Killers of Carn Bran

We've got a superb battle host for you this April... the Killers of Carn Bran, for the Ysian kindred of Darklands!

As always these days, April's host has been sculpted by the brilliant Rafael Callegari from artwork by Danny Cruz. You've got fourteen superb drunes and twelve incredible brutes to bash up your enemies with!

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To get hold of the fifth of our battle hosts in our new digital era, head on over to the Darklands Digital page, where you can purchase the Miercenary Digital Battle Host Subscription item and be assured of getting a new battle host each month as STL and LYS files to download, print and play!

Killers of Carn Bran

Carn Bran, stepped upon the rocky shores of Kernow, is amongst the most powerful of the drune carns. From its dark, windswept halls come the shadow-drunes and the rogue-drunes, scouts and slayers, hunters and murderers; and together with the brutes created by the flesh-drunes, those of Brugg and Grigg, the Killers of Carn Bran are a force to be reckoned with.

This month's battle host contains:

• Arwec of Carn Bran, Shadow-Master
  
• Arwec of Carn Bran, Shadow-Master [Pin Up]*
• Arwec of Carn Bran, Rogue-Master
  
• Arwec of Carn Bran, Rogue-Master [Pin Up]*
• Hammer-Brugg, Death-Brute
• Blade-Grigg, Death-Brute
• Shadows of Carn Bran, Shadow-Drune Unit (5x warriors)
  
• Rogues of Carn Bran, Rogue-Drune Unit (5x warriors)
• Brutes of Brugg, Great Weapon Brute Unit (5x warriors)
  
• Brutes of Grigg, Two Weapon Brute Unit (5x warriors)

*The pin up loyalty rewards are only available if you subscribe through our webstore

The commander of the Killers of Carn Bran is Arwec, a shadow-master and rogue-master both, for she is master of both dagger and bow. As secretive as she is beautiful, upon the battlefield she strikes unseen, from the shadows and the dells, without warning and without mercy.

While the death-brutes are not commanders in the truest sense of the word, where they go other brutes follow, and no flesh-drune ever creates the vat-grown, melded and welded brutes without them.

Thus do the twins Brugg and Grigg exist, a bridge between drune and brute, ferocious and bestial themselves but with a little more between the ears. Judging by their collection pinned to their loincloth, perhaps Brugg and Grigg even have a sense of humour...

No Ysian general should head to battle without the shadow-drunes, bands of skirmishers and scouts able to descend upon the enemy without sign nor quarter. Their daggers - often corrupted, always wickedly sharp - can wreak havoc upon the flanks and the rear of an enemy battle line.

Of the same stock as the shadow-drunes are the rogue-drunes, armed with dagger, bow and arrow, and equally skilled with both. These skirmishes strike from afar, from the deep woods or dense thickets, literally from nowhere, ducking back into cover once their shafts hit their mark.

The brutes are vat-grown, sorcerously adapted humans, born of the flesh-drunes' experimentations upon captives or upon the aberrated births of the drunes. Often melded with other creatures to increase their strength, toughness, cruelty or sheer ferocity, each brute is markedly different from the other, but those that can work together upon the battlefield work best - especially when they follow the death-brutes.

Some are armed with a variety of great weapons, such as the Brutes of Brugg, to destroy enemies with single blows; some prefer two weapons to attack with incredible speed, as do the Brutes of Grigg. Whatever they are armed with, they are superb shock troops in any Ysian host.

Who Are the Ysians?

When the Anglo-Saxons of Wesseax and Mierce moved further west and decisively defeated the Brythoniaid at Deorham, the Britons of Dumnonia - what we know as Cornwall and Devon - were permanently separated from the Britons of Wales and the migration to Brittany and Galicia became a flood, for who could stop these wild men of the east and their hunger for land? Certainly not their weak-willed kin that retreated to the mountains of Cymru to lick their wounds and abandon them.

So it was that the Kernowyon turned to those in Breten Vyhan and in the decadent, depraved city of Ys, for the answer lay in Kernunnos, the Horned God, the feral deity of bestial thought and deed, of fertility and anger that was worshipped long ago yet found there once more: for it was only through his power and strength could the Ker-Ysians resist the bearded invaders from the east, and not just those in Britain as the Franks, themselves related to the Angles and the Saxons, were slowly claiming the land the Romanii called Gaul for their own.

The drunes, as the followers of Kernunnos became known thanks to their enlightenment at Drunemeton upon Syllan, delighted in releasing the inhibitions of society and civilisation, found ecstasy in returning to the roots of their animalistic selves. No practice was forbidden, no thought too insane, and as the Ysians devolved into nothing more than beasts in human form Kernunnos rejoiced and gifted his followers all they could ask for - including himself in the divine form of Euryalia, the Queen of Ker-Ys; and the most wicked of them all.

Some among the Ysians indulged their every carnal desire, some sought out the cruelty and barbarity of battle to assuage their blood-lust and others attempted to cheat death with experimentation and vivicoction, for the enemies of the Ysians - not least the Byzantii - grew stronger with each passing season and the drunes were few. That these flesh-drunes were successful speaks volumes for their insanity, but none can doubt their skill: for in the hosts of the Ysians can be seen the foul, melded vivicocts that are not one beast nor another, the vat-grown monstrosities without thought or fear and the ignoble mutants who lust constantly for blood and meat.

Even the dead their enemies leave behind can be used by the stitch-smiths of the Ysians to build warriors for the drune-lords: warriors needed to conquer the lands to the east, to ensure the raids and pillaging of the piratical Kernowyon are successful, to coerce the weak-willed Franks of Par-Ys and Met-Ys and to intimidate the rat-men of the Vras.

The Drunes of Kernow and Breten Vyhan are collectively called Ker-Ysians, followers of Kernunnos in Ys, the subjects of the Horned God in the form of Euryalia, the exalted Queen of that decadent city. It is through Euryalia's work that the Ker-Ysians survive and it through Euryalia's strength that Kernow and Breten Vyhan, two realms separated and joined by the sea, can defend themselves against their aggressors.

Kernow bears the brunt of the sea-borne raids of the Érainn and the Fomoraic, and the Norse and the Atalantes, and of course the brutality of the Seaxna and the Jutes: and Breten Vyhan must defend itself against the growing threat of the Byzantii and the revolts of the Franks and the insidious nature of the Vras. Without each other's strength, the Kernewek and the Bretened, the Ker-Ysians, would not survive in a world that only wishes their destruction.

You can learn more about the Vras on the Mierce Miniatures webstore and in the Lands of Darkness kindred guide!

• More Ysian STL files
• Ysian Kindred Muster
• The Lands of Darkness kindred guide

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All you have to do is visit the Miercenary Digital Battle Host Subscription page and purchase the item there. Regardless of what day of the month you purchase this item, you'll be charged again on the 1st of the following month - and a couple of days later there'll be another battle host to download!

When you purchase the item you will receive an e-mail with a download link; make sure you follow the e-mail instructions and off you go!

Pin Up Loyalty Rewards

You will ONLY receive the Pin Up loyalty reward by subscribing to the Miercenary Digital Battle Host Subscription on our webstore; you will NOT get the loyalty reward if you subscribe on MyMiniFactory.

Bear in mind, too, that NONE of the Pin Ups will be available digitally separately from the monthly subscription. You'll have to subscribe to get them - or purchase them as physical products, of course.

This month's Pin Up is Arwec herself, in both shadow-master and rogue-master form!

More to Come...

Next month, the beastmen of the Fomoraic Cursed Herd arrive upon the battlefield, braying and mauling!

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