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Coatl Reborn - the Feathered Serpent

The Coatl, and the 'real-life' counterpart on which it's based, has always been one of the coolest mythological creatures for me. Very few things look as cool as a sacred and magical feathered serpent, soaring through the skies and gliding between the thick canopy of the jungles. From the launch of this franchise years ago, it has always been one of my most anticipated units, but also a unit I actually never thought we'd end up getting in the game. When I first saw it flying far away in the background in the reveal trailer i was extremely hyped, only to be then extremely disappointed by how it actually looked. Very rarely do the amazing artists at CA miss the mark when it comes to bringing WHFB units to life, but the Coatl, by far, takes the cake. The horns, the awkward beak, the goofy drake-like frills, the complete lack of mesoamerican (i.e. LM) influences. For some reason, CA decided to base its design on the single image we had of a random (and terribly looking) kitbashed TT model from decades ago, ignoring both the one official artwork we have and the unreleased pencil-drawn GW art available on the web that had clear snake-like and LM-affiliated designs. Infact, only a couple months ago WHFRP Cubicle7 released the most recent, official artwork of the creature, and its clearly inspired by the latter unreleased design of years ago: very blatantly snakelike and of meso-american origin. A quick glance and you can immediately identify it as a clear LM unit.

The Coatl we have in the game, to me, looks terrible and feels completely out of place in the LM roster. A cross between a drake, a bird, and a cockatrice, it almost feels tzeentchian in design. And now that we're getting the actual Cockatrice in the Tzeentch roster, i feel you could genuinely switch its model with the current Coatl model and it would still feel right at home with the daemons. Also, with WHFRP's most recent official design, there's now two conflicting official interpretations of the creature (CA vs Cubicle7), and CA's decision is even more questionable.

After years of using other authors mods that slightly tweaked its look both in game 2 and game 3 (but never fully satisfied myself of the changes), i finally decided to try taking matters in my own hand. Ever since the reveal during game 2, i had a clear idea in mind on how the Coatl could be "easily" kitbashed with existing ingame assets to look like a proper feathered serpent: a repurposed Hydra head, and multiple feather and trinket assets from around the roster. Come game 3, i decided to jump into the Asset Editor myself. I had no prior experience whatsoever, had no idea how anything worked (or what i was doing), but had a clear "vision" of what i wanted to do. As a total noob I slowly started to learn how to model and rig parts, thanks to tutorials and to some extremely kind fellow modders (see aknowledgements!). After months of personal use, and after Lost2Insanity's incredible help at fixing my messy files and several very annoying graphical bugs, it became publish-worthy so I decided to share it with you all (it's my second mod!). Also, now that the real Cockatrice is upon us, i felt it was the perfect time.

What does this mod do?
Remodels both the basic Coatl and the RoR in order to make them look like sacred feathered serpents, clearly belonging to the LM roster and the Lustrian biome. The Hydra head has been recolored for both, and then tweaked and purposefully resized. I also added two very long frontal and viper-like fangs that give it a much stronger snake look.

The 'feral' Coatl i decided to keep pretty much devoid of trinkets, as if it were truly an untamed creature of the wilds. It has a feathery mane as well as a feathery neck up until the wings. Retained the blue color which i feel looks good.

When it comes to the RoR, the Spirit of Tepok, i wanted to give it a truly sacred and unique look. As the name suggests, its surely a creature very revered by the LM (especially the Skinks) so i decided to adorn it with countless golden tributes, trinkets, plates and what not throughout its body. The head is adorned by an elaborate headcrest. It also has a very colorful and elaberate feathery mane, with multiple feather assets combined from different units of the game and then positioned almost one-by-one (twas hell!). The body and head are green, the eyes deep red, and the neck feathers deep blue. The creature is very colorful as a whole, and i removed the weird pink-ish sheen that covers the wings of the vanilla RoR (again, thanks Lost2Insanity!).

Thats it! Apologies for the long text. Hope others can enjoy my personal reintepretation of the beast!

What's missing?
I should upgrade the RoR 2d porthole, as its from an old previous version, so its not 1-to-1 compared to the actual model.

HUGE thanks to Lost2Insanity for his incredible help. Without his intervention, his fixes and his tweaks to the files, this mod would not have been publish-worthy, and would've remained for my personal-use only. Thank you man!
Big thanks also to The_Inquisitor for his incredibly useful tips on Asset Editor and on how to properly remodel and rig stuff when i first jumped in without prior knowledge.
Huge thanks to To A Hobo for the unit cards. ALL credit goes to him for these. He made them himself and kindly offered them for use in the mod.
To Ole for creating Asset Editor.
To Frodo45127 for creating Rusted PackFile Manager.
To CA for creating this massive game.

Obviously incompatible with the other Coatl mods present on the workshop. Compatible with everything else.