AoS Cogfort E44D - Freeguild General on Griffon

Description

Lord General DeForte is not only in command of his own mobile cog-fort, but he also has a rare cog-griffon at his disposal. Often perched at the top of the fort for a high vantage point to survey the land around him as well as a fantastic launching platform. The Cog Griffon is an amazing marvel of engineering and magic. They say that Lord DeForte had a hand in designing this particular flying unit, insisting that it be build in homage to the majestic Griffons used by Freeguild Generals for generations.

Pictures

Build + Paint

Inspired to build a Cities of Sigmar Cogfort Army meant I could finally build the Free Peoples General on Griffon kit to make a Griffon, instead of a Zombie (Dragon) Griffon or a Warsphynx. Yay!

Except, things can never be that simple.

This is one of the more complex kitbashes I’ve done and I apologize for the nonsense of this kitbash in terms of the number of models it takes to pull off in this particular way. I had started a Warhammer 40k Adeptus Mechanicus army when the models first came out, but I never played with them. After some time they started to become bits for other things - a model used is better than a model gathering dust. Luckily I love taking 40k stuff and making it fit AoS. A few weeks later a friend wanted to trade some painting for his Skitarii half of the Forgebane set - including the big robots (Armigers). Perfect?

This build includes parts from:

Freeguild Griffon - Griffon head and Rider
Tech-Prist Dominus - arm with staff
Imperial Knights Armiger - Upper torso, front legs
Sydonian Dragoon - abdomen, hips, hind-legs
Archaeopter Stratoraptor - Wings

Some of the problems to solve here were obvious; What tech is too scifi and what can pass as steampunk (luckily 40k skews steampunk), and how do guns fit in?

Dry fit Armiger and Ironstrider pieces compared to original Empire Griffon kit.

Body

When I pull off a kitbash I want to pay as much homage to the original model and kit as I can. There are some built in limitations like needing to sit on the same sized base. But getting the scale right, similar weapons and functionality. This time I wanted to not only get the look and feel right, but I wanted the pose to be as close as possible. Also, I had quite a bit of bits from the Griffon model to use.

The shell of the Armiger had an immediate scale issue, but the curve was so close. Unfortunately it needed the ironstrider kit (which I had already assembled but never played) to form the hind quarters. Sometimes you get to use leftovers from one kit to fit on another, sometimes you need two whole kits..

With this sort of project you don’t often get assurances by looking at the book art or even GW’s 3D views. They help a LOT, don’t get me wrong. But usually you have to take a leap of faith and start bashing.

And then you enjoy the payoff.

After jumping in with both claws I was able to get this bird to a decent spot where there’s no doubt that this is a mechanical griffon. I did flip the torso to get a different curve But, I’ve yet to solve the wings issue as everything that exists is too small. Looks like I’m going to be moving from kit bashing to scratch building, which can be fun in its own right.

General

I love the riders on this kit. I used the same body and torso for the general on steed, but swapped out the head and gave him a huge cog axe and a control lever for flying the griffon.

Wings

When I started this project, the Archaeopteryx Stratorapter hadn’t come out yet. I had no idea that there was going to be Adeptus Mechanicus wings available. Same old story though, no idea if they were the right size. Luckily I was able to trade some bits to someone who didn’t want the wings (what?!)