Goonhammer Historicals: As Seen in Warhammer

It’s no secret that many of the Historicals team moonlight as AOS or Old World writers too.  We’re big fans of the game and the factions. Interviews with the GW team and designers over the years have often revealed that they draw inspiration from many different time periods when sculpting minis for their systems. With that in mind we thought we’d have a go at blending our love for outrageous fantasy minis and the many beautiful, cheaper, and more historically faithful, kits out there in a sort of fantasy/historical mashup. 

Cities of Sigmar (and the Empire)/Renaissance Europe

From Freeguild cavaliers to Steelhelms, any fan of the Cities of Sigmar aesthetic (or the Empire aesthetic for TOW) will see lots of familiar touches in Renaissance Historicals.  Doubling up for both Age of Sigmar and The Old World, renaissance ranges provide the historical inspiration for several Warhammer armies. Just about every historicals manufacturer has some kind of Renaissance range, all hitting the key aesthetics that have made their way into Warhammer – note the helms and breastplates in particular on the Perry miniatures below. 

If you want to go big into this – and save a lot of money doing so – Perry have a massive pack of 40 European mercenaries, including options for crossbows, hangunners, pikes and a command sprue. 

From the world that was, Empire Greatswords have a near perfect historical parallel in German Landknechts, often mercenary units,  active in the Italian wars of the 15th and 16th centuries. Warlord Games do a kit that will feel very familiar to any lovers of immense swords and the Empire, puffy sleeves, fabulous headgear, riotous colours, extra large wavy swords and all.  

Stormcast and Slaves to Darkness/1400 – 1600 Plate Armour

Whether on foot or mounted, the Stormcast and Warriors of Chaos aesthetic owes a lot to late medieval and Renaissance examples of full plate armour, even if the wearers have slightly superhuman proportions!

These 28 mm foot knights from Perry show some examples modelled on surviving armour sets from their Wars of the Roses range. Although the weapons are sized a little more practically, the links between the armour style can clearly be seen. Stormcast take the last full plate aesthetic to the maximum, particularly in the arms, where the succession of pauldron, rerebrace, couter, vambrace and gauntlet feels very late Medieval Gothic.

The Stormcast mask however feels like it takes some inspiration from examples of Roman ceremonial helmets like this one in the British museum, known as the Ribchester Helmet. Roman parade helmets are found all over their empire, mixing military and funeral looks into an impressive and intimidating work of art. When in use in equestrian displays (hence the name “Sports Helmets”), they would have created the feeling of living, moving statues – works of art put to mock battles – which feels very Stormcast!

Seraphon/Aztecs

The aesthetics and weaponry of the Seraphon borrow a great deal from the Aztec empire, particularly the Macahuitil, the legendary obsidian studded axe-club. This beautiful recreation gives you some idea what the ceremonial versions might have looked like, and you can see the Saurus warriors below holding similar examples.

If you fancy modelling what the human warriors who’ve formed part of the inspiration of this faction look like, this kit is from Wargames Atlantic and features the option to build warriors with Macuahuitl, blowpipes and other loadouts. Lenoon has written a whole article about the experience of building and painting them. 

Duardin/Vikings

Dwarves and Vikings have a long and storied history together, with virtually every dwarf-bearing franchise describing them as short, hairy, rune covered norsemen. Dwarves themselves spring out of Norse mythology, so you can’t fault everyone for going to the same creative well! While the Fyreslayers take it to another level, there are axes, beards and dodgy hairdos aplenty in this wonderful modular kit from Victrix.

It allows you to build 60 vikings with a variety of weapons, arms and poses, so many that it’s possible to make every model in this kit an individual without kitbashing. There are spears, shields swords aplenty, and a wide range of different bodies featuring mail shirts, leather armour and even simple cloth tunics. You’ll note the distinct lack of horned helmets. None of the historical sources from the period mention Vikings wearing horned helmets, and no examples of horned helms survive from the period. This kit is wonderful. Get it. It also easily combines with other dark age Victrix kits like the Rus, and I’ve been finding it very easy to kitbash with the Norman Cavalry kit, also from Victrix. Be warned – this is a dangerous kit to buy as you’ll get sucked into bag minis, and then you’ll start writing for Goonhammer Historicals and playing Saga, like Bair. 

Although the Fyreslayers don’t tend to wear so many clothes as the examples above, you could easily kitbash the Viking arms and armor with the Unarmoured Gallic Warriors kit also from Victrix if you fancy a bit more skin.

Ogre Kingdoms/Mongols

Games Workshops Ogre factions for The Old World and Age of Sigmar go perhaps problematically hard for that medieval Steppe aesthetic – plenty of lamellar armour and fur rimmed helmets to go around. The “classic” GW Ogre kits were all over the place aesthetically, though often Renaissance themed – there’s a Wargames Atlantic kit for that if you want!– but the 2000s release of the Ogres/Ogors as a full range stood them squarely in steppe-people aesthetics, with lamellar armour, fur, tassles and moustaches to suit.

Lenoon Editor Note: The politics of making one of your very limited non-European coded factions a race of bloodthirsty ogres who also all have moustaches out of the worst Fu-Manchu yellowface imaginable is one of those decisions that baffle the mind.

Making Ogres themselves from historical kits is a bit of a stretch, but you could kitbash some of Fireforge’s nice Mongol cavalry into an interesting alternative to wolf riders – perhaps your Ogres have allied with a Steppe tribe of humans or you could do some headswaps and come up with some goblins that have more of a Tolkieneque vibe? 

Bretonnia/Hundred Years War

The Bretonnian aesthetic owes a lot to units from the 100 years war, coupled with a dose of chivalric mythology. Knights, Longbows, Trebuchets – they’re absolutely the first to come to mind when someone says “historical inspiration for Warhammer”. 

Luckily, there’s a massive range of Historicals kits that can stand right in for the ageing Bret sculpts, and substantially cheaper to boot. If you’re looking to get feudal and darken the sky with arrows then the Perry miniatures English Army range may be for you, with longbows a plenty.

Equally, The Wargames Atlantic Age of Chivalry range will fill you out with peasants, men at arms and foot knights in chunky multi-pose plastic, while their classic fantasy guards would add a little more warhammer weirdness.

If you want to go mounted (and who doesn’t?), then the Victrix medieval knights should be your go to. 

Tomb Kings/Egyptians, Hittites and Libyans

Another straight up inspiration, the Tomb Kings race not just out of Ancient Egypt, but Libya, Anatolia and Babylon through the very specific lens of Wilbur Smith.

While we could be a bit cheap here and say “skeletons are from every historical period” if you’d like to model what the Tomb Kings look like with a bit more skin, flesh and life, then Warlord games do a great range of historical kits for Hittites, New and Old Kingdom Egyptians  for Hail Caesar. This is a pretty substantial range, with a lot to like. 

We hope this journey through some of the historical units that remind us of our favourite Warhammer factions has given you some inspiration. There’s a lot of great historical kits out there, so get building!

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.