Battletome:
Ghoulmere Grots

A BIG part of my 2024 projects was the creation of the Ghoulmere Grots, a completely converted and custom battletomed army that explored the concept of grots in the Mortal Realms beyond the fungal addled madness of the Gloomspite. Instead the force focused on two faces of Grots with the beast breaking Gitmobs (admittedly less glorious now that Warhammer team have caught up and released their own) and the scheming Underminas with their chaotic corruption.

This project took a region of Ghyran (the Ghoulmere) and made it entirely my own with custom lore, beautiful models and a take on grots unique to the setting.

Download the Battletome:

Battletraits.pdf

Warscrolls.pdf

The Ghoulmere

Nestled in Ghyran the Realm of Life, lies the Sigmarite stronghold of Greywater, a glistening beacon of industry and progress in a realm abundant with beauty and resource to fuel it. This Greywater Fastness stands as both fortress and factory, defended atop its great walls by a blistering array of artillery whilst safely below Ironweld workhouses belch of plumes of black smoke and torrents of chemical laden runoff as they seek to produce armaments for the city. The regions around Greywater are scarred by the cities impressive defence of its territory, pitted by craters from the mighty siege engines firing indiscriminate bombardments into the forests and swampland to dissipate invaders, awash with chemicals and acrid smoke pouring out of the city in the name of civility.

The Sylvaneth guardians of the region, sentient trees sworn to protect life itself coursing through the Mere have ever been at odds with the mighty city. Though both claim to stand for order the Treemen have warned the humans many times over of the dangers they provoke by poisoning the marshlands around them. It is not just the damage done to the forests and fibres of the land itself that they must fear, but the creatures that thrive in torment and torture that will be drawn to the noxious environment cultivated by the cities industry. So bad has the impact of the city been that there is just one road that the guardians of the region now afford the mighty city to transport their wares through the death soaked mere that has come to be known as the Ghoulmere, should a caravan leave the road the Sylvaneths wrath would be the least of their concerns as their prophecy of fell tribes coming has proven all too true.

The Grots

Grots are a common sight across the greater realms, though most are more familiar with the fungus addicted lunar worshippers of the Gloomspite Gitz and their bouncing toothy squig companions or the leaner slave driving Hobgrots that have sworn their lot with the magmic Duardin of Hashut. Those that have come to the Ghoulmere seem unlike either ilk, driving vast packs of beasts ahead of them as their once migratory hordes of beast riders have found new home amidst the mists and muds of the Ghoulmere. Leaner than their Gloomspite cousins but closer to them in stature than the Hobgrots these poachers and beastmasters benefit from a mind clear of fungal clouds, though this is perhaps to the detriment of their victims. Without fungus slowing their mental acuity the Ghoulmere grots are exceptionally cruel and malicious beast masters given over to poaching and trapping all who cross their path, over time they have laid siege to the One Road through the Mere making off with carts full of armaments shipping out of the city of Greywater to further reinforce their beast hordes with blackpowder weaponry.

The life of a Grot is a torturous one, smaller than many of the factions that seek dominance over the Mortal Realms they know all too well the cruelty and indignity that comes with their existance, the Gloomspite seem to have turned to fanatical faith in the moon and a healthy supply of hallucinogenic fungi to help them cope with this bitter existance. The Ghoulmere grots however have let it harden them, turn them colder and more calculating and willing to exact every inch the pain of their existence upon their victims that they might for once not be the ones under the heel of the realms.

Overtime these cunning grots have amassed a menagerie of cruel and capricious beasts, driven to the point of insanity as their masters starve them ready for battle. Some have been bought from passing poachers, others captures and tortured into obedience, yet others still have been drawn by the necrotic energies of the mere and found affinity with its denizens. Whatever their origins this menagerie now bear the Ghoulmere Grots to battle in their raiding skirmishes against the caravans of greywater and the greater realms beyond, an army ever on the move.