Blog The Jade Host: Mayan Lizardmen

Did some work on unfinished projects today.

Inspired by @Lord-Marcus 's May Monster Mash I am going to see if I can finish my carnosaur this month.



Spent today mostly doing the gold and detail work, still need to finish a bit more then I can assemble him.

Also @Kalokagathia inspired me back onto another project... did some major work on my standard bearer, he is nearly done as well!

 

You can do it!

 

My standard bearer is complete, and my carnosaur will be right behind him.

Spoiler: standard bearer

Front:



Back:

 

My saurus oldblood on his carnosaur are complete!



Right Side view:



The big man himself, Sijak K'ak, known to the warmbloods as Smoke Frog:

Spoiler: other side

His skull shoulder pad needs a bit more work , as do his shrunken heads, but he is assembled finally!

I tried a little jade work on his weapon this time too, kinda worked...

His lore entry, dredged up from my army fluff thread:


To the warm-bloods he is known as “Smoke Frog,” for his name glyph appears to be the head of a frog, on its side, wreathed in smoke. However to the Lizardmen he is referred to as “Fire is Born,” for he was spawned just as the ancient empire of the Lizardmen erupted in the flames of war. Sijak K’ak was spawned during the final calm directly before the Great Catastophe, and has served Jatzom Kuh as his general and commander in the field ever since. As a young saurus war-chief, he witnessed the fall of Mutal as he retreated from the city limits, commanding the rear-guard column of the escaping Slann. Through the centuries his fellow saurus spawn-kin were whittled away until only he now remains. Sijak K’ak has achieved many victories alongside the Jade Host against the would-be intruders of the jungles, including the rat-spawn and the vile elven slavers of the northern continent. However, despite his great tactical intellect, on the battlefield he is less of a leader to his forces and more of a giant, brutal killing machine. This is especially true in recent years, as he now rarely rides into battle on anything less than the most savage carnosaurs raised by the skinks of the Beast Caste in the pens and stables of Mutal. His current mount is named Tajal, meaning “Torch,” aptly named for such an engine of destruction.


...As far as the model himself goes, the saurus rider is magnetized so he can be removed from his mount, just in case he was killed before the carnosaur itself went down. Eventually I will make the rider his own ground base so he can run with the infantry (though his giant tail will make that difficult in a ranked formation).



The back banners are also removable (magnetized). The elaborate back banner will be used whenever he is run as an Oldblood, but if I go with the cheaper Scar Veteran option then the little stone-nub will take its place.

Here the model is running as a scar-vet (no large back banner):



And here are all the separate pieces!



I should mention that the inspiration for this conversion came from @Joseph T Chidzey and his gloriously converted purple carnosaur.

 

Some family photos!

Smoke Frog and the Army Battle Standard Bearer:



I am planning to name the standard bearer and his eventual twin (a Gor-Rok counts-as) after the hero twins of Mayan mythology, he doesn't get a name until the next model is finished.

Carnosaur and the Stegadon:



The not-t-rex makes the stegadon look tiny!


And here are all the monstrous dinosaurs of the Jade Host!

 

Repairs have commenced on the Jungle Fortress!

The original Jungle Fortress was built back in late 2012 out of straight up floral foam (first posted in this thread back in 2016 though); so far it has survived three moves mostly intact, though on the last one it received some major damages...



The towers might look mostly intact, but that is only because I had to go through and stack up all the fallen bricks (90% stacked in this picture). Since they had the structurally integrity of a game of jenga, I decided to repair them with liberal amounts of glue and toothpicks.

After a few hours of work, the fortress is looking much better!



I also went ahead and added some texture to most of the basing itself. The whole structure is in need of a new coat of paint, plus one or two missing bricks.

Here it is with the two sets of doors which I am considering to magnetize:



And a couple small terrain projects an repairs on the side:

 

What material do you use?

 

Yup most of the bricks are all floral foam (company Oasis, pic here). It works really well; the wet foam is easy to cut but tends to flake off due to the first coat of paint. Conversly the dry foam is sturdier but more difficult to cut into smaller chunks. If I had to do it again though I would probably make the walls and the towers out of more solid pieces to provide more structural integrity.

Please do, the idea came straight from the Lustria Campaign book.

 

Smashed together two more siege towers this evening!

 

Took me ages to look through it all
Good stuff - love looking at peoples older stuff as it transitions (your bases stood out)

Love your scenery it’s somehing I’ve never dabbled in (if I do I will be visiting here again for inspiration lol!)

Keep up the good work.

 

Thank you for the compliments, and @Lezlor for the visit and ton of likes filling up my inbox!

I decided to make these two faction specific for my Lustrian Bretonnians this time:



They were very quick and easy to make compared to the last one (having the front of the tower as a solid piece helped) but I also wish I had made them all taller. I think if they had a second level it would have been better, so that a small troop of archers would site on top while the combaty troops could huddle underneath them until the drawbridge drops. Maybe next time...

I want to do some Lizardmen specific siege towers someday, but if I do they will have to be on the backs of some plastic toy brachiosaurs. Maybe with some stegadon howdah bits!

 

...maybe make some siege towers like this guy:



Saw this thing in one of my local game stores. They have a ton of Star Trek and Star Wars ships (and other World War model planes) hanging from the ceiling, and the other day while I was exploring I came across this beauty! It was huge, I think it was almost 3 feet tall!

 

Hmm.....weeeeelllll.....it’s on a square base and I play AoS, but I’m not “that guy” when it comes to bases....How many points for that bad boy?

 

Probably a lot, considering a stampede from these things is enough to level an entire temple city!

 

Pff! That’s so broken! Typical seraphon! #broken