I would be very interested to hear Lizard players opinions of my Pygmy army (as featured in the Bat Rep I did). I do get the distinct impression (a bit, certainly from TPV) that many find the idea somewhat repulsive, as if I am letting the side down. Like I have taken the idea of Slann and Skinks and made them look silly. The truth is I loved the idea of doing something which fitted the Warhammer World (Pygmies have been there since 1980s WD articles) but which wasn't part of the current mainstream. I have done this with also with my Zombie Pirate army and Arab Empire army. Also, the way in which the Pygmies can be fielded as an entirely legal 'counts as' army - with the correct base sizes and WYSIWYG weapons and armour appealed to me. The conversions were not hard - a few toys with flash cut off and painted up (Stegadon and Salamanders); a bit of brown thread and balsa wood (Stegadon and 'Gorillagors'). The only difficult bit was getting the Gorillas to fit into the Pygmy cohort regiment when the new book came out. The fluff is easy. The official fluff is that there is a scarcity of Lizards in the Southlands cf. Lustria. So I have a few Skink Priests ruling a city now populated by Pygmies - the last dying gasp of an attempt at 'civilisation' in a ruined city.
I do not mind the idea at all though I wish the gorillia and salamander models were better sculpted. Some more testure on them would be great.
I think it looks great, although you should post what each represents though I think I've figured it out. i don't think anyone minds you getting creative, I sure don't. I am currently in the process of writing my own Native Army Book
I too think the theme is great and the idea of lizardmen ruling an aztec-like race of natives is plausible, very cool idea. However, the models do let the army down a touch.. It would probably be possible to convert most of the army from GW models or similar (Rackham etc), the gorillas could be based on ogre yetis, or maybe eve just ogres. Steg could obviously be the steg with modifications to make it more primitive and less gold, there are plenty of human models to base the main army on and decent boars etc. Unless your plan is to make a cheap army and avoid GW products? If that is it, then it has worked well and you have mode it look good given what you have. I can approach it with an open mind and see that the theme is a really good one and the models are well painted and look good even if the level of detail is a bit lacking. And it is indeed cool that you can use the army legally.
Ah ha, you have worked out my cunning plan. Yes I wanted cheap - because I felt I couldn't explain to my partner spending the cash on official figures. I got bargain bucket plastic toy dinosaurs and such from pound shops. Oh, and the Pygmies weren't too expensive ether (I think they came in packs of 10). @ Scarloc: Yeah, there is little detail on the toys, but I find their basic simplicity endearing. I had to scratch what texture there is (i.e. a little bit of fur) onto the Gorillagors. Thought you might be interested in just how bad for detail the original 'models' were. Here's a picture of them in the early stages of conversion work... Ghastly in many ways, yet fun in other ways. As soon as it occurred to me that I could have a Pygmy army I just had to do it. Converting an whole army worth of figures, however, was not my idea of fun, so I bought the Kallistra pygmies. I searched a LONG time for suitable gorillas to be Saurus warriors, and although I found these three for Kroxigor stand ins, there is nothing out there the right size for saurus. (Apart from space suited sci fi chappies!!) @ Cracken: It’s a legal force when considered in terms of ‘counts as’. These are basically Southlands’ Halflings, but function mostly as skinks, with the same weapons, stats and rules, though perhaps different reasons for the rules. Take Cold Blooded, for example. I’ll stick to the mechanics of the rules, but say it works so not because of their ‘cold-blooded’ lack of emotion, but because the pygmies are ‘stubborn little buggers’ who fight that little bit more ferociously for the very reason they are so small – if they didn’t they’d not survive! First up, Swarms – easy enough: they’re just the same… ..but I have put some spiders in there too to bulk out the lizards. If the Pygmies come from a part of the Southlands world with no Saurus only a handful of skinks then I reckon they might be a bit short of smaller lizards too. For Salamanders it’s simply a matter of replacing the skink handlers with pygmies, armed similarly with little javelins. (The Salamanders were plastic toys that I just had to paint – they’re kind of cute, until they breath fire on you!) The three Skink priests are not your usual figures. They’ll have the fluff that they’re an unusual spawning, a different species but part of the Skink genus (sort of thing). This is because they’re actually really old Slann models from the early 1980s! They're not really painted in my modern style, and they're gloss varnished, but I like that as they seem to be wet, which is apt for aquatic creatures. I’ll probably go for two units of skirmishers, 14-20 in number according to the total size of the army. Here, once again, blowpipe armed Pygmies take the place of the Skinks. Same stats - but as I can’t work out why they would be aquatic, I think I’ll just say they’re not. No opponent is going to complain if I get rid of some abilities and thus make them worse than usual! I used to do this with them in our old campaign. Now here is the most ‘dodgy’ one. I have rebased my pygmy boar riders and use now use them as ‘counts as’ Saurus. I know they’re Str 4, but the boars look like they might well be. I know they’re supposed to have a 5+ scaly skin save, well I’ll keep that and say it is actually the usual 5+ save for mounted plus thick skinned. And finally I know they have two attacks – well, fine, that’s one from the rider and one from the boar. Their non cavalry movement rate can be due to their ridiculously short legs! The only really dodgy bit is the fact that both attacks are Strength 4 - I think maybe in a friendly campaign, I'd do one at Str 4 (Boar) and one at Str 2 (rider), but in a straight game, I'd just say they 'count as' Saurus and get on with it. I felt I had to do this as the army won’t really function without them, not now that the new list has ditched Southland’s variant Horned One riders which these guys used to count as. Now for my favourite ‘new’ unit: Skinks with Kroxigors. I’d already modelled my gorilla versions of Kroxigors, called ‘Gorillagors’, and now realised they’re hands scraped the ground, meaning a front rank of Pygmies wouldn’t fit. So I took 6 pygmies, broke them off their bases, and repositioned them so that they could stand before the Gorillagors. I even had to gauge chunks out of the bases so that the gorillas’ hands wouldn’t be knocked out of place. I like them so much here’s another picture: Finally, the last two units. I don’t think three Skink Priests and a tribe of pygmies could keep an engine of the gods running, so their Stegadon is your basic giant bow model. Yet again, however, it’s a toy plastic dinosaur converted … The Terradons, however, I didn’t like the toy options I found, so I bought the GW ones and put pygmies on their backs. I do like these and might have a Tic-tac-to (spelling?) equivalent, but I’m not sure. I don’t like units who might never turn up. I’d rather have ‘em from the word go and build a more solid plan around them. They never, ever won a game as a Southland’s variant from the old book, what with no ranks for the FC Horned Ones (my boars), but now I have stone dropping Terradons and a unit that counts as Saurus.
No I just wanted to see what was what, which is what you did here, I was just curious, not stating it shouldn't work. Looks pretty sweet to me those are some big gorillas
I knew what you meant, but I just babbled on a bit in reply and put in more information in the answer than strictly necessary. I did realise you just wanted labels with the pictures. Yeah, I like those Gorillas and was very pleased when the new Krox + Skink units were created!
My only question would be that since your 'counts as' Saurus Warriors are mounted on boars, what would your 'counts as' SCoR be? Pigmies riding boars, who in turn are riding bigger, stupider boars? Actually, that sounds pretty awesome...