Pulling Back the Curtain

One of my many Demitras.

A little deviation to start, but this will come back around.  I just finished reading A Song for Arbonne today, a bittersweet experience as it was one of the few remaining books by Guy Gavriel Kay that I haven't read, but by finishing it that number was further reduced to a mere pair of books yet to be consumed.  The book is, in part, about a paladin-esque character and his quest in pursuit of paladin-esque ideals.  I have a white hat complex the size of a small moon, so I tend towards the righteous warrior type.  My main character in WoW, also the first one I rolled, is a paladin.  What's more, she's a tanking paladin, a role that I could go on and on about, but that's not for this forum.  I loved Exalted in large part because it almost demanded (but stopped well short) that you play a character that has been touched by a higher being and invested with a portion of the power of said being.  Granted you could accept or decline that particular fate, but it made playing the righteous warrior much easier, and more spectacular, than something like D&D ever did.  What I'm circling around here is that I love that archetype of the sword and shield warrior with a sense of purpose beyond "kill them and take their stuff," entertaining as that purpose can be.  With my own zeal thus aroused, I went off looking for a suitable model that I might lavish paint upon at some point.

I already have quite a collection of sword and shield warriors, but there's always room for more, especially if they serve a gaming purpose.  With that in mind I looked to Warmachine.  My first thought in this vein was Constance Blaize, a model I've ruminated on here before.  She is almost exactly what I'm looking for here, but the sword and smoke stack are discordant enough that I kept looking.  Not that I dislike either element, but the ideal I have in my head is 100% archaic, and the techno bits on the sword plus the smoke stack don't work for me in this situation.  I took a look at the Precursor Knights, but they don't have swords.  Plus I wanted ornate armor, and the Precursor's is decidedly plain.  Swords Knights got a glimpse too, but they suffered in the same ways Constance did, plus they weren't nearly ornate enough.  That was it for Cygnar.  I knew Khador had nothing in this vein, nor would Cryx have anything approaching a holy warrior.  I gave Retribution a look, but there was nothing there either.  Finally I looked where I knew I would find something, the faction that is composed almost entirely of holy warriors: Menoth.

Despite the many, many variations on what I wanted, I had a hard time finding exactly what I was after.  I went straight to the solos as I remembered seeing the Paladins of the Wall in earlier crawls through the gallery, but neither one quite fit the bill.  The pose doesn't quite fit what I want on the first, and the second has a funny looking head.  The Exemplar Errant Seneschal would be close to perfect, if not for the crossbow.  A bit dismayed I went on to the casters, figuring that there had to be an Exemplar caster or two.  Sure enough there are, many flavors of Kreoss and Reznik, but none of them had a shield.  With growing dismay I headed to the Menoth units and went straight to the Exemplar Bastions, figuring that they must have a shield.  Skunked there, two handed axes for the lot.  Knights Exemplar?  Two handed swords.  The Exemplar Errants were close, like their solo, but again the crossbow was a problem, plus bare hands.  I looked through UAs to no avail.

The Paladin?  Quite possibly.

On the cusp of looking elsewhere, I checked a unit I had written off: Exemplar Cinerators.  I remembered these as wielding a flamethrower of some sort, but closer examination revealed that I had confused them with Flameguard Cleansers. The Cinerators are exactly what I'm looking for.  Ornate, sword and board, minimal hints of technology, no skin showing.  I might lose the notched sword "point," but that's a tiny gripe.  Best of all?  They're in the forthcoming two player box, so I'll be getting a set in the near future.  I had been set to go shopping hoping at the FLGS in search of a suitable model, but I knew there was little chance I'd get to it anytime soon, especially with a block of Winter Guard waiting patiently for their next appointment with the brush.  It'll be a while before I lay hands on the Cinerators, about two months I believe, but that'll give me plenty of time to make some room on the painting table for them.  In the meantime I have a pile of old minis from Reaper, Chainmail, Chronopia, and other long forgotten manufacturers to slake my thirst before the main course arrives later. 

Of course I could look into a Sir Ekkrion from the Iron Kingdoms line, but his head looks kinda funny.  He would serve as a fine warm-up/holdover though...