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).

My warband will be largely composed of figures from Citadel's Pan Tang range, with the addition of a couple of additional figures to represent my Wizard and Archers. I have decided to place the warband a few decades before the start of Elric's adventures in the Young Kingdoms. My Wizard is Soorkan ul-K'aarna, uncle to Theleb K'aarna who will become one of Elric's greatest enemies. For now, however, Soorkan is the powerful spellcaster of Pan Tang, while Theleb K'aarna is his apprentice.

My first completed figure is Soorkan ul-K'aarna. As Citadel's Pan Tang range only included one sorcerer (Theleb K'aarna himself), I have selected a suitable wizard - the Illusionist from Citadel's C02 range.

Soorkan conjures the deadly cerise whirlwind!

 

Soorkan has the right presence for a senior sorcerer of Pan Tang I think - exotic feathers and jewels, expansive stomach and a silly hat!

To start the wider warband, I also painted up a pair of soliders - an Archer and a Thug (or possibly Man-at-Arms).

Hukram, Pan Tangian Archer.

The Archer is a Citadel Chaos Thug, as there aren't any models of Pan Tangians with bows. With his head wrapping and recurved bow, I figured there were enough design cues to let him rub shoulders happily with the rest of the warband.

Dharmit, Pan Tangian Thug/Man-at-Arms.

Dharmit is actually the first figure actually from the Pan Tangian range, and pretty much the most 'nomad'-like, with his robes, scimitar and headscarf. Most of the rest of the range sport helmets and weapons of different styles.

Given that Pan Tang is an island, I wanted to give Dharmit's shield a sea-faring/nautical feel, so he got a pair of fish chasing each other's tails.

Here's the warband to date:

Sorcerer of Pan Tang, Soorkan ul-K'aarna, flanked by his henchmen.

Over the next couple of months I'll be painting up the rest of the warband, interspersed by other projects, so watch this space for more Pan Tangians in the near future!