Cities of Sigmar Misthåvn

At last the infantry for my Cities of Sigmar army is complete. This group hails from the city that captured my imagination when the revamped Cities were released: the shadowy city of Misthåvn, which is made from hundreds of sailing ships moored together. Loads more pics and background below the jump...

Well it's been over a year since I started this project, and I had some trouble getting around to finishing these. Firstly I had a huge disruption to my life for a few months, and didn't have regular access to a space to work on them. Then the release of The Old World this year meant I got my hands on a Bretonnian box set, and that really scratched my itch for a "normal" human fantasy army (oh yeah, that's not finished yet either!). I also had some random paint trouble with these models, I think the paint was separating on my wet pallete so wasn't adhering to the models properly. Some bits I had to redo several times. The bases are also still raw and need finishing. Anyway!

Steelhelms unit

These kits really are very good. With a mix of body shapes, genders and ethnicities, they really do a good job of portraying Humans Working Together Faction for Age of Sigmar. There's some excellent characterful heads in the range. And there's some nice esoterica sprinkled in, with things like the Battlepriests and Relic Envoy.

I converted up a unique Battlepriest for each of the two units, using the proper arms (a cudgel and a weird relic staff for each) to mark them out. They're representing what I imagine is a sort of caste of ferrymen working in Misthåvn. Two more of these figures attend to the Hurricanum conversion I made for this project.

Two battlepriests

The unit captains also saw a little conversion work to mark them out. One gets a silver dolphin ornament on her helmet (from an old Empire cannon) and a boathook for a weapon. The other has a hook on his helmet, a vicious spear, and a spiked collar. The units they lead also lean into these respective characters - one is professional looking in helmets and grey tabards, the other is more rough and ready with bare heads, leather tabards, and a couple of nastier looking weapons. I think they represent different ships crews.

A cap'n with a dolphin helm and boathook weaopn.

Maybe the most eye-catching conversion is the unit banners. These use sails from the defunct Dreadfleet game, which are just about the right size. This is an idea I've had for a while, but I also must shout out a fellow hobbyist who did the same conversion - someone who went by "The Merchant Prince" on Instagram, who seems to have deleted their account. They had an excellent Empire Marienberg army and I hope they pop up online again some time.

The other Steelhelms unuit

The banner bearer in this unit got a telescope for extra nautical flair. For a while I was going through and adding barnacles to all of the shields. These are entirely hand made from green stuff, so you can guess why I stopped. I might source some nail art beads or something to add more later, because barnacle encrusted shields looks cool for this proejct.

Marshall and Envoy

The Marshall is an excellent model, and I did no conversion to him (the two equally fantastic alternative heads have gone into other conversions, stay tuned). I changed the envoy's head, and his staff presents an excellent spot for character conversion. You can just chop the enshrined head off there and stick on anything you like. I made a perch for a nautical seagull. The bird is actually a crow sculpt, painted like a gull (I'll call it an Ulgu sea-crow for goth points). It's also an incredibly fragile bit, and I finally had to drill and replace its single supporting leg with a piece of brass rod (this was as fiddly as you'd expect). The tail is also glued to the back of its perch as a second necessary connection point.

Envoy and Ulgu sea-crow companion

Finally, I did a little cleanup on the Hurricanum conversion I mad before. This is really the army centerpiece as things stand. Instead of an orrery, it's an enshrined shipreck that still blazes with St Elmo's fire.

Celestial Hurricanum and friends

I built these models from the Cities of Sigmar release box set, which of course also included a cavalry unit and a metallurgist wizard. I haven't finished either yet! But of course the cavalry is also converted to match the army's style. As for the wizard, I haven't figured out how to approach that one yet, although it's a very nice model. More to come in future then!

Hek