A Warlord for the Chaos Marines

It's been a busy week for the Hell-spawned forces of darkness and metal, as I've painted a warlord for the Chaos Space Marines.

Ages ago, I bought a job lot of damaged metal marines on ebay. The warlord is based on one of them: his body, arms and head come from the Dark Angels librarian Ezekiel, who came without his normal big sword. I gave my version a plastic sword from a chaos champion, and a backpack and wings from a Blood Angels honour guard. The sword represents a chaos relic called The Murder Sword, which sounds like a concept album by Nick Cave.

There was surprisingly little insignia on the model that had to go: I used some green stuff on the books he's carrying (he is a librarian, after all), but that's all. I mounted him on a bit of scenic base because he's actually rather small compared to the recent plastic chaos marines. I suppose he rules by fear - in an army of people who look like Darth Vader, he looks extremely Vaderesque.

Painted Chaos Sorcerer (and Disc)

This week, I was able to put some paint on the Chaos Sorcerer and his disc-type ride. I went for fairly bright yellow and blue, as suits Tzeentch, but I tried to add black, gold and red to keep with the rest of the Chaos Marines.

Here's his disc, which isn't very disc-shaped, with some paint. I added a symbol of Tzeentch and some runes to make it look more mystical.

And here's the sorcerer having a great time surfing around on his disc. All that fuss because he needed a jetpack!

Follow the chaos gods! Get your own hoverboard! Acquire the head of a vulture! Rock!

Chaos Chosen and the Start of a Sorcerer

This week, I got to work on a squad of Chosen chaos space marines. Chosen are elite CSM: they have more attacks and more options for equipment. They are, apparently, superhuman and nasty even by comparison to their own comrades, which is saying something. They're also very fancy.

The models I had came from an old boxed set called Dark Vengeance (as opposed to Happy Vengeance and Cheerful Revenge). They were some of the first "new-style" CSM, and are better-proportioned than the older miniatures. They're one-pose and extremely detailed.

Somehow or other, I ended up with four of the basic Chosen bloke, who has a bolter. I also painted up a guy with a power fist and a pistol (maybe a champion?) and a guy with a big stick that's probably a power mace. I think he'd make quite a good Dark Acolyte (that's a renegade chaplain), because he's got his hat off and his weapon could make a decent crozius arcanum.

So, here are the first three Chosen:

And here are the second three. Obviously, the bolter-armed models are the same, and I've given them small variations to make them a bit different, whilst staying in the same colour scheme.

To be honest, there's potential for more detailing. I could pick away at these for quite a while more, but I think they'll be fine for the tabletop. Also, some of the detail, especially the warped knee and shoulder pads, is not very crisp and hard to make out, and I've had to make do with washes and drybrushing.

The second thing I've been working on is a chaos marine sorcerer. I thought it was worth going full-on with a conversion. Given that Tzeentch is the master of sorcerers, it seemed right to give this chap a distinctly Tzeentchian feel.

This model has the body of an old Ahriman model, and the head from a wyvern that I hacked to bits years ago. The arms came from fantasy chaos warriors, and the top of the staff came from a fantasy chaos sorcerer (who, confusingly, I had made into a genestealer magus).

He looks rather like one of the monsters from The Dark Crystal, and might end up with a paint scheme reflecting that.

I thought I'd give him a Disc of Tzeentch to scoot about on, partly because it feels appropriate. Unfortunately, the current Chaos book doesn't allow discs or bikes for sorcerers, but it does let them have jump packs. The thing below will have to suffice. It's a leftover gun from the Mantic tank that I'm using as a Predator, turned upside-down and decorated with things from the bits box. It'll look right when I've painted it, honest.

"Normal" Chaos Marines

This week, I've started on the "standard" chaos marines from the Shadowspear boxed set. I managed to get two sets of these, which means that I'll have ten marines with ranged weapons and ten fitted out for close combat, which I might use as berserkers of Khorne (without the silly hats).

I didn't want to paint them a colour that would tie them into a particular chaos god, or do anything especially bright on the armour. That really left black and white and, seeing that I've already done one squad in white, these guys got black armour. In fact, they look quite a lot like the Black Legion, although they're not supposed to be from there.

Anyhow, here they are. The chaingunner from the last post is a bit small, but he fits in pretty well.

If anything, they look a tad under-painted, as the highlights on the black armour don't come out well on this camera. The models are really cool, even if they're single-pose, and the proportions are somehow miles better than the old models, while not being much bigger. I like them.

From Phoenix Lord to Chaos Chaingunner

This week I finished off the last two old-school chaos marines. That brings the unit up to a nice solid 12 members. I used an old metal possessed marine, who seems to be turning into Tim Curry from Legend, and an even older icon-bearer with an enormous topknot. The icon-bearer was missing his icon, so I made one out of some leftover chaos bits.

Tim Curry looks as if he's at the climax of a musical number.

As before, I've painted them pretty roughly, but I think the bits of colour contrast nicely with the messy white armour, and the unit looks quite good together. Here's a shot of the entire unit, looking strangely like a wedding photo.

I really like the different bits of colour against the dirty white. Anyway, now for a single model. I bought the body of the old Eldar Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra off ebay for a couple of quid. I gave him a gun that I built from Tau parts, and stuck a chaos backpack on. Now he's a chaingunner for the Chaos horde, with some very fancy armour.

I think he looks pretty mean!