The Sunleth Annihilation - Month One
So here we are once again; a new season of From Ember To Inferno! After the success of our first time around, myself, Aaron, Matt & Paul all agreed that the format would be something worth revisiting, it was just a case of when. After struggling for a bit to line up a time when the four of us were all starting new projects simultaneously, we finally managed to get there!
First things first, as well as reading the blog posts here, be sure to follow our work on social media for the most up to date photos and videos. You can search the hashtag #FETI2 on both Twitter and Instagram. Also, if you fancy checking out the original season, the hashtag #fromembertoinferno has the goods on Twitter.
This time around I will be producing an Ogor Mawtribes army. The model range has been one of my favourites since it’s release in WFB 6th edition and over the years I’ve painted a number of Ogre Kingdoms armies. Also back in October of 2018 I painted a 1,000pt Beastclaw Raiders army for use in a doubles event with Aaron. With the event of the fantastic new Ogor Mawtribes book (including bringing Beastclaw Raiders back into the fold) I was keen to expand. For this new project I have decided to continue with the same scheme and theme. You can find some photos of the original 2018 models here - https://instagram.com/p/Bt6dGhrnwu1/
As you can see, these models are pretty out there! It’s one of the things I really love about Age of Sigmar - the Mortal Realms are so nebulous that you can make almost anything work. The basic gist of this army is that they are from a part of Hysh where multiple suns burn brightly and there is no night. As a result of this, all the creatures have evolved to be sightless (hence the weird antenna) and everything is super colourful. I could’ve just gone the underground troglodyte route for the aesthetic, but this seemed more unique and fun. I was debating with myself whether to do this, or go with an African Savanna theme (using real world animal colour schemes on the mounts), but I’m definitely happy with my choice and am excited to continue with it.
I called the army The Sunleth Annihilation, which takes cues from the Sunleth Waterscape in Final Fantasy XIII and the film, Annihilation. Both these things (amongst others) have inspired the army in some manner.
Unlike the first season of FETI, where I wrote and built towards a set 2,000pt army, I don’t actually have a plan laid out this time around. I have a nice sized collection of Ogor models, which is good as I want to play everything from all out shooting Underguts to monster mash Boulderhead as well as everything in between (I really love the versatility of that book!). So I figure each month I’ll just paint the models I fancy, whilst ensuring to keep a legal Matched Play force.
For my first 400pts I went with this;
Tyrant - 160
3 Ogor Gluttons - 120
3 Ogor Gluttons - 120
Pretty generic, but a solid core however I decide to build the army going forwards. I wanted to get my Mawpot done in the first month as well.
The Gluttons were super straight forward as I could simply import my colour scheme from the original BCR force. I used some different heads and weapons to mix things up a bit. I’m not going to discuss the basing, colour scheme or painting in this post as I’ve gone on a bit already. I’ll save that for a future month.
For the Tyrant, I wanted to do something a bit different. I was inspired by the doppelgänger from the end of Annihilation and some how my weird brain was trying to find ways to tie that into an Ogor Mawtribes army for Warhammer(?!).
I call it The Shimmer (another nod to Annihilation). The idea is that it is a shapeshifting creature that killed the tribe’s Tyrant and took his form. As the Ogors are sightless, they can’t see that it’s actually this weird shimmery alien thing and as it’s shape checks out, it passes as the boss! You may ask what it’s motivations are for doing this and well, we don’t know yet (I haven’t decided!). I really really like this concept and I think it sounds great, but I’m not sure how well it translates on the tabletop if I’m honest. Still, I ran with it.
My challenge here was recreating the entity from the film. Initially I tried a chrome ink, which didn’t really work unfortunately. In the end I settled on the Green Stuff World Chameleon Colourshift paints. They did a fantastic job and worked exactly as advertised. It doesn’t photo very well at all, but looks nice in a video:
Last tweet is a vid that shows the chrome effect in the Mawpot off a bit better 😊 @ProPainted @forestreveries @WarhammerGC #FETI2 pic.twitter.com/fPA6ZjR8xg
— Chris Tomlin (@the_black_sun) January 2, 2020
And that’s gonna be about it for this month. I know I haven’t talked much about the painting side itself but I really wanted to lay out the basics of my vision for the army. We can get into specifics as the months progress. If there’s any particular element you’d like to hear me discuss, drop me a message on Twitter (@the_black_sun) or Instagram (@blacksunpainting).
I’ll leave you with some group shots for now. Cheers for reading,
Chris x
