Retro Chaos Dreadnought

 Hello! I've had a busy week. I went to Glastonbury to relax for a couple of days, which was great, and then I injured my knee, which was less great. The damage isn't awful, but it does make sitting down to paint uncomfortable, and so I've been chipping away at little bits and bobs.

That said, I have been able to finish a model that I've been working on for a while. Hybrid Miniatures make a range of retro-styled miniatures, some of them quite reminiscent of 40k models from the good old days. They were having a sale of some of their old-school resin dreadnoughts, and I took the opportunity to get one of these.

The old dreadnought was the first dreadnought specifically made for Chaos, and can be seen in the blue Citadel catalogue. It had a very organic, Giger-ish look, with pipes and pincers, and an odd big skull for a head. It looked really cool to my mind and is my favourite version of the Chaos dread. Later versions were either blocky and awkward-looking (the 3rd ed version) or very fleshy (the Hellbrute). 

Anyhow, I went for a similar colour scheme to that which I used on a Necromunda Spyrer a while back. I highlighted the black with both grey and khaki. The weapons and pipes were painted quite brightly, for contrast and as a nod to the old version. I also painted a few pipes to look organic. Anyhow, here we are! It's 90% finished, but there are a couple of bits that I'd like to add to.

Mordheim - Mercenaries and Monsters

 It's been a long time since I've done any fantasy models. In fact, the last fantasy model that I posted on this blog was in January. I certainly default to science fiction in modelling: the colours are more interesting (there's less brown to paint!) and there's more options for weird creatures and people. 

Anyway, this month I went back to Mordheim, and to finish off some models that I started a while ago and just abandoned.

First up, we've got two archers, painted in the black-and-yellow livery that I seem to have chosen for this warband. They use old Mordheim mercenary bodies and legs, with arms from the North Star Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Crewmen sprue (catchy title). The first Frostgrave plastic soldiers were a little crude, to my mind, but these later models are really decent. The chap on the right has a Crewman head, too. 

Then we've got two oddballs. The little hobbit chap was an unconverted plastic miniature that came in a job lot of random models. He had a slotta tab, but it was blank. It seems that he was from either Talisman or Warhammer Quest (or possibly both). He actually looks like the man from the covers of Mad Magazine, so I painted him to resemble that guy. I'm generally not much of a hobbit fan, and it seems out of place that one of these tubby, barefoot yokel-children should be in the city of the damned, but what the heck.

The other fighter is a more complex conversion, designed to look like a tattered, weary veteran. He has a Mordheim left arm, the right arm of a Bretonnian knight, a Chaos marauder shield, a body and head from the Empire Pistoliers set (very good for bits), and legs from a 40k Chaos cultist. The bag attached to his belt is from Bolt Action. The weird fishy crest on his helmet came from an Empire cannon kit.

I really like the end result, although making him took ages. I like the idea of these guys wearing uniforms that were once flashy and ornate, and now are grubby and battered.

And that's not all! Here's a conversion that I did ages ago and never painted. It's a Chaos minion (unsurprisingly), based on an old metal sorcerer body. I gave him a genestealer head and a metal tentacle for a tail, as well as a right arm from a Necromunda Goliath bit. As I painted him, I was surprised by how detailed the basic metal body was. He's pretty manky.

I also found some counters for traps, that came in a Mantic terrain set many years ago. They were nice models, and easy to paint. 

Last and most definitely least, all the models in this post are standing on a base plate painted to resemble paving stones. This was a piece of MDF with lines scored into it. I've no idea who sold it. I painted it grey, with a few stones painted in brighter shades for variety. I painted the upper edge of each stone slightly lighter, to give the impression of light coming from one source and catching on the edge of the stones. I think this is called trompe d'oeil. A little bits of brown dirt and green moss was added on with thinned paint. It's not perfect, but it will work as an interesting base for photography.

I've got a few Mordheim warbands painted, but I did them a few years ago, and they'd be much better if I painted them now. I might try to tidy up my older painting and make a few improvements. We shall see!

Hideous Chaos Terminator Snake Eel Spawn Thing

 I've been dipping into the huge pile of unpainted miniatures this week, and I've started all sorts of random things. I've got another couple of armoured eldar guardians on the go, a couple of fancy space marines of the Shining Knights chapter, and a thug with a shotgun that I can barely identify.

But none of these are finished, so instead let's turn to PLEASURES OF THE FLESH. By which I mean chaos marines, influenced by the sinister god Slaanesh. This week, Games Workshop released new models for the Emperor's Children, the debauched minions of the pleasure god. This reminded me to get on with a miniature that I've had lying about for ages: I had the concept in my mind, found the relevant pieces, and then did nothing. Until now.

I thought it would be cool to make a terminator marine with the lower body of a snake, a sort of hideous fleshy worm-man. It's probably quicker if I do a list of the bits:

Head - chaos spawn

Left arm - fantasy ghoul

Right arm - Space Wolves heavy flamer with a chaos knight shoulder pad

Front body - chaos terminator

Rear body - multi-melta left over from a plastic dreanought

Lower body/tail - tyranid ravener, with a chaos tank part on the end of the tail.

That's most of it. The great advantage with all this is that I didn't need to buy any terminators. Here's the work in progress.

I think "busy" is a fair descruption. Here he is with paint. I cut the spines off his back, to make him look sleeker and less like a tyranid, and added a sort of sock thing to his tail.

I've just realised that I didn't finish off his shoulder pad, so apologies for that. I'm quite tired of painting pink flesh now. He looks as if he could join Gwar.

Here is the delightful snake-creature with his other terminator friends, most of whom include an absolute minimum of terminator parts. I painted them a few years ago, so they're not quite up to my current standards, but together they make a suitably weird and spiky unit. 

A Bunch of Chaos Weirdos

 Here are some chaos guys that I've been working on. Although they're ancient and short, I still really like the old chaos marine miniatures (well, most of them).

I had a load of damaged bits, and some legs made from a ruined old plastic Khorne berserker (no idea where this part came from!). I added loads of extra parts to make a full model, including a resin Necromunda arm, a fantasy helmet and the face of a Sigmarine. I'm not sure where the bag and chain parts came from, but they look suitably chaotic.

Here he is with some paint. Next to him is a marine from a boxed set featuring the chaos warlord Fabius Bile. Bile is a mad scientist type who can "enhance" his minions. This being the wonderful world of Warhammer, this turns them into hideous maniacs.

This particular hideous maniac is not a great model (none of this set are). His head is very big, and the sculpting is a bit crude. Well, I did my best, and tried to make him look suitable mad. He has a lot of wires and pipes, which I imagine pump some unwholesome solution into his body.

The next two were repaints of models I did a while ago. The chap on the left is one of my favourite conversions, which I did when I was about 18. I replaced most of his head with the mouth of a plastic space ork, which I believe is upside down. The other guy is the spotter for a heavy weapon squad. It seemed appropriate to give him a hazard-stripe shoulder pad.

Next up is a trio of disgusting monsters. I made these from all sorts of tyranid and chaos oddments. The big worm was made from a tyranid ravener's lower body and a part from some sort of ugly Khorne monster, probably called a blood-something. I really like them. They remind me of a Francis Bacon painting. Yuck.

All glory to Chaos!

This Week's Monsters

 This week, I relaxed by not painting any tiny checks on any metal Eldar. I had some time off work, so I was able to sit down and finish a few models that I'd had lying about and to tidy up an old conversion.

First off is a troll. I love the look of Games Workshop's trolls, who have a nice sense of cartoony, dim-witted menace. It's a shame there isn't a purely-troll army, as I'd be tempted to make one. Unfortunately, you need about six million goblins, and I'm not as keen on the goblin models.

Anyhow, this guy has the upper body of a GW Rockgut Troggoth (aka a stone troll). You get six upper bodies in the standard set, all of which are very good, but only three pairs of legs. This strikes me as a great waste, so I built the lower legs of this troll out of a Reaper Bones troll (a much worse model), which I sculpted over with DAS clay and green stuff. 

I've done this conversion before: for a better guide, click HERE

Here's a WIP - the black bits are standard GW.

And here's the finished troll. I love all the details on this model, especially the baby bird reaching for a worm that's dangling off the rock he's about to throw. Presumably he's been wearing a nest as a hat. Painting the rock was difficult - is that quartz? - but satisfying.

Then I repainted a model that I made ages ago, as part of a 40k inquisitorial warband. He's a somewhat cartoony demon. His arms and lower body came from tyranid bits; the upper body is an old Dark Eldar part, and the head is a kroot head with a face from a snotling. He looks suitably silly, and a bit sinister. I would not buy a used car from this guy.

Third is a simple plastic beastman from the old days. You used to be able to buy a set of ten identical beastmen to bulk out units. He's not an amazing model, to be honest: perfectly serviceable but to my mind lacking the detail of newer miniatures or the charm of older ones. I think he looks more sinister with a bare human-style chest.

And finally, I ordered some squig faces off ebay, on the grounds that they might come in "useful" somehow (I mean, squigs are basically balls of clay with faces, right?). One of them looked a lot like a deep-sea angler fish, so I sculpted him a body and some fins.

And then painted him to look like something surfacing in the port, much to the disgust of everyone.

A few Mordheim loonies

Here are some more random people for Mordheim. 

Our first weirdo was made from part of a plastic skaven, which I got in a job lot of models. It was missing some bits, so I added some of my own.

He got a head from an Empire wizard and a right arm from an Empire pistolier. His bag was made from a kroot part, as were the grenades on his belt. I painted them to look like glass bombs, full of some noxious potion. I extended the strap on the belt and finished off the model's armour with green stuff.

I considered painting the model with a sooty face, as if his guns had backfired, but I didn't think that I could do this convincingly. He was painted to fit in with the Middenheimer unit that I've been making. 

This is Gustav, a former clockmaker who survives in the ruins of Mordheim with his customised guns.

 

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 I like beastmen: they look like something from a medieval picture of Hell, rather than the Doom-meets-Buffy feel of some of Warhammer's demons. They used to have their own army book, which contained a lot of different sorts of goat-people and even a reference to a centaur trying to roger a unicorn.

These models have taken a break from unicorn-bothering and are looking for someone to smash. They're converted from plastic Blackstone Fortress models, which largely involved removing their guns and chainswords and giving them swords and shields instead. The shields are old skeleton shields, and have a nice decrepit look. I also removed some grenades and holsters from their belts and covered them with armour and pouches.

I reckon these guys would be called something like Grutt Manbasher or Krub Meatbeater, and would spend a lot of time grunting and bellowing.

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I also painted a ghoul, who is an old metal model. He's much more cartoony than the other ghouls that I've made for Mordheim, but I like his nosferatu-type look. He's got purple pants, to fit in with the rest of the undead.

Chequered Knight

 Progress on the last, and most complicated, of the Exodite Dragon Riders has been slow, partly because I've had trouble finding all the bits that I need. It's getting there, though.

Anyhow, for a bit of light relief I repainted this guy, who is a conversion I made a while ago. He's got a body from a very old metal Chaos chariot driver, an arm from a plastic Chaos warrior, and a hammer from a Sigmarine. I'm not sure where the shield comes from, originally, but it's very old. 

Originally, his armour was black, but I decided to liven it up with a chequered pattern.

Space Crusade Chaos Marines

 I was looking through some of the boxes of random junk I have knocking around, and I found some ancient Space Crusade chaos marines. I have no idea at all why I've got these. Space Crusade came out in 1990, and I have vague memories of thinking that they looked quite cool when I was young, so maybe I bought them off a schoolfriend. 

(There was always a steady trade in second-hand miniatures at my school, as older boys flogged off their models to get cash for, I assume, girls and booze. I can clearly recall buying some Fire Dragons from a bloke named Alan.)

It turns out that the Space Crusade chaos space marines could be an awful lot worse. Compared to the regular marines in the game, they're brilliant. Compared to recent chaos marines, they're a bit ropey, but they're certainly not too awful to use. In fact, they've got some really nice little details. The rank and file guys have a cool Giger-esque feel, and the leader is remarkably ornate. 

Unfortunately, some of the guns were lost to time, but I was surprised to discover that modern chaos marine guns would fit really well. They only needed a tiny bit of green stuff and they looked cool. It's interesting how a miniature doesn't have to be covered in detail to work: the sharpness of the replacement guns draws the eye nicely and compensates for the weaker aspects.

They got a standard Not-Black Legion paintjob. For once the black was a real pleasure to paint. I've got to say, I'm surprised how well these old board game models came out!

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If you like Mordheim or Assassin's Creed, check out my Dark Renaissance novels HERE

Mordheim Chaos Redux

 I'm still feeling rough, but I've been able to do a lot more painting. A while ago, I painted and converted a group of chaos cultists for the Mordheim "Cult of the Possessed" warband. I thought I'd tidy them up a bit and make them look nicer - at least, as tidy and nice as people who worship the Chaos gods can be.

I wanted to add two new archers to the warband. The first was made out of a Frostgrave soldier model, with a masked head from a 40k chaos cultist. This was pretty simple, and I like the contrast between the tattered, simple clothes and the shiny mask with its fancy horns.

The second archer was more complex. A while back, I bought a bunch of broken metal chaos models off Ebay. One of them was an archer in a big straw hat (possibly fur) and vaguely samurai-type armour made of lots of little metal plates. I think he might have started out as either an orc or some sort of hobgoblin. His shoes are huge, like a clown's, but that might just the the style of sculpting back then.

Anyhow, he was missing his face and the upper half of his bow. I found a suitable replacement bow from a broken plastic goblin, but the face was harder. Eventually, I turned up an old plastic zombie head and chopped it down to size. It looked pretty goofy, but then the metal body was a bit cartoony. 

They were painted in the colours of the cult - mainly leather, old metal, drab green and bright red. Here the archers are next to a musketeer, who was converted from a 40k chaos cultist.

Next are two possessed monstrosities. The guy on the right is based on a genestealer aberrant, and the one on the right is some sort of Nurgle champion, possibly the Glottkin one. I think he's got replacement arms and head. Nice. I just neatened the painting on these guys a little.

Then we've got the rank and file, all made from slightly broken metal chaos warriors. These two were nearly intact: the chap on the left was missing his sword, and the one on the right came without a left arm and shield. Replacements were provided by Khorne bloodletters and some left-over chaos warrior bits. I love the brightly-coloured armour.

They are supported by two axe-waving loons. The axeman on the left was in a right state when I bought him. I gave him a new left arm and weapon, and a new peg-leg.

The guy on the right was a newer champion from the chunky middlehammer period. He only needed a plastic shield and a new axe. I don't like this model as much as the others, but he'll do.

And then to round out the group, here are Hrug the Brute and Grut Manbasher, two charming beastmen. 

And that's the whole foul warband. Well, except for the Magister, the fighter/wizard who leads them into battle. Unfortunately, I'm still working on his model, which is due a complete repaint, so here's a picture of the horde led by a renegade warlock.

Not a club I would like to join!

Chaos Space Marine and Eldar Musician Lady

After the big tank, I've been painting a couple of smaller-scale models. Here's a chaos bloke. 

He's made from lots of assorted bits: the head is from a Chaos Marine, the body is from an old metal marine (I think it's one of Fabius Bile's enhanced minions, but I'm not sure), the arms are from an Empire Flagellant, and the legs come from a Blood Angel jump pack marine. I think the axe head is from a Chaos Marauder. I added the grenades on his leg to cover up some Blood Angels iconography. Here's a WIP:

I like the sense of movement and craziness to him. I could see the Chaos Marines arming themselves with whatever implements they could find: axes, crowbars and bits of chain. I decided to paint him in the standard not-Black Legion colours, with unhealthy skin. The skin was base-coated grey and highlighted with pink flesh. I washed it with purple and a bit of strong tone. His lower legs got quite a bit of weathering powder - I doubt he'd be very interested in keeping clean!

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And now for something much more wholesome. I've always wondered what Eldar civilians look like. In a way, there aren't many purely civilian Eldar, as they can always be called up to help the Guardian militia. But what do Eldar do in their free time? I expect they do arts and crafts, and spend their long lives getting very, very good at stuff. I vaguely remember Games Workshop saying that they make a lot of pots.

I'd expect civilian Eldar to look like a cross between hippies and Roman senators - in fact, quite like the elves in the films of The Lord of the Rings (what? Eldar looking like elves? How can this be?).  I found this Jes Goodwin picture online, where they look slightly New Age and quite Goth.

Anyhow, one of the best things about the local gaming shop is that, when there's no interest in a game, they start selling the models off cheaply. Clearly Warmachine hasn't taken off in South-East England, since they were flogging some random metal Privateer Press models. One of them was an elf lady playing a wind instrument to a giant snake-alien. I bought them both and painted up the elf.

It was quite hard to make out some of the details, and assembling her instrument - it looks like an oboe or a clarinet - was an absolute sod. I ended up cutting it into pieces to get her hands to align. It was risky, but it paid off. Like most Privateer Press elves, she's got colossal pointy ears.

I ended up painting her in much the same colours as I've used for the rest of the army. I painted her space-clarinet metal to make it stand out. I might use her as a bonesinger, who can repair damaged Eldar structures with psychic power.