Fans of House Escher could be forgiven for feeling somewhat neglected in the pet department. Whilst the Goliaths enjoy their monstrous crocodile and the Orlocks have an similarly titanic hound, the ladies find themselves currently lacking their cats. I’ve found suitable proxies for the equally pet deprived Cawdor and Van Saar, the former using a Vulcharc from the AoS Tzeentch range, the latter the skull crabs from Heresy Of Us.
Alongside these creatures the gangers of House Escher keep this odd looking predator, the Phyrr Cat. The name of this beast has proven to be a source of contention – I always pronounced it as “fire” cat, and I’ve even heard people say “fur” cat, although I now understand the official pronunciation is “fear” cat. I’m not sure it really looks like a scaredy cat to me but presumably this allows us to compare the phyrr cats – and indeed we shall.
Official models for the phyrr cats were previewed around a year ago but, with the response being almost universally negative, the decision was made to start again with new sculpts. Personally I tend to agree with this, the models shown were well below the premium standard expected of Forge World. You are of course welcome to judge for yourself. My apologies to whomever took this photograph originally as it has now circulated online so much that I have new idea to whom credit should be given. If anyone knows let me know and I’ll update things accordingly.
In search of a suitable alternative I explored numerous ranges, soon discovering that cats are thin on the ground as miniatures. I even tried roping in this beast although she proved to be in entirely the wrong scale and even the Goliaths refused to go up against her after she took to knocking them off their shelf…
Finally I stumbled upon the Hoar Cats from Wyrd Miniatures (a creature which gives quite a different impression written down as opposed to spoken aloud). Last time I paid any attention to the range was many years ago when everything they produced was rather spindly and metal, and as a result given to bending out of shape in a stiff breeze. Thus these solidly plastic cats were a nice surprise.
I did consider using a bright and exotic colour scheme to tie them in with the rest of the gang but on consideration decided that their small-size meant less is more and too much detail would swamp them.
I’m pleased to have these done, partly because they add to the variety of units available to the gang and partly because in a place like Necromunda which is swarming with rats (many of which are carrying bombs) it pays to have a few cats around. Indeed the Underhive may prove to be prime habitat for them due to the distinct lack of trees for them to get stuck in.
March 19th, 2019 at 8:02 am
Great call on the dubiously named cats. They really fit the bill!
March 19th, 2019 at 7:26 pm
I know – what were they thinking with that name eh? ๐ Glad you like them!
March 19th, 2019 at 9:11 am
Nice mate. ๐๐ผ
March 19th, 2019 at 7:26 pm
Cheers dude! ๐
March 19th, 2019 at 10:42 am
Good thinking dude, these work just fine!
March 19th, 2019 at 8:36 pm
Cheers mate – yeah, I reckon they do the business nicely!
March 19th, 2019 at 11:14 am
Good find, I like Mr scowly cat the best ๐
March 19th, 2019 at 8:38 pm
He’s got a really expressive face doesn’t he? I still need to name them properly but I reckon he’ll always be subtitled as “Grumpy” (thus avoiding confusion with “Speedy” and “Bitey”).
March 19th, 2019 at 3:31 pm
Very nicely done as usual. I’m not surprised that Escher has some crazy cat ladies in their ranks!
March 20th, 2019 at 11:57 am
Haha! Aye, true enough, they’re crazy and they’re ladies so I suppose the cats really were the missing ingredient ๐
March 21st, 2019 at 4:02 am
Well now they are complete, and those are some tough-looking cats.
“You’d better stay away from them, they’ll rip your lungs out, Jim!” ๐
March 19th, 2019 at 5:29 pm
They are great (although I should baulk at anything helping Escher) I really like them.
Cheers,
Pete.
March 20th, 2019 at 12:06 pm
How do you think I feel – I’m increasingly a Goliath fanboy yet here I am painting Eschers! Mind you I actually find I get caught up in whichever gang I’m working on, especially if I’m adding a few of them, so I suppose whichever I’m working on at the moment becomes my favourite. In a lot of ways it’s quite good because it stops me from chopping and changing all the time and encourages me to concentrate and get each gang up and running before I move on to the next.
March 19th, 2019 at 7:34 pm
Yep the forge world ones suck! The ones you have painted rock though! Good find sir ๐
March 20th, 2019 at 12:28 pm
Cheers man – those forgeworld ones were just balls weren’t they? Glad they came to their scenes in the end.
March 20th, 2019 at 2:08 pm
The standard has definitely fallen with forgeworld a bit, so yes it’s good they have realised that these are far below par instead of rushing the release, which I think they did with the HH space wolves terminators. They were shocking!
March 20th, 2019 at 7:52 pm
It’s Hvarl Red-Blade that really get’s to me, that model is shockingly bad, and then they think they can charge ยฃ45 for him? They could pay me ยฃ45 to take him away for them but that’s about it.
The painting of some of the recent models has been a bit off as well. I nabbed myself Ortruum 8-8 (‘cos I’m a ‘munda-holic – I admit it, I have a problem) and he’s actually not a bad model (maybe not to everyone’s taste but I like it) but the painting of the studio version is really rough. Not often I can confidently go into painting a model knowing that whatever I do the end result will be much better than the studio version. Should have just shown the unpainted resin like they used to do in the old days.
March 23rd, 2019 at 10:19 am
They could pay me to and I’d chop him up and make his grizzly remains into a suitable base of smashed up Space Wolf. LoL! I also agree that the painting is a bit off, it seems rushed to me and I also prefer to look at grey models as it allows you to lay your own colours over it in your mind, a blank canvas if you will. Ortruum 8-8 is a great looking model and the right sort of quirky stuff I like, I’ll be getting one myself soon and will probably chop it up a bit because I just can’t help myself ๐
March 20th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
I agree that the painting has been of recently. Some of it has been utterly appalling. I think eventually forge world will only produce titans and gw will take evrythig else
March 19th, 2019 at 9:14 pm
Very nice mate, look good along side the Ladykillers.
March 20th, 2019 at 12:29 pm
Cheers mate!
March 20th, 2019 at 8:04 am
I always read it as “fear” cats. Not scaredy cats, more like scary cats :3
I hadn’t actually seen the FW sculpts before. Good lord those are awful. So glad they got scrapped. I do like the Wyrd ones, unfortunate phonetics aside. Especially Grumpy!
March 20th, 2019 at 8:21 pm
Cheers ๐
Yeah, scary cats sounds more like it (those models at FW prices is about the scariest thing I can think of!) :-p Silliness aside Fear Cats does make more sense than Fire Cats now I think about it.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen models universally hated like those FW cats were. Actually feel a bit sorry for whoever sculpted them but really, what was happening there? I don’t think I ever heard a single good word said about them (and I’ve met people who claimed to like the old Obliterators – although I reckon they were just saying that to be edgy…).