The Madness of the Court of the Jade King

[Binary]

Greetings!

I’ve decided to start another AoS army so that I can actually start playing sooner rather than late.  Of course, this needed me to do 2 things.

1) pick an army.

2) pick a theme. 

After looking through the various battletomes I decided on the wooded glory of the Sylvaneth.  Theme wise I wanted to go with the realm of shadows, as the idea of a dark, fearful, misty forest is quite strong imagery that I could incorporate into the list.

This means Drycha and a Dreadwood grove were obvious starting points, but I wanted to come up with a story for them, and thus the Madness of the Court of the Jade King was born.

I imagine them as a wargrove that have become lost in the realm, separated from the spirit song of Ariel.  It fascinated me how the Song of the Sylvaneth is made up of the parts of the melody that different beings hear, and so I wondered what would happen to a wargrove who were cut off and tried to reform the missing parts of the song from what they had left.  Of course, this would lead to a jarring, discordant and inharmonious song based on fear, isolation and loss that would sound like the first practice of a kid’s band in their parent’s garage rather than the full-blown symphony performed by an orchestra.

This means that the Spite revenants would be more prevalent within the wargrove, along with Drycha (who will represent the King himself), but also that Spite aspects would be more dominant within the other units, allowing lots of scope for conversions.

There is a small wood near my home that gave me inspiration for the colour scheme and basing and I decided I wanted to do a different look to the other Sylvaneth armies I had seen.  Dark and brooding colours, starting with black, and fading though dryad bark->baneblade brown->karak stone on the arms/legs/branches.  The bases are done with a layer of PVA/sand/Rhinox Hide, followed by patches of my leaf mix (which is just dried coriander leaves, dried Herb de Provence and green tea!).

 

Inspiration pictures first

 

 

Then the first miniature I built – the armies Branchwraith

 

“Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Crow. 
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you”

 

Sacred Caelliech, The guide, the Eyes in Darkness

 

 

First 10 Dryads

 

“Father, father where are you going

Oh do not walk so fast

Speak father, speak to your child

Or else I shall be lost

The night was dark, no father there

The child was wet with dew

The forest deep, the child did weep

And away the vapour flew”

 

 

First unit of Spite revenants

 

“They enter forest green and black 
wherein treetops shade pathways leading back 
the wind malevolent grins with mirthful eyes
a playful ill-will as cats before their mice.
Scrutinizing these travellers with delicate stare
the wraiths had never seen such men that would enter the forest lair
With a laugh he let them pass
gods be with them and send them fast.”

 

 

Revenant themed Kurnoth Hunters

 

“Listen to the forest-voice murmuring low: 
All that it saw when alone with its laughter, 
All that it suffered in times that came after, 
Mournful it tells, that the wind may know.”

 

 

Second unit of Spite Revenants (still need some tidying)

 

 

First Branchwych, who will accompany the Kurnoth hunters.  He was a Bray Shaman whose herd was captured by the wargrove, and he was transformed by the King’s song into a guardian for the grove.

 

Great Lldanach, Reborn of song, the prince of beasts

 

"silence seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest-
the end of songs"

 

Second Branchwych, who will accompany the Tree-Revs

 

Dread Affallwyn, the huntsman, the soul of the song.

 

“Darkness breathes,
In the trees. 
Dark figures,
Conjure deaths arrival.
All occurs,
In the dark forest.”

 

 

Sorry for the huge dump of info and photos, but I thought I’d show everyone where I was, and hopefully where I’m going…

Binary

[torsten7048]

You have some very nice miniatures here. Great conversions together with a fitting choise of colours and skilled painting. 

I really like what you did.