Start of my freeguild: Demigryph Wolf Knights and an Ironweld Canon

For as long as I've played Warhammer I've wanted to have my very own army of fragile fools humans. The amount of painted models required, an incapability to paint skin tone and no idea where to start always stopped me. Well the skin tone bit got solved years ago by painting lots of skin tones. My output is rather high, so I don't feel too daunted by the prospect of painting a lot of miniatures. So all that stopped me is where to start. Well I solved that creatively. Here's a shot of part of the solution.

Now these are serious Knights of the (Summer) Wolf.

I got these Knights of the White Wolf (twelve in total) in a second hand lot and was about to sell them when a thought struck me. 'Do these fit on the Space Wolf Fenrision Wolf kit?' Easily checked as I have some Fenrisian Wolves painted up for my Space Wolf army (they are not very good on the field, but almost always intimidate my opponents as nobody uses them and therefore they are an unknown quantity). Well a bit of playing around with green stuff later (I'll maybe make a separate post on that) and these old Knights of the White Wolf have a more literal connection to wolves than ever before.

I'll have to get around to adding a banner quickly, otherwise (knowing myself) it will never be added.

I went for brown wolves as a traditional grey contrasts rather poorly with the steel armor. I still need to add a banner to the pole, but I'll get around to that later. I'll be running this lot as Demigryph Knights. The unit'll stand out enough to remind an opponent these are not normal cavalry and I get to enjoy playing with a rather original set of miniatures. As I said, this is part of my solution on building a Freeguild army. Another part is the second unit that is finished.

For the observant viewer: I've picked a yellow wooden color for the bottom shoes of all these men. Being Dutch made picking clogs as their shoes (almost) mandatory.

This is an old metal great cannon with crew I found in another lot a few years back. Over the past few years I've slowly built up quite a large collection of empire models through the ages. Most of those were in second hand lots. I even got an old Soldiers of the Empire Regiment recently from a friend. I've now build up a Freeguild list based around everything I could find in my collection and ordered in the last models I could not find in my big box of 'will this ever get painted?'

Painting the crew of this cannon was a real joy, especially when I discovered how much just a few brightly colored bits add to the overall look. 

My Freeguild army will feature: 20 Guard (militia), 20 Guard (sword and shield), 20 Handgunners, 20 Archers, 1 General, 1 Battle Mage, 2x6 Demigryph Knights, 1 Gyrocopter, 1 Cannon and 1 Steam Tank. I've assembled most of the rank and file models. The General and Battle Mage will need some extra care and attention. I think I will convert a Gyrocopter to hold a human pilot. The Steam Tank was the only model I still needed to order (and it is in already). So now all that remains is painting a lot of whites and a lot of eyes.

I actually have a few plastic great cannon on hand as well, but I like the feel of placing a metal model on the table. 

The last thing that needed doing was determining a color scheme. I used the cute Free City Generator from the Warhammer Community team to get started on that. After a bit of rolling and a lot of thinking my Freeguild will be based in The Grand Tower. This is a free city in the Realm of Ulgu. I came up with a bit of background. The Celestial College transported itself out of the World That Was into Ulgu (they predicted the end was near). On arrival the main building sank into the ground and the sixteen towers have collapsed into each other, forming one Grand Tower. This is a patched over construction filled with telescopes, astrolabes and extra stairs and butresses.

Being part of the Celestial order means repairs are always performed just in time, preventing further collapse. A Kharadron dock has been built into the construction. Beneath the ground a village sprawls in the former main buildings. Previous occupants (and the current ones) continually excavate new tunnels, mining the ground of its riches.The college houses Algrund's Orrery, an ancient relic from the World that was. It can detect the path of Morrslieb and turn day into night. Strangely enough, it's still detecting Morrslieb. Now there is a bit of a mystery to be solved. Aside from Humans, Aelfs and Duardin a Slann Starlord lives in the Grand Tower. The reason of his presence and his activities are a mystery to most of the inhabitants.

Going by this description I opted for blue and white as the main colors (in reverence to the Celestial College Mages in the Grand Tower). While painting I decided on red and yellow to add some sparkle to the look. It helps that red, yellow and blue are Marienburger colors making it possible to add a bit of that background to my Grand Tower Freeguild as soon as the fancy strikes me. I'm also sorely tempted to add some pinks and bright greens to the models. I might even try to go full landsknecht on some of the higher officers. We'll have to see what happens there.