Monday 27 April 2020

Ungor Skirmishers




Greetings vaqueros! Today I will be showing you some ungor skirmishers I've painted up to be used as 'allies' (read: slaves) for my growing Dark Elf army for 4th/5 edition Warhammer Fantasy games.


Dark Elves are often depicted as ruthless slave masters in their fluff but I can't recall a single time I've seen this represented on the field of battle - my regular opponent growing up would regularly thrash my noble High Elves with his force of emo Naggarothi hedonist but apart from lending him some of my undead units to bulk out his numbers, we never really had a chance to explore the true depths of their depravity. With my own army, I intend to get depraved *LICKS LIPS*

"Depravity? Do let'ssssssss..."

Ungor are the smallest members of the beastmen armies, and the most numerous. They are not terrible warriors, sporting tough hides and weapon skill at least matching that of an ordinary human, and they are cheap, existing at that special low points value that means all their equipment is paid in increments of half a point.

"We is cheap, clean an' effishunt!"

"I ain't clean. I crapped me loincloth. Twice. Goin' fer thirds."
 In addition, one unit of ungors in your force can be skirmishers - dispersed formation units that can spread out and cover the units behind them with their delicious meaty bodies, whilst being harder to hit with shooting attacks.
So to recap - they are tough, they have shields and they are hard to hit, which can make them a real pain in the butt to deal with. What dark elf could say no to such utility?

"Hear dat? We is ded useful, we is!"

"Yeah, we is ded."

 Sadly (for them), their usefulness makes them very desirable, so they are the first creature I shall enslave, coaxing them out of the dark pines of the Mourning Wood with hunks of raw meat on sticks and then comically capturing them with large nets springing up from the ground or iron-barred cages falling from the trees... somehow. Following that, a short but brutal series of indoctrinations, training seminars and Pavlovian response techniques to convince them to run at large imposing enemy forces with a combination of puppy-like enthusiasm and hunger-based determination.

"Boss sez they keep sausages in dere pants, let's get 'em!"

"Sometimes dey is stuck in dere real good, gotta tug at 'em summat fierce!"

I'm very happy at how fast these beastie boys painted up; two evenings with the Contrast paint and all 17 were done (I will add some command figures later to make 20). The skin was simply Apothecary White straight from the bottle over Wraithbone spray undercoat - this ends up light grey and not white like advertised, if you want to paint white with Contrast try Apothecary over a pure white base coat.
Next I added thinned down Contrast Magos Purple into all the recesses on the body and a little on the arms and face to add depth and make the flesh more 'alive' looking -
it's usually worth taking the time to do extra steps like this even when mass producing paint jobs, especially when you save so much time using Contrast.
The furry parts were straight Contrast Wyldwood, though every 5th ungor was painted with grey fur to break the monotony. The light grey/dark brown scheme was meant to evoke some gothic dark forest fairy tale feeling, since Dark Elves hail from the frozen north of the world where shadowy pine trees stand mysterious and evergreen. Or some shit like that. I chose warm browns and flesh tones for the weapons as a bit of a Contrast contrast to the gloomy scheme of the beasts. The shields are made from human skin because it's even easier to source unethically than procuring beastmen, alive or dead.

Well that's it for these guys, I can't wait to see them all die for my cruel amusement! And what's next? Well, what's the opposite of a bunch of light skirmish meat shields? A HEAVY METAL TANK.

The radio only picks up one station and it plays nothing but upbeat European techno. 


Adios for now!

6 comments:

  1. Tasty! I really must get me some apothecary white. These are lovely wee beasties you've done. I agree about 'not enough slaves' in some armies. But dude, where the druchii with the whip? Come on bro.

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    1. I've got a couple of ideas for a slave-master type hero but it's all about the balance - as in, how best can I balance a character model on top of a raging angry beast?

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  2. Clap clap clap! I love them!! They have their own kind of charm!

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    1. Thanks Suber, they are underrated as far as beastmen go I think, angry little satyrs in a world full of raging bulls. I'm very fond of them!

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  3. Nice stuff, I’m cracking on with some 90’s beastmen and just picked up a rogue trader era rhino, not with a turret Razorback whirlwind whatever but the handrails are intact. I’ll be following these projects closely. It’s interesting that the ungor stand up to a wide spectrum of skin tones a lot of figs just look bizarre if you deviate from the GW pattern. Really cool.

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    1. I was tempted to paint them bright red to make a horde of angry little devils after the fashion of Looney Toons or Tenacious D. Maybe I'll save one for that...

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