The wrath do thou sing, O goddess, of Ullaron's son Ælrik

that baneful wrath which brought countless woes upon the Asur, 

and sent forth to Mirai many valiant souls of warriors,

and made themselves to be a spoil for beasts and all manner of birds;

and thus the will of Khaine was being brought to fulfillment

Good evening Ladies and Gents.

After several months of very lazy hobby activity I stumbled across this wonderful website (thanks to the help of a fellow painter, cheers Elfhead) and I decided it was time to clean the dust off my brushes and get some models finally finished. Inspired by the very positive AoS vibes of this community I decided to start again on a project I really enjoyed for the past couple of years but to which I dedicated intermittent efforts during this period: my band of Aestyrions.

When End Times Khaine arrived I got really excited for elves for the first time in more than a decade. The tragic story of Tyrion's betrayal and his sorrowful and savage followers who marched under the shadow of the all-consuming god of war Khaine filled me with inspiration and gave me the push to start what back then should have become an army for wh. I started by converting a few spearmen trying to give them a feel of tragicness and martial prowess which the HIgh Elves range always lacked IMHo. Of course since then many things changed, the Old World got obliterated, AoS showed up and my attention moved to other projects, but I was very fond of these first conversions I made and I went on from time to time updating them and converting new ones.

Finally I decided the warband needed a leader and so I created Prince Ælrik of Cothique, nicknamed the Black Hand of Khaine. The concept was that of a tragic hero, an Achilles doomed by a cruel fate and bound to his beloved master and commander PrinceTyrion. When the royal descendant of Aenaryon finally drew the Sword of Khaine and became the avatar of the Blood Handed God, Ælrik and his warband fell under the shadow of Khaine and their bloody deeds against their former brothers became well known all across Ulthuan. Finally Prince Ælrik managed to pull himself out of the red madness that obnubilated his thoughts since the day of Tyrion's betrayal but when he found out about the atrocities he and his warriors have committed his heart broke and the noble prince changed forever. Becoming a renegade he abandoned his master and roamed across Ulthuan as a lone warrior, he and his few hardened followers becoming little more than mercenaries fighting on both sides of the war, waiting for the final moments of the Rhana Dandra when the gods themselves will descend to fight their last battle and Ælrik and his soldiers can take revenge on them for their once noble master's fall.

The miniatures themselves are a mix of different kits, but I kept the conversions simple to achieve a cohesive look. Bodies and legs come from the Phoenix Guard, while the heads have been converted using the eldar Dire Avengers helm crests. Finally shields come from the Drak Elves spearmen kit (I purchased many of the plain resin ones).

The idea was to give them a greek vibe, something close to the archetype of Homer's Ilyad. Each one should have looked like a hero on his one yet thay should feel like part of the same unit. A lot of thought has been put into the heraldry design, but you can find out more detailed explanations of the process (and WIP pics) on my presonal blog PINXIT: http://hagenpinxit.blogspot.co.uk/

That's it for now, I will leave you with some pics of my small warband, to which I hope to add a few more warriors in the close feature (and a chariot!) and hopefully they will become a playable force one day... They would be perfect for a Path to Glory campaign I reckon... A man can always dream!

Cheers, 

Hagen