Shadespyre Intro Post - Baluk's Bane: Karnac Returns

Should you wander into a tavern near the coast, maybe in Marienburg, ply the patrons with ale and then ask for tales of Lizardmen, you will hear all about the jungles of Lustria, and pyramid cities stacked with gold, and the exotic blue-scaled Lizardmen and other huge reptiles that guard them. 

But in the East, in the shadow of the mountains, you may find an old dwarven prospector who will recount a different story.  Of how the Dwarves built the glorious mountain city of Caraz-A-Carak, but then delved so deep into the mountain roots that they disturbed all manner of foul creatures. How chief amongst those was Karnac and his savage band of Lizardmen. And that in the main chamber of the 142nd level, Karnac slew and subsequently ate a dozen Dwarf warriors, including Baluk Ironfist, the heir to the Kingship. How for almost a hundred years the Dwarves battled against the Lizardmen, chamber by chamber and level by level, until they gave up hope of ever recovering the lower tracts, and sealed them off by collapsing the connecting passages. And so the white lizard Karnac, presumably now trapped back in the depths, passed first into history and then legend.

But what if Karnac survived, and prospered, adding more warriors to his band of Lizardman raiders, and bringing other champions under his command?

And what if I was to paint them?

Let’s see...

Yes, it’s going to be Lizardmen. Specifically, The Regiment of Renown “Karnac’s Lizardman Raiders” and the similarly styled C19 Lizardmen range. Even more specifically, only the pre-slotta versions of those models from 1984(ish).

NOSTALGIA WARNING: this is for me a “golden age” of Citadel miniatures. That strange space where the early Fantasy Tribes based ranges were starting to be replaced, but before slotta-tabs appeared. Where the scale moved away from true 25mm towards something more heroic, and where, bizarrely, someone decided to emboss a label (race and/or D&D character class) into the top of every miniatures base. In this space we find wonderful chubby Halflings, some gloriously over-dressed High Elves, some nice Norse Dwarves, a truly unmatched range of Half-Orcs – and these Lizardmen. 

Anyway, these are serious Lizardmen. Big enough to eat a Dwarf at one sitting, scaly enough to justify that 2W profile. While some of them do have a touch of the Central Americas about them, most of them would look at home in your standard Fantasy Europe dungeon or swamp. I shall be using the less exotic minis for the OWAC IV project, though I do hope that alongside this force I can get at least one of each variant painted, just for the sake of the collection. 

Because some of you are still scratching your heads and wondering what I’m on about, and because it is The Done Thing, here are some pictures of some miniatures and a vague shape of an army list. The specifics may change a bit – there are some minis still in the post, and I have a whole lot more of the Raiders than are pictured – but this is approximately what is needed to get me over the line. For an army list, I’m using the old RoR profiles and the vague entry in Ravening Hordes as a guide.

The Leaders of the Raiders – Karnac on the left, the model I’m using for the Champion, Huris, on the right. In classic Citadel style, though Huris is named in the blurb and has a listed profile, there was no model included in the sets...

367.5 points for that lot. 

Raiders – I think there’s 15 in the shot, but I expect I’ll be painting at least 20    (yes I have a lot of these guys!)

20 x 24 = 480 points

Warriors with hand weapons and shields

10 x 21 = 210 points

Warriors with Great Weapons

6 x 22 = 132 points

And finally, some more Characters - two (level one?) wizards, and the infamous Black Lizard, another Lizardman hero.

180 + 180 + 80 = 540 points (roughly)

A few rank and file short, I will feel these gaps with maybe some converted command figures ( as I have a few broken models) or just by painting even more of the archers. I'm certainly not going to struggle for the 1000+ points target, I haven't even counted gear for characters, for example.

If anyone does have any models from this range they would like to contribute (for money or swaps or whatever) then do let me know. I'm still missing a couple of the rarer sculpts.

Wild cards? There's also the option to add something else to the force, a big monster probably, but I haven't decided what that might be though I've got a few options in mind. I'd like it to be another Citadel model of similar age, I think.

Oh, and no - I haven't chosen a paint scheme, I haven't chosen a basing style (though I'm thinking underground caverns) and I haven't painted a test model. The fluff has Karnac as being white, Huris as green, and let's say that The Black Lizard is black, so maybe I'll start with those and see how it goes?

Overlord's Offering

I went for the easy route here - scrabbling around for my left over Space Marine parts, I put together (one last?) member of The Unicorns Chapter to send on his way...

(The base is temporary, he's got pins so you can fix him to the base of your choice in future)