Warriors of Chaos: 4 of 5

Warhammer Fantasy: Warriors of Chaos Army Blog
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5


In this article:

• Archaon
• Harry the Hammer
• Lord of Chaos on Juggernaut
• Valkia the Bloody

With the elites of the army all in place, it was time to tackle the high command.

Archaon: Lord of the End Times

With a supremely damaging statline and wargear to match, I knew I wanted to be able to break out Archaon for special occasions. However, at over 600 points, I knew the model would function as a regular chaos lord most of the time. To achieve this versatility, I swapped the iconic helmet for a chosen warrior and changed the armor color.

I was surprised by just how bad the sculpt was, especially when it came to attempting a proper fit. It took a generous amount of green stuff and re-sculpting in order to make the horse look whole. More green stuff was used on Archaon's torso to ensure the assembly held, especially the shield and strap holding arm. It gives me a healthy appreciation for today's model kits.

Harry the Hammer

Limited edition models add credibility to any collection and the Warriors of Chaos enjoy the two sided blade of having them in spades. It's great to have access to so many different sculpts, but from a collectors standpoint it can be costly to track them all down. Ebay gave me access to the models I was looking for at an affordable price. For every 10 sellers who wanted $125 for this model, there was 1 who offered it for less than $30. My advice to the would-be collector is if you have a model you have your heart set on, decide how much the model is worth to you before you go over to eBay. Have patience, and you will find what your heart desires for a price that will not break the bank.

The base comes in 3 different pieces that need to be glued and filled in order to support anything. Even though I prefer to paint all the pieces of a model separately before gluing it together, there just wasn't any way I was going to be able to fit it all together without ruining the paint job. I tried to fit as many different army heralds on the remains as possible.

This was also the first model where I learned the magic of highlighting black with blue. I had always used grey or nothing at all to highlight black, but blue gave it a very cold feel that complimented the model.

Lord of Chaos on Juggernaut

This was one of those "just because" models that were purchased without regard to it's actual in-game effectiveness; too cool to pass up.

In construction, this model was a marvel of design. The kit cleaned up quickly; the fits simple and intuitive. The shoulder joint where the left foreleg joins the body is a perfect example. They could have just left a small peg to plug into the body, but they made the join run the entire length of the shoulder, giving it a massive amount of surface area for the glue to hold. The detail on the model was immaculate as well. For goodness sake, the thing had the symbol of khorne on it's hoof.

The only complaint I have is with the extra skulls the come with the kit. On a model that is otherwise made to assemble without pinning, these bits have nowhere to sit that isn't prone to damage.

Valkia the Bloody

When GW released the new army book for WoC they provided models for the most, but not all, of the units in the book. The severity of the omission was in direct correlation to it's in-game effectiveness. No one cared that the forsaken were left out but many questioned the lack of warshrines.

There are two major camps of thought: one saying model omission is a problem and another saying it is an opportunity. I fit in the latter category.

I checked around the net to see what other players were doing, and most of them were basing the model on Saint Celestine from 40k. They were good conversions, but she just didn't have the feel I was looking for.

The classic range Lelith Hesperax from Warhammer 40,000 had a dynamic pose and well sculpted features. The trident she held was swapped for a lance head from the knights of chaos. A shield with the demon head on it fit the fluff from Valkia's entry. I realized the new spear blade was entirely too long to have her standing on solid ground, but as a flying model that wasn't an issue.

The wings came from a 40k chaos possessed backpack. Once trimmed from the pack though, it was plain to see the supporting arms were entirely too muscular for Valkia's slender frame. I slowly and carefully whittled the arms down to a more appropriate proportion. I had a pleasent surprise when I went to fit the wings into her back, as there was already a gap on the armor for a piece from Lelith's sprue. At times it was as though this model had always been intended to be converted.

So with the big'guns all in a row, there were only a few more guys left to go before the army was declared done.

Next Article: Part 4

Warriors of Chaos: 5 of 5

Warhammer Fantasy: Warriors of Chaos Army Blog
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5


In this article:

• Wulfrik, BSB, and Call to Glory
• Heroes of the Gods
• Dark Magicks

With nearly a full army worth of bad guys, it came down to those who would lead from the front; the heroes of chaos.

Wulfrik, BSB, and Call to Glory

Wulfrik the Wanderer
Wulfrik is a wild sculpt that adds interest to any army. The sculpt is covered in grisly trophies which somehow compliments the laid back pose. My only objection to the sculpt is the head; it's too messy. I realize this comes down to taste, but my preconceptions of a champion of the gods is a shaven and scarred head, much like a space marine. Games Workshop has been doing players a wonderful service in their newer metal models by making the head a separate piece, providing a painless conversion.

Battle Standard Bearer
I knew the banner needed something extra to really make the eight sided star shine. I spent an hour with a sketch pad working out different concepts and ideas. The inverse star inside the normal star was a perfect symbol; weird, complex, chaotic, yet ordered. Once finished, I realized the bright green armor was overshadowing the dark banner. I repainted the entire design as a vibrant transition from red to orange to yellow. It was a pain having to restart a complex freehand from scratch, but the resulting figure was worth it.

Call to Glory
Reading through the spells of Tzeentch gave me the inspiration for this chaos hero. Call to Glory is spell that turns any infantry model into a Chaos Hero. I was enamored of the idea of having someone to represent this amazing transformation. I used the Archaeon model on foot (Limited Games Day Model) to represent the newly minted warrior. An old marauder helmet was glued down to the base as a reminder of his humble roots.

Heroes of the Gods

It made sense to have at least one hero marked for each of the gods; to have friends for the Hero of Khorne who started it all.

The sculpts for the champions of Tzeentch are, for lack of a better word, weird. Although I love the old school style, they clash with the rest of the army. I used a plastic chaos space marine terminator sorcerer lord (say THAT nine times fast). Although you can't see it in this picture, the cape was covered in insane writings on the outside, and pi on the inside... out to 99 digits, with all the 9's written in red instead of black.

The Slaanesh Hero was based on the Gamesday 2009 limited edition model, courtesy of a good friend who is an eBay master I experimented with a method of highlighting black with purple that ended up setting the paint scheme for the Knights of Slaanesh.

The Nurgle paint scheme really says a lot about the artist. It's easy to do a horrible job and claim it was intentional, but it is hard to do justice to decay. Painting clean metal is 3 layers, painting corroded metal can be 10+ layers. Blending the soft and subtle greys and greens leaves little room for error, and there is a constant threat of overworking the piece. If you want to tell how good a painter is, just ask him to paint a plague marine. It will tell you worlds about his skill.

Dark Magicks

I don't like the way most of the fantasy chaos sorcerers look. These physically twisted and decrepit figures do not accurately depict a heavy armor wearing giant man from the north. To add the requisite magic users to the force, I pulled from the chaos sorcerers of Warhammer 40,000. They're physically imposing as well as arcane, wielding impressive weapons and armor. The only modification necessary was subtraction, not addition; the models I selected had power packs, guns, and pipes running everywhere.

Green stuff was an invaluable tool at this stage.

Ahriman (left) had a huge block of metal jutting out of his back where the backpack was supposed to connect, but filing and greenstuff fur made it vanish. I was even able to continue the fur onto the front to cover up another conspicuous pair of pipes. The rest of the sculpt was beautifully ornate and only required a swap from his pistol to a blade that could function as any number of gear choices from the army book.

The other sorcerer (right) only needed to be cleaned up with clippers and file. I didn't want to get to the point where I was seriously modifying (read: butchering) the sculpt, but I did need to change the look and feel of a model that was no longer in the 41st millennium. The hand that was originally holding the pistol was replaced by a plastic bloodletter hand left over from my Khorne Warriors. The fire came from a leftover staff head from the plastic empire wizards box, a great purchase for the bits box.

The armor was a happy accident where, after switching colors midway, I saw how nicely it was blending and decided just to keep it.

After all was said and done, I had a massive army of chaos warriors ready to hit the table. So what did I do with them? I sold them of course! Why should I waste my time playing the game when I could be working on another army? :)

Next Article: The Current Project

Warriors of Chaos: 2 of 5

Warhammer Fantasy: Warriors of Chaos Army Blog
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5


In this article:

• Warriors of Khorne
• Warriors of Nurgle
• Chosen Warriors of Chaos

Spurred on by my initial progress, I dove head first into the meat and potatoes of any good warriors of chaos army: warriors of chaos!

Warriors of Khorne

When I was getting ready to paint this unit I knew I wanted to do something special. I didn't mess with the colors (which I tend to), but rather chose to model the boys with a little extra flash.

The back of the new plastic bloodletter head is completely hollow to fit it's contact point. It also fit perfectly over a chaos warrior helmet once once the helmet's horns had been trimmed away. This was a piece that had to happen.

I had bought 2 boxes of plastic bloodletters to supply my new facemasks, and couldn't help but admire the swords that came as well. With Khorne symbols for hilts, it was just too good an offer to pass. I carefully trimmed the swords away from the bloodletter hands and glued them to warrior hands. The only problem was that the blades were ridiculously long. Now if you want to make a unit of khorne warriors with great weapons, leave the blades to size and go from there, but for simple handweapons they're just too big. I cut the blades down at odd angles to give them a jagged look to match the rest of the blade.

Finally the banner was swapped out for a custom khorne banner, again from the plastic bloodletters.

Warriors of Nurgle

I had started the unit with the backpiece/cape bits but stopped halfway to focus on a different project. The problem when I came back was that I couldn't remember what colors and washes I had used to paint the fur on the shoulders for the backs. Matching the back to the front (which were all separate) was near impossible, something I overcame with and overlaying blend on top of the original colors.

I felt bad for forgetting my place, but I realized it gave many of the fur pieces an interesting and dynamic look I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Happy accidents are wonderful to have, but I don't enjoy the thought of relying on them. Lesson learned: store your models in separate containers between paintings, especially when batch processing.

Chosen Warriors of Chaos

I generally operate with the rule that if I'm painting something for pleasure, I never want to paint it the same way the 'eavy metal team did. There are many reasons for this, primarily that I'm not as good as they are.

The other major reason for not being too keen on painting canon colors is... well why do it at all? Someone already did that, the best thing you can hope for is to copy what they did, and what's the fun in that? Always go for something new. That way, even though the quality of painting isn't 'eavy metal level, you have something new and interesting to show.

I knew I wanted a unit that didn't show dedication to any of the god's in specific, but the black and gold was just lacking that essential pop that makes a good model stand out from the crowd. In retrospect I definitely would have added a secondary color like green, blue, or red to give them some real punch.

So that's another 50 models covered for the warriors of chaos. After having finished the chosen, I was ready to really ramp up my conversions and painting with a wholly different beast: Chaos Knights!

Next Article: Part 3

Warriors of Chaos: 3 of 5

Warhammer Fantasy: Warriors of Chaos Army Blog
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5


In this article:

• Knights of Slaanesh
• Knights of Tzeentch
• Chaos Ogres
• Chaos Trolls

After completing some large blocks of infantry, I was ready for something a little more specialized. That is to say: a unit with less models!

Knights of Slaanesh

Games workshop had long ago manufactured a metal Lord of Slaanesh riding a demonic snake. The knight featured atop was elegant in his armor construction, featuring a broad plumed helmet with a roman aesthetic. I had seen several people chop this helmet off the model for use elsewhere, but 5 times over would have been excessive.

The Eldar Dire Avengers from warhammer 40k featured plastic helmets much in the same vein, as well as back mounted flags meant for the Exarch. The fit was perfect, the soul gems attached to the side only served to enhance the ostentatious look. Lances topped off the visual statement nicely.

Knights of Tzeentch

There is an illustration in the WoC army book of Tzeentch troops, it's inspiration worthy of a plastic sprue all it's own. The helmets alone would be enough to drive an entire range of cult specific armor, but I turned to Warhammer 40k for the next best thing. I found helmets and sorcerous bits from the Chaos Space Marine range, including a Tzeench champion helmet from the standard chaos space marine box, and a sorceror lord helmet from the plastic chaos terminator lord.

I chose to give the standard bearer the blasted standard, pulling a 40k Tzeentch icon and swapping it out for the head of the banner pole, with a plastic book for good measure.

Chaos Ogres

The metal Chaos Ogres were horribly outdated compared to the current range. I still cannot fathom why they put pictures of them in the army book over 15 years after their initial release. Fortunately, the Ironguts box from the ogre kingdom range was a good replacement.

Making chaos ogres out of ironguts was a snap. With just a few horns glued to their helmets, darker skin, tattoos, and corrosion, the Ogres were ready. I was kicking myself later after seeing other players who had done the same thing, swapped the ogre gut shields for chaos marauder shields. Lesson learned: Do Your Homework.

Chaos Trolls

I never really had a problem with the way the old chaos trolls looked, but I hate assembling metal models. I took one look at the spindly limbs of the metal models and winced. I ignored the unit until the orcs and goblins range updated in mid-2010.

With the release of the plastic river trolls I finally had something worth painting. I converted them with little pieces of armor and weapons add some chaos flavor. A radically different color scheme resulted in a unit of fat, evil looking brutes.

The troops were thoroughly assembled and painted, but there was something lacking, something very important to the sucess of any army...

Heroes!

Warriors of Chaos: 1 of 5

Warhammer Fantasy: Warriors of Chaos Army Blog
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

In this article:

• Chaos Warhounds
• Marauders of Chaos
• Champion of Chaos: Khorne

I've always been interested in painting, if not playing, warhammer fantasy, but never really got past painting a single model here and there. All that changed when I cashed in some store credit for a battalion box and several regiment boxes worth of chaos. My fascination with knights has always been a driving force in my artwork, and it was natural to go with the newly revamped heavy armor of the game.

I discovered that there had been several mistakes in the packaging of the battalion box, and that I had been shorted on sprues. I called GW for help, and the man I spoke with told me that new sprues were on their way. What he didn't tell me was that those sprues were bringing reinforcements. A week later I was surprised to find two complete regiment boxes on my front doorstep. Now that's service!

So I got down to it, cutting, cleaning, gluing; getting ready to dive back into the process of building an army.

Chaos Warhounds

For what you pay, the Chaos Warhound box is a tidy little package that will give you exactly what you need. Nothing more, nothing less.

The molds are designed with little customization in mind. Each body is two halves, which dictates the pose of the model. The tails and horns are left separate to allow some play, but for the most part you're going to end up with exactly what you started out with. Nice clean molds here, with dynamic poses that rank up easily.

One easy way to extend the shelf life of models in the unit is to vary your color schemes. Here I'm working with what is essentially the same palate mixed up in different combinations to create the illusion of a greater variety. As long as you keep the colors in the same family, you can really add a lot of interest without having to spend a ton of extra time.

One thing that's absolutely a must-do before you prime is to put a thin strip of greenstuff across the back of the hound as well as the bridge of the nose. Even a clean fit between the two halves will leave a line bisecting your Warhound, and the ten minutes it takes to fix is well worth it.

All in all a great little box that can be assembled and painted quickly.

Marauders of Chaos

This box offers a ton of variety and extras to make sure that even when you build a massive number of them, you still can have a unit of 20+ marauders that all look different. The one option that isn't represented in plastic is light armor. As a stand in, I painted over the bare chests and gave them extra armor bits.

One clever thing I noticed the sculptors did to help in the assembly process for flails: the wrist guards for the different arms are made to match. So if you lose your spot and don't know which supporting arm is suppose to be glued to which flail arm, just compare wrist guards. It's not as "bone-head" obvious as the newer plastics where they stamp letters into the contact points, but still a nice touch.

This is an older box that has really stood the test of time. The components are clean, the sculpts look competitive despite the advances in molding technology these past few years, and there's enough bits to ensure you'll always have what you need to finish the job... and several others. If you're looking for a box to kitbash into an existing force to give it a nordic overtone (space wolves, et al.), this is the box for you.

Chaos Champion: Khorne

The one who started it all.

I picked him up to paint "just for fun", or so I told myself at the time. In reality, whether I was willing to admit it or not, I was trying this guy out to see how I felt about painting knights. The answer is self-evident.

And so it was that I was on my way to forming a full Warriors of Chaos army. What lay ahead of my humble beginnings were two of the most difficult units I've ever had to paint, 20 man blocks of chaos warriors!

Next Article: Part 2

40k Plastic Ork Nobz: The Three Stooges

I love painting Orks for Warhammer 40k.

If there is a more chaotic, characterful, and outrageous style in plastic, I've yet to see it. Support for this army is only surpassed by Games Workshop's flagship line of models: the Space Marines.

Nobz are the clear definition of an Ork veteran. They've been around long enough to bash some skulls, get some real looting done, and even boss around some of the smaller boyz. After years of mischief and malicious conduct, every Nob has his own personality. Although I only painted the requisite 3 Nobz to build a minimum sized squad, I was able to pick the best ideas for my project.

Burly

Everyone knows Orks live for a good fight and getting stuck in with the boyz, which made this guy a natural. He was simply a matter of grabbing the nastiest choppy bits the box had to offer and slapping them into place. I also made sure to give him plenty of scars and scraps from his various close quarters encounters.

Harry

I fell in love with the mini squig on the pole (I call him Polly).

I tried my best to differentiate all the skins of the Nobz to give them a little variety. Harry got the closest thing I have to a standard Ork skin scheme; dark angels green painted up to goblin green.

Joe

Look'it me flash boss!

There just isn't much cooler out there than an orky gun. Held together with duck tape, twine, and bad language, the quintessential ork gun is loaded to gills with options upon options. Most of the attachments don't actually work, but boy do they look great. I focused on the warpaint for this model to give him a bit of extra punch. And for someone who so indiscriminately unloads his ammo, Joe needs an assistant...

Shrimp

Poor guy. He so often leaves the table turn 1 for that re-roll. Oh well, easy come easy go. At least he's got a cool checkered stikk bomb.

And that's the three stooges. Another high quality plastic offering from GW, loaded with weapons, wargear, and personality.

Space Hulk Terminators

I just finished a commission job painting the terminators from the space hulk boxed set. Check it out.