Tales of the Fimir

I think I'll expand somewhat on my Fimir project, as much to arrange it in my own head as anything.

I've been nurturing this project like a cherished child for some time now. I had visions of hordes of Fimm warriors advancing over the bogs and moors of Albion, supported by Celt-style allied human tribes, with various beasts and machines in tow. The rather awkward story of the Fimir made them a little contentious, but even so I knew I would one day attempt a Fimir army.

One of the main problems with this grand ambition is that there were bugger all Fimir miniatures. Assembling a decent force was going to be a problem. Fortunately I relish this kind of difficulty with armies. I play chaos dwarves, for example. There was one release of Fimir by Games Workshop, here seen right. You have the meargh, the leader of the tribe, two dirach, her sorcerers, some nobles and fimm warriors. The large Fimir could hardly be used exclusively for two reasons. I don't want to have to use an ogre kingdoms list, and for the cost and time to acquire that many fimir I could hire a genetic engineer to grow me a real fimir and have time enough to raise it to adulthood.

So, human size fimir. There was ONE model, a Games Workshop limited edition. Oh, and the plastic Heroquest one. While my first fimir test mini IS a plastic one, I didn't plan on using them for all my human size fimir. What to do? I was considering plastic orcs heavily re-sculpted when I discovered the bog raiders from Bloodmoon Miniatures. I had to go and have a cup of tea to calm me down. Here were, for all intents and purposes, new fimir miniatures. Happy days.

So, with my core problems sorted, I began to consider other units. I had decided on the Warriors of Chaos list to base army on, specifically Nurgle, as the minus to hit modifiers satisfyingly represents the fimir mist obscuring the army. It gave me access to orges (large fimir nobles and fianna fimm units) trolls (Albion fen beasts) chaos warriors (fimm warriors) and so on. But I also wanted to include other units, humans who had allied themselves with the fimir. This gave me marauders (human shearl warriors) chariots (plenty of Celt chariots out there. I've been considering mounting one fimir fimm warrior in each chariot with a human driver.) marauder horse (light horsemen) and knights (not sure here, perhaps heavy elk cavalry) spawn (celtic monsters) giants (I have the giants of Albion set, in there is a giant with one eye. Bingo.) daemon princes (Balor - a daemon of the fimir)  chosen (bog spirits - a mix of dryad and undead parts will work here, methinks.) and so on. There's a wealth of conversion possibilities.

The painting considerations are mostly underpinned by the skin colour of the fimir, which I am still muddling about with. I follow the fluff laid down in Warpstone 25, it's a wealth of fimir background, top stuff for building a theme. Tattoos will be the order of the day on many warriors. Most of the fimir cloth will be red, as they like wearing clothes the colour of human blood. Charming gents.

So, finally, it seems as if I am running out of excuses not to start this army. To that end I have. The test mini is on the bench, a fimm warrior champion. My gaming buddies have been hearing me harp on about this for years. Time to get going. It will be a long project, but I'm very much looking forward to it.