"Yee-haw those Doggies are elusive!"

Not what this blog post is about...

"Get this Wagon Train a moving!" Hah, you thought this was going to be a western post, didn't you?

How about that? Combining a western phrase "Get on little doggies!" like an Old West cowboy when actually referring to the Temple Dog minis from 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, I've had them on my radar for a number of years and back when we played 3rd edition I used a GW manticore sans wings to simulate one for my Dark Elf army. Game-wise they were fluffy, but as a war beast they were decidedly mediocre. The problem is the same with almost any other war beast or large models like giants: they attract an inordinate amount of artillery and magic. With a Toughness of 5 Temple Dogs usually dumped their ride very quickly. The problem I've always had is they are stone, they are divine powered and they fall over in a stiff breeze.

"I look fierce but crumble like blue cheese!"

As Cianty over at his blog noted, here is the flavor text from Warhammer Armies:
"Temple Dogs are stone statues found guarding temple entrances in the lands of Nippon and Cathay. They resemble nothing so much as a cross between a giant pekinese and a lion. In times of war, the power of the temple gods is channeled into these statues to animate them. It is a great honour to mount this divine animal, indicating that the rider has found great favour with the gods."

(Warhammer Armies, page 26, 1991)

Sounds like they should be made of sterner stuff.

As I move along in fits and starts on my Nippon army I've come around to the conclusion I'm highly unlikely if ever going to play my Nippon Army as anything other then a third edition one. That ;eaves me with the open endedness of being able to model the army however I want.

The temple dog was pretty much the same in each iteration (as near as I can tell as I've never actually seen one) and came with one of three different riders. The part I really like? I like the temple dog's tongue is hanging out just like a real dog. My previous golden retriever Teddy who passed away always did that... Each had a plastic spear/lance that was fairly common with models back then and the hand was molded to the spear. From the look of it they are on 40x40mm bases.

The three riders are as follows:

• A samurai rider- the one I'm most interested in, three in particular would be good...
• A hobgoblin rider- could be useful to me particularly since I have two full units of 2nd and 3rd edition hobgoblin infantry.
• A Dark Elf Rider, least interest. As I pointed out this would of been useful back in the day.

As a side tangent: I've been searching eBay and they pop up now and again, but remains elusive. The maxim of eBay is playing out here: "be patient and don't overpay." I've been known to rail against insane eBay price gouging, another good indication of relative worth as it relates to inflation. If we use the sale price listed and convert it to US dollars it was about $3.28 in 1991. In today's dollars its $5.74, a 75% increase when one counts for inflation. Often I've seen these in the neighborhood of $40-50 O_O that's insane. Sure any item on eBay is what the market will bear, but that sure is some markup!

An noted above, a great example of this excellent model is here from Cianty over one of the luminaries of Bordertown Burning. We interview him for Issue #1 of the Word of Hashut waaaaay back in 2008. Its more Kung-Fu inspired where I'm working more for a Nippon inspired theme. Either way its pretty cool.

In the end this has been one of the more challenging models to find. Its not super rare but I don't really ever recall seeing it here in the US shops I frequented.

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