Pulling out my Chaos

As I said in my last post I've been getting some games of Age of Sigmar in recently.  As I don't really have a suitable army I've taken out my old Chaos stuff from when I started this blog up. We are only playing 1000 point games. The armies are small but well I only have 1000 points painted so that's fine with me. I didn't really study up all the possible synergies and basically just cobbled a list together. That combined with some poor dice really effected how I played. The list just didn't perform the way I had expected it to. Thankfully I'll have some Ironjawz to use soon so hopefully they can be a more competitive and fun army to use. I don't really want to expand my Slaves to Darkness beyond what I have painted despite having the models. Rebasing them all would be a chore as I put a fair bit of effort into basing them in the first place. I also have a few other projects such as my Stormcast that I think I would prefer to get finished and on the tabletop though they will take me a long while to really get done. I just don't have the time to paint them and that saps my enthusiasm. Maybe I can get back into the mood to do them after I have played some more. I also need to see what armies the other players go for as we only have a small group and there is no point in doubling up on armies at this point.

The scenarios from the Generals Handbook have proven to be good. They force a balanced enough army though I can see how shooting could come to be dominant in a meta. Terrain, as always, needs to be good quality and abundant. We played in the local GW store and I was a bit shocked at how bad the terrain was. The 40k stuff looked acceptable but the AOS stuff was really poor. I can understand that the terrain would take a bit of a bashing over time but this stuff was just bad. As they are actually trying to sell this stuff to customers one wuld think that they would make more of an effort in getting some good stuff onto the tables. The Realm of Battle boards were nice though the whole winter scheme was a little excessive. Again as these are going to be sold a little effort would have gone a long way.

Anyway the last game we didn't get finished but it ended at a 2:2 draw against the Wanderers. The Wood Elves in this new edition are really not what they used to be. They could stand up to a charge and realyly dish out some hurt. I was expecting that once I got up close to them I would sweep through their ranks but that was definitely not what happened. Luckily I managed to target my opponents characters preventing him from scoring the objectives and letting me claw back into the game. It really was funa nd quite tactically challenging. I've a lot to learn and I'm looking forward to it.

Missing Marauders

I seemingly forgot to post these the week before last. I went from the first two directy to the last two. Anyway here are the missing Marauders from the Horsemen regiment. I don't have anymore of them to paint thankfully but their foot cousins seem to be a never ending tide encroaching on my painting table. I do want to get the Cultists finished to about twenty models soon. The only problem is the just started Macinations Warmachine League. It is offering points for painting miniatures and my focus therefore has to switch over to getting some models done for that. It also helps that there are a few new releases for Circle coming up this and next week!

No rest for the Wicked!

This is a really old Jes Goodwin sculpt that I have had for many many years. I always loved this model and the other Chaos Sorceror models of the same era. I have another somewhere that I can't find for the life of me. I knew instantly that he would have to be the leader of the Cultists so I dug him out and painted him up to suit. I wanted him to be a bridge between the Warriors and the Cultists and so I painted the armour in the same way as I did the Warriors. This is the last model I have for the regiment and I need to pick up another box soon. I will be scouring eBay to get my hands on some hopefully at a respectable discount. I just need to figure out what they are called in german.

Front Rank

These will be the front ranking models for my Chaos Cultists. I put a few symbols on each of the models handily supplied by the Marauder Horsemen. They aren't quite chaos wheels but they are close enough. A few chaos symbols on the shredded remnants of parchement these guys carry also helps. I painted the fine text with ink rather than thinned paint and it proved much easier to achieve the fine lines I wanted. I will definitely do this again. I did notice that if I used a wash after doing the text I had some problems. The wash could lift some of the ink off. I need to confirm this by trying it again but if that is true it would be annoying!

I am theming the army somewhat towards the Storm of Chaos. The Cultists are part of this as they played a large role in the quick fall of the town in the north, according to the roleplaying game fluff. The name of the town on the sign, Kurst, is one of the towns that fell early to the slaanesh invasion. As for other elements of theme I have been going for regiments in multiples of six as far as possible. Otherwise I am finding it fairly hard to make more of the theme. It doesn't have such a specific imagery and so I am not sure what more to do!

More Back Rankers

I only have eleven models for this regiment so I am nearing completing these already. Again my MSU style seventh edition army needs more models. I will eventually pick up another box of flagellants to complete the regiment. Twenty five is the target number, hopefully I can source the four models I need on eBay. Getting some of the older models would great. I am not sure if they fit exactly with the new ones. I remember the older ones being a lot bulkier than the current ones.

Crazy Nutters

These will be some of the back ranking guys for the regiment. I made sure that those in front have a few more obvious chaos symbols on them. There really isn't a need for that in the back ranks. The empire flagellant models are really great and suit the cultist image excellently. The eyes are tiny and almost impossible to paint. I usually don't have a problem with painting eyes but really these guys are tough to do. I have scattered the heads around the rest of the army and they fit the marauders perfectly. I have also added them to the Chaos Mages I converted a long time ago. I am eager to paint the mages up but I need a little more greenstuff work on them before I can get started.

Chaos Cultists

I have had these models sitting around for ages in various degrees of completeion. Thankfully they were pretty much already basecoated so I didn't have to work to hard to get them done. I used the Empire Flagellant models and added a few chaos symbols in places to emphasise their allegiance. The model on the left has been shown before. He is my first attempt at OSL. It came out fine but I won't be doing it on other models at this stage. It takes too long and with the pale skin colour I went for it isn't that effective. I think it works out better on dark models. At least now the model is complete and these can be put into the painting cabinet.

The Last Ones

That is it, no more Marauder Horsemen to do. Okay I have a few more models unassembled in the bitz box but there they shall remain. I can't se myself using more than twelve of these guys anytime soon and if the models are unassembled I can pretend they don't exist! So that is two regiments complete for my Chaos army. Add that to two regiments of dogs done years agao and I have a fair start on the light elements of the army. The challenge as always is getting the blocks done. If this was sixth or seventh edition I would only have a few more models to paint to bring regiments up to twenty and then I would be done. Sadly everything has to be at least twenty five models now so I still have quite a way to go.

First Horsemen Finished

Here are the first finished Marauder Horsemen from the second regiment. These came out great and match exactly the first regiment. A few people have commented that the white horses don't fit in that well with the rest of the army but I think it is good. I wanted them to be obviously slaaneshi and I think the white horses helps with this. Although now with the changes in price for the Mark of Slaanesh I am less sure. It was also a little bit easier to paint the white as opposed to brown. I do still have to find some suitable shields for these guys. I have run out of the old beastman shields and the new ones come with army already attached sadly. Hopefully I will be able to source more as I need them for the foot sloggers also!

I armed these with flails as in seventh edition these were a great option. While I haven't as yet bought the eight edition book I am assuming that the flails upgrade is really expensive. There seems to have been a huge change to the marauders, both mounted and on foot. I can see myself having a really outdated army in terms of its composition! Once I get the army finalised I think I will go back through all the army books and make out the same army as best as possible and see what I come up with in each edition.

Base coat...

I seem to be only basecoating things at the moment. That stage often seems to take the longest time. Getting a clean even basecaot is in my opinion the most important part of painting a miniature. A lot of people painting try to do dirt and battle damage on miniatures and I find myself telling them that you need to learn to paint neatly before you can do those effects. While I won't have much time over the weekend I will get some of these finished I guess.

More Horsemen

I am slowly making some progress on my Chaos Army. These are my second regiment of Marauder Horsemen. I want to get these painted as I have the horses already done. I also think the models are great and as I sculpted the cloaks on these I don't want that effort to go to waste. I have enough Tallarn Flesh now so I can keep going with these guys. Hopefully they will be the next regiment finished.

Back to Warriors

There might be a few WIP shots over the coming days. I am working on a huge amount of projects at once. I am just painting what I feel like at the moment rather than slogging through a massive regiment at once. I glued a few spare warriors together last week and I sat down to base coat them over the last few days. It took far longer than I though. Basecoating is annoying! It always seems to take longer than it should. I washed these in a few places and built back up the base coat. This is the first time I used the Nuln Oil(GW) where I could compare it to Badab Black(GW). I have noticed that it gives a lot stronger coverage. The armour on these guys has come out much darker than the previously done ones. As these are a completely separate regiment I don't think it is that noticable.

I armed them with two hand weapons as I didn't have enough halberds and painting the shields takes far too long despite looking great. I might eventually do a second regiment using the lances from the Chaos Knights as Halberds. I have fourteen, I guess another ten or so should be enough. I can't see regiments of Chaos Warriors being taken in much bigger blocks than twenty five.

Chaos Spawn Regiment

Here are all my finished Spawn ranked up. As I discussed before I don't know how to use these. I think they are fairly suitable for any of the roles. I avoided the tentacle beast look deliberately so that they were much closer to true humanoid. The addition of some armour and weapons also helps separate them from that look. I guess when it comes down to really making out the army I will see what to do with them.

Chaotic Cannon Fodder

I have been making a lot of progress it would seem. I had six normal marauders left to paint and over the last few days I got them done. I also managed to do some finishing touched to their twelve brothers. The last time I painted these was in November 2010. They have been sitting neglected for over two years. I think at this pace I will have the army ready for ninth edition. I don't know if I have rally become better at painting but these six seemed to go really quickly. I have managed to paint a lot over the last twelve months so I guess the improvement came in speed rather than technique. I won't complain about that, regular readers will know I have motivation problems if things are progressing slowly. Now I have to dig through the various boxes to see if I have enough Marauders to complete the two regiments that I have at the moment. I also need to start sourcing heads from the mounted marauder models as I defintely don't have enough of those bulk out my small regiments.

I still have a little work to do on the banner.I want to find a slaaneshi symbol/sigil to add to the top. I guess there may be some in the new hellsteeds(?) box. Hopefully I can spot some online to buy. I also want to paint up the fur on the banner a little better. The darker fur on the outside it too plain lookin and I will need to give it some more work to get some strong contrast in there. I just don't want it to become too light something that is easily done.

Completed Slaanesh Horsemen

The Slaanesh Horsemen are finally finished and ready to be hidden in the painting cabinet again! At least this time they shall inhabit the same shelf as the rest of the painted Chaos models. I need to pick up the book sometime so I can actually calculate what I need for an army. I started painting these guys when I came to Germany first and this was in the last year of seventh edition. I had designed, built and sculpted everything along an MSU style army which worked wll the few times I used it. However eight hit and if you read back through the blog and my various posts on eigth editon and this army you will see that the fact I had to change everything really put me off the game. It didn't stop my buying everything to convert to eight edition though.

While I don't know if I will get back into Warhammer Fantasy I do want to make progress on this army, at least for the time being. I know having a functional army would make me a lot more enthusiastic to play at least. Once I figure out what exactly I can salvage from the old army and what needs to be added I can decide. As always least effort for most reward comes to mind. If I have very little to do then I will glady do it! Sadly I bet I need to do loads.

The Last Spawn

I managed to paint again this weekend and I got this Spawn finished. I have four now done and I think that is enough. I am still not sure if I will use these as Spawn or as Trolls. I haven't looked at the latest book but I am assuming Trolls and Ogres are still in there. I would be very surprised to see them removed. The new Dragon Ogres really look awesome but I won't be buying anything for a while at least. I have enough to paint and I can resist the new shiny syndrome I think. It is great to see that the Dragon Ogres once again resemble the current Ogres models. They haven't done that since the early nineties! They have also massively increased in bulk. I remember when they used to fit on a cavalry base comfortably. It does lead me to wonder what is to be done with older models like that. Should they be rebased as it does have a massive effect in gameplay terms. Yet base sizes are ruled in such a way that you play with what they came with. A regiment of cavalry sized based Dragon Ogres would be far more effective than the current ones! I have seen a lot of models, especially monsters become outdated in my collection. I have a Chimera that came on a cavalry base and giants that came on standard 50 x 50 sized bases. It would be a pity not to be able to use these anymore but they seem to have no space in the modern game.

Slaanesh Horsemen

Here are the last two Marauder Horsemen for this regiment just in time for Valentines Day. Thankfully I had the horses already painted so I didn't have to slow down to paint those too. Horses take ages to paint. I don't mind the large surface areas as these are easy to highlight. I don't like them because they just take an age to do. I went with a few flagellant heads in this regiment as they are excellent and convey the theme quite well. I also stuck on the back banner as I though it fit with the unit. I have half an idea there is some artwork similar to the model in an old chaos book. I painted on the slaanesh symbol as it is easy to do and I wasn't inspired to try my hand at something else. This army doesn't have an banners as yet so I didn't have anything to go on. Once I get these all varnished I will get a group shot, if my camera obeys. It doesn't like to take group shots I have noticed! I am wondering what to paint next, a spawn I think as he is already constructed and awaiting paint. Hopefully they are better in the new book as I have four of them.

More Marauder Horsemen

I managed despite brewing my latest ale to get some painting in this weekend. I really want to make progress on the Marauder Horsemen. The regiment is now two thirds finished! I improved the flesh colour a little but once everything had dried I still think it is much darker than what I was going for. The contrast just isn't there. I don't want super dark shadows as that really shows the poor sculpting of the muscles. Instead going for really pale skin and yet some starker highlights really softens those bulging biceps. The next ones should be better, I know I really need to add in a few more final steps with bleached bone to bring up the tone and contrast. It is interesting to slowly immerse myself back into some technical painting. A lot of what I have done recently is by rote. I really have to pay attention with these guys which is nice, at least for now!

Here is a shot from behind to show the cloaks. I sculpted these a long while ago and they came out fine. If I was to redo them I would make them a little longer like I did with my Chaos Knights. Those cloaks took ages but they look really well. I only wish those models ranked up better! I didn't do the customary darker stripe down the middle of these like I do with most of the other cloaks I have as I just wanted to do something simple and get back into the swing of it. I still thenk they came out fine and add a little character to the models. I wish they came as standard rather than having to sculpt them myself... They can take about an hour each to do as far as I remember for the larger and better ones.

Marauder Horsemen

As a break from painting Anglo-Danes I have brought forth some relics from my cabinet. I started the Marauder Horsemen about three years ago but I never got past a preliminary basecoat. It took me a while longer than I thought to get these done and so I just concentrated on two and got them finished. I have huge piles, like everyone else, of unpainted or half painted stuff. I would slowly like to work my way through all of this and not buy too much this year. Getting a restart on my Chaos army would be great as I have about five unopened boxes of stuff for that army. Hopefully it is enough to get an actual functional army together!

I kept these guys in a similar style to my other marauders. It is hard to match them all together as there has been a huge gap in painting. Looking at these in comparison to the older ones I have done I can really pick up some differences. The skin tone isn't the same. I managed to achieve a much better colour before. I guess I just worked the colour better and to a higher contrast. I will have to keep tha in mind as I go forward. I am using up the last of my Tallarn Flesh(GW) but soon I will have to switch over to the Cadian Skintone(GW), I am not looking forward to that.

More of the same

Looking at the recent pictures of the Marauder Horsemen I noticed that the horses look really washed out! I should invest in something better than a ten year old digital camera sometime! Aat least the riders came out decently. I am again painting them or at least finishing them in twos as it makes it much easier. I basecoat all the models at once and get them to a good standard in one go. I then split them up and do the highlights and finishing details in pairs. It helps in that the highligh paint doesn't dry out on my palette as it would if I tried to do too many at once and I also get to learn from the previous days mistakes and problems. It certainly is a little slower overall but it is constantly churning out finished models at least. I have a regiment of cultists I want to start on soon and I will probably do them in a similar manner.