A Year in Miniatures 9: War Dogs of House Morrigan

We first met House Morrigan way back in week 2 with the Knight Desecrater Corvix Valka. I’ve been planning on expanding the House from the beginning even going so far as to acquire a pair of Armiger Helverens with the intention of turning them into War Dogs. These, of course, sat unbuilt on the shelf of shame potential for about six months, until a chance encounter furnished me with a bits box containing, amongst other things, roughly half of a Helbrute. And just like that the siren song of the kitbash began playing.

Laith Luakra, the first Wardog, of the pair came together incredibly easily. As soon as I test-fitted the comparatively tiny Helbrute head into the lumbering abomination the entire character of the model fell into place. Luakra is a precise, purposeful hunter, more of a tracker than a direct warrior. I wanted to capture her in the process of searching out a terget. Her quarry has gone to ground, and she has paused for a second to reacquire his trail, bladed tendrils twitching in the air as augmented sensors seek out traces of sweat and adrenaline, the reek of fear.

In hindsight, I should have known what I wanted to do with the second Wardog as soon as I’d built Luakra. However, it took an embarrassingly long amount of time to land on the idea of contrast. Where Luakra is quiet, precise, ad purposeful, Bodhmall the Huntress is violence personified. Tearing through her foes on bladed limbs, screaming defiance and fury from an iron throat. The bird-like, bipedal gait of Luakra obviously wouldn’t do, but luckily ebay had the perfect solution.

The painting on these two isn’t particularly complex, especially since I’d already worked out the kinks over a year of chipping away at Corvix Valka. The kitbashing, on the other hand, is probably the most complex I’ve ever attempted. All told these two have parts from about a dozen different kits including:

Pretty much all of two Armiger Helverens
Assorted heads, arms, and armour pieces from a Helbrute
The legs of an Onager Dunecrawler
Assorted spikes, banners, and a chest-piece from the old Chaos Space Marines box
Assorted Imperial Guardspeople to serve as hapless victims
Hands from crypt ghouls to give the aforementioned hapless victims some more desperate poses
An alternate head from somewhere so that the guards would have a little more diversity
At least one piece of terrain that dates back to the 40k 3rd edition starter set from 1998

Of course, having put all of this time and effort into creating some suitably Chaosy wardogs, GW promptly revealed their updated chaos knights box with some absolutely lovely spikey wardogs of their own!