So I have started on the general of the army! Grimbold the Blind, mighty Slaanesh Sorcerer. I have built him with components from a number of kits. Once again the Flagellant kit proved versatile! I changed the left arm extensively. The arms I was provided with in the Chaos Knights box were not really suitable at all for what I wanted. So I chopped it down into its constituent pieces and reformed it into a better position. Some green stuff in the joints reinforced the connections. The armour on the knights left arms is without any detail so I had to sculpt some. It came out well but not as I imagined. It is hard to get a sharp edge in greenstuff. I have seen some brownstuff for sale. It is supposed to be better for doing armour so I might eventually try that out. 
I wanted Grimbold to be carrying a book. The more I thought about it the les I liked the idea. First of all he is charging into combat on a horse, reading would probably prove difficult. I also don't like the pose where the model is showing the book to the enemy. Instead I stuck the book on his saddle and put some flames into his hand. I intended to sculpt them myself but then I noticed a nice component of the Empire Wizards box. The flaming skull was perfect. I needed to make his hand first though. This was fun to sculpt but amazingly difficult. I now forgive Gary Morley for his many mistakes! It is tough to get the proportions to look right. While they may be anatomically correct they might not look correct in 'heroic scale'.
Having the hand open was the tough part. Sculpting fingers around a haft is pretty simple in comparison. The right arms recieved a lot less attention. I sculpted better bracer to match the other arm. I wanted to try out putting some runes on the surface of the armour. It was tough to do it and keep the surface of the greenstuff smooth. I haven't perfected ithis technique yet but I intend trying a few more times. I should be able to get it eventually! I have more sculpting to do on Grimbold but I won't be able to get more than the preparation work done before the Gorey Tournament so I haven't bothered. Once I get back I will give him the fur cloak like the rest of the army and some more details to give him the sense of being a little more shaman like, such as runestones and bone charms.
I am busily gluing together my marauder horsemen now. They are the final thing to complete before the weekend. I have given this regiment throwing axes for some reason. Everyone online says that flail are the best equipment selection. I don't like the flail models themselves so I tried to avoid using them. I will probably try to figure out a way to get flails onto the second regiment without them looking too stupid. Games Workshop really do bad flails. The Flagellants were really terrible. The flails were almost completely vertical!
This regiment again benefitted from the Flagellant sprues. The heads are much more expressive than the standard marauder ones so I swapped them. The back banner is nice and looks very well on horseback. It gives a sense of movement to the rider I hope. I wanted to get some flames into this regiment to match some of the marauders elsewhere in the army. I gave the riders to each side of the regiment flaming brands. This will give me a chance to try some light sourcing on the miniatures without having to worry how they rank up. If it works well I will carry it across the army.
The only other conversions I made with the marauders were simple weapons swaps. This rider got the flail arms but an axe head tops the shaft. I did this to stop the static look of the models when they only have a limited number of poses due to a lack of variety in the weapon arms. While it makes him look like he has a great axe I hope it won't be an issue. He is the only one carrying a weapon like this. The horses themselves are wonderful, possibly the best horses Games Workshop have produced so far. While they are still a little cartoony I think it suits them well and erves to make them look evil!
Finally you get to see what I am doing with the Flagellants. They are my marauders with flails. Once again the concensus seems to be that there is no point in arming marauders with flails anymore as it costs the same as upgrading to great weapons. Well I like the look of these models and if they end up being useless I can always swap them out! For now I want to ee how they preform in comparison to the great weapons. As they are essentially sacrifical troops I don't think that there is much of a distinction.
The conversions on these models are going to be a bit more minimal than the other marauders. Some of the arms had to be repositioned necessitating some green stuffing but nothing major. I am going to give them a lot of parchment scrolls representing their secret cult knowledge type stuff! Other than this I don't really know what else I cold do. The models are nicely detailed and I suspect will demand a very good paint job. I guess that a few interesting symbols on the robes will look nice. I also managed to find a use for the old chaos sorcerer I have had for a long time. He fits in as a champion quite well I hope. I do need to get another model to fill the regiment up to twelve so hopefully I can prevail on someones charity!
Thankfully the chaos warriors come with cloaks! At least there is one regiment that won't have to have these sculpted. They do have a nasty gap in the fur at the shoulders but I fixed that easily. I had some spare slaanesh champion heads lying around so I made sure to get them onto these models. I had intended to give them the Mark of Slaanesh anyway so this was great. I bought the heads years ago and forgot about them until I was moving here. While rummaging through some of my boxes I found them. I am short one but thats not a problem as I can just get original model they come from and steal his. As the army I am using now will not be valid under ETC restrictions I will probably use that Slaanesh model as my general in those lists. At least for now I don't have to worry about it. The next tournament in Northern Ireland will have ETC restrictions but it is in November so I have some time yet.
I did want to have a conversion of some form in the regiment. I decided that the champion looked quite like the model of Archaon on foot. In my mind he had his shield resting on the ground. I copied this idea sculpting a new hand for the champion in the process. Now that I think about it the Archaon model has his shield up in the air! I like this conversion and hope that it breaks the static warrior pose. As I won't be able to paint the models with the shields attached I will have to bring them to the tournament shieldless. I hope people won't mind this! I should probably bring a special list for people so that they can check out what everything is and what they are armed with! I can't even glue the weapons on unless I want to go for a very static pose.
I also managed to get the knights constructed, both regiments. They are fantastic models that just won't rank up. I will have to take photographs of them so that I can reference them when I need to rank the models up. I have managed to get them into ranks through painstaking gluing, breaking apart and regluing. I won't have time to start sculpting extras unto these so they will remain as they are for now. They will probably be one of the last things I paint for the army as I will want them to look well.I will have to carry this army without the benefit of a case as my Battlefoam order has not arrived and will not arrive for a while. Its pretty much my fault as I ordered way too late. Their customer service is useless though... I will be following a suggestion from the Underground Gamers: a towel. Yep a few small soft towels with the models all wrapped up inside. I really hope that this gets the more delicate models there in one piece. I guess I should bring some super glue with me...
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