New from ForgeWorld: Skin Wolves and Arcane Frogs.

I'm not sure why the folks at ForgeWorld are so insistent on coming up with products that might sidetrack me from my plans of actually completing my Beast Kings army -- yes, all 6,000pts. of it -- sometime in the near future but, alas, their releases today are almost too fun to ignore.

First up, the Arcane Frogs. These figures will hold little game value, but they still look like they'd be a heckuva lot of fun to paint up.

The first appears to be the amphibian version of the Storms of Magic Chaos Sorcerer (complete with his broken staff and third eye), while the second presents a slightly more generic option so that any time your wizard had a bit of a sorcerous mishap, you could slap down a frog in his stead.

(Frankly, I'd be afraid that even carrying them around in my army box might jinx my spellcasters.)

The Skin Wolves are the models, though, that I find particularly tempting.

These lovelies represent "witch-curs’d and Chaos-tainted men and women afflicted with this gift from their unholy gods bear a mutation that does not show as a stigmata of the flesh, but instead lurks in the blood, a slumbering beast to be roused by dark sacrifice and unspeakable ritual."

You see, they're not just werewolves.  Oh, no.  When their curse takes over, the wolf literally erupts from within, shredding the flesh of the poor soul that formerly housed it.  That's where they get their names: from the gribbly bits of discarded husk that were their former selves that still dangle from their fur.  Then, when their curse is abated, they themselves fall to the ground, leaving their former human selves to fight their way out in much the same gruesome manner.

Why is this so tempting?

Well, alongside my beasts -- when I tire of painting tiger stripes or just get distracted by other things -- I'm slowly putting together small units of Slaanesh-y dedicated mortals and daemons from the bits I've accumulated but won't be using for other things.  They'll be northmen, obviously, with the new 40K Fenris Wolves running alongside them as hounds.  What better 'monstrous' unit might there be to fit amongst those humans and wolves than Chaos-based wolves that literally tear their human hosts apart from the inside out ... ?

Perhaps -- if the stars, finances and hobby pursuits align -- I shall reward myself with them when I get a bit further along with my main Beast Kings army.  We'll have to wait and see ...