Unit Spotlight: The Children of Si’anwon

 

 

Concept:

Fans of Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter, I beg your forgiveness! (Sorta...)

It'll be no surprise at all to the above that this unit spotlight is an homage to the Myth games in all their dark and wonderful glory. The Children of Si'anwon are of course a direct nod to the Thrall of the Myth universe. Thrall are the Dark's foot soldiers in that universe, and the most common (and deceptively dangerous) unit types in those games - one is an annoyance; a horde is a real danger, and it's no different for their incarnation in the Ne Cede Malis setting.

I've wanted to do a Thrall homage for ages, and when North Star released their Revenant box set for Oathmark, I figured the time had come. The Children of Si'anwon aren't a perfect 1:1 recreation of the Thrall, but hopefully they are close enough that the inspiration is clear. Just have a look at their Myth counterparts below:

 

 

Models:

Starting with the Oathmark Revenant kit, I used the arms and torsos from this set. The Oathmark kit comes with two-handed axes, but really they weren't big enough for the fearsome ax of the Thrall. I needed a cleaver that looked like it could inflict some real damage. So I went through my bits box and ripped out every single comically oversized axehead I could find; from Frostgrave Barbarians and Gnolls to Fireforge Templars and other more esoteric sets.

For the heads, pretty simple; Thrall aren't perfectly preserved and are pretty much zombies with axes in varying states of degradation, so I took heads from the Fireforge Living Dead sets, Mantic Zombies and Ghouls and the GW Skulls sets.

Finally, one of the most distinctive features of the Thrall - apart from the giant cleavers - are the shoulderpads. I couldn't find anything that worked for ages. Until, one day, I happened upon the Anvil Industry website and noticed that their bits range - which is extensive at the best of times - included medieval-style shoulder pads! Problem solved. I ordered a bunch in varying styles and set to work.

I tried to keep the paint job pretty simple on these guys. Rusted armour and corpses in various states of decay, unified by dark green garb and splashes of gore to visually tie them to Myth's Thrall.

On the tabletop:

Gamewise, these guys will do for virtually anything that's undead. In Oathmark, I'll run them as Revenant Linebreakers as that profile reflects their giant axes. Elsewhere, they'll do for Warriors or Mindless in Saga: Age of Magic. In Frostgrave, they'll do for virtually any Undead profile, although I'm increasingly tempted to make a homebrew Undead bestiary...