Masters of the hunt

A small update today:

The officers of the 4th assault company, in keeping with the force’s organisation as a hunting party, are called “Huntmasters”. Each of these individuals is a fearsome veteran of a thousand wars as well as a resourceful and merciless hunter. Once a huntmaster has chosen his prey, he will not relent until he has either run it down or perished in the attempt.

Each Huntmaster wields the authority to lead a force of the 4th in battle. Some of them are additionally supreme commanders of the different arms of the company, like the Huntsmen (Berzerkers), Harriers (Raptors) or Hounds (Bikers).

Building character models is one of my greatest enjoyments, so this piece of fluff gives me the perfect excuse to construct many colourful characters (a lot more than I’ll ever realistically be using on the tabletop, to be honest).

One of the first conversions in this vein was Huntmaster Bardolf, master of the Huntsmen. He leads the normal, footslogging troops into battle and serves as a commander in small to medium games of 40k. This is him:

Bardolf was built by combining a regular CSM upper body with the lower body from a Fantasy Warrior of Chaos. The head, shoulder pads and various bits of equipment are from the Khorne Berzerkers, the axes are from the Warriors of Chaos. The backpack features weapon muzzles and a trophy rack from the Chaos vehicle sprue. And as a real blast from the past, I added an old Hero Quest skull to his base.

All in all, a fairly straightforward conversion, although I nearly lost a fingertip, carving the cloak to fit with the CSM torso. I particularly like the axes. In combination with his walking pose, they make Bardolf look like a relentless, implacable man.

Bardolf usually leads a unit of Berzerkers into battle and uses his power to make them more dangerous. Although the model’s equipped with twin axes, I mostly use him equipped with lightning claws – if my opponent doesn’t mind, that is. I think this represents his uncanny prowess with his axes rather nicely, and I have a pretty clear idea of his fighting style: not at all elegant, but rather blunt and frighteningly efficient.

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!