Yes, the whole world is haunted! Only is haunted? Nay, it itself ‘walks’, it is uncanny through and through, it is the wandering seeming-body of a spirit, it is a spook. – Stirner, Philosopher, M19

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My entire endeavor of creating the Crataegus Legion, as a 40K vision of what was my boreal contribution to the Pilgrym two years ago, was sparked by the sheer beauty of the Vlka Fenryka dreamt up by Migsula, fellow Iron Sleeter, world-building genius and weatherman extraordinaire.

When I first saw the early images of his Vlka Fenryka in my mail box some years ago I thought I new exactly what had pushed this dream forward and where Migsula’s image of the Rout was heading…

Nothing special, just the heart of the project, the heart of Astartes Imagery. Grey, weather beaten, cold, with a spot of blood. – Migsula, 1st Iron Sleet Invitational

What struck a cord in my own imagination was how the Vlka Fenryka was envisioned from the beginning not only as miniatures making up a playable 40K army but also, maybe even more so, as weathered characters of the weathered worlds they were part of. Grey, weather-beaten, cold. A diverse family of uncanny creatures and characters appearing as if they had just walked straight out of a haunted, frost-bitten world of a Dan Abnett novel.

Nothing special…

Other than what has become one of the most beautiful and exquisite Warhammer 40.000 armies around. I thought I new where it would be heading when I saw the first images, but as it turned out I didn’t. It became so much more than what I could have ever dreamt up myself. My approach to the Crataegus Legion is in part a homage to that vision and how it pushed the boundaries of how and what a 40K army can be. By pushing myself out of my own comfort zone I have strived to create not only miniatures for a playable 40K army (my first fully completed army as it were!) but also the weathered world they inhabit.

Built and painted as if they themselves are the forest-covered Thorn Moons I imagine they call their home. In essence the roots, boughs and branches of the boreal forest itself…wandering seeming-bodies of a thorny world!

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Here is a new pack of boreal hunters underway: Two flesh-changed Crataegus Legionnaires (my versions of Thousand Sons counter-parts of Migsula’s Vlka Fenryka Wulfen) and a handful more of my Borealis Sentinels for both narrative and scale.

Lichen and moss, bark and bough.

Green Men Cometh!