Warriors of the Obsidian Empire: In depth with the Slann

As you may well have seen from from my last post, I'm currently working on my Slann army, so I thought I'd go a bit more in-depth into the challenges of trying to create a decent looking army from one of Citadel's more forgotten ranges. Here's where I am so far:

More info after the cut...


Basically, the Slann ranges by Citadel were mainly sculpted in two distinct types, the original preslotta range sculpted by the Perrys, and the later slotta range that was sculpted by Trish Morrison (Now Trish Carden, check out her FB page, it's a great source of old Marauder and Citadel info!)

Unfortunately, the two ranges don't really fit well together in my eyes, the preslotta are quite small comparatively and, although similar, have a different design style. Added to that, I generally avoid anything preslotta for personal taste reasons, so that just leaves me with the later slotta-era models to build an army from, as well as the couple of non-Citadel Slann equivalent ranges that are out there.

The Citadel ranges are as follows:

The first Slotta range turned up in the Spring 1986 Citadel Journal, in this advert:

And then again in December 1987's White Dwarf 96:

I've ignored the small number of slotta models introduced for the Magnificent Sven scenario as they're so rare they fetch a huge premium, even by Slann standards!

As you can see, comedy names notwithstanding, that doesn't leave me with a huge range of models to work with, from a limited range that didn't sell well at the time. I don't half like making things difficult for myself! I can remember very well that back when I was working at GW around 89-91, the storage bins with the Slann range in were dusty, unloved and forgotten. Although I did paint up a small Slann army back when I was there, it was sold long ago, and so now I want to create something even more glorious than I did back then!

So, on to the army. I was lucky enough to pick up a few large single-figure units in a deal a long time ago that make up the bulk of the army, but the rest have been picked up in small trades and eBay finds over the years.

One of the things I wanted to get away from is the monopose single figure look of the units as I received them. To that end I've tried to convert pretty much every model in the army. It's mainly simple stuff like weapon swaps and bending the arms/legs to change the pose up a little. It still leaves the units looking uniform, but breaks up the repetitiveness of the monopose sculpts.

Here's an example unpainted unit showing what I've been trying to do:

This is a unit of ten Jaguar Warriors, (+2 Shock Elite, armed with Hand weapon, light armour and a shield.) The unit itself is ten identical figures, as there's only one model to represent the Jaguar warrior type. What I've done is to bend the models around a bit, and swapped out weapons so they aren't all just holding exactly the same weapon at exactly the same angle.

I mean, I know anthropomorphic fighting frog-people aren't exactly realistic in of themselves, but having the models all look the same really makes me dislike the way an army looks. It's a step back towards chess in my eyes, where the pieces are just abstractly representative, rather than trying to portray an individual. Certain armies can get away with it (Romans and Naps, I'm looking at you!) but for a jungle-based fighting force, it just didn't sit right with me.

Anyway, here's my basic army list, as I showed you in my previous post:

1 Lotus Lord on palanquin
2 Pond Masters on Cold ones
1 Auspice of Heaven (Wizard) on palanquin
1 Seeker of Stars (Wizard) on Cold One
10 Bull Slann Cold One Riders
5 Bull Slann Cold One Riders
10 Jaguar Warriors
5 Warrior Priests
10 (9) Alligator Warriors
10 (7) Eagle Warriors
10 Bull Slann
10 (2) Venom Tribe
20 Spawn Band
20 Spawn Band
10 Scouts
20 (16) Human Slaves
2 Animal Handlers
5 Troglodytes
20 Lizardmen
1 War Altar

The numbers in brackets are the total I have of each unit so far. I'm mainly missing Slann with blowpipes for my Venom Tribe unit, but I'm a few short in some of the specialist units.

So, firstly, on to my Lotus Lord, the army leader (Lvl 25 Hero):

Strangely, the easiest thing to find out of the entire Slann range is the original Palanquin. I'm guessing a lot of people bought it just to paint, as it was a lovely model. That means I've got plenty of lobotomised slaves to use as bearers. This is a mash-up of the original bearers, the later mid-90s Lizardman-era Slann Lord, and an expanded palanquin base. I've added a crucified Empire soldier to the front of it, along with a bunch of skulls and decapitated heads. The Lord is converted with a big ol' club, and there's an extra banner at the back. I'm still not sure what to do with the space at the front of the Lord, I'm either going to put some kind of slave/servant there, or just increase the size of the skull pile, I'm not sure yet.

Next up are the Pond Masters (Lvl 20 Heroes.) I've done each of these as matching foot and mounted models, so I can choose whether to attach them to cavalry or infantry units, or just have them wandering the battlefield:

Again, fairly standard models, just with some weapon changes to make them more imposing. It's quite fortunate that as a range, all of the Slann are quite bandy-legged, which makes it really easy to mount any of them as cavalry! You can also see in the models how different the metal can be between models, the second one on the left was really dark, almost like pre-slotta high lead content metal. Also I need to strip the Cold One on the left, it missed the last batch.

So, next up are my wizards!

The 'Auspice of Heaven' (Lvl 25 Wizard) is another palanquin based model with some of the very useful lobotomised slaves. Palanquins are very useful for Slann wizards due to the effects of foreign soil being contaminated by chaos, as shown by these rules from WD96:

This is originally a model I didn't get finished for the Dark Elf army I painted and posted on here a *very* long time ago, hence the partial paint, but I've decided to use the litter/palanquin with a Slann passenger instead now:

The 'Seeker of Stars' (Lvl 20 Wizard) is another character model that I've done both foot and mounted versions of. He's pretty much as he left the factory, although I've had to cut off his loincloth to mount him on the saddle.

Next on to the Rank and file units. First up are Bull Slann Cold One riders. I've done a unit of 10 and a unit of 5.

The unit of ten I've equipped brandishing their hand weapons. As they come armed with a spear and a hand weapon, I'll mount the spears on their backs later on. This is another monopose Slann unit I got, and I just altered the weapons and arm positions to change them up:

The unit of five I've converted to be armed with spears, apart from the leader, who will have his spear on his saddle. Again, very simple conversions, not much done to them at all:

Next on the army list are the Jaguar warriors, which I've already shown you and talked about, but here's a better picture of them:

My Warrior Priests are next up. Although there are only five of these, as they're +4 Shock Elite, I went to town on making them very individual, possibly priests of different Gods or something like that, so they all have their own look:

The guy in the centre is actually from my Space Slann force, I've got another copy of him, but he's currently in a jar, being stripped of paint.

The unit of 10 Alligator Warriors was really challenging. Originally they're a stiff, very two-dimensional sculpt, and I really didn't like the look of them. What I've done is bend them around to give them more of an impression of movement. Although you can't see it, I press-moulded the back of a 28mm scale crocodile in siligum, and a green stuff cast of it is being used as a combined headpiece/cloak on the centre model to match the original sculpts in a slightly more impressive way as the unit leader. The guy second left is just a placeholder for the time being, as I'm still one model short in this unit:

Next are the 10 Eagle Warriors, although I've only got seven so far. I've not done anything at all to these guys yet, they're a fairly solid lump of a model with their arms up against their bodies, so all I can really do is swap out their weapons to make them a bit different from each other, which I'll do when I've got a full unit of them to work with.

Now on to the first of the not totally original units, my ten Bull Slann. These are meant to be the largest and most powerful Slann warriors, and as such I've used the largest models in my collection. Most of these are the Bizaza from Katsina Miniatures. I bought into their first Kickstarter, and while they're lovely models, they're really huge compared to all but the largest of the original Slann models. Because of that, they don't really fit into most of the units, but put together with a few of the largest original Slann, they just about work. I haven't really needed to convert these as they're all individual, but one of them came with a huge polearm, so I've swapped that out for a sword. Eventually I'll separate the ones with double-handed weapons into their own unit of veterans, but I need to pick up a few more basic infantry on eBay first.

And this is a shot of just the Bizaza warriors:

The Venom Tribe (models armed with blowpipes) are what I'm really short of, I only have a paltry two so far, and one of those is made by Diehard Miniatures. It's a fantastic sculpt, but again, way too big compared to the originals. Because of this, I'll make him the leader, so I just have to find another 8 models to finish this unit!

The following are the first of my main two Spawn Bands, the basic infantry of the Slann. I've almost finished painting these guys:

I've basically gone for a set theme with the army, the more common types of Slann, such as these guys, are your basic frog-green in colour, with the rarer units being more exotic in skin colour.

My other main Spawn Band unit is one of the other units that's not Citadel. This time it's the Tenoch range from The Little Soldier Company. These fit in quite well size-wise with the original Slann, but I find them a little too Lizardman-like in the face to mix into other units, so they're all together here:

My unit of ten Scouts is one I've actually managed to finish. A few minor conversions to the command, and some alterations to change up the poses on the multiple "Lep'nluni" (Leaping Loonie!) model to make them a bit more individual. As to the colours on these, I decided that my Cold Ones, Lizardmen and other more 'primitive' species would be varying shades of blue, so I made my skirmishers also in blue to hint at them being more feral and animalistic in nature.

Next up, my unit of 20 Human Slaves, although currently it stands at 17. I actually painted these guys up a long time ago, and I can't remember why now! Probably just because I liked the look of them, tbh! I need to allocate a Slann Champion model to lead them, but I haven't painted one up yet.

I'm going to have 2 Animal Handlers in the army, one will be controlling the trio of Slann Warhounds I've got here, but I've not decided what else to have in the army, according to the list I can have Giant Spiders, Giant Scorpions or Sabre-Toothed Tigers. I'd love a few of the Pan Tangian Tigers from the old Elric/Eternal Champion range, but they're way out of my current price range.

The Troglodytes I've got are from the old preslotta Citadel CP3 Boxed set 'Tom Meier's Troglodytes'. Although I picked these originals up years ago in a bulk lot, they are remarkably still in production via Iron Wind Metals/Ral Partha, believe it or not, and at $5 each, they're a bargain!

My Lizardmen unit is/was a bit of a conundrum. Prior to the mid-90s, there were actually very few Lizardmen models produced by Citadel. There were the C19/C26 preslotta ranges, and the fairly briefly produced C19 slotta range, as can be seen here:

I'll be honest with you, as well as being particularly difficult to find, they just don't really fit in with the army list. There's no option for archers for a start, which rules out two models, three of the models have spears/double handed weapons, and from past experience, with the long tails they just don't rank up as units, so I've decided not to go with them.

That leaves me with a problem. I really want the army to be all-metal for personal preference, and the modern Lizardmen models are of the 'New School' of sculpting style, which by it's very nature is objectively better in quality, but it doesn't fit in with the Old School design of the rest of the army.

In the end I've gone for a compromise, the very early 5th Edition WFB Saurus models are about as close as I'm going to get to 'Old School' in style (even though they're actually mid-90s in date), and so I've picked up a unit of them. Currently it's about 50% metal, but I'll pick up some more metal models to phase out the plastics eventually:

The final unit in the army (so far!) is my War Altar. Again, a few more slave bearers hold this one up, and it's a fairly direct copy of the one in the Warhammer Armies book, though I've given it a Magical Standard poking out of the top:

So, there you have it, It's looking like it'll be about 5000 points in total when it's all up and finished. It's going to be a hell of a big job, but I'm pretty determined to get on with it and get it done. Just on the off chance that any of you out there has any spare Slann going cheap, feel free to drop me a line!

And, as always, thanks to Stuff of Legends/Orclord for providing the catalogue scans!