Tag: Chaos

I finished up 18 Khorne Big Mutants which completes the core infantry for the Khorne contingent. The models are a mix of Epic Chaos Trolls and Minotaurs with a bunch of minor conversions to break up the monotony. Mostly just weapon swaps and trimming of horns. The claws are from Epic Tyranid Lictor models.

I am making good progress on painting the Khorne Daemon Engines and hope to have them done sometime during the middle of the month.

The last brush stroke fell on the stroke of midnight :). I finished up a bunch of small chaos items that were left over from my Black Legion army. Together with the 300 points worth of Khorne Mutants from earlier this month, this brings me to 965 and comfortably above the 500 point ToEG goal. I will do all the base grass work in one go when the army is painted.

Four Deathguard Havocs with Rhinos. The models follow my default Deathguard paint scheme. The Rhinos have plague sores made from Green Stuff and little “poison gas” trailers (using Ork Scorcha trailers). 120 points.

A bunch of World Eater additions. This bring my Flesh Hounds up to 8 bases like all the other daemon types, Berzerkers to 8 bases so that I can field my first two retinues for the World Eater dedicated army list. Finally, the Terminators bring the total to 8 as well. That means all my Khorne formations are now at the magic number 8 (Khorne holy number). A total of 245 points. 

The Iron Warrior Obliterators are converted from old robot models wit the addition of guns from my bits box. Nothing fancy but clearly identifyable as Obliterators. 300 points.

I also managed to almost finish up the 18 Khorne Big Mutants. Once the wash is dry tomorrow they need a few highlights and then a photo op.

Second and third basing step is completed. Step two involves glueing sand on all the bases (except the as yet unbased Ketzali for lack of washers). 5 backbreaking hours of sanding. I hate this step. It is by a wide margin the biggest time suck for 6mm Epic models. It implies putting on thinned Weldbond glue, pouring on sand, using a stiff bristle brush to “wash” each model with some water (this rinses glued on stray sand of the models) and then give it a quick flick with a dry stiff bristle brush to get any remaining loose sand off.

I am sure that is an easier way to do this, but after 1000+ epic bases I haven’t found it yet . For bigger models I use pre-blackened pumice but for the small stuff this is pretty hopeless (at least at my level of hand-eye coordination other rather what is left of it after a few hours of basing).

Step 3 is thankfully straightforward: spray everything black. Once they are dry the final step will be to patch up the black coat manually, then drybrush Bestial Brown, drybrush Bleached Bone and finally paint the rim in Bestial Brown.

As a small reward for this accomplishment I converted up a Tzeentch and Slaneesh altar, as well as a Khorne objective.

The Tzeentch altar is still missing some king of high priest model on the front of the disc. Apart from the old 40k disc and the Tzeentch icon I didn’t have any Tzeentch specific bits so some 40k terrain pieces had to do the job.

The Slaneesh altar is build up from some spare Hirst Art pieces. It’s hard to see but there are 25 models under the altar to carry the platform into battle. The Keeper of Secret head is from an very old Warhammer model that I found in my bits box. I still need to give it one last layer of Green Stuff to put hairy texture over the “neck” piece.

The Khorne objective uses some old Epic Bloodletter, a Hirst Art skull (carved on the bottom as the original piece is a flat-bottemed ornament) and some chain. I bought 2m worth of that chain to make the leash for the Khorne altar so now I might as well use it! The models will be painted up as brass statues.

With the August deadline for ToEG creeping ever closer, it’s time for the final sprint. I still only have the 300 points for the 18 Khorne Mutants painted but made a lot of progress on the assembly front. In my experience assembly and basing is at least half of the work for small scale models. So I am reasonably pleased with the progress. Of course right after hitting the “all assembled” point, the door rang and my newest order arrived. Another 50+ bases of infantry to base this weekend (all the DRM stuff for the Undivided Covens). Well, at least I had a very short moment of bliss there…

Behold the multitude:

Everything is cleaned up and spackled. The slightly pinkish bases aren’t fully dry yet. The final step will be to add sand and then paint the bases. Those are all the remaining models for the God-specific formations. The only thing missing now are the DRM Ketzali for the Undivided formations, Nurgle Big Mutants, Nurgle Rough Rider and Khorne Chaos Hounds (I ran out of bases, thankfully another 1000 washer are scheduled to arrive tomorrow).

I also started converting the war altars. For Nurgle I used a Warmaster Skaven Screaming Bell, removed the rats and other indicators of 10mm scale. The altar is pushed by two Warmaster River Trolls that I had lying arround. Everything just barely fits on my standardized “Small War Engine” base which seems in line with the altar stat line.

The Khorne altar is a jumble of parts from my bits box. The carriage is from a spare Doomblaster Daemon Engine that was missing the front ram. The chain will be attached tightly to the carriage once the old Flesh Hounds are based and painted. They need to be embedded into spackle so I will paint the hounds on the base while painting the altar seperately for easier access. The stuff on the altar are some 40k spiky bits, a Warmaster Bloodletter that will be painted as a brass statue, a 40k Khorne icon, a Ultracal cast Hirst Art stone left from my Mordheim city project, and some skulls that I cut off from spare Warmaster Skeleton Archers. The base of the Bloodletter will get some more Green Stuff and Warmaster skulls to make a nicer transition.

I am fiddling with ideas for the Tzeentch and Slaneesh altars but haven’t hit anything that feels right yet. Tentative plan is an old 40k disc of Tzeentch with a monolith-like uper structure for Tzeetch. Slaneesh is some kind of Greco-style temple carried on the backs of pleasure slaves. Still poking through the bits box though.

I am back in town, though only for 48 hours. Subtracting work and jet-lagged sleep, I had a few hours to get started on the LatD. Step one was to gather up all the necessary components. With the exception of the DRM Ketzali, my various orders and trades had arrived while I was away. Most of those parts needed clean-up, including de-sprueing (probably not a word), a few boxes worth of infantry.

Khorne tray (clockwise from top left): Daemon Engines, Lord of Battle, an old 40k daemonic slaughterer which will become a Feral Titan, collection of parts for the Khorne Altar, WM Fleshhounds to become Chaos Hounds, a tub of spare Beastmen to populate the Transports, tub of Fleshhounds, tub of Berzerkers (I need a few more bases to run my Black Legion Khorne contingent as World Eaters), 18 Big Mutant bases (the right most still need to be properly based), 18 newly painted Mutants from today’s painting session (centre).

Slaneesh Tray (clockwise from top left): 22 Cultists freshly base coated in Dheneb Stone (the missing two are in the tub below), parts for the Slaneesh Altar, Scout Titans, Slaneesh Knights, Chimeras and Hellhounds, tub of mixed models with Noise Marines to make Fire Support squads.

Tzeentch Tray (clockwise from top left): BIG tub to make 24 cultists stands, Fire support bases, small Titan, big Titan, Firelord, Doomwings, Silver Towers (still looking for 2 more).

Nurgle Tray (clockwise from top left): Plague Tower, Plague Zombies, WM beast rider to become Rough Rider, Blight Drones, 6 Mutant bases, Titan, WM Rat Ogres to become Big Mutants with some Epic scale handlers, WM Chaos Spawn, tub of Terminators (to augment Black Legion Nurgle, WM Screaming Bell as base for Nurgle Altar, tub of GHQ infantry to make cultists, tub of Havocs (for BL), tubs of mutants and cultists, Rhinos for the Havocs.

Pretty much everything is cleaned up now but a big basing orgy will still be necessary. To make some actual progress against the August ToEG deadline, I painted up the 18 Khorne Mutants. I still need the matching 18 Big Mutants to make complete units but I guess they are worth roughly 300 points. I also did up a test base for the Slaneesh Cultists. I will finish all the bases in one go towards the end of the project. Off to traveling for another few days again (unfortunately even further west so more jet lag L ). Another update will come on the weekend.

 

With me personal vote as the tie-breaker, it’s Lost and the Damned for my venture in the TacComs Tales of Epic Gamers challenge. The first step will be to sort out some kind of army list. Like all my Epic armies, I will try to cover the entire book. Actual point values will therefore be a secondary concern for now.

After a quick read of the official LatD and the NetEA LatD beta list, I realized that I have a bit of a problem with my current LatD models. The old Epic Chaos range had a huge variety of interesting metal models and I have pretty much all of them. In the LatD list this translates into a whole bunch of Coven Support choices (4 for Khorne to cover the Lord of Battle and the six different kinds of Khorne Daemon Engines in at least an “assault”, “mid-range” and “shooty” configuration; 2 for Nurgle for the Plague Tower and Contagion Engines; 3 for Slaneesh for the two types of Scout Titans and the Knights; and 3 for Tzeentch with the Firelord, Doomwings and Silver Towers). That’s before adding more generic support units such as tanks, aircraft of artillery (all of which seem essential for actual gameplay). The problem is that the LatD list requires a 1:1 ratio of Covens to support units. Thus, I would need a dozen god-specific Covens plus probably another handful of Undivided Covens to fill the support roles.

I currently have 20 bases each of Mutants and Cultists plus a handful of character bases. I also have a dozen Big Mutants with the ability to make more if needed. The Mutant bases use Chaos and IG Beastman models from all editions of Epic plus a few of the newer daemons sprinkled in for variety (to be painted generically as mutants, not as actual daemons). The Cultists are about 50% actual Chaos Cultist models augmented by suitable left-over models (e.g. guardsmen, Eldar guardians, Orks, etc.). Depending on configuration that’s enough for 4 or 5 Covens or one per God – a basic but very unsatisfactory configuration.

Option 1: I could build more Mutants and Cultists along these lines to bulk out the force. This is pretty hopeless. The two primary models are rare commodities and usually not available independently. Buying them new would generate a huge waste of other Chaos models with no purpose. This option is pretty much dead.

Option 2: I could use the existing bases as Undivided and build up a new type of base for each God. The challenge with this approach is the choice of models. There are no God specific GW models and no proxies jump to mind. I would need proxies for all four Gods for this to make sense. Any ideas?

Option 3: I could paint the Mutants and Cultists in a bland non-god-specific pattern and build a bunch of god-specific character models to instantly “re-dedicate” units between games. Would 5 such “adjustable” Covens would be enough for most 3k games? Is it realistic to assume that the character base will always survive until the end (to keep identifying the unit)?

Option 4: Use the Option 3 generic approach for the God-specific Covens and then build a separate set of Covens using proxies. My current favourite proxy model would be DRM Ketzalis: http://www.darkrealmminiatures.co.uk/store/product.php?productid=154&cat=8&page=1 . They have that cloaked cultist look.

How is everybody else handling this issue in the LatD list?