Painting from the Loam | Trench Crusade | Community Spotlight

For me, the first step into the trenches was deciding on which faction I was going to play. With six main factions and seventeen subfactions, Trench Crusade offers you a lot of choice. Before casting my lot for either Heaven or Hell I watched a couple of battle reports and read up on the lore. I found myself drawn to the Court of the Seven Headed Serpent, a faction full of demons, devils and the mortals unfortunate enough to serve them. When reading their rules I really liked the spell casting mechanics, their Goetic Powers, and how big of a role the elites of the faction play within the warband, being their main damage dealers and spellcasters.

Inspiration can come from anywhere, especially when you find yourself in a setting like this. Rich with historical and literary influences it's hard not to find a thread that resonates with you. In my case it was the references to the circles of Hell that were weaved into the weapon descriptions of the forces of Hell and how each Paladin is given a specially made suit of armour designed to protect them from the dangers of a specific circle that caught my attention. 

When discussing Hell it is very hard for Dante's Inferno not to come up in conversation as well. In the epic poem, we follow Dante on his journey through the nine circles of Hell. Each Circle represents a sin, each one its own separate realm of suffering with a unique landscape and characters who dwell there. Dante's vision of Hell has been one that has stuck with me and with pop culture at large, so to see its influence on the structuring of the Hell within Trench Crusade got my imagination firing. Inspired, I got to thinking of what my favourite circles in Dante's poem, the circle of Limbo and the demi-circle where Minos judges the damned, would look like within the setting, as well as who dwells in such a place.

I imagine the Limbo of Trench Crusade to be a liminal place where the endless legions of the newly dead wait for further judgement, a place of crumbling mausoleums and giant stone pillars, atop which sit the demons who shepherd the damned into further damnation, sending them forth back onto the mortal plain through where the barriers between the living and the dead are thinnest, to rage against the world that damned them. But how to represent the demons who call the first circle home and those who wait for judgement there on the tabletop?

To bring my vision of the First Circle to life on the battlefield I decided to use Bestiarum Miniatures. For my elite choices I needed:

1x Praetor
1x Sorcerer
1x Hell Knight

And for my troops:

2x Yoke Fiends
3x Wretched

The first set of miniatures I wanted to use were from the ‘Graves of the Lost’. I love this range and they were a perfect fit for what I imagined a warband from the first circle to look like aesthetically, which was something straight out of a mausoleum. Now, these miniatures are very much on the side of grimdark fantasy but that's not a problem as Trench Crusade, despite all guns and heavy machine armour, can be a very fantastical place that can accommodate those miniatures more on the fantasy side of the trenches. Sometimes all you need to make a miniature fit more into the setting is by putting it on a base of trench boards and adding some barbed wire.

For the Praetor I decided that the ‘Balefire Gargoyle’ would be perfect to fill the role for my warband’s leader. The stone wings and the flaming brazier really fitted with what I imagined an arch demon of Limbo to look like, something that has been there for an eternity ready to cast final judgement.

The Sepulchrite was an easy choice for the warband’s Sorcerer. To me the miniature looked ready to shepherd the damned to further damnation, and the flames in their hands really conveys the goetic powers he wields as a sorcerer.

For the Wretched I used the ‘Untethered Souls’ and one of the ‘Soul Vessels’ miniatures. Perhaps these are some of the forms those who are damned to linger in Limbo take whose bodies have been lost to eternity.

The last ones I needed miniatures for were my Hell Knight and my Yoke Fiends. I chose one of the ‘Vampire Ravagers’ from the Abhorrents range to be my Hell Knight. Whilst a visual departure from the rest of the warband it fitted thematically, like those who wait for judgement in Limbo, vampires can be viewed as creatures bound to eternity.

For the Yoke Fiends I used one of the ‘Soul Vessels’ and ‘The Wytchscourge’. The idea behind this was to give some variety to the denizens of the First Circle.

The last stage of bringing this project to life on the tabletop was how to make the warband feel cohesive. Using miniatures from different ranges can initially pose a challenge because of the aesthetic differences. But it's one that shouldn't deter you from realising your vision. 

A lot of the miniatures in this warband have a lot of flames on them or are made of flames, so in order to tie the models who did not have flame elements to them I decided to still incorporate the colours I used to paint the fire elsewhere. In the Hell Knight's case I used it to paint his axe so it would give it a glowing effect. As for ‘The Wytchscourge’ Yoke Fiend I painted her hair and face as if it was made of flames.

I hope this insight into my thoughts behind making this project has helped anyone who wants to give Trench Crusade a try! To quote the rulebook ‘it is your battlefield to shape’.

By paintingfromtheloam

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This post was written by one of the lovely members of our community. If there's an article, guide or other feature you'd like to share, reach out to us at contact@bestiarumgames.com!

Editing by Sam Franquet