Just Another Chaos Knight

The chaos warband continues to grow. Here's another chaos knight that I got in a slightly broken condition (him, not me). He was missing a sword, so I gave him a new one using the blade from a plastic chaos lance. I kept with the red and green paint scheme. It seems that in this warband, the more red you wear, the most senior you are. I've really enjoyed painting all these guys.

Mid-Life Boneripper

Before the period when Games Workshop killed off loads of characters and created Age of Sigmar (I think of it as the Great Trashing), characters didn't change much and the story never moved on. One of the few characters that did change was Boneripper, the rat-ogre bodyguard of the skaven Grey Seer Thanquol. To begin with, Boneripper was a three-armed rat-ogre. Then he became a kind of undead robot based on a three-armed rat-ogre (except one arm was now a gun). Finally, as GW seemed to give up entirely on the idea of the skaven being a horde of rats, Boneripper became a gigantic four-armed monster with a metal leg. As you do.

I got hold of a mid-period Boneripper, when he was in undead mode. (For what it's worth, I think GW implied that these might be different, replacement Bonerippers, and not the same chap going through some major life changes.) It's not a bad model, and quite dynamic in a way, but it looks as much like a steampunk zombie as it does a giant rat. Anyhow, it's in the same colour scheme as the rest of the Frostgrave skaven and fits in well with them.

I also painted another couple of goblins. These never seem to come out very well when I take pictures of them, but I really enjoy painting these smaller, more characterful models. The first guy was the loader of a Mantic weapon called the War Trombone, which resembled a massive blunderbuss. The second guy (or gal) is a "lady of the court" from the sadly discontinued Relics game. I really like their models - they do goblins really well - but I've never been able to get hold of many of them.

Last and most definitely least is an old metal orc that I got in a sale of broken chaos miniatures on ebay. I suspect that he's an old savage boy armed with a spear, but his spear had broken off and he was slightly battered. I gave him an axe instead, and filled in the holes with green stuff. To be honest, he's not a great model, and there's a lack of sharp detail to do anything interesting with (I couldn't even find any eyes!). I suppose I could have given him tattoos, but I'm not a great freehand painter and he wasn't terribly inspiring. Still, he will make a decent thug for the chaos warband.

In these dark times of war, plague, pestilence, famine and shenanigans, many desperate souls turn to crazed cults for salvation. One such sect is the Brotherhood of the Truth Laid Bare, who believe in the twin disciplines of killing everything and wearing only underpants. While orcs are not naturally religious creatures, some find the cult's beliefs strangely appealing.

The blue things are the shafts of arrows

Don Clawleone, genestealer patriarch

"I have come to beg you for help," says the merchant. He is a small man, and he is pale with fear. He stands in front of the magus, but speaks to the darkness beyond him. "I am an honest man. For thirty years, I have worked hard to provide for my sons and daughters."

The magus frowns in concentration, as if listening to a whisper. Then he speaks. "That is good. A man should provide for his family."

"But now these hive-gangers have come. They threaten me and my sons. They frighten my daughters. Even my grox are afraid. When I went to the Enforcers, they laughed at me! So I come here, to beg you for your help. I need your protection."

In the shadows behind the magus, something growls.

"You have come for my help," the magus translates, "but you never spoke to me before now. You never offered me hospitality. You never welcomed my priests. You never worshiped at my temple -"

"Please," stammers the merchant. "Nobody else will help me -"

"And you never called me Patriarch!"

A huge monster thrusts its head out of the shadows. The merchant glimpses a massive body, spindly, armoured limbs, rows of glistening teeth. It is like being addressed by a spider.

"Patriarch!" he squeals.

"Good," says the magus. "Good. Do not worry about these gangers. They will be taken care of. There will come a time when Don Clawleone here demands a favour of you, a repayment of the debt that you owe him. But for now, come closer, and we will seal our agreement. With a kiss."

The Patriarch reaches out, and the merchant falls into its embrace.

Patriarch with magus and fine cigar by Tony Hough

When I was a boy, a Genestealer Patriarch was old and fat and sat on a throne. His minions drove round in a limo. Times have changed, and the Patriarch is more like a living idol than a master-criminal. Anyhow, I kept hold of the original miniature, stripped off the paint and thought I'd give him another go.

To begin with, I thought the old Patriarch - sculpted by Bob Olley, I think - looked silly, but it is actually a really good miniature, given that the style is different. The Patriarch's throne is fantastic, with all sorts of elegant and slightly biomechanical details, like a cross between H.R. Giger and a Georgian armchair. The Patriarch himself has "character", by which I mean that he looks like a cross between Marlon Brando and the Alien. I expect that he spends most of his time complaining about young punks having no respect, and then eating the young punks. He really does look nasty, just in a different way to the modern model.

Anyway, here's the model. He's as much a diorama figure as a playing piece, so I've mounted him on quite a big base.

The old Patriarch came with a genestealer magus, who is clearly his advisor (I believe the technical term is consigliere). Again, he's a good model. Unfortunately, the one I have was missing his left hand, so I made him a new one out of a Dark Eldar arm. It's doing very much what the original did: reaching out to touch the Patriarch's throne - or arm - while the magus whispers his advice.

I painted this guy in quite dark colours, to make him look more formal and so as not to distract from his boss. I stuck him to the base and, to counterbalance the models somewhat, added an old metal genestealer familiar to the other side. Here they all are, about to receive visitors (or, judging from the red mark on the floor, having just dealt with them).

Legion of the Very Damned

The Space Marines have a saying: "Only in death does duty end". This is because they are wusses and slackers. As every soldier of the XIII Infelix Legion knows, service is forever. 

Once again, the mists part, and the Infelix Legion strides forth to do battle with - well, anyone, really. While the Legion slept, the empire became overrun with living people and other such barbarians, and the time has come to put them to the sword.

Goodness knows why, but I do like undead Romans. I got hold of a Warlord Games Roman Veteran sprue, and a sprue of Mantic armoured skeletons, and got to work mixing the two. As before, when I've made legionaries, they weren't the easiest of conversions, and I concentrated on making the weapons, shields and helmets look vaguely right (the armour has probably fallen apart to a large extent). Anyway, here they are.

Flavius Flava and his mighty hat.

"Normal" legionaries

They're not very neatly-painted, but I think the concept is clear and I really like the look of them in a big group. Here's the entire unit:

A Dubious Youth

Ages ago, James gave me a big bag of bits from various fantasy kits. Among them was a part from the Ogre Stonehorn kit, which is a bound human prisoner who hangs from the Stonehorn's saddle, presumably for the Ogres to eat later on.

I used the head of the prisoner to make a crazed ganger for Necromunda (I think it was Keith Violence, if I remember rightly). I thought that the body, with its hands behind its back and its crossed ankles, could make quite a good model of someone just lounging around. The elbows could be used to rest on something, for a "suspiciously nonchalant" sort of pose.

With quite a bit of cutting, I came up with this.

I made the model lean on a Mantic barrel, and used a Statuesque female head, which just seemed right at the time. The hands were bound together at the back of the model: with some judicious green-stuffing, I added a knife that our person is keeping out of sight, just in case. I had to take the left foot off and do a bit of resculpting there.

And then it was time for paint.

I'm not sure if this person is male or female. I think the female head really works, somehow, but the delicate features do rather contrast with the whopping great codpiece that the miniature has. But who am I to second-guess what goes on in dark places of the Warhammer World?

My other model this week was a javelin-thrower for the Chaos warband, who will probably count as an archer if she ever reaches the tabletop. The basic model was a Privateer Press Hordes person. She came without a left arm, so I made one using the forearm of an Empire Flagellant and a Chaos shield.

Here she is painted up. She seems to come from one of those "fantasy" settings where they haven't quite invented proper shoes but have worked out how to shave their legs.