Dread Legions

You may recall that earlier in the year I painted up Khagra’s Ravagers, the Warriors of Chaos warband from Warhammer Underworlds. I’ve had a plan to use them as the basis for a Warcry warband and so, with the middle of the year almost upon us, I decided to knuckle down and get this objective ticked off the list – starting with this angry man and his rather fashionable cloak. 

In case you were concerned that painting a few elves last year had changed me fear not, this champion of the Dark Gods reminds us of the fate that all pointy-eared scum deserve! 

I like to include as wide a variety of models as possible in my Warcry warbands so I decided my next recruit for my Chaos Warriors should be welding a double handed axe. At first I looked at ways of converting one but, as I was raking through the bits box, I spotted this guy lurking shame-faced after failing to make the cut for a long forgotten project. Originally he served as the charioteer for the Chaos Chariot and to be honest I’ve never particularly liked him. However as I looked at him I started to realise he was perfect for the job, and that I’d probably like him a lot more if he was painted. I’m still not entirely sure about him but he does the job and having paid something for him all those years ago I’m pleased to have found a use for him at last.

I also wanted a Chaos Warrior with a halberd to round out the warband. Leaked images that are doing the rounds online suggest that we’ll be getting an official kit for these before the year is out but I’m not going to wait around for that when I can convert one of my own by adding a Skaven halberd to one of the warriors from the “Start Collecting…” set.

Finally I’ve had this Chaos Chosen sitting around for a while, since I kitbashed him back in September of 2020 in fact (which was not “just a few months ago” despite what my warped sense of time is currently telling me). I’ve been wanting to get him painted up and working on my Warriors of Chaos warband turned out to be the perfect spur to do just that.

Put them all together and we have a generously sized warband, with a range of options and a choice of either an Aspiring Champion, Exalted (Chosen) Champion or a Sorcerer Lord to act as the leader.

For now I’m calling this project done but in time I’d like to come back to them, as I’ve got loads of other ideas I’d like to try building and kitbashing. I really like the idea of an all mounted warband, a party of twisted knights and their followers. In the meantime however these dark champions are ready to set foot on the path to glory!

Khagra’s Ravagers

Last Fembruary one of the models I painted was the Chaos Sorceress Zarshia Bittersoul, who forms part of the Khagra’s Ravagers warband from Warhammer Underworlds. In case you’ve forgotten her here she is again. 

A year on however I still hadn’t touched the rest of the warband, but with the leader of the group being another lady (not that you’d really know under all that armour) Fembruary once again proved the perfect time to return to the project. 

What’s more I decided that this year I wasn’t going to leave the boys behind either. 

I did ponder long and hard over converting this one to be wielding twin axes like the legendary Slambo model of Warhammer’s early years but in the end I refrained – I just think he looks really cool the way he is. 

That said it’s clear that Slambo shares a lot aesthetically with this Chaos Warrior from Heroquest so I couldn’t resist digging him out of storage for a picture with his new big buddy. 

And of course here’s the group shot of Khagra’s Ravagers fully assembled at last. 

These aren’t the only models I’ve got to show you either, tomorrow we’ll have a lady who really, really likes the Emperor. Something for you to look forward to eh! 

Zarshia Bittersoul

So far most of the models I’ve painted for Fembruary have been what you might call “neglected models” – miniatures that have been sitting around unfinished for months or, in a number of cases, years. Either I bought them some time ago and then never got around to painting them, or I started them and then, for one reason or another, never finished them. This one however is very new, in fact she was only released at the start of last month and made her way to me just a few days ago. Did I leave her to gather dust before finally getting around to painting her? No, in a break with tradition I most certainly did not!

This is the scheming Chaos Sorceress Zarshia Bittersoul from the Khagra’s Ravagers set. She alone would have been enough to convince me to buy the set although the other three models are very nice as well (and of course I’ll paint those in due course too, although they might get the standard few months minimum spent dust gathering, just to ensure tradition is maintained!).

And there we have it, Fembruary is over for another year. I’ve painted so many models for it this year that a round-up is definitely in order so I’ll get that written up and posted at some point in the next few days. Of course I’ve still got plenty more female miniatures I’d like to paint so expect the usual mix of boys, girls, daemonic entities and soulless robots over the coming weeks and months.

The Chosen One

For a while I’ve been kicking around the idea of making some chaos chosen for Age of Sigmar/WHFB/Warcry (the latter winning out when it came to deciding what shape of base to use!). I like the idea of chosen but the current miniatures are a funny-looking bunch, not bad all-in-all, but not half as good as I remember them being from my youth either, and certainly not worth the hefty price-tag that comes with them. I’ve tried out a few ideas over the last few months and finally found something I’m fairly happy with.

He’s not a direct attempt to copy the official chosen champion but I do rather like that model so there’s a few references in there, particularly the mutated hand and arm (swiped from a very, very old, ill-conceived and horribly painted conversions, which even when I first made it – well over a decade ago, I knew was probably only fit for the bin). Here’s the official chosen champion from Games Workshop for reference.

Without any official chosen to hand it’s hard to be sure but if I recall correctly, they don’t look all that big these days. Not something that this guy can be accused of, he looks suitably imposing next to a normal chaos warrior (one who’s yet to catch the eye of the gods).

For reference his legs are from a stormcast eternals liberator, his head and axe are from the chaos knights, his torso the Khorne bloodwarriors, his shoulderpads from the bloodcrushers and his mutated arm from the chaos space marines possessed. The hideous mould-line down his arm, which I’m sure you all spotted and were repelled and disgusted by, will be dealt with ASAP (now that I’ve stopped being blind to it and it’s become glaringly and horribly obvious).

HeroQuest

I’m definitely painting an eclectic mix of models lately (or to put it differently, I’m skipping around from one project to another with the attention span of a goldfish on a sugar rush). Fear not however, this isn’t the start of another new project – just a brief spin off. I’ve previously mentioned that I’m planning to get a full set of models painted up for Blackstone Fortress, on the grounds that the last time we played it we did so with unpainted figures despite the fact that I have an inordinate number of painted models kicking around the house. The motivation to get on and do something about this stems, in part at least, from the efforts of fellow blogger KrautScientist, who’s been busy painting up an entire set of HeroQuest miniatures (if you haven’t seen this project I highly recommend you check it out at once, the combination of quality and dedication to the task should warm the cockles of any hobbyist). 

What’s more, HeroQuest is thirty years old this year. I must admit it passed me by entirely the first time round, no real surprise as I was only four at the time. Still I wanted to do something to mark the anniversary of this venerable gaming institution (which has proved, after all, to be the gateway drug for a great many other hobbyists). Thus I’d been vaguely planning to do something HeroQuest related at some point between now and the end of the year, but I hadn’t made any actual efforts until KrautScientist inspired me into action.

Some time ago a good friend of mine gave me a box of retro models from his childhood, a wonderful gift full of some really classic miniatures of yesteryear. So far I’ve not got around to doing a great deal with them, although I’m aiming for them all to show up here sooner or later. In amongst them I found two HeroQuest figures, a Chaos Warrior and a Fimir. Let’s take a look at the Chaos Warrior first.

Admittedly this model falls a long way short of the modern standard but I feel it still has a lovely, old-fashioned appeal to it that’s hard to resist. Alas the Fimir is less charming. Cool though a cyclopean chaos-lizardman might sound in theory these models don’t come close to doing the concept justice, the details were rather soft and ill-defined whilst the mould-lines were the kind of ridges normally thrown up by continental drift. Still, I did have fun painting him – although I don’t imagine I’d paint another in a hurry. 

And here we have the two of them side by side, waiting for a hapless adventurer to happen along. They’ve been waiting for three decades now and so far, no luck! They must have picked the wrong dungeon to lurk in…

Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed this salute to HeroQuest – and to all the talented hobbyists who took their first faltering steps into it’s dungeons and, in spirit at least, have never left. A big thanks to Tom for giving me the models and do go and take a look at KrautScientist’s work (without a trace of false modesty it puts these to shame and proves that chunky, thirty year old single-piece miniatures can still look absolutely magical in the right hands).

The Art of Janice Duke

You may have noticed that my recent (rather wordy!) article on Warhammer: Total War and the recent changes that have occurred to the Warhammer universe, featured several pieces of art by illustrator Janice Duke.

As an artist Janice’s work covers a wide range of subjects, particularly mythology, fantasy and spiritual and philosophical topics, with a specialism in book covers. For me the opportunity to collaborate with a professional artist in this way is very exciting and so, as well as using the pieces as illustrations in the article I wanted to take the opportunity to properly showcase them here. As usual it’s worth clicking on them to see a full size version.

I particularly like the look of determination on Karl Franz’s face and the forest of spears in the background. An army worthy of an Emperor indeed!

I also rather like the starker, black-and-white style that Janice uses, for example in this alternative version of the Chaos Lord.

Some of you may recognise Janice’s work as she’s also the artist I commissioned to create the banner for this site and the magpie avatar. At present we’re discussing plans to collaborate further in the future so watch this space!

For more information go to her website, or take a look at her blog, Facebook or Twitter. More miniatures soon (I promise!), as soon as I extract myself from my Total War addiction. The Empire isn’t going to unite itself after all…

End Times Inspired Interlude

Just a brief mid-week update today but with the End Times continuing in grand style for the followers of Chaos in Warhammer I thought now might be a good moment to show my first, and so far only, attempt at painting a Warrior of Chaos. I kitbashed him a while ago out of leftovers from other projects as an experiment, dipping my toe into fantasy Chaos. For now, however, I reckon my worship of the dark gods will remain firmly in the 41^st millennium. Trying to paint such similar armies for both Warhammer and 40k strikes me as trying to compete against myself, so if I do try out Warhammer again I’d rather take on something different.

Anyway, here’s the model!