Zoat!

Who likes zoats? I do! Zoats were one of the oddest creatures produced by GW in the old days, and don't appear to have been an entirely original creation, rather than "inspired" by something else. They looked rather like a centaur crossed with a dinosaur, or perhaps a ninja turtle with a pair of extra legs and less ninja stuff (so a turtle?). In Warhammer 40,000, they were creations of the tyranid fleets, but many had escaped and worked as freelance mercenaries. They lived off three Zoatibix per day. Honestly, they did. It's in Rogue Trader.

In Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the zoats lived in forests and seemed to be vaguely friendly creatures. They had magical abilities and were quite tough. Sadly, they disappeared from the lore at the start of the Red Period. However, it appears that zoats didn't die - they only ate some lettuce and went into hibernation. For a new zoat model has been revealed for the 40k game Blackstone Fortress, presumably as a villain.

Anyhow, all of this inspired me to dig out my own old fantasy zoat model and have another go at painting him. He's bigger than I remembered: back in the old days, you could cram a model like this onto a standard cavalry base, but really he deserves something larger so I've put him on a modern oval base. He seems to be armed with a magic orb and the traditional weapon of the zoats, a massive steel Fererro Rocher with which to bash people who make fun of his Zoatibix.

Once again, this is an old model that's a real pleasure to make. I used two green washes over a white undercoat - one all over and a darker one mixed with Strongtone to shade - and then highlighted the majority of the hide with white and the underbelly with yellow.

I would have liked to put some flowers on his base - despite tufts of grass and rocks made from cork, it feels a bit empty. Anyhow, I like him. A real Oldhammer model!