Last year I was lucky enough to have my work shared by the Warhammer Community team, in which some of my Suneater Ogor custom battletome units were showcased and explored. Below is the fantastic article they produced along with a copy of the Suneater Ogor battletome I had worked on!
Ricki: After having first become involved with Warhammer in 1994, I returned to the hobby in my mid-twenties when I found a brand-new Warhammer store opening in my hometown and a manager as excited as I was about the pending release of Warhammer Age of Sigmar. It was the newness of this brave new world that really piqued my interest – with so many stories still untold and so many maps yet to be drawn, anything could exist in the darkest corners of the Mortal Realms. I started to build new armies and convert up models to match ideas I had spanning these new realms, from fire aelves of Aqshy to the Sylvaneth of Shyish, and now my Sun-eaters ogor tribe.
My initial idea for the army came from a line I read in the Grand Alliance: Destruction book that really captured my imagination:
“Worshippers of ash and flame, volcano and magma, the Firebellies revere Gorkamorka as the Sun‑eater. Crazed cults of steel-bellied ogors, Firebellies consume burning combustibles in sorcerous rituals so that they might honour their god by belching fire over their enemies.”
That might only be a couple of sentences, but it sparked my interest to expand upon this aspect of Gorkamorka and the effect it might have on the tribes that venerated him in this manner. Fire is the epitome of Destruction – hungry and all-consuming – and those who worshipped Gorkamorka as such a god would truly be an intimidating foe.
Whenever I begin a new army, it tends to start with one model – something that speaks to me in a way that I can build whole stories and an entire collection around. For this project, that model actually came in two halves – the Firebelly and Magma Dragon. The Firebelly is an awesome sculpt and very much at the heart of my army concept. I also love the fatness of the Magma Dragon as, unlike the serpentine dragons of Order, this beast has been made to take a punch, and you can imagine it eating a man whole and still having plenty of room to consume the rest of his unit. To my mind, there is no more fitting mount for a Firebelly than a Magma Dragon.
Looking at the tribe from a narrative perspective, they naturally fit in the realm of Aqshy, but what is their main motivator? Why and how do they fight? In a realm of fire and rage, the idea of any hairy beasts seemed a bit at odds with the environment, so that drove me in the direction of them having evolved with leathery skin or reptilian scales. For their fighting style, I wanted to find something that would give them a niche within the wider Destruction story, so I settled on priests, artillery and fire – these ogors would be city-burning fanatics. They migrate across Aqshy, caring not for feasts or treasure, instead, seeking to burn down every city that falls in their path that they might erect mighty pyres to their god and earn his favour.
Looking for models to join my Firebelly on Magma Dragon, the first that came to mind was the Squiggoth, which is roughly the size of a Stonehornand definitely a contender as a mobile artillery piece. The Skaven Plagueclaw is a fantastic base for any kind of crude catapult you might want to build, while Grots make excellent crew.
Given that I wanted my Firebelly on Magma Dragon to be the army centrepiece, I didn’t want to go as far as trying to model Gorkamorka himself, but I still wanted something visceral to represent an avatar of his will. That’s where the idea came from for a volcanic living idol of Gorkamorka in his aspect of the Sun-eater (or an “Exalted Volsungr,” as I call it). The Rogue Idol formed the perfect basis for this piece.
As of now, this project is only just starting. It will keep growing and evolving with the story and I’m hoping to get them involved in some narrative games soon!
Artisans of Sigmar 