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The Ninth Age - Beastherds
In 2023, I discovered inspiration for how to design the armour for my T'Aurs male and female concept, which had been inactive since 2011. My inspiration came from an orc's armour that I saw on Instagram, and after several talks and numerous qualified suggestions, the armour quantity and vital protections were somewhat increased. I intended for them to resemble the Roman Empire, and as each figure was sculpted, the concept evolved. For example, the Roman Empire is represented in the design of the T'Aur banners.
During the sculpting of the T'Aurs models, several of my former miniature gaming community friends and I talked about using my models in other games as well. Looking over the range, I instinctively thought of WFB's successor, T9A, and its army lists. Working on the T'Aurs, the choice landed on Beastherds, but there was not an option to have a solo ox and cow army; hence, 'small & weird' beings were also included. Since IoM lacks 'Beastmen', I decided to work on my Fautyrs for the 'mongrels'.
This thread will show my path from idea to – hopefully – a fully painted Beastherd army!
This will be the most current Army-picture...
A small note: this thread was started years after the army project was launched and the T'Aurs & Fautyr showoff threads might have further insight.
All miniatures are (Oak Entertainment ©) concept and sculpting.
While sculpting the T'Aurs, I began to think about what sort of bases I would like. I decided on a red/brownish colour palette for their armour, framed in Ljostari-Bronze, adhering to a friend's advice to minimise colour palette usage on models. I also added a darkened touch inspired by my Instagram inspirator painting of one of the models I sent.
As a result, I decided bases with dried mud pools, and speaking of bases, I decided to make the Fautyrs look like a razed forest floor with some stubs and branches.
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Typical me, but I'd need them for IoM at some point anyhow - I sculpted Minotaurs (T'Aurs) like a madman...
That was before I looked at the T9A army list and realised how few I could field!
The 'small ones' emerged after the majority of Minotaurs (T'Aurs) had been created and put together. It would be mongrels, and my Fautyr was the ideal suit.
The modelling of the 'small ones' was mostly focused on Mongrels (Fautyr) Herd and Raiders.
PS: The strange-looking model in the image was created for one of the stated community members as a bonus model for his convention, Nifcon.
Composition, sculpting, assembly, and painting debuted in T9A 2.x. Then 3.x came around, and I had to reorganise composition, which was not a big deal because the models are for IoM ranks anyhow. I was about to add more feral dogs, but because their bases are out of scale with IoM, I chose to do another Mongrel Herd instead, which was a time-consuming painting task. But, at the very least, it inspired a crossover to the birch in Hûar Harkwald's Moss'Ari-themed army, which I was able to see. The entire Mongrel (Fautyr) army will be given birch ornamented bases and birch pan flutes.
PS: I realise the bases aren't rectangular, but after T9A mobility trays, shrug.
Since one of our top friendly T9A players informed me that the army was illegal (80 archers is ten too many), I had to notch the General, choose status on the Totem Bearer, and suggest some changes from theme to survivable – I of course corrected the errors, and Raiders went from 4*20 to 18+3*16. Regarding the changes, let's see what future user experiences in actual games will bring.
A Minotaur unit with
A Minotaur unit with
A Minotaur unit with
A Minotaur unit with
