Here be Spawn! (Part 1)

 

Still sealed 

While making lists for my Worldeaters I found that I had some points to spend. Most of the stuff in the wh40k 10th edition Worldeater's List are too pricey to crunch into the small to moderately sized games that we like to play locally. Then I found the Chaos Spawn entry with just the perfect amount of points for two of the gribblies,  and I had to give them a shot. Then I realized I didn't have any models for them. -Well, none assembled anyway!  

It turns out I had one in a pile of bits and two in unopened blister packs. These are metal miniatures that came out in the early '00s. I had planned to use them with hopes of getting off a few Fleshy Curse psychic powers during the time when the first 40k 3rd Edition Chaos Codex was current, but I just never pulled it off. 

I had a fun evening assembling two of the things and the next day I went out and primed them in White. 

Primed.

Also primed.

After drying in the spring heat for a few hours I got them inside and painted their bases. 

Base coated bases.

I used Contrast Paint to get them battle-ready. Blood Angel Red was slashed all over these things. The the teeth and bone spikes I used Skeleton Horde. 

Contrast Paints.

And that's it, two battle-ready... things. Here is how they scale up next to a Primaris marine. 

Sized up.

Later that evening, these Spawn got to join their Worldeaters brethren on the tabletop in a battle against the minions of the false Emperor, but that's a story foe another post. 

"Blkaueh ack ahsujab!" ("Blood for the Blood God", in Spawneese.)

Note, I have titled this Part 1 even though I have no immediate plans to do more with them. But if I do get the inspiration to paint them up to a higher level, I would like to have the continuity in place for future readers.

 

Bori the Bloody (Part 2)

 

Following up from the previous post I got right into painting this fiend. I started out by painting just about the entire model using Khorne Red. An appropriate color choice for sure. On the brass areas I used my tried snd true Ral Partha Bronze. The bones, tusks, skulls and hooves were coated using Corax White. 

Base coats. 

Next I washed all of the flesh using Agrax Earthshade. The bones areas were coated with Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint. 

Washes on most of it. 

The armor was coated using the classic Citadel color from the '90s, Blood Red. Still my go-to after all these years. 

Blood Red armor.

After tightening up that red armor I finished it with a subtle edge highlight of another classic '90s color, Sunburst Yellow. 

Sunburst Yellow highlights.

The bones and such were all given a layer of Screaming Skull paint. It was at this point I decided to make the space marine helmet (which I think probably still has a head in it) an Ultramarine. It was a color contrast choice more than anything. I like to make the dead marines on my chaos bases Dark Angels but I haven't encountered any on the tabletop in years. 

Screaming Skull on the bones. 

This is a good place to stop. He is almost done and I should get him wrapped up in Part 3. See you then! 

Bori the Bloody (Part 1)

Primed and ready.

I had a creative itch the other day. And with a dash of boldness as well. I decided I wanted a khorne specific Daemon Prince, but with my current situation I don't have the disposable income to just go get one. But then I remembered I had a bunch of left over plastic and metal daemon prince parts. So this, kind of stupid, yet also kind of cool, idea was born. 

As I started to tinker away with the assorted parts it became obvious that the most necessary part I lacked was a complete torso, either in metal or in plastic. But I did have the front pieces in plastic.  But I had plenty of other junk that I  might be able to use and fake the rest of it with greenstuff. 

Fitting the bits. 

The growth spurt between the late '90s metal Daemon Prince and the plastic one from last decade is very much apparent. But I had this idea that he was like an old cartoon caricature of a tough guy,: all shoulder and chest and puny legs. Not too physcially different from an ork nob in that respects. 

I scrapped away on the front of the torso so it would join up better with the metal legs. Afterwards I glued the arms to the torso front piece. Slowly my 3-D puzzle was coming together. But I found that it was necessary to pin the plastic torso to the metal legs for added strength. 

Pinned.

Next came the big glob of greenstuff. I applied layers of muscle to the back and tried to get the  back to conform to the front. My lack of skill with sculpting is quite obvious here, but what I did accomplish I can live with. 

Baby's got back. 

I hid the most egregious errors along the belt line with trophy skulls and a marine helm. And I added a plastic cloth to cover up the tail hole, since I didn't have a tail available to fill in that gap.  Finally I glued this monster to his base and left him propped up on some paint pots for a few hours so the glue could dry and to allow the green stuff to cure more. 

Drying.

After that I sprinkled on some grit to the base. After that dried I took him out with some of his friends  (you'll see them in a future post) for a priming party. Which is the state he is in in the first pic of this post. 

I shared the above pic with some of the guys in our text group and I stated how I was going for the big bruiser with the little legs vibe. Screech responded with this image ( below), which hilariously captures the exact vibe I was going for even though I hadn't thought about this at all during the modeling process (I was thinking about some tough cats from old Tom and Jerry cartoons). He's even got a skull belt buckle! 

"Never bet on Satan!"

Herald of Slaanesh (Part 1)

Now this is a classic miniature!

OK, yes, actually they both are.

This pic was taken back in 2017. Since then the one on the left has  been painted.  I bought both of these miniatures at the same time to be used as either a Seductress or a Herald. I wasn't sure which would suit either role best at the time, so I just got both. Ultimately, the Epic-scale Keeper of Secrets, now named Mini-Moo, became the Seductress for my metal Daemonettes. This awesome Slaanesh Champion of Chaos is now to become a Herald.

From the original Champions Of Chaos WD ad.

And it's name shall be Sourkiss. Those brave souls who explore this blog might have seen the placeholder for this character on the Rogues page... I have been stewing on this idea for a few years now.

I haven't done anything with any of my Chaos Daemons in a long time, but Da Masta Cheef challenged me to another 750 point game and despite my desire to continue to learn how to use Space Marines in this edition, I wanted to try something radical. An army of Slaaneshi daemons seemed to fit the bill. But I wanted to add some color to my unique Herald. 

Barely battle-ready.

I used Black Templar Contrast Paint on the swords and armor, Warpfiend on the flesh with a wash of Druchii Violet to get the skin tones started and a brown for the scroll. 

A lot more battle-ready! 

Next I basecoated the leather bits in Abaddon Black and the sword using an old Citadel color called Polished Blue. 

The base will be done up before I go much further with the painting. I am getting this model battle-ready but don't want grit flaking off into my miniatures case. 

But that's as far as I can get for now (out of time), you'll likely have seen Sourkiss in it's first battle report before you see this post. I hope to finish this model soon as I would like to see it included in 2021's Year End Review.  

Eeew, Grotti (Part 2)

 

Grotti.

It's close to 5 years now since I last put any consideration towards this miniature. While reviewing my painting queue backlog at the New Year I found him lurking under some backpack sprues for my Deathwatch Marines. I have more nurglings that I want to paint in the near future and I wanted to play around with some different color schemes, so finding him was a nice surprise. 

In the first post on this little fellow (Eeew, Grotti) I wrote about how I was indecisive regarding how I wanted to color him. Sadly the rules for this fellow were quickly left behind with the change from 7th Edition Warhammer 40,000 to the 8tb, and I doubt he'll be back in 9th. His disappearance from the rules meant the necessity for completion was all but eliminated. But now he has a use as a test-bed for some color experiments. 

And the color experiment that I have in mind is based on the tutorial (How To Paint Death Guard: Nurlgings) that Warhammer TV posted using Contrast Paints. It seemed simple enough, and I have been curious to see what I could pull off using Contrast Medium and this is the perfect excuse to try it out. 

Pallid Flesh undercoat.

The first step is to paint Pallid Flesh over the entire model. Which is a weird way to start out but watch where this goes from here...

Next I followed the instructions from that video bu adding some Volupuis Pink Contrast paint to some Contrast Medium. Once that dried I added some more Volupuis Pink with a bit less Contrast Medium to the recesses. I was quite pleased with the results thus far! 

Contrast Medium/Volupuis Pink layer.

Continuing on with steps layer out in the video, I next applied some "very cheeky highlights" to the raised areas of the fleshy bits. This was done using Pallid Wyche Flesh. Again, I am loving how this is turning out, and even more so considering the speed in which it was accomplished in. 

Pallid Wyche Flesh highlight.

It was time for the final touches. The tongue was painted using the same technique I used for the guts on the recent Death Guard Experiments (Screamer Pink, Druchii Violet and Pink Horror). The horns I decided to keep simple and low-key. I did this by mixing 75% Drakenhof Nightshade and 25% Coelia Greenshade. Finally I dotted the eyes with Folkart Lemmonade.

Final touches.

Finally I finished off the base's rim and added a  grass tuft or two...and presto, done! Although I am considering adding some gloss varnish to the grossier bits...

The scenic Grotti.

Despite the perception one may get from the staging pics, it really went pretty quick. Which makes me considerably happy when I realize just how may nurglings I will be painting in the future (hint: it'll be a lot).

Great Unclean One kit maximizing Part 1 (TSG Project)

Greetings. Some time ago Dr. TSG sent me some photos of a project he had started. You see, he just loves to convert models and has a rather strong dislike of the current trend of mono-posed models that offer little customization. So when he got his hands on the current Great Unclean One kit, with all it's head options, the Chaos gods spoke to him and inspired a rather unique conversion opportunity: an actively mutating Great Unclean One! Actually, he had this idea way before getting the kit. I found an old text exchange between us from when GW first revealed this kit. At the time he said: "I am going to convert some metal versions onto this..." He was referring to the old metal 1st Edition versions that he still has in blister packs.  But seeing these extra heads on the sprue clearly presented a more favorable modeling opportunity, so out came the tools and Green stuff and off to work he went on it.

This conversion resulted in the creation of additional faces manifesting on his backside, screaming in impotent rage over not having full possession of this body. I think it looks freak'n awesome! 

He took the opportunity to also fill in the obvious join lines as well.

And that's all for now. Dr TSG has been busy with building his modeling/hobby studio so it may be a while before he can get back this (and other) projects.

A Rain of Plasma

"Excuse me, Does this belong to one of you?"

This past weekend I made my way to Hobbytown for a game with the mighty Warfrog, but those plans fell through. So I picked up a game with Michael C, whom you may have seen in a recent battle report over on Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop, who was waiting for some hapless fool to challenge his Dark Angels. As luck would have it, I was now more than available to step up to the proverbial plate.

Hapless fools? Look no further! 

I was wanting to give my Chaos Daemons a go, however, despite my stated intentions earlier this year I have not given them the attention necessary to achieve those goals. So I decided to run them as an allied Detachment with a Chaos Space Marines Detachment. I used them in my first 8th Edition battle and wanted to give them another go. They didn't fair too well in that fight, however I was using the Index list and only the 3 core strategems vs. a proper codex army.

The DA staging ground.

Like some sort of ritual, Michael always sets his army up in this scenic display before every battle. And this beautifully painted army always looks briliant on it! This is what he brought to the battle and the next pic showcases his three HQ choices.

Bruisers. 

Here is Michael's discription of these guys: "The Battle Brothers Bruise. Librarian armed with force axe and storm shield. Warlord armed with thunderhammer and storm shield and wearing the Shroud of Heroes relic which always adds one to hit rolls against him. And the 3rd and final HQ choice is a Master armed with thunderhammer and storm shield and carrying the relic Eye of the Unseen which allows him to go first in every combat."

After selecting the mission, somehow I got to pick the deployment layout and I chose that we play short edge to short edge. Clearly I forgot what a disaster this was the last time I made this choice... I guess I like to challenge myself?

Chaos Deployment.

I opted not to bring the Daemons in via reinforcement points as that seemed like more to keep up with than I was presently prepared to do, and with most of my army being fairly fast I figured it wouldn't be too hard of a march to the otherside.

Dark Angel deployment.

The calm before the storm...

Turn One began with the Dark Angels going first. The Dark Angels concentrated on one group of Daemonettes, wiping it out, and the Devastators earned their name by nearly destroying the Vindicator. One lucky re-roll kept it in the game with 2 Wounds left! Meanwhile, my Landraider shrugged off the attacks that were fired at it. In retaliation my Landraider, the The Blood Dumpster, fired back, annihilating one of the Dark Angel Dreads and killing a Marine from a Tactical squad. Meanwhile the Vindicator, clanking around with a Movement rate of 3, limped around in the back field.

End of Turn One

Turn 2 is when everything hits the fan. Michael kicks things off by parking the Drop Pod next to the objective that I had left virtually abandoned in my Deployment Zone. He brought his speeder around to use as bait for the Daemon Prince (or maybe the Vindicator) and sets his sights on a rear assault.

The arrival.

These forces attacked the Black Legion unit in the ruins, wiping them out. And the Librarian put 2 Mortal Wounds onto my Warlord riding the Juggernaut. Meanwhile further up field the entire Dark Angel force unleashed on the Fiends of Slaanesh who were racing quickly forward and in desperate need to hug someone. Their speed and resilience clearly struck a nerve in the Dark Angels and they wanted none of their hugs or attention (the models have out-stretched arms that almost look like that they want a hug!) It took CPs and tenacity, but eventually they were destroyed (note to self: I need more!). "No hugs!" Declared the Dark Angels defiantly.

End of Dark Angels Turn 2.

Chaos Turn 2, and it was time to get stuck in. Tactical Blunder #2: taking the bait! I had assumed that the Champion on the Juggernaut could at least kill that Librarian in the Fight Phase, but although I hurt him, it was not enough. With the other two characters piling on, the Chaos Leader on his Juggernaut was slain. The psychic power the Librarian  had played on him, Aversion, definitely didn't help his survival odds. The Daemon Prince ignored the flyer and dove into the Tactical Squad, however he didn't hardly kill any of these guys and they proved to be quite tough!

The contest of champions! 

Elsewhere, the Blood Dumpster unloaded the Khorne Berserkers to assist their leader in the Juggernaut (they shoot worse than my Space Wolves) while it shot the heavy bolter at the Tactical Squad behind it, the twin-linked Las Cannons blew up another Dreadnought, laying it low with 19 unsaved wounds! The Blood Dumpster likes this edition, clearly!

Blood Dumpster!!!

The Keeper of Secrets, She Who Milks, ran up the field with the remaining Daemonettes. Using one of her psionic attacks to kill one of the Tac Marines lurking in the craters.

The purple wave approaches.

Turn 3.

With the Fiends gone attention was given to the Plaguebearers shambling up to the Dark Angel lines. Thanks to their toughness and Disgusting Resilience, only 2 died.  A few Daemonettes were also picked off but they hung there when it came to check Morale thanks to the careful implementation of my CPs. Somehow my Daemon Prince survived the brutal Fight phase with like a Wound left.

Chaos Turn 3, and the Daemon Prince flew out of melee, thankful to still be attached to the mortal realm, and wanting nothing more to do with those characters and their thunderhammers! His withdrawal gave the backfield to the Dark Angels, leaving only the barely functioning Vindicator left to fire wildly at the remaining Dark Angels.

The Dark Angels take the field and secure the objective! 

The Herald of Slaanesh, Plague Bearers and the last squad of Chaos Marines were slowly making their way up yhe field. The Chaos Marines provided fire support for the Slaanesh Daemons who were making their way swiftly to the Dark Angel lines.

"What does 'meander' mean?"

The Keeper if Secrets charged the Tactical Marines in the Crater, slaughtering them with delightful ease. The Daemonettes crashed into the othet Dark Angel squad in the ruins wiping out all but two if them!

"Hold the line!"

The Landraider chose to be bold and split it's Las Cannon shots between the two Razorbacks, but this only resulted in damaging one of them due to half the shots missing and only one damaging.

With this, it was past time to close up the shop so regrettably we had to stop the game here. The VP tally was 6 vp to 1vp, Dark Angels for the win!

Even if I had managed to take the objective in his zone I would not have been able to claim the points needed to surpass his tally. So what went wrong?

As previously stated my choice of battefield layout did work against me, but it was not a full-on Gettysburg scenario that it looked like it would've been. If not for those Daemonic Invulnerable saves, and a few well executed Command Point Rerolls, the death toll would have been worse I think.

Devastators hold their position.

In hindsight I feel that my 2nd big mistake was going after the Dark Angels that arrived in the Drop Pod in my deployment zone. If I just speed on ahead and ignored them they would have been a less useful asset to him, and I could have used the Berserkers against foes that wouldn't have the Warlord around to lean on.

She Who Milks, claiming souls...

My MVPs in this fight were the Keeper of Secrets and the Land Raider. Particularly the Land Raider! The Blood dumpster racked up some very impressive kills and I was pleased with its effectiveness.

Blood Dumpster earns the MVP.

All-in-all it was a good game and an educational one for me. I think next time I'll keep my detachments limited from choices from the same codex.

Special thanks to Warfrog and Matt for their rules insights and assistance with this game.