This weekend the Cities of Sigmar Army Set hits the shelves, bringing the “Mortals” back to the Mortal Realms in a project we first revealed more than a year ago.
To mark this momentous occasion, the Warhammer Community Whisperblades gathered a Grand Conclave of creatives from across the Warhammer Studio to find out what went into the creation of the new range.
Marshalls from the miniature design, rules, lore, and ‘Eavy Metal teams mustered in a tiny room within striking distance of Bugman’s Bar to reveal their secrets, and you can read all about it this week. First up… the miniatures.
Seb – Miniatures Creative Lead: When this project started, we realised quite early on that we primarily wanted to focus on what humans in Warhammer Age of Sigmar would feel like as a proper faction. That was the main thrust of the project, and it was something we had been itching to do.
Sam – Miniatures Design Manager: Fundamentally, the Age of Sigmar is very fantastical. Kharadron Overlords, Sylvaneth, and Daughters of Khaine and other factions all really lean into this but we realised over time that there were some fundamental archetypes that we had to address, and one of those was humans. They felt like the real lynchpin – this is needed, this will tie everything together.
Seb: This was still one of the hardest projects we’ve worked on. Part of that is that we’re all essentially experts on humans. When you look at an orruk or an aelf, they’re a small slice of the pie of humanity – broad-strokes brutish or graceful. When you look at humans though, there's an inherent nuance and you bring lots of cultural references to them. They just resonate in a way that you don’t get with orruks. It really stretched us as designers.
Sam: We started off quite wide, and the initial work was high-concept but they didn’t represent what we saw as the fundamental archetype that we envisioned for the Cities of Sigmar.
Seb: Some of our earliest feedback as the team was that the initial offerings looked like they might be from somewhere sunny or warm, that they might have an easy life of sorts. An idea was put forward that it would be better if it looked like they got rained on, if they were tired, if they were dirty.
Max – ’Eavy Metal Lead: Which is all very relatable. It’s something you touched on with the high fantasy element, but part of the appeal is that they are the counterpoint to that. Before, when you had a Stormcast Eternal next to an Ironjawz Brute you sort of lost the baseline. When you have a Freeguild Steelhem next to a Brute you suddenly realise - oh, that orruk is huge. If you go too far into fantasy with your humans you lose that comparison point.
Phil – Head Writer: We soon realised we were making the common person of the Mortal Realms with this project, which we were missing because we started with the Stormcast Eternals, who for all their curses and flaws are still big golden heroes. Fans wanted to know where the people were. It became a long-standing question in Age of Sigmar, which we’ve now answered.
It’s also how we chose a lot of the imagery in the battletome – downtrodden, beaten-up people, men and women fighting on despite broken limbs and having not bathed for days. You see that person and think, “Actually, I want this person to win.” They’re the poor infantry, and they’ve got to go up against a Hell Pit Abomination and a Bloodthirster, and survive somehow with just a sword and a shield.
Max: That’s what makes them heroes right? If they’re downtrodden and lose all the time, if you just make an army of victims that are a punching bag for the other factions, there’s no draw there.
Sam: Yes, you can go too far the other way, and end up making lowly peasants. That’s where the professionalism aspect came from. These are the soldiery – that was the turning point where we realised we were making Cities of Sigmar, and not a new random human faction.
Seb: Because it’s not just the Cities, it’s the military part, that’s its own challenge. Making weird little guys is fun, a man here who catches rats, a strange little preacher… but why would they be in a battle? How do you represent the vast uniqueness of humans and the way they wage war with a limited pool of miniatures? Especially since we needed these miniatures to be agnostic from the Cities.
Sam: We realised quite soon that we would still need to build certain themes to support this. So you have a black-powder contingent with the Ironweld Great Cannon and Freeguild Fusiliers, thundering cavalry with the Freeguild Cavaliers, and the zealotry and religion via Zenestra and the Battle Priests in the Freeguild Steelhelms. These are all ingrained in the army and it gives you ways of working out how your City deploy its armies.
Seb: Supporting all of these and the near-infinite Free Cities meant trying to give people lots of choices, so they can personalise their army – and that’s another challenge. For the Freeguild Steelhelms, there are a wide range of specific heads designed to be used on specific bodies, but they are interchangeable if you want to do that. We wanted to make units that looked like collections of regular people.
We envisaged teams of blacksmiths and tailors and armourers making everything by hand, and that had to be represented on the kits – to tell the story. There are no factories making bags or surcoats in the Mortal Realms, so every Steelhelm wears slightly different versions of these. We had to treat ourselves like fashion designers. “Today, we’re making bags”.
Following on from the Steelhelms we needed a leader, the Freeguild Marshal. That miniature had to be the leader of your army, so had to flex to fit different themes that we’d outlined earlier – be that close combat, ranged, or a mix of both. He’s elevated by the inclusion of the Relic Envoy, who brings some of that Age of Sigmar strangeness with him thanks to the desiccated, talking head.
Sam: When designing miniatures we always try to leave a lot of narrative doors open, that people can walk through in ways that suit them, but other times we get to really nail a concept down like with the Freeguild Cavalier-Marshal.
Seb: The image we had in mind for this was a of someone traversing a treacherous mountain pass – he’s saddled with bags and equipment, and he’s slogging along and tired, having traipsed across multiple battlefronts, but is ultimately still a normal person bearing his responsibilities to lead – a real contrast to the Freeguild Cavaliers, who are more ostentatious in their appearance, if not in demeanour and character.
Sam: The Freeguild Cavaliers are often driven by vengeance, they might be mercenaries and zealots so they don’t think about founding towns, but the Marshal has to consider that every step of the way.
Seb: That all supports this idea that when we’re designing miniatures we always try to remember that a picture is worth a thousand words, so how many is a miniature worth? For the Command Corps we had an opportunity to tell a whole bunch of stories, and be really eloquent with it.
The Arch-Knight and the Whisperblade are both threatening models, with powerful silhouettes, but they both communicate that strength differently. The Arch-Knight is massive – easily the biggest human in the range, but he’s still smaller than a Stormcast. But just looking at his gauntlets on that axe, they’re huge, he’s a literal bear of a man.
The Whisperblade is all angles, and the cloak actually hides things that you only see during the construction – including some extra knives. We wanted lots of things to be communicated through the miniatures, during the build. There are abundant story-telling opportunities with miniatures, even when you’re putting them together.
Sam: Tahlia Vedra was an interesting one – we wanted a named central character and the obvious place to go was a king or queen, but we didn’t want to presume feudalism into the Cities of Sigmar – so the design went in a different direction. It was quite an emergent process, and it opened up lots of doors for the lore of the Cities.
Seb: I didn't want her to be classically military – she’s got great gear and it’s more ostentatious than the rank-and-file, but I wanted her to look fierce in a unique way. She’s standing on her stirrups, upright, pointing a sword. Her hair is loose and dramatic, but her costume is a practical surcoat, and she’s lost an eye – she’s a fighter.
Her Manticore is threatening and every aspect works to convey that. It’s coming down the base conveying predatory intent, caught mid-roar, and its feet are planted wide. The scorpion tail is posed high up and ready to strike. It’s close to Thalia, a comparison that makes it look incredibly big and scary. All the pieces are united in purpose that makes this terrifying creature look natural.
The end result we wanted was for each miniature to feel like it had a name and a personality, because they’re humans like you and me.
Tomorrow we’ll be continuing the series with a second instalment of the Round Table which takes a closer look at the development of the lore for these downtrodden, everyday heroes.
