Tygers of Pan Tang - The Beast and His Handler

The tigers of Pan Tang are so iconic, that they even named a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band after them. The Stormbringer RPG by Chaosium Inc. states that:

"The tiger is a rare animal in the Young Kingdoms. Tigers roam freely only on the Isle of Pan Tang where it is the sacred totem animal of Chardhros the Reaper, Lord of Chaos...In rare cases they act as a Pan Tang warrior's combat companion."

It would therefore seem pre-destined that my Pan Tang Frostgrave warband would include a tiger (either as a Hunting Dog or Snow Leopard animal companion). Happily, Citadel anticipated my need, and produced a pair of tigers and their handlers as part of their Pan Tang range.

Image taken from Stuff of Legends.

Leading the Choir - Astropath Mother Cantor Mechthild

Over at the Ammobunker Inq28 forums, Commissar Molotov is running a monthly competition with the aim of getting folks motivated to make and paint something new. January is the first round, with a theme of Primus inter Pares - First Among Equals:

With it being the first month, it makes sense for the theme to be about being 'the first.' This might be an Inquisitor, on the brink of embarking upon his career - or a hoary old veteran hardened by a lifetime of horror. A Priest leading hordes of zealots, or an experience veteran leading a stormtrooper kill team. It could be an Imperial Guard veteran, the leader of a hab-stack kill-gang. Perhaps is might be wise to consider who the 'equals' are: perhaps your character might simply be one who takes a lead role in certain aspects - a wizened scribe who serves as one of his master's most favoured servants.

After some consideration, I realised that the obvious gap in my collection is a senior astropath. In the novel Blind by Matthew Farrer, there are several hierarchical ranks of astropaths mentioned - the one that seemed obvious to represent a senior astropath is that of the Cantor (or choirmaster). Very definitely a first among equals.

I turned to my box of unused figures and turned up this Bride of Frankenstein I picked up at Wargames Foundry from their £1 cabinet of miscellaneous figures. You can see I had already made a start in adding the archetypal Astropath's cane:

The Rise of Pan Tang

Back in early 2014, I spent a lot of time and energy tracking down the delightful licensed Eternal Champion range produced by Citadel between 1986-1987. After successfully accumulating the entire range, I duly packaged them in a figure case and did nothing with them. Two years on, and their time has come.

In April I will be travelling to Ireland to meet up with some good friends and gaming buddies for a weekend. Among other things, we will be playing a series of games of Frostgrave - you may have already seen cheetor's fledging Oriental warband, The Shonen Knives. Bar the odd figure here and there, I've not painted a fantasy force for anything since about 1991 or 1992. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to put some life into some of my Eternal Champion figures.

After some consideration, I decided to use Pan Tangians for my Frostgrave warband, for no other reason than they are much less common than the Melniboneans which were later rolled into Citadel's High Elf range, while painted Pan Tangians are rare as hens teeth!

A Sorcerer of Pan Tang blasts his Melnibonean foes (artwork from the Stormbringer RPG by Chaosium).

Eldar D-Cannon Anti-Grav Platform

Ahead of the start of tonight's first game of our new Inquisimunda campaign, I needed to put the finishing touches to the Eldar Vod Pirates I'll be using. The big omission was a some decent ranged firepower. I decided to pull out an old Rogue Trader D-Cannon anti-grav platform which I'll be using to represent a multi-laser in the campaign. I am using the anti-grav platform as it allows me to move and fire with the heavy weapon - a very useful trait in the Necromunda ruleset!

 

 

Archeo-Historian Henig Drosk

At the end of 2015 my Inquisitor, Henning Dirske, rather unfortunately failed to seize an important piece of Slann technology known colloquially as the Golden Phrogg. This was the climax of the Inquisimunda campaign that ran for most of the year. After the campaign, I decided that Dirske had been ejected from the Ordo Malleus for his rather irresponsible approach and significant collateral damage. Dirske was on the run, and feverishly hunting for an Eldar artefact (perhaps to try and win back his position in the Ordo that had rejected him).

Our group is due to start a new Inquisimunda campaign in a few weeks time, and although I've decided to use an Eldar warband, I really wanted Dirske to be represented under a new guise.

Grim-faced Archeo-Historian Henig Drosk recently arrived in the Tiberium system in search of ancient Eldar artefacts. He has swiftly made connections in the smuggling rings dealing in xeno-tech; often dangerous, often fake, definitely illegal. It is rumoured that Drosk is a man on the run - he has few credentials, he buys artefacts and information with cash or in trade. Some say he is in league with Eldar Corsairs...

Eldar Battle Drone - Executioner Class

Happy New Year to you all. Things are moving apace on the gaming front over the next few months. I've just booked flights to attend Knavecon in Ireland at the end of April, but more pertinently for my output for the next few weeks, I'll be joining in a new Inquisimunda campaign.

My initial thoughts were to use the Rogue Quest band, but I had a last minute change of mind, deciding they were too similar to Inquisitor Dirske and his retinue from the last campaign. Instead, I've decided to use a motley band of Eldar Void Pirates, which will include Taal Spellsinger, Prince Nuadha and Caspalta Silverhair. I've always liked the old Eldar Battle Drones / Ghost Warriors, and as a Void Pirate Captain can be accompanied by a Construct (effectively a servitor), I decided that I'd use one as a 'counts as'.

I've actually got a dozen or so of the Ghost Warriors sitting in a case - back in 2010 I attended my last ever 40k tournament with a Wraith-themed Eldar army. Much to my embarrassment, I only base-coated the entire army with purple bodies, grey heads and black weapons. I cringe even now when I think about an entire army of poorly based coated Eldar on the table.

On the left, the 'painted' starting point.