Warhammer: Teutogen Guard-Concept

 

Not many times in one's hobby life you come across a great opportunity as recently I did. One of my closest friends was lucky enough to get his hands in almost a brand new bundle of 15xTeutogen Guards with an Ulric warrior priest and Emil Valgeir, the Ar-Ulric of Middenheim .

My friend's little treasure

WARHAMMER LORE:

If you are into Warhammer Fantasy lore, their background goes as follows:

 

The Teutogen Guard are the elite bodyguard of the Ar-Ulric in his role as Elector of the Empire, accompanying him both at state occasions and on the battlefield. Unlike the Greatswords who are drawn from the State Troops, the Teutogen Guard are instead selected from the ranks of the Knights of the White Wolf by the orders of the Grand Master and the Ar-Ulric himself.

They are often members of the Order's Inner Circle, although the selection process takes account only of merit and not rank and ordinary brethren are just as likely to be chosen if they are worthy. Being selected for a tour of duty with the Teutogen Guard is one of the highest accolades that a Knight of the White Wolf can receive, and the warriors already fearsome resolve is strengthened still further by the weight of the honour and duty he bears

 

Emil Valgeir was the previous Grand Master of the Knights of the White Wolf, but ascended to the position of Ar-Ulric after his younger brother, Jarrick Valgeir, fell from grace during the revelation of a conspiracy involving the Cult of the Purple Hand. A warrior as well as a priest, he fought alongside the Teutogen Guard against the Beastmen of the Drakwald, and in the Empire’s campaigns against other foes, winning the grudging admiration of Reiksmarshal Kurt Helborg.

THE INCEPTION OF THE CONCEPT

 

This models are such a relic and are so rare that they are now sold on ebay for small fortunes, with prices ranging from £30 to £60 per miniature as they are really a collectionist's treasure.

 

Covid-19 has had an impact in the world as we haven’t seen before, and of course it affected me during this time. I found myself isolated with not a lot of people to share the love for the hobby with. After my friend told me that he got these miniatures I offered him to develop the concept of this unit and bring it to life as a shared effort.

 

The idea of doing a project together is great and the way I planned to execute is that I will suggest a Concept to help him release his imagination: My friend is not a very imaginative person, he struggles to try new things and usually gets stuck trying new concepts, colour schemes or new techniques in his miniatures. He usually follows the paint schemes displayed in the boxarts displays in the boxes. This is something normal, specially when starting in the hobby-the fear of failing trying something new.

Sharing this project will help him breaking the fear of trying new things, will teach him new skills and above all, two friends will have the chance of sharing their passion for the hobby and have a great time doing so! 😉

 

THE CONCEPT

These miniatures are valued an small fortune each one of them, so for the unit I want to implement both a display and the capacity of playing with them. For that reason I will suggest using a display plinth with removable bases to fit the need.

 

To enhance the display and ensure that all the miniatures are well displayed we have 2 options, either spread them on a flat surface allowing separation between models so they can be clearly seen or…..displaying them on a slope. This is not the first time that I do this, you can see examples of this display design Here and Here. 

 

Now is time to build some background and history to these bad boys. In my mind, these sturdy warriors are going to battle , they have been called to aid one of the empire Generals in the region and to do so they are moving through one of the Middle Mountains mountain passes.

 

 Map of Middenheim and the Middle Mountains

To represent this we will be sculpting a rocky mountain pass and we will enhance the northern look of it by using snow…lots of it!

 

 

For the display base I would like to give eminent positions to both heroes, Emil Val Geir leading the unit at the front and the Ulric Priest at the back. This display will allow us to give more display space to the front line of the display.

I suck at sketching 😢

PAINTING:

 

For the painting, I would like to reflect the northern and cold aspect of the Teutogen Guard to the project. To help me achieve that  we will follow an Split complementary Triad with the key colours being

·         Blue violet for armour plate

·         Blue green for arms (We will have to see if it works)

·         Desaturated orange for the base

Wheel of colour, you can get them for next to nothing on ebay

The intention of using an split complementary scheme is to give a lot of tension to the colour palette but at the same time reducing it compared to a strict complementary scheme . How it will look??? I don’t know, hopefully it will work…in my mind it does 😂.

 

For the exposed skin of the warriors, we will use as reference some of Adrian Smith Illustrations. They fit with our scheme background and display a kind of suntanned skin that only people surrounded by snow can get.

 

 Artwork by I think  Adrian Smith 

 

For the snow we will use andrea model snow and Gloss varnish.

 

Inspiration

One of the biggest inspirations for this unit is the magistral work done by the creator Alexi Z, with her awarded Golden demon unit in 2005. For some reason I couldn't find this pictures in CMON and I had to go into the deep web to rescue them:

Alexi Z won in 2005 one Golden Demon with this stunning work

Unfortunately over the years I completely lost track of Alexi Z, she was one of my first references with really jaw dropping work. Let me know if you know if she has done any recent work.

Wrapping up

Now that we have a road map it is time to discuss this with my friend and see where our skill takes the both of us and these wonderful miniatures.

Most progress to come.

Regards