Tuesday 3 November 2009

The Devotees In Mordheim - The Chronicles of The Enslaver. Plus a few other bits.

The Chronicles of The Enslaver

As Argider crested the hill he took in the sight before him. In the distance were the city walls and he could make out movement along the battlements. Clearly the walls weren’t undefended. More pressing though was the presence of others in the landscape around the ruined city. A horde of green skins were making their way towards the main gate into the city to the east. From the west Argider could make out dwarves in two parties and a band of southmen. The dwarves and men were seemingly aware of each others’ presence but not of the green skins who too were ignorant of the potential threat. It would only be a matter of time before they clashed on their approach to the city. Argider thought back over Elazar’s words and decided not to seek combat with the green skins. Perhaps their common enemies in the southmen and dwarves would be enough to unite their causes for the time being. “We need to get through the gate,” Argider said two Ximun, Imanol and Ekaitz. Martzel and Bikendi, two young tribesmen chosen to accompany them were summoned over to hear their leader’s words also. “Once we’re inside the walls we can slay the defenders and the tribe can follow. There are others vying for entrance to the city but we’ll avoid them for now.” Argider could feel the indignation amongst his warriors at the order to avoid combat. “Send the hounds ahead and we’ll test the city’s defences!” Imanol made a whooping nose and the three hounds they’d brought with them bounded ahead, picking up the scent of living flesh and the prospect of battle. Argider sprinted after them in the direction of the main gate, his tribesmen following behind him. The landscape was dotted with ruined buildings and strange rock formations jutting from the ground, Argider tried to use them to cover his advance as best as possible. The fizz of a crossbow bolt flying past him made it clear that the cover hadn’t been enough to hide them from some dwarf crossbowmen. Martzel and Bikendi turned to fire arrows back at the dwarves but couldn’t hit them and so quickly fell back in with the party as they covered the ground towards the gate. Just ahead Argider could see two of the warhounds loping back and forth behind a rock formation. A pair of towers, clearly a checkpoint before the main gate house a couple of bowmen and the hounds had halted rather than weather the hail of arrows. Argider and the tribesmen made it to same rock formation and took a second to take stock of their surroundings. A short distance past the two towers was the main gate which was flanked by another pair of towers with more bowmen manning them. Looking at the closest towers Argider could see the men were ragged and dishevelled looking. They were no city guard, more likely survivors of the disaster that had befallen the city who’d taken it upon themselves to defend what remained of the place they called home. Argider nodded to his tribesmen before aiming a kick at one of the hounds, the two beasts broke from their cover and the men followed behind them, sprinting towards the city gate as the arrows began to fall amongst them. As Argider leapt over a makeshift barrier between the two towers he spotted movement to his left. Two men leapt from the rubble and flew into the attack against the warhounds who were nearest to them. One dodged the initial attack but the other hound was caught off guard and was upended by the impact of the man crashing bodily into it. Argider charged the man, sending him reeling with a thunderous blow from his axe and the fallen warhound leapt back up to rip the fallen man’s throat out in an instant. Argider pushed on towards the gate, dodging between scores of arrows fired from the walls. He was so close now. “Heretics!” Argider heard the cry before he spotted the southmen emerging from the trees, heading towards the gate and his fellow tribesmen. There were a few crazed men with flails charging towards them and a man who was bearing a flaming torch who had raised the shout. They covered the ground quickly. Imanol, Martzel and Bikendi turned to meet them. Argider cursed the southmen; he had to get into the city. He would get a chance to revel in their demise in the future, he was sure of it. Another shout went up as two more crazed men turned up from the left, prowling out of the ruins like uncaged beasts. Ekaitz roared a challenge and hurtled towards them swinging his huge flail in wide arcs as he thundered across the distance between them. Argider pushed on, only Ximun keeping pace with him. The chieftain couldn’t help but smile at the shaman’s endurance. He wondered how much that had to do with the narcotics he manufactured. Finally, they reached the gate and drove on through to the other side, arrows raining down on them from the walls. The defenders were sitting ducks to Argider now.
*
Ximun sat by the fire, silently watching his chieftain pace back and forth impatiently. Argider had climbed the walls and helped rout the defenders to make the way clear for his tribesmen but he’d lost sight of Ekaitz, Imanol and the two younger tribesmen. Now the chieftain was agonised by the wait for the arrival of his followers. He knew they’d locate the camp if they made it through the gates…
*



An image of how the warband looked for the first game of the Mordheim campaign. They still need lots of work yet.
In the end of the game I came second. Rather humerously a warband of dwarves were the first to make it into the city managing to find another door!

I've started putting the base coat on the chaos warrior regiment as well. Here's one of the Warriors.



This first stage on the amour is a nice coat of Khemri Brown.

6 comments:

candiedwhiskey said...

What color will the armor on that Warrior wind up being?

Elazar The Glorified said...

It'll end up being bone coloured like the armour on the Chaos Knights, Hellcannon etc. you can see them earlier in the blog or on my little slideshow thing at the top there :)

noeste said...

Haha, well I do recall a certain Dwarf in a certain movie explaiming that Dwarfs are good sprinters..

Couldn't help but spot that you've not given the Warhounds tails - will you sculpt some, or just leave some stumps, as if they were cut off?

Elazar The Glorified said...

Very true! Certain Dwarf must have been amongst their number judging by the speed they moved at! Hehe!

Well spotted. Still need to do the green stuff on them but they're not getting tails. I did one of the first batch of hounds (way back when) without a tail and I greenstuffed the gap and it's my favourite of the warhounds. There's something unsettling about them not having tails to me and it's a look I plan on emulating on these ones. The gaps for the horns will just get fur green stuffed over though.

noeste said...

Uhm, exclaiming*

noeste said...

Sounds good to me! Was "fashion" for a while, to cut off dogs' tails, to make them look fiercer or something. It's illegal to do in Norway, but it's not a rare sight in Denmark...

I do hope your warband won't have to face off against said Dwarf on the battlefield - he got an unsettling fetish when it comes to butchering enemies; shared by his Elven friend, if I'm correct... ;P