HarrowHyrst – Forest Wyrm

In addition to the Treeman and Griffin, I just had to have the Forest Wyrm when Trish announced it. He has a name, Quercus, and is called either Forest Dragon or Wyrm. Yet, per definition of "dragonoids", he would count as a Drake (four legs, no wings), not a Dragon (four legs and two wings) or a Wyrm (giant serpent, no legs, no wings).

Quercus is a multipart resin kit with a 100 x 50 mm laser cut mdf base. Very clean cast, various casting aids from little stubs to rods, but no air bubbles and minor flash.

Quercus consists out of four parts, Head, front legs, body with right leg and tail with left leg. The casting aids are well placed, so that you can remove them without causing damage to the model or sculpted areas.

As always, do a dry run before using glue, to see if the parts snuggly fit together or need reworking. In this case, minor filing was necessary and small gaps are along some joints. But that is completely normal for a resin kit this size and complexity. The parts fit well, without warpage, in most parts the area is covered by the way the model is cut, so this is a clever way to avoid / hide gaps.

Here are some close ups for a better understanding of what I mean. Along with the Forest Drake on an oval base, on which be properly fits. It's a 120 x 92 mm base from Citadel, they use among others within the Adeptus Titanicus range.

And while ~60 GBP may look a bit step at first, he's larger than the 30 GBP treeman, so that is a coherent pricing. As in my case, he will be used with a Middlehammer Wood Elves project, and getting your hand on a classic Citadel dragon is rarely possible for 50-70 EUR nowadays, usually above that and with the occasional parts missing (banner poles, shields and such).

I want him to be accompanied by a magic user. Unfortunately, the choices with the classic Wood Elves range are a bit limited. So for scale purpose, I give you a Wood Elves Scout, the Mage and the Albion truth sayer. Maybe the mage from the Warhawk would be a better fit, for a mounted pose. Keep in mind, Quercus is not meant to be mounted from stock. So, you might need to modify the spines and / or add a saddle, for a miniature to properly fit.

Trish did an amazing job on this sculpt as you can see from the various shots and close ups.

Conclusion

Quercus is certainly not cheap, and I used a 15% off coupon to buy mine. But as I wrote in the first review on Harrowhyrst, this is as close as we can currently get to some proper Middlehammer styled miniatures (along with Knightmare Miniatures maybe), as I don't think that the Return of the Old World will bring back the aesthetics.

The quality of the sculpt and cast is superb. Yes, you will need some small gap filling here and there, but keeping in mind the size of this kit, this is pretty close to perfect. No air bubbles, minor flash and easy to clean connection areas. That is what you pay for in addition to the design itself, a proper high class resin cast.

I have my eye on this range and hope for some further forest themed miniatures, maybe a stag, as that would be an amazing mount for my Wood Elf general.

HarrowHyrst is distributed by Footsore Miniatures, who offer IOSS for EU customers.