The beleaguered hero: Bringing the Fusil-Major on Ogor Warhulk to Warcry

The light in the night sky stuttered and died, but it was undeniably a signal of some sort. Without taking his eyes from the horizon, Ahmadh Quorle gestured into the darkness. "Get us on the trail Wyll" he said softly to the Trailblazer knelt beside him "somethin's afoot out there and I want t' know what it is afore it's all over"

A few weeks ago I mentioned that there was one more miniature I was working on for my Cities of Sigmar warband, and although it took a wee bit of a mad dash to get it completed, I'm really pleased to be able unveil it at last.

Although reactions to the Fusil-Major on Ogor Warhulk seemed to be a bit mixed when it was first shown off, I absolutely loved the madcap combination of precision firepower and raw brute force it brings to the tabletop. What really cemented me wanting to pick up and paint one though was discovering the quest arc in the Hunter and Hunted warband battletome that sees the Wildercorps embark upon a rescue mission to find and save a beleaguered hero lost in the Gnarlwood. While the battletome does say that you can use any hero in the final game of the quest arc, a designers note makes it clear that the arc was written with the Fusil-Major on Ogor Warhulk in mind and that was all the inspiration I needed to order one as soon as the kit was released.

I actually built the model earlier in the year, but held off painting it up until I'd finished the Wildercorps warband and their allies on the basis, partly because I wanted to be playing games of Warcry with a painted warband, but also because it would give me time to complete the quest arc that would let me add the Fusil-Major to my warband roster. 

This also gave me a bit more time to figure out how I was going to paint the model as well and in the end, I drew quite heavily upon how I had painted the Fusil-Sergeant previously as well as taking inspiration on some colour placements from the studio version of the Warhulk that's featured on both the box art and GW website. Not only did this make painting some aspects of the model quicker as I knew how I needed to sequence the layers of paint, but it also helped to tie the individual models together more as well - perhaps they were both part of the same Dawnbringer Crusade when it originally set out from Hammerhal-Aqshy, or perhaps they were individually assigned to detachments that struck out across the Mortal Realms on different missions, but fate or circumstance has just seen them both end up in the Gnarlwood? 

With the Warhulk now complete, I'm taking a wee bit of a break from painting Cities of Sigmar stuff but I'm very much looking forward to playing more games of Warcry with the Wildercorps and their allies. I'm not moving away from painting minis from the Mortal Realms either as the Spearhead 'mode' of the forthcoming edition of Age of Sigmar has really piqued my interest, and I may have thrown my lot in with the macabre followers of the Carrion King. But before I sign off, I've one, or should I say three last things to share. Keen-eyed readers might have noticed that I haven't used any of the wee gargoylians from any of the kits that I've painted, well I got to thinking about that as I was finishing up the Warhulk and then had a bit of a brainwave. As you fight narrative battles of Warcry, your fighters can earn 'renown' to represent their survival on the battlefield instilling them with new skills and capabilities but I have a tendency to forget about renown on some of my fighters, particularly my leader as his stats are on a different sheet of my warband roster to everyone else. 

You can probably see where I'm going with this, but suffice it to say that I picked my three favourite gargoylian sculpts, grabbed some 25mm bases and then hit upon a bit of a problem because the gargoylians are tiny. When I was dryfitting them on the bases, they were so small that they were almost lost in the space, and 25mm bases aren't exactly big themselves. Then I remembered that when I built the Ruins of Gondor last autumn, I had a few bits and pieces of shattered masonry left over, so one quick rummage through my bits boxes later and I was carefully trimming away the wee tabs from the feet of the gargoylians and gluing them to the broken stonework. 

I had a lot of fun painting the gargoylians up. Because I didn't need to worry about replicating the paint schemes on them because each is unique, I was able to completely relax when it came to the creatures themselves, while the smashed masonry on their bases was painted in the same way as the rocks and stones on the bases of the Gargoylian Mascot and the Ogor Warhulk. They were super quick to do as well, and I was able to paint them over just a couple of evenings from start to finish and hopefully these wee beasties will help me remember to use my fighter's renown more often from now on! 

I think that wraps things up for now, but as ever, until next time - thanks for reading and happy hobbying.