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.

I suspect that the tigers were sculpted by Jes Goodwin, and the handlers by Aly Morrison, but I'm not 100% sure. I have the original tiger handlers in my collection, and would happily have used them in the Frostgrave warband, except I also have a pair of the unreleased tiger handlers that I acquired back in April 2014. Given that the only painted examples I've ever seen are in the collection of ex-GW top man Bryan Ansell himself, I figured this would be a good opportunity to paint up one myself.

I painted the tiger handler first (he will probably be a Frostgrave thief), with a very simple paint scheme - flesh, white kilt and a flash of blue on his bandana to tie him with the other warband members.

The tiger on the other hand took a lot more planning. I painted the dull orange and white underbelly first, resulting in a tiger that looked a little like this:

Next step was the daunting task of adding all the stripes. I didn't want to replicate a particular set of markings 100%, but I did want to create a credible looking tiger.

One of the photo references for the tiger's markings.

A closer look at the facial markings.

And here's the end result - Tiger Handler Shelek Whipmaster with his tiger, Jagged Claw:

Whilst the tiger isn't entirely true to life, I think he's certainly recognisable as being a tiger! I simplified the markings somewhat in the translation to a 28mm figure - most noticeably by not adding any markings to the inside of the legs over the white. I decided this would potentially detract from the overall silhouette of the tiger, without adding much to the look.

The only other thing of note is the large 40mm hex base I used. After rejecting 2mm and 3mm MDF or acrylic bases, I discovered the Sabretooth Games Lord of the Rings Combat Hex figures (approx. 40-45mm scale). They are all mounted on the large hex base - I managed to find a cheap job lot and popped off the figures for the bases.

Next up will be my Frostgrave apprentice - Theleb K'aarna himself!