The Cursed: Sepulchral Guard

When Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire first came out, I was instantly taken with the setting. It was in many ways the first solid place we had in Age of Sigmar, an actual city with actual people who live(d) there and did actual things (and was now, because of that, a place worth fighting over). In other words, it introduced a tangible sense of what one corner of the Mortal Realms was like. As such, it really helped to get some ideas going when I was seriously rethinking what I wanted to do with my hobbying (just playing for the sake of playing wasn't doing it for me).

This warband was created over the course of several months earlier this year. Drawing heavily on not only the images and story of Shadespire but also the fantastic illustrations from the Mordheim rulebook and some of the tropes from Inquisitor (such as the demonhost), I wanted to see how far I could push a reinterpretation of the Sepulchral Guard. I really wanted to give the sense that these skeletons were the cursed city's even more cursed guardians, doomed by Nagash to protect a city that will be dead forever; I wanted to show the skeletons as twisted and decaying, but also, of course, utterly trapped in this abominable state, while also having the sense of specialness--the sense that they're not the usual mindless slaves of Nagash--which they're described with in the lore. Thus, the Champion was/is so powerful that it's been restrained; the Prince of Dust is regal, intelligent and brutal; the Harvester is a grotesque, whirling scythe of death; and even the Petitioners have their own individual if minor character.

Of course, the Sepulchral Warden model deserves special mention, as is fitting for the warband's leader. One part of the Shadespire story that particularly struck me was the hint that the Stormcast Eternals, who originally came to Shadespire on Sigmar's orders, were actually dying there. This got me thinking: what happens to a Stormcast Eternal when he or she dies for real? My conjecture, if only for the modelling potential, was that all those reforgings must leave some kind of physical trace on the leftover body. Yes, true, it is the soul specifically that is reforged, but the physical body must enter the equation somewhere. The Sepulchral Warden, then, is a suit of armour full of the past lives of this particular poor Stormcast, which come tumbling out as it fights, gets damaged, and decays. (Again, this is really only my conjecture for the modelling potential it allowed, and is based on no real lore.)

Anyway, enough background. This first post should have some more images, so here are some photographs of the Sepulchral Guard warband in different configurations and against different backgrounds to (hopefully) give a fuller sense of the modelling and painting.

-Jamie