Need an honest opinion on this WIP

[finlayk]

No probs.. will put in a small selection..

[PaleKing]

Thanks Kevin, they will look much better than the old Empire horses.

[asterion]

Honestly Paul, that looks awesome. THe AL looks like he is striking a Anvil of Doom. Fantastic idea, and really adds a personal touch and that "Wow!" factor to an otherwise excellent army. This is the extra box that will get ticked at the WPS GT in the painting scores. The height is particularly good, so I'd stikc with those wheels.

I don't mind the Empire horses, and I think the plated barding looks particularly in character with the heavily armoured priests and chunky wagon. I agree with Neil about getting the right horses to finish it off though, but I'm not sure that the "soft" look of the cloth-barded Bret ones would be right. Have you had a look through the various GW ranges? They make about a billion different horses. The Blood Dragons have some alternate heads for those Empire horses that might go well. Bound to be others too.

I also like the idea of flagellants dragging the thing on ropes, like the artwork from the Empire book. OF course it's hard to believe they could march 16"... but would look awesome.

[asterion]

Also Paul, I might be tempted to add an additional 2 horses to the front, but on a separate 50mm base, (so that they are in 2 columns of 2) then remove the additional horses when the game starts. It is such a massive thing that it could well have 4 or even 6 horses pulling it, would look very cool, but not be a disadvantage on the battlefield.

[bjornagain]

asterion said:

I also like the idea of flagellants dragging the thing on ropes, like the artwork from the Empire book. OF course it's hard to believe they could march 16"... but would look awesome.

Chariots cant march anyway Charging 16" is the main problem, or are they barded horses?

[tartanarmy]

Hmmmmmmm,

its got size and all,but i reckon another 2 horses are needed. but i would leave them on for games. just have them 4 abreast. large size base, more frontage for combat etc??

but paul, it will make a great addition to your already great loking empire collection.

[chrish]

Paul,
As I mentioned on Thursday night, these battle altars were actually used historically by the Italian states in the middle ages and renaissance. If you want some more ideas, you could try googling "Carroccio", which is what they were called.

The pictures I've seen look similar to your model except that the carroccios were pulled by teams of oxen (8 in one painting I have seen!) and there was usually a huge standard on the back of the wagon so that the altar could be clearly seen by the whole army!

Since the Empire collects and trains mythical beasts like griffins for use by the Emperor, perhaps you could have a couple of suitably strong mythical beasts instead of horses pulling the chariot? A couple of Sabre Toothed Tigers might look good! Here's a company that does a 28mm model Sabre Tooth Tiger

www.sbarber-models.clara.net/main.html

I found this site last year when I was trying to find suitable dinosaur models to replace my cold ones!

[asterion]

Or the sabre-toothed tigers with the ogre hunter are quite good too, and almost as big as a horse in scale - in fact their bodies would almost certainly be bulkier than the old GW horse models.

[finlayk]

I had two bodies kicking about... used their heads on my yhetees...

[PaleKing]

Had a good hard slog at this today and managed to start my Captain on Pegasus too.

I did manage to squeeze the War Altar onto a chariot base in the end but it was a bit tight!.

Anyway - I may still change the horses as per the advice I got, probably to Bret horses instead, but I'll only do that once I know that I have time to finish other stuff before the WPS tourney rolls around at the start of November.

It still needs to be varnished and the is a small amount of tidying still to do but I'm pretty pleased to finally have a War Altar on the table!

[finlayk]

Looks great Paul..... Very intimidating... are the rules as good as it looks?

[primer]

ace mate

[Alasandril]

Looking superb Paul.

Paint job clearly as good as the conversion work.

Get that posted up on Warhammer-Empire and you'll soon get replies that the model trully deserves.

[Asurya]

Looking good m8.

[asterion]

Well finished. Looks great.

I would have no qualms about my opponent declaring that that was unbreakable!