Deathworld Flora and Fauna: Ambull 30/08/14

cheetor

Baron
floraandfaunaofexoticcatachan.jpg


I have started a project to populate my game table with alien beasts and plants that are a worthy match for the most 'roided up Catachan Jungle Fighter. The large Age of the Imperium section in the Rogue Trader rulebook featured lots of bugs, beasts and buds that captured my imagination back then, so this project is a bit of nostalgic wish fulfillment for me. No strangers to that on this forum methinks ;)

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A couple of the creatures here have been painted for a couple of years, but the majority were painted in September/October. I posted these on the Lead Adventure Forum a while back too, so if you frequent that place then you may have seen them before. The provisional list of items for inclusion in this project is HERE, with some waffle about my thinking on it HERE.

Most of the concepts come from the Rogue Trader bestiary but there are a few others from other sources too.  As time goes on I plan to slowly add to this project. Not all additions will be RT based, but they will all exist in my pulpy, gaudy, shoddy TV set filled, man-in-a-suit monster populated corner of the miniature universe, which is very much an RT sort of place. If it looks like a miniature version of the unconvincing patch of sand where a young William Shatner would punch a blue guy in the face before making out with a green lady wearing an unconvincing wig, then I am doing something right.

This is a long term project with plans to add things here and there for a while, so it wont be finished any time soon.  I do hope to make steady progress through the list though.  The bold titles link back to my blog entries on each of the creatures/plants.

The first entry is this CATACHAN DEVIL (a very quickly painted Reaper Bones Ice Wyrm)

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I painted it to match the NECROMUNDA MILLIASAURS that I painted a few years ago.  Those smaller guys will hopefully feature as its young in a future game.

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Next is a CTHELLEAN CUDBEAR (a SotTR Urzine Were Bear)

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The model is hard to photograph due to its pose, but it does actually have a face, as shown here in eye-watering, paint job crucifying detail here:

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The model is roughly ogre sized.
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The next thing that I got finished was a suitable pack of middle sized predators, which will serve as proxy DEATH FERRETS (Splintered Light 15mm Dire Hyeneae, plus a Reaper ferret familiar:

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After that I finished off a herd of 24 DUNGERS (from Ramshackle Games).  Although they are not a perfect visual match for RT grox, they will serve a similar role in my games.

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Next some tentacle brain type things that spun into their own sub project. but they fit in nicely as ENSLAVERS.

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GYRINX were the things that started this whole project, as I wanted to add a few to my RT based skirmish games.
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These GIANT RATS were bought for use in Necromunda "Rawhide" sorts of scenarios back in the nineties but I didnt get around to very quickly painting them until 2011. I want to rebase them, but I may never get around to that.

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Lastly some shots of the beasts frolicking in their natural environment, Discovery channel style:

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Expect some more additions as the months/years go by.  I am looking forward to getting some hostile plants done in particular.

Comments and criticisms (and to an extent requests) all gratefully received :)
 
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

These are ace! The only one I'm not too taken by is the Grox proxies, but that's just a personal thing. Love the way you've painted these up and it's a great project.
 
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Some very excellent beasts, like CC, the grox sculpt is a little too cartoony for my taste but the exquisite painting makes him very good nonetheless. I had a laugh seeing alf next to your gyrinx, I'm pretty sure he's thinking about wether the oven is large enough or not... :grin:
Th eferrets ar emy favourite of uour alien fauna. They show that a clever paintjob can make a normal podel look completely alien without needing any weird features., brilliant.
The enslavers are really good too, nearly got me to buy a shotgun in a "doom" style.

Can't wait to see the flora now.
 

cheetor

Baron
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Citadel Collector":31p4wul3 said:
These are ace! The only one I'm not too taken by is the Grox proxies, but that's just a personal thing

The "Dungers" (Ramshackle games) are odd models and their design aesthetic tends to be divisive. They are goofy and more than a bit Fraggle Rock looking, but they are cheap (thereby allowing me to put together a sizable herd) and enjoyably chunky models. The stylings are definitely not to everyones tastes, not even mine in some ways :lol:

I have plans to use other models as grox proxies, but I will never have as many of those as I have Dungers, so the role of "herd of dangerous space cattle" will always fall to these guys I reckon.


Citadel Collector":31p4wul3 said:
Love the way you've painted these up and it's a great project.

Thanks. Its a surprisingly fun project to work on as it makes a change from painting yet another space person/thing with a huge gun. Down sides include a sharp increase in my Ambull-envy... Im just going to have to get my hands on one of them somewhere.
 

cheetor

Baron
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Asslessman":2s9x7jv7 said:
Some very excellent beasts, like CC, the grox sculpt is a little too cartoony for my taste but the exquisite painting makes him very good nonetheless.

The dungers are just one of those things. More people than I expected like the finished product, but the joke was wearing thin by the time that I finished the twenty fourth model...
Once the herd migrates through the middle of a game between Inquisitorial warbands the extreme goofiness will fade into the background. Probably... ;)


Asslessman":2s9x7jv7 said:
Th eferrets ar emy favourite of uour alien fauna. They show that a clever paintjob can make a normal podel look completely alien without needing any weird features., brilliant.

I was vaguely riffing on the viperwolves from Avatar for those, just to try to imagine what a dangerous "business" of space ferrets might act and look like.

viperwolf.jpg



Asslessman":2s9x7jv7 said:
The enslavers are really good too, nearly got me to buy a shotgun in a "doom" style.

Big time, hate those cacodemons :)

The Enslavers were fun and unusual enough to spin off into their own skirmish sized project, complete with gaudy looking APC:

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Asslessman":2s9x7jv7 said:
Can't wait to see the flora now.

Flora supplies bought and definite plans made, but my hobby timetable is jammed at the moment. I hope to get to them by mid 2014, but we will see how that goes.


Count Von Bruno":2s9x7jv7 said:
Hey where did you get Alf from Melmac from? :lol:

you shouldn't let him so close to a cat!

The Alien Life Form came from Four A Miniatures. Cat/dinner supplied by the now sadly defunct Mega Miniatures.
 

Orjetax

Lord
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

I rather like the herd animals, as I do everything else you've posted here.

Please tell me that someone, somewhere, is selling Alf miniatures and that is not a one-off sculpt. Because that's very funny and I want one.
 
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Great collection of miniatures Cheetor.I have some of the Dungers hidden away some place too.Nice and weird pieces that are usefull for so many settings.

I hope to release more weird creature types to my range in the New Year.

Been picking up plant type scenery from pet shops to use in games when I get around to it.

Looking forward to seeing this thread updated.
 

Zhu Bajie

Baron
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Top drawer, lots of lovely stuff. Gungers look nice blue.

Enslavers are such a rip of the D&D Beholders, it's nice to see you're using one as one.

Also I heartily applaud your "man in a rubber suit" approach to 40k and direct you to these which I've long thought of being nice pulp-sci-fi not-marines:

http://wargameterrain.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... iners.html
 

cheetor

Baron
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Thanks for all the kind feedback folks :)

manic _miner":3tliwpvt said:
Been picking up plant type scenery from pet shops to use in games when I get around to it.

I had a look around local petshops recently and was disappointed with the expense of the decidedly pedestrian foliage. I plan to have a root around online to try to get some of the more exotically coloured foliage types that can be seen on The Black Hole blog, but that will have to wait until the new year due to budgetary constraints.

I do have plans for more specific sorts of hostile flora though. Spikers, Venus Man-Traps, that sort of thing.

manic _miner":3tliwpvt said:
Also checkout the new releases for some cracking little critters.

http://pyre.mybigcommerce.com/specials/

I very much like the look of the "3 Wee Beasties" in the World of Twilight Christmas Masters set, they would fit in here very well. Are they available separately? I would love to add about three of each of those to this project.


Zhu Bajie":3tliwpvt said:
Enslavers are such a rip of the D&D Beholders, it's nice to see you're using one as one.

I have very little doubt that D&D figures were used in the original playtest game of RT when the Enslavers and Ferro Beasts showed up. They are fun models too. Floating tentacle brain aliens FTW.


Zhu Bajie":3tliwpvt said:
Also I heartily applaud your "man in a rubber suit" approach to 40k

All this stuff is pulp as far as I am concerned. Even the ostensibly slightly grittier Aliens or Starship Troopers or totally ridiculous AI-runs-amok-and-tries-to-exterminate-humanity-with-skeleton-robots environments are pulp as far as I am concerned. My corner of the 40K-verse owes a lot to mash-ups like Samurai Jack and Futurama.

Zhu Bajie":3tliwpvt said:
and direct you to these which I've long thought of being nice pulp-sci-fi not-marines:

http://wargameterrain.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... iners.html

They are very nice, particularly the final domed helmeted guy with the hammer. I would be more than happy to use those figures in my 40K games, but I find that I have not deprogrammed myself sufficiently to happily field them as Astartes :lol:
To be honest I think that I have had my fill of Space Marines at this stage. I have a Deathwatch Kill Team sitting in a box, waiting for some attention but I would be happy to find that they are the final Space Marines models that I ever paint.
 
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Those are all very cool. :)

Although it's not one of the flora/fauna, I also wanted to say I love the raggedy guy with the umbrella and stripes... so strange, so fun!
 

cheetor

Baron
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Magos Explorator":2zcutvt2 said:
Those are all very cool. :)

Thanks :)

Magos Explorator":2zcutvt2 said:
Although it's not one of the flora/fauna, I also wanted to say I love the raggedy guy with the umbrella and stripes... so strange, so fun!

The "Gentleman Scavenger" is an old Mark Copplestone sculpt available from EM4 miniatures. It comes from the range that Chico is using to make his Necromunda Swamp Ratz at the moment. Its an absolutely fantastic range of figures that fits in perfectly with RT stuff.
 

cheetor

Baron
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Count Von Bruno":3skpgpmn said:
I now have an Alien Life Form inbound :grin:

"Alfs back, in po... I mean 28mm... form!"

Gordon Schumway would be of questionable use to the average Inquisitorial retinue, but even the sternest of the Emperors servants need some light comic relief from time to time I guess. And he is less annoying than John Zoidberg.

zoidberg6.jpg
 
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Such an excellent thread.

Very nice to see the size of the Splintered light minis abd I heartily approve of the Ramshackle Dungers; I approve of both their style and cost 8-)
 
Re: Deathworld Flora and Fauna

Remember seeing some great death world flora made from dried flowers like lotus flowers and bell cups, painted up they looked very creepy.
 
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