I was thinking of putting a unit filler in my unit of Immortals and was thinking of some sort of stone plinth as a grave of a great Overlord or Sorcerer-Prophet and having the unit surrounding it. But I’m having a hard time designing it. I’ve looked at the sarcophagus of Durin from the LotR movie plus a few other ideas but I’m having a hard time finding good inspiration. So I thought I’d ask the experts - has anyone seen anything similar? I’m considering an effigy for the top but it is the sides that I’m most stuck on. Thoughts? Has anyone seen anything like this done before? I’m not proud - I’m willing to steal ideas
Maybe try looking up Assyrian, Babylonian, etc carvings, murals and the like and try copying the style of those butvwith CDs in the place of the humans?
Ancient Mesopotamians were not famous for burying their dead in flamboyant sarcophagi, unlike Egyptians or Etruscans. Burial practices seems to have included burying the dead inside small earth mounds in large clay jars (sometimes two clay jars sealed together with bitumen). Still, relief carvings from temples and palaces would be a great starting point to get a Chaos Dwarf sarcophagus started. Insert lightning bolts, bulls winged or not, stunties in high hats, Chaos stars, skulls and grimdark features where floral patterns or milder stuff are used. Use Chaos Dwarf runes and Hashut symbols. Exchange bows and slings for fireglaives and blunderbusses. Cavalry for Bull Centaurs. Chariots for Iron Daemons. Also insert Greenskins often where enemies and victims are seen.
Aim for something grandiose and over-the-top, perhaps even aping a ziggurat form! The bigger the better. As is known from Chaos Dwarf headgear.
You could also add Daemon statues, tablets with Chaos runes or approximate-cuneiform (easy to do, just aim for neat tight rows of crows’ feet twisted about) or even the Babylonian/evil Dwarf stele from this Zealot kit:
There are a lot of stuff to inspire this good unit filler idea. Take a particular look on the plate armour fresque scenes of Forgeworld’s Bull Centaurs and their Taur’rukh.
Furthermore, some Of Ancient Times stuff include fresque elements on the high hats, which could be copied or inspire more elaborate stuff:
Now that I’ve gotten past Admirals Library. 40 x 40 base. I assume you’ll have the plinth full or almost full length pointing (unit wise ) to the front. I’d go up the sides 1cm in three tiers to the top. Only narrow ledges so you’ll still have some size across the top. So say if you start 5mm in from the base sides and use 3mm as the ledge width, you will end up having abount 18mm across the top of the final tier to play with. I’ve tried carving MDF (like used in the Chaos Dwarf Mine). It is do-able but it might be easier to find frescos that you like in amongst Admirals pics and resize them to fit. I like depth when I can so a fiddly thing to do would be to glue the printed pics to some cardboard and cut out the pieces of the frescoes that you want and then stick them on the frame of your model.
I would recommend buying the Dungeon Clutter Ancient Idols from zealotminiatures.com on the same size bases as your units and just mix up there locations in the regiment.
