The 6th edition of WHFB dropped most factions down to two, perhaps three special characters, at the same time rebooting most of the model range – sometimes just ’cause (Teclis?). This trend started to reverse in 7th with many fresh faces joining the rogues gallery however many who made it into the rules were left behind on the sculpting-room floor due to time constraints or market viability. Here we shall explore how you can bring these characters to life on the tabletop with a few nips and tucks.
The Beastmen added stacks of new characters in their 7th edition book with the possible intention of releasing the missing models with their next refresh…which sadly never came. As they are mostly uncompetitive on the battlefield there was little interest in them from tacticians, but the concepts are cool enough to demand representation on the battlefield.
Moonclaw
“Moonclaw, son of Morrslieb” is the man in the moon. Shot out of the chaos moon in an egg/chrysalis, he radiates a warm warpstone glow and talks in backmasked satanic messages. His abilities sound bonkers but in practice he is bogus. The artwork for Moonclaw is so vague and scribbly that it could have been drawn by Mr. Squiggle (also from the moon), so it is hard to tell exactly what he should look like.
Little monster man on a big monster dog? The general idea is he should be twisted and crazy enough that everyone nearby suffers Stupidity. I personally interpreted the character’s mutant mount Umbralok using the very feral and beastmen-like ‘Thing in the Woods’ from Mordheim:
The rider is made of various chaotic bitz draped with putty tendrils to emulate the fur(?) in the art. Pick some Ungor legs with a wide stance and they should be able to fit on a mount.
The landscape around him changes and twists with flames in a colour out of space as it is pulled into his upside-down dimension.
A conundrum with this guy is that the rules imply he’s cavalry-sized, but nothing much suits this scale for mounts – Beastmen don’t really do mounts. I have seen a conversion that used a plastic wolf as the basis and another with a Chaos Warhound. I think a Dark Eldar Warp Beast has suitably bizarre looks for this purpose (I’m talkin’ about the googly eyed metal ones of course). The newer (Khymera?) version is sized better if you run him on 50x50mm as above.
Going back to the artwork, the heads all have a slightly beaked appearance – the Tzaangor kit is perfect if you want to emulate this.
Ungrol
Ungrol Four-Horn is a two-headed changeling consumed with horn-envy. His artwork is a little clearer:
It is a near-effortless conversion (Gor heads on an Ungor body 4horns1gor) but I’ve never got around to making him because I know that I could any time I want. Ideally use the more lengthy and impressive horns from the Bestigor kit.
Molokh
Molokh Slugtongue is a festering beastie who makes the enemy army fungry. This aura (D3 wounds no saves on T test) has the potential to be very valuable against some lineups so he’s a surprisingly rounded choice for a wizard.
Another easy conversion, you can take the skull from various Orc or Ogre banners and jam it on any necromancer, Chaos Sorceror etc. you have spare. There are one or two examples of this online. To complete the picture, the staff he holds in the artwork looks very much like Morghur’s:
I could also see Ethrac Glott making a good base for this guy, with a bit of fur added here and there:
Taurox
Taurox enjoyed the most popularity of these characters since all it took was a pot of Brazen Brass to get a 1+ save for your Doombull. He was finally rewarded with the Daemonic Gift of an official design when released as a legendary lord in Total War: Warhammer II after years as only a headshot:
But the TWW design is nowhere near as fun as what we can do with our imagination.
The plastic minotaurs with their smooth Blender3d muscles already look like cast bronze statues, so all they need is a coat of metallic paint. If the traditional bare-arsed bovines are more your bag, armour plates can be fashioned from Chaos kits such as Skullcrushers and applied on top of an old sculpt for a metallic aesthetic.
Replacing the cow head with the head from the Juggernaut of Khorne (particularly the lord mount) is a good touch. My own plan for a Taurox conversion is clipping the wings off a classic Bloodthirster:
This conversion will also allow me to run him as Ograx the Beastfiend, a lore-only character from the Archaon novel. Ograx is an Australian beastman who achieves the favour of a Bloodthirster and is gifted with a brass body.
From out of the lore-forest come some other characters who could spice up your herd:
* Ragush of the Bloody Horn is a XXXL Doombull who likes his steaks rare.
* Kha’rak Stoneheart is a Bray-Shaman’s ghost possessing a minotaur’s body. (Buy the Wizard Hat on a Doombull, you know you want to)
* The Harbinger, a wizened shaman who sells out to Nurgle in the end times.
If you have converted one of these characters for your own army, I’d love to put together a compilation of inspiration – leave a comment or email me below: