Fomorians

The weather has been much brighter and warmer today, so I was able to get into the garden and begin undercoating a few miniatures previously featured, as well as prepping some more of those still on my work bench. Today's miniatures come from the Celtos range by i-Kore Miniatures. They have since been marketed by a variety of other companies, so I am not sure where to get them from now. I managed to buy these at a trade show many moons ago from Brigade Games. I thought I had bought the whole collection, but there are a few more leader types to get and some sirens (female Fomorians, which I probably won't get as they don't really fit in with the male versions imho - they would make a good female only faction though for another game).

I have broken my Fomorian collection down into four types and photographed each faction separately.

Fomorians with Spears...

There are nine of these in the range and I managed to get them all. The barbed spears/harpoons look great for a sea-based bunch of raiders. I was going to paint the weapons as sharpened bone to fit in with the sea raiders theme.

Fomorians with Swords...

Again, there are nine miniatures in this part of the range. In true i-Kore style, the weapons are over-sized. I am not too keen on over-sized weapons, even if it is in a fantasy setting. I was going to paint the swords as some kind of sharpened cuttle fish bone; light weight and easy to wield, especially underwater, but when they come up against steel weapons, pretty ineffectual. Hence why Fomorians usually only raid isolated fishing villages - no trained soldiers using steel weaponry should be in the immediate vicinity.

Fomorians with Great Swords...

There were six miniatures in this part of the range, but I only have five of the variants. I have a double of the second from left - looking at the catalogue, he is very similar looking to the other variant, so an easy mix up to make for the manufacturer when packing. I will try to pick up the last variant at a later date.

Fomorian Command...

This set contains a variety of Fomorians in suitably heroic poses. The first one is a Fomorian blowing into a huge shell-like instrument, and the others are all armed and dangerous. There are a few more named characters in the range which I might get, as well as some beastmen and reavers that complement them but, again, I may or may not get those.

Even though I looked everywhere, I couldn't find the shields that should have come with these miniatures. That said, what good would a shield do underwater? It would be very unwieldy. Perhaps these figures will be shieldless to befit their oceanic origins? I looked in the catalogue and saw that shields are available separately in packs of 12, so maybe those poses that look like they are holding shields will get one? Maybe they realise that even farmers can fight back with farming implements and makeshift weaponry and therefore some kind of extra protection is necessary; so they carry shields onto dry land for warding off errant pitchfork blows whilst raiding but don't use them in the water?

I am not sure how to go about painting these fellas yet. Do I do them a drab green/blue or grey/brown to match their oceanic environment or should I maybe push them to brighter colours as befits a more tropical sea? Perhaps the further up the greasy pole these chaps travel, the brighter their markings?