Refitting Beastmen Part 2: The Jabberslythe

"Beware the Jabberslythe my son, the lashing tongue, the madness comes..."

I've long been fond of the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky, and the Warhammer Jabberslythe which is obviously based on it. I loved the description of it as an ungainly, flapping monster that slowly closes in on its prey as they go insane. There was only one problem: when the model came out, it was barely even intimidating. What appeared to be a large toad with horns was released (alongside the masterfully intimidating Ghorgon). Bizarrely, despite misgivings I actually purchased one. I don't really know why. It was a decision which I regretted very quickly. Considering it was designed for Finecast, the production gaffes were miserable. There was a gap between the halves big enough to count as a topographical feature. I asked GW for a replacement which was nearly as bad. Ultimately, I gave it up as a bad deal.

Many years later, I decided to have a go at it again, this time ignoring the model and focusing on the description. The two bits that struck me were the reference to the beast being 'part toad, part sludge drake [one assumes a degenerate dragon] and an insect and also the idea of it closing in inexorably at hopelessly insane victims. With this in mind I set to work.

There were two aspects that I really wanted for the model: the first was to show that it comes from the deepest, wildest, most monstrously fecund part of the forest. I started with a chariot sized base and one of the gnarly trees from the base of the Arachnarok which I had leftover from my Spiderfiler conversion. This would help show the hellish verdancy of the Jabberslythe's lair, whilst also lending some height and a creeping motion. The reason I needed the height was that I was determined to show the maddening effects of the Jabberslythe's aura. For this, the Helblaster crewman with his hands over his ears was a perfect victim. His wide eyes and open mouth can easily be arranged to show a wildly screaming man trying to block the sound of the monster out. When I painted him, I gave him stark, staring eyes with trickles of blood.

Now, the monster itself. Using the idea of 'toad', I started with the bloated body of a Rot Fly, filling in most of the rotted bits. I thought it might give a nice echo of Dali-esque disproportion if I used long, extended legs. I made these from several of the long legs from the Plague Drones kits, tipped with zombie hands to make them look more unsettling.

The wings are parts I got in a job-lot - I think they're from Kromlech. The arching head and neck come from a Steed of Slaanesh because there's nothing more freaky than those horrible daemon birdfish. The weird feelers around its face are from one of the big Tyranid gribblers, as are the wibbly tentacular forearms. The tail is the only part of the original Jabberslythe kit to make it into this version.

Posing was key for me: I wanted to emphasize the helpless horror which the Jabberslythe induces. I posed it to be creeping across the rotten tree, head leering down at the doomed Empire soldier, one of the hands reaching out towards him.

A conversion with this many bits together will lead to a few messy joins. To conceal these, I covered the painted monster's shoulders and abdomen with black static grass to serve as insectile fur.

Now, it still doesn't drive me mad to look at, but I think it fits the bill a bit more!

The Sultan stirs...

Far from the Empire and Bretonnia, an ancient civilisation dreams between the great desert and the sapphire ocean. The world is forever changed, and the time has come for Araby to make its voice heard...

Read The Sultan stirs

Refitting Beastmen Part 1: the Beastlord

Beastmen have always been my favourite flavour of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy: there's something very evocative about herds of giant evil murder-goats loitering in the forests, an odd fusion of Visigoth and faerie tale monster. They're the thing that goes bump in the night. They're the monster that ate grandma.

But Games Workshop never seemed to quite get behind the idea. We're not talking about the same sort of self-inflicted problem as Chaos Dwarfs, but their efforts with Beastmen always seemed a bit half-hearted. The 2003 Beasts of Chaos release, for example, featured only one plastic kit and the importing of several 90s kits (this is in the same era as Bretonnians getting four plastic kits, Wood Elves getting three and Ogre Kingdoms getting four). One of the bigger problems for the Cloven Ones was the lack of variety in Beastlords. There was two released in 2003. Both were nice enough models, but they had problems. The great weapon wielding one was a one-piece casting in metal which made him almost conversion-proof, and the other had two separate axes but basically no way to customise him. Added to this, neither one of them was as imposing as we might like.

This was a problem which was unexpectedly solved when Games Workshop released its recent Beastgrave game. One of the factions was the muddled mess of conflicting identities and reused CAD that you'd expect from an AoS original concept, but the Beastmen were very much in the spirit of the Old World. What's more, the Bestigor was large enough to stand out as a leader in a Beastmen army. And look how freakishly well he stands on a 25mm square base!

So there it was: finally, a Beastlord worthy of the name. And that was just the start of my quest to bring the Beastmen into the modern age...