With nothing else to occupy myself with in the evenings, my newfound Warhammer Warcry hobby has taken on a life of its own. I recently finished painting the Catacombs starter set and decided that next I would focus on building and painting as many Age of Sigmar warbands as I could to fight in the depths of the fiery catacombs.
My first attempt at this is a Seraphon warband. Once called the Lizardmen, but now changed to a much more exciting and easier to copyright name, the Seraphon are reptilian space lizards that have descended on the Eightpoints to cleanse the world of chaos and bring order to the universe. At least that’s my interpretation of the lore – I only skim-read the lengthy battletome!
Looking online there are a whole host of exciting color schemes and painting styles you can use for the Seraphon, so I did my best at ignoring them all and finding my own way of ruining these models. Although, this time, I’m pretty pleased with the results. Probably my best efforts using Citadel Contrast Paints so far.
Sentinels of Order
The armies in Warcry are broken down into four Grand Alliances: Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction. Each order has an accompanying book with includes all the fighter statistics for the armies of that order. The Seraphon belong to the Sentinels of Order, and that book includes over 25 different fighter types allowable in Warcry. For my warband I will be using seven different types of fighter.
For my research into putting this warband together I picked up a copy of the Sentinels of Order book as well as a pack of the Seraphon Warcry cards.
Models
At this stage Games Workshop haven’t released a Seraphon warband, so I had to assemble one of my own. Thankfully the recently released Starblood Stalkers set for Warhammer Underworlds, is the perfect starting off point to build a warband. You might have seen fellow Geekdad Robin Brooks’ recent post on the Starblood Stalkers as part of his Underworlds Vanguard Watch series.
Using the fighter cards and the Sentinels of Order book, I assigned each of the six models a fighter type. This included: A Skink Starpriest, Saurus Oldblood, Skink Alpha, Skink with Meteoric Javelin and Satr-Buckler, and two Skinks with Boltspitter and Moonstone Club. I then added a Razordon and Skink Handlers, which comes with a beastly spiked Razordon and three Skink handlers. Now I had all the fighters I would need to build a basic warband.
Unfortunately the Seraphon Card pack didn’t include all of these fighter types, so I found a useful template online and quickly printed off my own for the Star Priest, Razordon, and Handlers.
Assembling the Starblood Stalkers was easy enough. The models are the easy to build variety and apparently don’t require any glue. I used glue nonetheless.
The Razordon set comes with the fearsome looking spiked Razordon and three Skink Handlers. These were easy enough to assemble. I even managed to put them all together without breaking any pieces.
At this stage, once assembly was complete, you could really see the difference between the Underworlds models (in blue plastic) and the separate Razordon set. I was hopeful that once, primed and painted you wouldn’t be able to notice the difference.
Painting
Of the nine fighters in my warband, seven are skinks, and I wanted these to all look similar. I used a Wraithbone spray to prime them all and then contrast paints to being the base coat. There were two main colors that made up the base coat for my skinks, these were Aethermatic Blue for the underbellies, legs, arms and faces, and Akhelian Green for the back and scales. I then used Iyanden Yellow, Blood Angels Red and Warp Lightning on any fins, feathers, or shields, to create a splash of rainbow colors and Snakebite Leather for any wooden or leather elements.
Once the base coat of contrast paints was dry I applied a dry-brush of Skin Blue to the Aethermic Blue sections and highlighted that with Wraithbone and White. I also touched up the rainbow effects with Moot Green, Flash Gitz Yellow and Wild Rider Red. I also used Sycorax Bronze for the metallic areas such as the Star Priest’s staff and Leadbelcher and Runefang Steel for the weird metal ball they’re holding aloft and for the tips of the Skink handler’s Spears.
For the skink’s scales I built up gradual layers of green, beginning with Moot Green, AK Fluorescent Green and Flash Gitz Yellow. I was particularly pleased with how these ended up.
I used a different color scheme for my Razordon and Chameleon Skink. This time, instead of using greens I went for a purple and orange combination. Shyish Purple for the back and scales and Gryph-Hound Orange for the underbelly. To finish off the base coat I used Skeleton Horde on the spines and horns.
I highlighted the scales with AK Fluorescent Magenta, used White Scar for the tips of the horns and Flash Gitz Yellow for the highlights on the underbellies and face.
Bases
For my exciting space lizards, I wanted to create a set of bases that were inspired by Aztec and Mayan iconography. To do this I picked up some Green Stuff and a textured rolling pin from greenstuffworld.com and attempted my first ever model rolling. It took quite a bit of experimentation – and at least a week of thorough scrubbing to remove the weird epoxy resin from under my finger nails – but I was quite pleased with the result.
Once the Green Stuff was fully dry o it took about 24 hours – I sprayed with a white primer, then used a combination of Iyanden Yellow contrast paint and Seraphim Sepia to create an aged look and highlighted with White Scar. I finished the bases off by painting the rims with the AK Fluorescent Green so they stand out on the tabletop and them assembled them using some Gorilla Glue.
1,000 points Warband
I was really happy with how the final warband turned out. The Skink Handlers and the Razordon make a great addition to the Direchasm set to bring my warband up to the 1,000 point maximum for an entry level group of fighters.
I’ve tested out my Seraphon a couple of times against some of my already completed Warcry warbands and they are a truly formidable force. If I were to play a narrative campaign and expand the warband then I would look at recruiting a couple of flying fighters – perhaps a terradon rider – and these would nicely round off a versatile and robust team.
Next time I will be assembling a Nighthaunt warband of ghosts and ghouls to tackle the Seraphon. They will deliver a whole new challenge as the ghosts will need to look sufficiently spooky and a lot less bright and colorful than my Skinks.
