Steve's Verlorene Haufen (Forlorn Hope) - Leader Month (980 points)

 Heinriksen started as if from some terrible dream, though he had not been sleeping. The carriage jostled him as it rumbled over the rutted track towards Ostermark and the haggard Captain loosened his feverish grip on the handful of papers and letters in his hand. The nightmare was over for him perhaps, as the benighted County of Sylvania dwindled behind him and yet the darkness that hung over it, that impenetrable darkness that Kurt Todeswunch embraced and made his own, still clutched at Heinriksen's very soul...

Well I guess that's a wrap for this year's OWAC! Time has been a little kinder to me this month and I've managed to finish off a few units that didn't quite get done in some of the previous months, as well as getting my Army General painted up. There's still quite a few leftovers, however, so there might be a sequel to my Evil Empire army yet! I'm disappointed the Witch Hunters didn't get a look in and I had a little scenic piece that was a bit of a homage to the excellent film, A Field in England, that was one of the sources of inspiration for this project but as we well know, Time is a cruel mistress and no respecter of the petty ambitions of man!

I used the excellent Mounted Warrior Priest from Gamezone to represent my General, Kurt Todeswuch. Thought I'd best include his much put upon Captain Heinriksen too, who is actually John Stearne, the Witch Hunter from Foundry Miniatures.

The expedition to hunt the Chaos Cult through Sylvania, what was left of it, was now dispersed. Todeswunch had achieved a remarkable feat in just keeping the ragged army together. They had put packs of Beastmen and mutants to the sword, burned villages and slain many heretics. That was the extent of their success however. The leaders of the Cult had never been brought to bay and so the head of the Hydra had no doubt survived. And then calamity had come a second time. Lured in to a deep canyon, the Verlorene Haufen had found themselves beset on all sides. Whether by the insidious lure of Chaos or because of the ruthless methods Todeswunch employed with the local population, the ranks of the Cult had swelled. The expedition had dissolved in to a desperate mass of men with only one goal - self preservation. They broke ranks and fled and survived as best they could. Heinriksen's last sight of Todeswunch was as he plunged in to the hooded horde, a whispered battlecry barely distinguishable above the clamour, "The Horror! The Horror!". The smoke of battle swallowed him up and Heinriksen did not know if he lived or not.

I got a couple more units finished - very glad I managed to shoe-horn in the Flagellants and another Peasant Levy!

Not to mention one of the cannons and its crew!

Shame Bruegelberg's Death Bell cannon didn't make it in but at least it'll lend some flavour to the next instalment!

Heinriksen attempted to smooth the creases from the packet of papers in his lap. To his knowledge, they were all that were left of Todeswunch - those and the memory of the words he had spoken to Heinriksen in that dark time that still resonated deep within him. As Heinriksen mused on his former commander, he felt as though he was peering down at a man who laid at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. For all his faults, his unorthodox and highly questionable methods, his sombre pride and his ruthless power, Heinriksen confessed to regarding him as a remarkable man. He had done terrible things, reduced life to a mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose and wrestled with Death. To Todeswunch, even that great struggle was an unexciting contest, taking place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

The Flagellants were a lot of fun and pretty much mandatory considering the flavour of this army. As always I've mixed a fair number of manufacturers to get the look I was after - and avoid ebay prices for the old GW flagellants!

There is some old lead in there along with the few flagellants I had already - I forget which range the (converted) standard bearer is from. 

I went for a rather wordy banner for this lot! After a lot of searching, I finally found some lyrics to one of the Flagellant songs that were typically sung during processions at the time of the Black Death. The excerpt on the left is taken from one called Song of the Flagellants During the Time of the Plague, although I edited it slightly to make it a bit more Warhammery:

"Now here comes the wave of evil; flee from hot hell. Lucifer is an evil companion. Whomever he catches, he smears with pitch. Therefore, we intend to flee him."

The excerpt on the right of the banner is a verse from one of the Songs of the Suffering Servant from The Book of Isiah, which seemed in keeping with the theme!

All you who kindle flames

and set flares alight,

Walk by the light of your own fire

and by the flares you have burnt!

This is your fate from my hand:

you shall lie down in a place of torment.

I also had to get a bit of a reference to Blood on Satan's Claw in as well - no one's perfect, especially those of a religious extremist persuasion! The lovely lady below is another Foundry miniature and I figured she could play the part of Angel Blake from the film.

Mind you their venerable leader doesn't look the most holy either, despite his ecclesiastical garb! Great miniature from Antediluvian Miniatures though! 

I had to include Dulle Griet too, along with some Warrior Priests from Bruegelberg and Heresy.

Not to mention the flagellants from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail!

And any self respecting band of Flagellants should never leave home without Brother Maynard and his Holy Hand Grenade! 

Obligatory GW Flagellants...

And assorted Druids and Clerics to add a bit of variety.

Finally an assortment of other religious ruffians!

And yet despite his contempt for both Life and Death, Todeswunch had come closer to that ultimate truth than any Heinriksen knew. Todeswunch had often mocked him for clinging on to his rules and regulations, reciting his favourite verse on Nothing,

Is and is not, the two great ends of fate,

And true or false, the subject of debate

That perfect or destroy

The vast designs of State.

When they have wracked the politician’s breast,

Within thy bosom most securely rest

And when reduced to thee are least unsafe and blessed

Heinriksen felt he now understood that unscrutable stare of his, that sometimes seemed unable to see the flame of a candle before him, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up—he had judged. ‘The horror!’ 

This is one of my favourite units and I'm really happy I squeezed them in! Obviously a bit of a nod to The Wicker Man - another major source of inspiration for this project.

The idea is that they are a Sylvanian peasant levy, pressed in to the service of the Empire by Todeswunch. They are, however, a rather creepy bunch with a prediliction for dressing up as Beastmen (or perhaps they're just in touch with their animalistic pagan side) and treating their superiors (and any unlucky policemen) with less than the respect they might expect!

I couldn't pass up on the tag line for The Wicker Man for the Banner - Feed Your Oppressors to the Land. Surely a good slogan for this day and age!

Eureka's marvellous Cyril, Herald Reluctant and Bruce the Persuader from their Chaos Army range make for a very suitable musician combo for the unit!

It seemed foolish to talk of victory in a campaign such as the one Heinriksen had just survived. Kurt's Verlorene Haufen was no more and it had certainly been a forlorn hope while it existed. Nor had the Cult triumphed, despite weathering the grievous blows Todeswunch had dealt it. If there was a victor in any of this quagmire it was Todeswunch himself, whether or not he lived to tell of it. He had made a friend of horror and stared back at the abyss without flinching. His last battle cry was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory! That is why Heinriksen had remained loyal to Kurt to the last, and even beyond, hearing once more not his own voice, but the echo of Todeswunch's magnificent eloquence thrown from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal.

The excellent Crooked Dice provided quite a few miniatures from their Occult range, which definitely tips a wink at good old British Folk Horror!

This lot might have slightly too modern dress but hopefully they don't stick out too much - couldn't resist them for The Wicker Man reference!

Eureka also do some very useful multi-part cultists who just needed some suitable animal masks adding. Oakbound studios are another great source of folky miniatures.

More assorted pagan peasants and yes - that is Ukko from the Slaine comics!

And almost finally - more marvellous weirdness from Eureka's Chaos Army. I just had to have some more Breughel/Bosch inspired miniatures! It was just a shame I had to limit myself to the ones that could pass for Humans wearing costumes!

Last but definitely not least is Crooked Dice's Strawman - a hapless Giant the peasants have cajoled in to dressing up like the straw effigy they like to burn their offerings in!

I'd best finish off by acknowledging Joseph Conrad and Edgar Allan Poe as I seemed to have pilfered from their far superior works to quite a great extent in this post!

And what would he do with this pathetic bundle of paper that contained the memory of such a man, Heinriksen knew not. A fitful gust from the carriage window blew the topmost page over, revealing Todeswuch's spidery hand. Heinriksen's eyes fell on the lines written there - another poem with which Todeswunch had delighted in tormenting him. He knew the content of it well enough - the history of man symbolised as a play for the Gods, yet his eyes were drawn inexorably to those final damnable stanzas,

That motley drama—oh, be sure   

   It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore   

   By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in   

   To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,   

   And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

   A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out   

   The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs   

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

   In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!   

   And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

   Comes down with the rush of a storm,   

While the angels, all pallid and wan,   

   Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”   

   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Heinriksen shuddered as a vision came to him of Todeswunch astride his horse and riding in to the mouth of hell, opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. He lived as much as he had ever lived and perhaps lived on—a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to take on a life of its own as the experiences of the past few months crowded in on Heinriksen - the wild crowd, the gloom of the forests, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart—the heart of a conquering darkness. It was a moment of triumph for the dark wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush. And the memory of what Heinriksen had heard him say in those last moments, with the horned shapes stirring at his back, in the glow of fires. Those broken phrases came back to him, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying simplicity. Heinriksen remembered the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul until he was left only with that stare - that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all the universe and he seemed to hear the whispered cry, “The horror! The horror!”

Kurt Todeswunch                                               120 points

L20 Hero, Heavy armour, double handed weapon, barded warhorse

Captain Heinriksen                                            65 points

L10 Hero, light armour, pistol, hand weapon, warhorse

31 Peasant Levy - Die Wilde 151 points

L10 Hero, hand weapons, musician and standard

Giant Mercenary                                                   250 points

30 Flagellants - Die Geissler                            334 points

L10 Hero, hand weapons, musician and standard

Reiks Kanone Batterien                                       60 points

Total - 980 points