sho3box

I painted some Celtic barbarian miniatures from a comic that I love, and then spent an afternoon having them run around hitting the Celtic barbarian miniatures of a friend.

Good times.

Warlord Games released the Sláine; Kiss My Axe! skirmish miniatures game, based on the 2000AD comic strip, a month or so ago. I like 2000AD and I like Sláine and I like miniature skirmish games, so I decided to get stuck in.

The setting is loosely based on a fantasy/mythical version of Ireland, with a fair bit of Scotland, Wales, France and England in the mix too. Much of the story is set in a faux Pangea like era, when those geographical areas are connected by land.

Sláine is rogueish Celtic berserker, prone to Hulk-like tansformations in combat: “warp spasms”. They vary in appearance every time, so there isn’t a typical look to a warp out. You can be fairly sure that Sláine will grow in mass and height, but the visual is often far more bizarre than just that.

The transformations are inspired by descriptions in various myths, primarily on Cú Chulainn from the Ulster Cycle of Irish myth, in The Táin:

“The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front…
On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child… he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn’t probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek.
His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram’s fleece reached his mouth from his throat…
The hair of his head twisted like the tangle of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage.“

— Thomas Kinsella (translator), The Táin, Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 150–153

Intense.

It is also fun to think that even in an era when a vast number of supeheroes have been represented on TV and in cinema, I don’t think that I have seen anything like that described, except in horror movies. One day maybe…

Initially I decided to work on the “Earth Tribes” faction – essentially fantasy celts, and that faction that includes Sláine – from the starter set, while The Bazpaz worked on the “Drunes” for Sláine to rip in half/collect and drink from their skulls etc. I also painted my copy of the resin terrain piece in the box, a corrupt magical locus called a “Weirdstone”.

Like another friend of mine, (I have several buddies. Trust me, I’m as surprised anyone…) I’m consciously trying to be less fussy about the miniatures that I paint. Life is short, and I have many miniatures and games to play.

I still took too long to finish painting these, but anyway, they looked perfectly adequate on the gaming table last weekend. They are finished.
This same attitude applies to my photos, which could be better, but they are good enough. Better to get the figures painted , photographed and played with to an adequate level, than to get bogged down.

I enjoyed painting these. I don’t often copy colour schemes from fixed sources, but it actually made this process nice and simple, which was a fun change.

I’m currently working on a few more figs from this range, so with a bit of luck I will get them up here soon. I also have a load of recent miniatures, terrain and gaming events that I would love to document here at some point, so who knows what will happen first.

Thanks for reading!

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2000AD, 2022, Celts, Comics, Fantasy, Slaine Kiss My Axe, Sláine, Warlord Games |