It’s been an absolute age since I painted anything for my Chaos space marines and the army continues to sit in the doldrums between my lingering dissatisfaction with the old kits and my as-yet not fully explored enthusiasm for the new. Time to get something painted then, especially with new-40k bringing my attention back to the grim-darkness of the 41st Millennium once again. The real jolt of enthusiasm however came about as a result of the “Sixty Day Miniatures of Magnitude Painting Challenge” being run by Ann’s Immaterium. I’d already painted a Warcry ruin last month but I wanted to tackle something else suitably large and to get something chaotic and power-armour-clad done into the bargain. The challenge calls for painting something big, at least the size of an ogre, so the obvious candidate was one of the Obliterators from last year’s Shadowspear box.
As a long-standing (and at times long suffering!) Chaos fan it was a bit of a thrill to finally be able to paint an Obliterator that didn’t look truly awful. Maybe if I pray to the dark gods really hard they’ll give us some proper models for their cousins the Mutilators someday too…
Convert or Die 
June 29th, 2020 at 6:09 am
Looking brilliant! And we can only hope for Mutilators at some point. Still waiting for Noise Marines, Berserkers, and even the rest of the Cultists that GW made for Dark Vengeance and then whipped away forever 😄
June 29th, 2020 at 6:59 am
Thank you! Yup, a multi-part chaos cultist kit would be wonderful. Plus everything you listed there, and a new model of Huron Blackheart, Lucius the Eternal, better possessed, chaos bikers, more daemon primarchs, possessed terminators and dreadnaughts, tanks that aren’t just loyalist tanks with spikes on them, Khornate daemon engines, Slaaneshi sonic dreadnaughts, Thousand Sons rubric dreadnaughts, a kit for the Fallen that isn’t just the same as the Dark Angels but painted black, Khornate and Slaaneshi terminators, themed beastmen for each of the gods to match the Tzaangors…
June 29th, 2020 at 7:08 am
Good lord, I didn’t know I wanted possessed terminators until now! Agreed, every item on your list. I was eying up the bikers for my next purchase and realised they definitely need an upgrade. The tanks one is funny, the only difference is the Chaos upgrade sprue; makes more sense to always buy the Chaos tank and flog the upgrade sprue on eBay if you’re a space marine player. Tanks with mutations and growths like that would make the difference.
I thought GW would have updated more of the range before losing interest and going back to tinkering with the space marines 😐 until last year, Chaos had been in dire need of an overhaul for so long
June 30th, 2020 at 7:18 pm
Yup, I hear you. The way I see it through by leaving much of the range in the dolbrums and forcing us to scrounge and cannibalise loyalist bits, GW are helping us to remain in character. Their contempt is the whetstone for our bitterness and focuses our hatred for the Emperor’s lackeys and their fancy new models!
Plus, on a more serious note, for me Chaos is a lifelong project. I’d imagine that as long as I’m alive I’m likely to be interested in painting miniatures, and that Chaos will always be high on my list of favourite things to paint. So long as I don’t go anywhere and neither does GW then sooner or later these gaps will be filled. Of course I sympathise completely with anyone who’s looking to put together an army right now, not everyone wants to wait a decade or two for GW to finally remember we exist, but on the whole I’m content to wait, cultivating my mutations and stewing in my rage until the time comes to be unleashed on the weakling Imperium once more!
As for possessed terminators, wouldn’t they be cool! I have this dream that someday we’ll see Codex Word Bearers, complete with loads of cultists, possessed everything (terminators, dreadnoughts, the works), Dark Apostles of all kinds (Dark Apostle in terminator armour of course, but how about a Dark Apostle Dreadnought like the old Chaplain Dreadnought that Forge World used to do?) and of course Lorgar himself, ascended into a great big filthy spawn 😀
July 1st, 2020 at 8:24 am
Great point- I’m letting this new wave of Primaris stoke my hatred of the loyalist dogs 😄 I would love to see a Codex for the Word Bearers, maybe an upgrade set with candles, tomes, censers, etched armour segments. Maybe we ask for too much haha.
A terminator apostle dread would be amazing! The Lorgar-spawn too, what a model that would be ❤️ until then, you’re right, we will scavenge what we can!
June 29th, 2020 at 9:45 am
Yeah. All of the above. I guess we just have to hope that Khorne and Slaanesh get their overhauls as part of 9th, and those will also bring a few of the missing and sorely outdated kits in with them…
June 30th, 2020 at 7:30 pm
Oh yeah, the full range treatment (ala Death Guard) for World Eaters and Emperor’s Children would be awesome. And whilst I’m wishlisting I reckon they could do a full range for Word Bearers and Iron Warriors as well some day. Not sure how they’d do Alpha Legion or Night Lords but if they do it I’ll be there! (and traitor guard… and dark mechanicum…).
June 29th, 2020 at 9:44 am
Great work! And I couldn’t help but giggle at his armoured butt!
June 30th, 2020 at 7:02 pm
Cheers! Yup, when you really need an outfit that shows you worship the Dark Gods you can’t go wrong with armoured Y-fronts!
June 29th, 2020 at 9:49 am
Great paint job, really captures the fusion of flesh and weaponry that is the Obliterator.
June 30th, 2020 at 7:02 pm
Thank you! 🙂
June 29th, 2020 at 2:55 pm
Great work with the brush mate, but I just can’t get on board with Obliterator minis of any vintage… These ones are the best version by far, but just not my cup of tea I’m afraid… Worst thing is, I don’t even know why!
June 30th, 2020 at 7:15 pm
I know what you mean, there’s some miniatures that objectively you can’t find anything really wrong with, but subjectively you just don’t like. It’s just personal taste I suppose. I’ve never liked the obliterators until now myself, they’ve been uniformly awful until these ones. These are decent in my book though, the tiny armoured shorts on this one are a bit silly but I can forgive that, and apart from that I like them.
June 29th, 2020 at 9:42 pm
That looks great- a hefty bit of fire support I think.
Cheers,
Pete.
July 1st, 2020 at 2:31 pm
Cheers! Should give the loyalist dogs something to worry about I reckon! 🙂
June 30th, 2020 at 6:03 am
Very nice and a worthy entry to Ann’s challenge.
July 1st, 2020 at 2:32 pm
Thank you! He’s certainly big and mean enough 🙂
July 4th, 2020 at 11:21 pm
My last comment didn’t load for some reason… He’s awesome man. I love the flesh tone alongside the armour. From what I’ve heard/read The Obliterators got a bit of a bad wrap but I think they’re pretty bloody cool models.
July 6th, 2020 at 11:48 am
I had a look to check wordpress hadn’t sent you to spam for some reason but no sign so I guess it just got lost in the warp. Anyway, glad you like him man – getting the balance between the flesh and the armour right is the key to making these models work I reckon. This iteration of the obliterators are pretty good in my book (the guy’s armoured tighty-whities aside!). Look up some of the obliterators of yore though, those are hard of the eyes (Lexicanum has them https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Obliterator). The earliest ones were rough but not awful for the era but the ones that replaced them were seriously ropey in my book. These latest are pretty damn sweet though – I’d be happy if they did some more of them (and some mutilators whilst they’re about it!).
July 26th, 2020 at 1:11 am
This guy looks great and I’m with everyone else that the new Obliterators are much better than the old ones. Am I crazy or did a lot of the minis in Shadowspear never get released on their own? Either way, I think Chaos even with the overhaul is sadly lacking in the love and care that many other 40k armies have gotten. The CSM’s deserve better. Someday soon I look forward to painting some 🙂
July 26th, 2020 at 6:49 pm
Thank you! I’m pretty sure everything from Shadowspear has now been released, either separately or as part of a Start Collecting set (they basically took the Chaos and Imperial halves of the set and released each one as a standalone Start Collecting). Very little of it got a separate kit though, the Chaos Marines and the Space Marine Infiltrators did but I think that’s about it, which is a shame. I wouldn’t mind a customisable multi-part model for the Venomcrawler (if for no other reason than that I want a spare of its creepy head to stick on a Chaos Wardog), and more Obliterators for that matter, and a new kit for Possessed is desperately needed. As you say the Chaos range is still a bit gappy (as a devoted follower of the Dark Gods this is something I could moan about for hours!) but hopefully they’ll see to it in time. Looking forward to what you do with CSM, given the quality of your recent work that’s going to be well worth seeing 🙂
July 27th, 2020 at 12:31 am
I see. That makes perfect sense and is a problem for me because I would never be able to paint an entire Start Collecting box and I don’t see myself playing 40k in the future either. Maybe I can find some of those models on the secondary market if one catches my eye.
Absolutely! GW makes the CSM’s sound like the toughest and meanest bunch in the galaxy and then they get very poor figure support and seem to always have pretty outdated models to boot. It is angering enough to make someone a devotee of Khorne 🙂
September 3rd, 2020 at 11:22 pm
Fantastic!
September 4th, 2020 at 9:44 am
Thank you! 🙂