Another model that I owe the motivation to get painted from the community’s painting challenges today – specifically Swordmaster’s Monster March and Ann’s “Neglected But Not Forgotten” painting challenge. It’s a Varghulf model I’ve had for quiiiite a few years now, and in fact is the second one of these that I own. The first is …MIA right now, a boxed metal one I purchased a long time ago when such things were the norm. This one is a Finecast one (cough, hack, ptoooiii!!) that I picked up more recently secondhand (maybe 5 years ago? – that’s recently for me!) that unfortunately had Finecast quality all over it. So mould lines, some missing detail… you get the idea.

Anyway, while trying to work on some Yetis for the aforementioned challenges, I ended up finding this guy in a tub filled with random models and then took him to work to clean up, then assembled, primed and based it. I think I had planned to make a fancy base for it using layers of cork aand so forth to elevate it onto a rocky outcrop. Instead I just decided to get this fucker painted. After all, if I ever find the metal one, I can still do the rocky outcrop thing. I took a look at the official paint schemes that GW is using and has used in the past, but nonne of them really spoke to me much, so I just went ahead and did it by feels and ended up with this.

As for what the hell is a Varghulf, anyway? In Warhammer lore, they’re powerful Vampire Lords who have devolved into a permanently animalistic and bestial form, though in AoS they seem to have been shoved into the “Ghoul” undead sub-faction alongside things like Vargheists – known as Flesh-Eater Courts. With a new Vampire-themed revamp coming soon though – who knows if this model will be redone as a nice looking plastic multi-kit in the next couple of months and reinserted into the Vampiric faction? Not sure how any of this covers the “zombie” aspect of the model with all of the exposed bone and muscle sinew, but ah well…

I dunno. I just bought my Varghulf originally mostly because I like the look of the model and as a bonus felt I could use it as a good proxy in the Lord of the Rings SBG as Gulavhar, Terror of Arnor. As it happens, Gulhavar is a GW creation for SBG rather than something from either Tolkien or even New Line/Peter Jackson – essentially, Gulhavar is a giant vampire-demon. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the official model for Gulhavar at all, so you see where the connection was made…

So here is a Varghulf-as-Gulhavar, menacing a trio of Gondor’s heroes! Also serving as a scale shot!