less then good and all in all the game fumbled quite soon. I still like the game, but nobody is playing it. The setting itself is still one of my favourite Fantasy settings. I can only recommend the Clan War novels and the recent FFG RPG!

I started a L5R campaign using ht new FFG rules recently. We used the Beginners game box and had a lot of fun. Consequently I had to get and paint some suitable minis.
From left to right:
Togashi Yoshi Tatooed Monk of the Dragon Clan -A Pathfinder Human Male Monk that is just painted in suitable Dragon colours.
A Crab character - I used the Privateer L5R minicrate Hida Kisada mini.
Doji Ren Courtier of the Crane Clan - I used a Samurai from the core Okko box and swapped the head for a female Statuesque mini head. I underlines his soft androgen Crane look.
Isawa Aki Shugenja of the Phoenix Clan -A Rising Sun boardgame mini in Phoenix colours.

The minicrate sculpts are very good IMO!

Three Yurei: one from the Okko core box, a Kogen from the great Kensai range and as a test a Nighthaunt from GW, they work well together IMO.

The good thing is that today we are spoiled with good new miniature ranges for almost every setting. For the domain of Fu Leng - the Shadowlands - the above undead Samurai from the great Kensai range are very fitting!

Some old Clan War Goblins.

As minis are concerned I also like the “The Age of Wars - Samurai Armies 1550 - 1615” range from the Perry twins and the Martial Arts range from Hasslefree.

This small group of Ashigaru is joined venture of Steve Dean and me. I finally talked him into painting some minis for me. I provided one painted example and some pictures from books to give him an idea of the colours. All the rest is his brushmagic.

A male Shungenja (Tadaka of the Phoenix Clan) from the fantastic Clan War setting. Still a very nice miniature IMO.

The female Samurai is from Hasslefree’s Range. I painted her as a Crane (The Crane are one of the Clans of the Legends of the 5 Rings Asian fantasy setting) Samurai-Ko.

Chinese Sung Swordsmen from the TAG range. These minis are so far the best Chinese I have seen in 28 mm. As with all TAG minis they are also very paint friendly. Not too much detail, clean lines and good casting quality.

3 Peasants and one Ashigaru from the Perry range.

You can see some of my Clan War minis. All are out of production as far as I know.

Fantasy Romans

Recently some Fantasy Romans popped up on LAF. I really like the concepts and sooner or later the poster and I got in contact. He was kind enough to send my some samples and I was blown away by the sheer quality of the miniatures.

The minis are big chunky multipart resin that are full of character and conversion options, different heads weapon options etc. I chose amore traditional outfit for my 1st mini, gladius and shield plus helmet.

The base is a GW 32 mm base since the mini is REALLY BIG. You can see a comparison picture further down. To enhance the base I used some Milliput and the nice Rolling Pin ROMAN. Great effect!

The mini was based in Citadel Chaos black. After that some Citadel Ironbreaker for all the metal parts, Nuln Oil shade, again some Ironbreaker - done. Mephistion Red for the tunic and shield. Carroburg Crimson Shade and again some Red for some highlights. Skin is AV 72.100 Rosy Flesh, a Citadel Reikland Fleshshade, and again Rosy Skin with mixed in white for the flesh highlights. The gold is done all with citadel colours, Gehenna Gold, Agrax earthshade, again Gehenna Gold and finally some Auric gold with mixed in silver. All brown parts are AV Burnt Umber and AV flat earth highlights.

The mini is NOT fitting to any historical Roman range that I know of since the mini is around 42 mm high! See the comparison picture below. Even a Primaris Marine is dwarfed! IMO no problem since the mini line is obviously not aiming at any established setting or genre.

And another comparison picture with some Wargods Demigods.

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