Greco-Roman Saurus Oldblood (on foot)

Let's start off my life here in Lustria Online with sharing fond memories.

This chappie is the first truly successful conversion I finished and painted that I was 100% absolutely happy with... well, ok, 99%, but only because I am my own worst critic and see flaws in everything I touch. Also terrible photo quality alert... blame the camera (that's right, I blame my tools *self-confident nod*)




Background: The intention to convert my seraphon army into Greco-Roman styled chaps came early on in Age of Sigmar's life. It could basically be summed up as: "I am sick of lizardmen in fiction always being depicted as Meso-American, I want to make MY army special and stand out. Also, I am tired of lizardmen always being naked! They have beautiful bodies, I am not shaming them, but can we have some more personality than always being nudists?"

The decision for Greco-Roman was originally from, being new to Warhammer, I figured that since there were no factions in AoS or WFB that were Roman themed, it would be unique. At that time, I wasn't aware that the Remas Empire was indeed a thing.

I never got around to actually starting the project until much later. And the bulk of the army is actually no longer going for the Greco-Roman look in light of the whole Remas Empire thing, though I did still incorporate the old idea into my lizard's internal lore, and I figured that for Saurus Guardians and the Eternity Warden, the look would make them stand out from the rest of my army once that get's done.

And... just to showcase sod's law at work... I finished this conversion with every intention of it being my Saurus Eternity Warden. Then the latest book came out, and the Eternity Warden is no longer a unit type, so now this fellow is relegated to Saurus Oldblood on Foot. Hoi...

 

Very nice work!

 

Thank you.

 

Great idea! and it looks amazing. Well done.
May I ask what parts you used to create him?

Grrr, !mrahil

 

Naturally such a temple-host would be led by the saurus oldblood Axil'kandar the Celestial. XD

Tail came from a spare oldblood, left over from having turned the carnosaur into a trogladon instead. I can't remember my thought process on why I didn't use the oldblood's head before anybody asks.

The body is a mostly untouched Para Bellum Conquest's City States Polemarch. And can I add how thankful I was that Para Bellum games chose 40mm scale for their games, that made converting lizards far easier.

Arms, legs and head came from the new saurus. And reminded me why legs are the most annoying part of a conversion for me . I swear that the most time I spent was on trying to measure out where to cut, how to position so they look natural, then cursing when I made a mistake resulting in the use of greenstuff to angle the leg better. In comparison, I like arms. Arms are nice and don't argue with me.

And as I write this post, I realise I made a mistake about when I said finished the conversion in the original post, as the battletome was already out if I had access to the new saurus... I suppose I must not have registered the lack of Eternity Warden until after I had finished. Probably still feeling salty about my beatstick the Sunblood being removed from the roster.

Edit: I have a box of City States Thorakites waiting for conversion into saurus temple guardians, but events mean that right now it's been shunted down on the list of priorities. Though I hope to get that one done sooner than later, just got to get some other matters out of the way and clear up my work some.

 

Ave Imperator! An excellent conversion you have there!

I wouldn't worry about the existence of Roman themes amidst the Tilean army in Warhammer Fantasy for the following reasons:

1. The 'Reman Empire' is simply a footnote amidst the whole history of the Tilean faction - though there are nods to the Romans through a lot of Tilea's history, the 'modern' Tileans at the time of the Warhammer Fantasy game are unfortunately more based off Renaissance Italy (and even their more Roman historical incarnation still takes on a lot of Renaissance Italian themes. I thoroughly dislike the decisions GW made with this over the years, but what is an annoyance to me turns out to be great for you, as it means you're actually not copying any full-on Roman faction in Warhammer, because there's never been one.
2. Tilea only exists in Warhammer Fantasy, and you're using your army in AoS, a game set in a universe where the Warhammer Fantasy world is dead and buried. The destroyed human cultures of the Old World have very little influence upon those in the AoS Mortal Realms (especially as the new Cities of Sigmar faction moves away from the old Empire models aesthetically and culturally), so they shouldn't have any influence upon your Lizardmen either. Additionally, AoS Lizardmen are divided into the Starborne and Coalesced, and the Coalesced are those Lizardmen who have settled in the Mortal Realms for a long time, are flesh and blood again and are more distant from the Slann than their Starborne brothers. Thus there is definite possibility that that distance from the Slann and the Great Plan could potentially result in a gradual evolution of culture from a neo-Aztec one to a neo-Roman one, stimulated by interaction with outsiders and changing directions of governance, especially if they've been there for centuries or even millennia.
3. It's your army, so you can do what you like with it! You've set out your vision for your own unique Lizardman army and that's great, it'd be a dreadful waste if you went back on that and made the rest of your army look comparatively generic. Don't throw away such a great idea - keep it going, and your army will blossom into a work of greatness as a result.

I look forward to seeing the rest of your scaled lacerta legion take shape, I can see how it'd work - Saurus as Legionaries, Temple Guard as Praetorians, Skinks (with javelins only, nothing so un-Roman as a blowpipe) as Velite skirmishers... a cracking idea for getting the creative juices flowing!

Carpe diem, et ad victoria!

 

Oh, no worries about that. The plan is that the bulk of my army is taking its inspiration from a different empire that I know for a fact has no presence in Warhammer Fantasy (and is a cause of many jokes with my friends). Just wrap your mind around skinks wearing those rather fashionable red coats worn in the 1700's. I'll have a picture of my proof of concept model for that theme at some point; want to see if I can take a better photo than the one currently littering a post on Reddit. Though the greatest picture in the world won't remove the horrible mold line that only showed up after it was painted...

For the longest time, I felt that the skinks would be the only ones I'd be able to easily convert. Proportions of saurus make finding other models that actually fit with lizards a challenge. Skinks, being small, had a world of possibilities.

I think a slightly understated part of my choice to venture away from the Roman look was pricing of converting the saurus in particular. Before I found out about Para Bellum's Conquest, the only option I could find for the Roman vibe that could possibly work with saurus was the Elder Scrolls Call to Arms' Empire figures. Which only worked for the old saurus models, and were still rather anorexic, and had to use the heads from Wargames Atlantic's lizardmen, so they lack the distinct bone crest. Which ok, I've just rationalised as a different breed of saurus more reminiscent of the original 5th ed designs.

I have ten of those conversions, plus a skink priest converted from General Tullius. And the price for a box of six models for converting? That was making my mothball filled wallet weep.

With the British Empire project, the plan is to 3d print for saurus... I actually have 90 of the b'tards printed... just waiting for the friend with the 3d printer to actually post them to me. That leaves me only needing to worry about manually converting the skinks, which is both cheaper... and more rage inducing (Legs are my mortal enemy! Why skinks? why you have such smol and thin legs? )

Also gives me the amusement of my chameleon skirmishers being based off of Sharpe and his Chosen Men.

Though as time passes, I am quite open to expanding the Roman-inspired into a sperate army, and one on the British Empire. For the time being, the Roman ones shall be temple guards though. Just trying to be optimal for the time being. Work on the project more likely to actually be finished before expanding.

I have lore for the army, and am planning to post up the (still in-progress) fanfiction about them here on LO, just going to take the opportunity to go through each chapter for any editing that might need doing before posting. I promise, it makes a twisted sense.

Also, good grief, I blither on...

 

Another equally inspiring idea, though, aside from red uniforms harmonising with your Oldblood's cloak and tunic, I don't see how he would fit in with the alternative British Empire theme, unless he's to represent a male, reptilian incarnation of Britannia.

In any case, I look forward to seeing your army (or armies) take shape!

 

From a meta standpoint, it allows an easy visual difference between warriors and guardians. From an internal lore standpoint, the idea is that they went through several variations of uniforms before they went with the redcoats, while the guardians were a touch more stubborn about conforming, and refused to constantly change, and settled on the Remas armour while the rest eventually settled on redcoats.

The fluff elaborated on: When they began with the wearing of warmblood-esque clothing (done to help in communications because warmbloods are a fickle sort), it started while the temple-host was in Tilea, so they directly drew influence from the old Remas Empire, but the progression to redcoats was their gradual shift to creating their own culture rather than simply mimicking other in-universe cultures. But as I said, the oldblood who specifically commands temple guards is a stubborn bull that disliked change. He grit his teeth and barely tolerated the Remas armour, but then dug his heels in for any further alterations for himself or his command. (And let's face it, saurus guardians pulling off a testudo formation would be awesome to behold)

It's not much different than the real world British Grenadiers still wearing red tunics and bearskins when working as the King's Guard. It's an outdated "traditional" uniform, but those wearing the silly fuzzy hats and lack of camouflage are still highly trained soldiers held to the highest standard. At least this particular oldblood and his guardians have something more functional than hats that make them look taller (actually, isn't that basically the hat Naggash wears in AoS these days?)

Disclaimer: I am aware the the Grenadiers only wear the tunics and bearskins on the ceremonial duty of guarding Buckingham Palace and other sites, and switch to modern fatigues when abroad, no need to point that out to me.