Expanding the Herd?

Hi!

I am about to embark on a mass tidy of our workroom which is probably going to take all day as it currently combines workroom/storeroom and general tip so I doubt I am going to get much chance to work on much in the way of hobby related goodies for a bit!

Still, I have spent a bit of time working on some background and ideas for my Horned Folk in 6mm scale. Its a bit odd, collecting a force that only got mentioned once in the old Leviathan rulebook but I do like a challenge.

Here's a bit of background I wrote up a while back:

In the world of Aeroth, the Horned Folk are one of the near mythical Elder Races that the Elves supposedly drove into extinction during the Age of Legends some ten thousand years ago. However the Horned Folk survived after a fashion by retreating to their great Barrows, deep in the forested north east of the continent and have slumbered away the ensuing centuries.

 Snowclad Forest

With the coming of the Death, the Horned Folk have been re-awakened and have begun to reconquer their ancestral lands from the tribes of Human Barbarians who now occupy it. This expansion has brought them into contact with both the Orcish Horde to the East and South and the Dwarves to the West and the brutish and savage nature of the Horned Folks has resulted in several border skirmishes already and full blown warfare has only been averted by the harshness of the winter.

In appearance, the Horned Folk look much like an amalgam of humanoid and great bulls. Standing up to a dozen feet high, the Horned Folk have great bull like heads, sprouting powerful horns, often adorned with intricately worked golden and bronze jewellery. 

Their bodies are covered in a coarse fur and their barrel chests and powerful limbs stand mute testimony to their physical strength. Centuries of sleeping in the cold embrace of the earth has altered many of them as tree roots have entwined themselves around their bodies and even consumed some of their elders entirely. 

Horned Folk Territory

In battle they wield heavy bladed bronze axes, maces and swords from another age and with their savage strength, they are fully capable of cleaving even a fully armoured Dwarf in two or crushing an Orcish skull with a single blow. 

Worshippers of a nameless Prince of the Fallen, the Horned Folk have no concept of peace and live for war, their great warriors wish only to slay for their god and bring slaves back to toil in their fields or fight in their armies. This attitude has not not made them popular with the Barbarians, many small tribes of whom have been slaughtered or driven into slavery but the Horned Folk are an elemental race, returned from the mists of time to reclaim an ancient empire.

Alongside their Minotaur nobles, resplendent in their bronze armour, march ranks of lesser Horned kin, smaller, man sized beastmen who serve their masters as a race of warriors. Well trained and disciplined, the Horned Kin form the bulk of raiding parties and also drive the lowly slaves into battle before them.

The centuries of sleep and invasion of trees into some of the most ancient barrows have deprived many of the elder Horned Folk of their bodies but their spirits now inhabit the soil, rocks and trees of the land and they can be raised to fight as great and terrible elemental creatures, often dwarfing even the mightiest Minotaur noble. These beings are revered as avatars of the Horned Folks god and are often adorned with small idols and their great misshapen bodies are bedecked with golden torcs, bronze breastplates inlaid with precious stones and even trophies of defeated foes.

Right, so we have a race of bronze age beastmen returned to the modern day by the unleashing of The Death in Aeroth. 

Looking at how my force is at present, I have the basics in the form of Horned Folk and the lesser Horned Kin as well as a small monster in the form of the Cyclopean. I still have about another two bases of Minotaurs to paint and six more Beastmen which will give me a decent core to my army.

The Horned Folk army thus far

Looking at what else I have kicking around, I discovered a trio of really rather poorly sculpted 15m scale Rhinos from Irregular Miniatures that have been languishing in my bits box for untold years. With a bit of puttying, they are starting to look a bit more fearsome and will provide me with a few small warbeasts but what else can I find?

Well Microworld have a fantastic range of suitable beasties:

Whee! What a fantastic and characterful selection! They would add a lot of variety to my existing army, be it chariots, heavy cavalry or warbeasts but what else is out there?

I really want to add some suitably large warbeasts and monsters to the force, especially some of the Horned Folks avatars of destruction! I plan on adding some more scratch build and converted bits and bobs to the mix such as more wooly mammoth wartowers and possibly even something more akin to a mammoth or two, festooned with Beastmen. 

We shall see what I can do with the stuff I have at present and I hope to post some pictures before too long but for now, I am off to tidy!

All the best!