Bloodmaster of Khorne

The Bloodmaster (Game’s Workshop’s fancy new name for the – admittedly rather dull sounding – Herald of Khorne on foot) is one of my favourite models from the Khorne range. To use a phrase that will be very familiar to all my regular readers by now it’s one that (say it with me) I’ve been meaning to get around to for ages, so the other night I cleared my schedule and my desk and cracked on with it.

Not much more to be said really – he’s a very angry daemon and he’s ready to carve up all of the Blood God’s enemies which, at the last count, was everybody.

Demon Dog

I’ve no idea where this model originates from, I found it in a box of old models I was sorting and thought it looked like an easy win. Any experts in old lead want to point me in the right direction? 

To be honest it’s a bit… erm… rubbish. Maybe I just got a duff cast but the face(s) especially are pretty mushy and there’s a massive mouldline which runs unerringly through the few decent details there are. I did the best I could with it, although the latter proved impossible to completely remove. I reckon it’s passable from a distance, if you stand about 5 miles away it actually looks ok. Anyway I think I gave it more time and effort than it deserves but its done now so I’ll pack it away and think no more about it! 

Glitchlings

Continuing the Nurgle theme, the last models to be painted in January were this brood of malevolent little Glitchlings. Glitchlings are essentially bio-mechanical Nurglings, little daemons which infest machines and cause them to malfunction in evil and dementing manners. I think there’s probably one in every printer…

As well as these three I painted another one ages ago, but there’s no harm in reminding ourselves of how he looks as well. 

These models first appeared as part of the Kill Team: Rogue Trader set (a box of models that I enthused over a great deal but, in a story that most readers will find very familiar, still need to paint most of). 

Anyway, with these nasty little mites out of the way I’ll be turning my attention to Fembruary for the next few weeks. 

A Chew End Gene – Part 5

Work has been a bit on the busy side over the last few weeks so my progress on the cult of Tzeentch has slowed down but fear not gentle reader – the Changer of Ways still holds my heart in his constantly mutating palm!

The next thing I wanted to add to the warband was a Kairic Acolyte with vulcharc (that’s the weird looking bird familiar that accompanies the human cultists of Tzeentch). I already have a vulcharc that I painted up to serve as a Sheen Bird for my Cawdor gang in Necromunda so now it can do double duty and return to the role its creators originally intended for it amongst the Kairics.

Now I just needed a Kairic Acolyte to act as its owner/servant (I’ve no idea how this relationship works but I doubt being bound into the service of Tzeentch ever turns out well). This chap, who’s well on his way to mutating into some kind of chaos spawn – or perhaps if he’s lucky ascending into a Pink Horror – fit the bill nicely. He’s been heavily converted with a mixture of Pink Horror parts (mostly the head and arms) to create a fitting servant of the god of change and mutation.

Normally the vulcharc would be on the same base as its owner but I quite like having it based separately. The rules for Warcry state (and who ever imagined they’d see a discussion of game rules here eh!):

“Pick an enemy fighter within 20 inches of this fighter. Until the end of the battle round that fighter cannot make disengage actions”.

With the vulcharc on a base of its own I can pop it next to whichever poor so-and-so it’s giving a vicious pecking, which to my eye looks a lot more cinematic and engaging that using a token.

Alongside these mortal slaves I’ve also conjured up another pink horror, converted in much the same way as the previous two.

For now that’s all the pink horrors for the warband painted, although I may come back and make a few more at a later date.

And speaking of horrors I also painted up a couple more blue horrors.

As far as I’m aware that’s all the blue horrors I own painted now, although they’re sufficiently small (and I’m sufficiently disorganised!) that there might well be one or two more lurking in a box somewhere. Either way they’re certainly due a group shot!

Speaking of group shots I realised the other day that I never posted a group photo of the rainbow of brimstone horrors either, so – no time like the present and all that. Behold the skittles of doom!

I still have various models to be added to this warband but I’m going to be taking a little break from it so I can concentrate on all things related to the Fembruary challenge over the coming month. I promise I won’t leave the Changer of Ways hanging though, and will get back to his labyrinthine plots in March. In the meantime here’s the warband so far.

Of course it goes without saying that my Warcry addiction is as strong as ever so even though I’m not going to be working on this lot for the next few weeks I’ll still be  putting together a warband for the game.

Change Need We – Part 4

Just a quick update to the Tzeentchian cult as, with complex and arcane movements of my brushes, I summon a Flamer from the Realm of Chaos. This is a hell of a weird creature isn’t it, I must admit before I painted one myself I didn’t ‘get’ it at all. It grew on me whilst I was working on it though and it was certainly a fine chance to play around with bright colours and magical effects.

Next up, more misguided humans who have sold their souls to the Changer of Ways.

Need We Change? – Part 3

For my Tzeentchian cult I want a proper mix of Chaos monstrosities and other dubious characters. Those that have been following me for a while will know that alongside humans and daemons a few beastmen are an absolute must in my book. Plus I’ve been wanting to paint some of the new Tzaangors since they were first released back in November of 2016 (which I guess means they’re not exactly new are they? Time I got on with it then eh!). I really like these models but they are hellishly fiddly to paint, you’ve got to be in the mood for all the little details if you’re going to do them justice. The other thing which delayed me has been trying to choose a suitable colour scheme, I’m not overly enamoured of the blue skin used by the Games Workshop studio team, despite weird colours being very much part of Tzeentch’s repertoire I want something a little more natural for mine. Of course when it comes to Tzeentch natural is a relative term…

However that doesn’t mean I’ve packed the blue paints away – in fact they’ve been hard at work as I powered through a few more Blue Horrors.

Some readers may recall this partly-pink Blue Horror which I showed recently.

He got quite a good response from everyone who saw him and I enjoyed painting him so much that I took the idea even further with this one. Don’t worry though, it’s not a trick I’m planning to overuse until it descends into cliché, I’ll keep the others relatively normal looking and blue from now on.

Lastly I painted up a few more Brimstone Horrors, so that should those Blue Horrors meet their unnatural end they too can divide into malevolent magical sprites. I painted the first one as living flame in the same style as the studio models but with these I decided to go for a range of different colours. That way in the middle of a game it’s easier to point out exactly which one you’re talking about “I’ll attack the green one” rather than “No the one on the left, no my left, no not that one… etc”. Who could have guessed that someday I’d use gaming rather than purely aesthetic reasons for choosing a paint scheme – it seems we live in strange and interesting times indeed! That said I reckon the range of bright colours look great, they were fun to do and they add to the Tzeentchian aesthetic so it’s all to the good.

Anyway, that’s it for the moment, I’ve still got various other Tzeentchian oddballs sitting around on the desk and at the moment I’m not sure which I’ll tackle next, but I’ll aim to have something else finished for the Changer of Ways by the end of the week.

We Need Change – Part 2

If I’m going to have a warband of creepy Tzeentchian types, dedicated to complex schemes and the destruction of order and structure in all forms, then a few daemons are a must. Unfortunately the rank and file of these daemons are the Pink Horrors and for my money they’re some of the worst models in GW’s catalogue.  Just take a look at these ghastly things.

Horrors is definitely the word! Something else is clearly in order. I’ve kitbashed a few alternatives over the years but never really settled on anything that I liked. Continuing in that proud tradition these are my latest attempts to conjure up some horrors, this time blending the plague bearers (in my view the best of the four lesser daemons, these models practically paint themselves) with the less offensive parts of the standard horrors. I tried to pass off the various wounds in the plague bearers as the flesh of the horrors reshaping itself, with results which – to be frank – look mixed. I also went for a darker paint scheme which hopefully helps make them look more brooding and ghastly and less shite than the studio versions.

I’m still not entirely satisfied with these and only time will tell whether I decided in the end that I’m happy with them or if I want to try something else. Either way I have another one part-painted on the desk so I’ll finish it up as well and see how I feel after that. As usual any thoughts or feedback is very welcome of course.

The Toxic Waltz

Do you ever find a miniature where as soon as you see it you just have to paint it? It just speaks to you and all your careful planning and budgeting goes out the window in a heartbeat. In a fever of enthusiasm you rush to acquire it, you get it assembled and base-coated and then… everything stalls. Instead of a beautifully painted finished piece it glares at you with undisguised criticism whilst you avoid its gaze and try to paint other things with affected nonchalance. This is the story of the Sloppity Bilepiper.

Is there a dafter name in the entirety of the Games Workshop range, or indeed one more fun to say, than the Sloppity Bilepiper? I loved it as soon as I saw it, recalling as it does the old carnivals of Nurgle of yesteryear, and snapped it up as soon as I could. In my review of the Nurgle Daemons released back in January of 2018 I noted;

“Nurgle loves a party. He’s the god of life and death and though the latter aspect has often been the focus when it comes to the models, with sloughing flesh, weeping sores and spilled guts everywhere, with the Bilepiper we get to see the other side of things. Here is a model which encapsulates the core message of Nurgle’s worshippers – today we celebrate for tomorrow it will be too late. They party like there’s no tomorrow and one glance at the diseases they play host to suggests there probably isn’t. “

Sadly, despite starting out with great intentions and making good progress on the model as soon as I’d purchased it I stalled when it was almost finished and never managed to push it over the final hurdle. I think I’ve planned to paint it for every neglected model challenge I’ve entered in the past three years or so, yet always the challenge has ended and the Bilepiper has remained unchanged. This year it’s been particularly neglected, with Covid-19 wrapping it’s loving arms around the globe I’ve found myself disinclined to tackle any of Nurgle’s servants. I can’t quite put my finger on why, perhaps it’s superstition or just pandemic fatigue, but I find myself feeling as though the plague god is getting more than enough attention at the moment without my involvement. 

Both the Bilepiper and I have tolerated a lack of progress long enough however so back onto the painting desk he goes for a few more rounds against the brush. Here he is, finished at last and proving that these things are never so difficult if you just get on with them. 

I really wanted to play up the appearance of a clownish, playful jester, so gave him bright and motley clothes. By way of contrast I made the flesh fairly realistic and human looking, rather than leaning on the mucky green that GW prefers for their Nurgle models. I still have quite a backlog of Nurgle miniatures, both daemons and mortal – including a number of unfinished Death Guard, so as soon as I overcome my Covid induced squeamishness I’ll crack on with them. 

Lord Of The Flies

Some readers may recall this Nurgle Daemon Prince which I first created way back in 2015 – long before the Death Guard gained their own codex. However, as is so often the case, as my skills have improved so some aspects of this model of which I was once proud of have begun to trouble me. The face for instance now seems distinctly lacking, particularly on a centrepiece model. Meanwhile the jagged slab of metal he’s clinging to is rather fragile and so I spend a lot of my time worrying he is about to snap off, especially when I move him.

Time to give him a revamp then, replacing his head with something that looks a bit less like a lump of greenstuff, anchoring him to a suitably solid ruin and generally touching up and improving his paintjob, so that he might once again buzz hideously above my advancing ranks of plague marines and poxwalkers in the style that befits their commander.

To my eye he’s a big improvement, without changing too much of the original model. He’s also been hanging over my head for quite a while (not literally of course, that would be terrifying) and now he’s done I’m starting to feel much more enthused about my Death Guard again – something I’ll try to focus on painting more of Nurgle’s scions in the near future.

War Eternal – Part 7

When I first planned out my little Khornate warband I planned to include a pair of flesh hounds. At the time they’d not long been released and a new models outdid their predecessors with ease. As I was planning to paint up a pack anyway what better opportunity to get started on them than this? However because I’ve been concentrating on other aspects of the warband it’s taken a while to actually get started on the hounds but at last the first one is ready to hunt.

Readers with a head or maths will have noticed that despite my references to flesh hounds (plural) I’ve only actually painted one. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly I used this model to test out some adjustments to my standard daemonic paint scheme. Although I’m very pleased with the results I wasn’t really feeling the urge to replicate it straight away. Secondly I’ve discovered a small group of bloodreavers which I’d assembled, undercoated and then forgot about. Rather than allow them to slip back into the unpainted pile this seems like a fine opportunity to get them wrapped up too so I think I’ll take it easy when it comes to painting daemonic dogs and take a crack at these barbarians next instead.