Change We Need – Part 1

Over Christmas and New Year, in between decking the halls with social baubles and passing round the hand-santaiser I found the time to fall under the sway of an insidious cult of madness and mutation, dedicating myself to change regardless of the cost. I’ve had a scheme for a while now to start a collection of Tzeentchian cabalists and their daemonic allies with which to either carry out labyrinthine schemes of complex evil or get a few games of Warcry in, whichever proves to be more straightforward. This time we’ll be taking a look at everything I finished over the break and hopefully later in the week I’ll have a couple more done as well.

My plan is to put together a warband containing both daemons and mortals with roughly a thousand points of each. That way I’ll end up with two warbands to use in the game, sometimes as allies sometimes as adversaries depending on the schemes of the Changer of Ways. At the same time I can paint the whole thing as a single project, with each “side” providing inspiration for the other. It should also help me not to get bogged down, if I get bored of daemons I can switch to mortals and vice versa. 

To get things started we have a pair of Kairic Acolytes. These are the human followers of Tzeentch, petty sorcerers and schemers who make up the rank and file of the cult. This first one is taken from the (now no longer available) Silver Tower game. Whilst I don’t own a copy of Silver Tower (sadly as I’ve heard it was a lot of fun) I do own some of the models from it and this guy is one of them. There was a bit of damage to the blade which I tried to cover over with a magical effect, although honestly I’m not entirely convinced it’s worked. It looks better in hand that it does in these pictures but it’s still not quite right. Damn it, what do you people want from me – perfection?!

Whilst the last model was built exactly as the designer intended this one has been given a few tweaks as I tried to play up the strangeness that comes from being part of a Tzeentchian cabal. He’s also the first miniature that I completed in 2021, so he’s my contribution to the “First of the Year” challenge currently being run by Ann’s Immaterium.

I also added some horrors which will form part of the daemonic contingent. My dislike of the Pink Horror models is well known, although I have a scheme to do something about that which should be ready to show off in a day or so. I am however rather fond of their smaller cousins the Blue Horrors and I’ve got quite a few of them gathered on the table waiting for attention.

When a Pink Horror is killed it splits in half, forming two bickering Blue Horrors, each of which is busy blaming the other and complaining about whose fault it is that they were slain and ended up losing their gestalt status as the superior pink form. I wanted to capture this by painting the large hand on this one in pink, it’s either the last part of him to dissolve or he’s just about to grow back into a fully fledged pink horror.

Once he was finished I realised that I’d enjoyed painting him so much I painted another straight away. 

If things go really badly a Blue Horror may end up getting killed again, at which point all that’s left is a spark of barely sentiment, spite driven magic; a Brimstone Horror.

Like the Blue Horrors I’ve got plenty of these kicking around the painting desk so expect to see more of them in the coming weeks. First things first though, I need to do something about those horrible Pink Horror models. It’s a bit experimental and I’m not entirely sure it’s going to work so watch this space!

Blackstone Fortress: Rogue Psykers

Floating eerily over the battlefield the Rogue Psykers are another of my favourite models from the Blackstone fortress set. I was a big fan of Forge World’s Rogue Psyker, although perhaps foolishly I never saved up the money and bought one, and as a result was rather disappointed when it was removed from the range last year. For those who don’t know what I’m on about here’s a reminder.

Thankfully he’s now back, although sadly without his tortured victim, joining the Necromunda range as Bounty Hunter Thaetos 23-2. My initial disappointment at the loss of the Forge World psyker however was very much ameliorated by the arrival of Blackstone Fortress and the two Rogue Psykers within, very much the spiritual successors of the aforementioned model, with the added advantages of being produced in a lighter and more flexible material.

Driven insane by the warp-spawned powers crowding their minds and at constant risk of being possessed by daemons, yet equally unwilling to be dragged away onto a Black Ship and used to keep the Emperor alive in a tortuous soul-flaying process, these two gents have instead offered their cruelty and megalomaniacal hatred of mankind to the chaos gods with predictably evil results.

As I was painting them it struck me that one or other would make a fine witch for my nascent Necromunda chaos cult gang (the one that I’m painting at a downright glacial pace!) and, as a witch can be accompanied by a familiar, I dug around in the bits box for something suitable to accompany them into the Underhive. Given the amount of toxic industrial runoff in every body of water on the hive world a mutant fish seemed perfect – and even the most learned of the helots would struggle to recognise the sigil of the god trapping them ever further in damnation…

With these done it’s time to turn my attention to the biggest, baddest villain to haunt the halls of the Blackstone Fortress, Obsidius Mallex himself. Despite my long affiliation with Chaos and my deep and abiding respect for Abaddon (the true Warmaster) this is my first attempt at painting a member of the Black Legion so it’ll be interesting to see how I get on.

The Ripper In The Gloom

“Skaven society is a tyranny moderated by assassination”

– Bagrian, ancient scholar who was assassinated by the Skaven.

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Having felt a little prickling of shame at only finishing one model for my Skaven this month, even if it is a hulking great rat ogre, I decided – before July is upon us – to break out the paints and finish this assassin off at last. Originating in the Silver Tower set I always thought this model would make an excellent Skaven assassin for Warhammer, indeed I’m inclined to wonder if it started out as an unused model for a Skaven release that was abandoned or mothballed with the end of Warhammer.

I kept the paintwork as dark and dirty as I could, the aim was for him to look nice and stealthy in spite of wearing the bright yellow tabard he needed to tie him in with the rest of the army.

Public Service – Kairic Acolytes

Yesterday, fellow hobbyist Harrison commented that, in spite of their efforts, they was struggling to find any comparison pictures between the Kairic Acolytes released alongside the other Tzeentchian models for Age of Sigmar earlier this year, and those released as part of the Silver Tower boxset last year. Could I, they wondered, provide any images that allowed them to see them side by side? Naturally, as I’ve gained so much from all of you down the years in terms of support, encouragement and inspiration, I was more than happy to return the favour now.

Here we see Kairic Acolyte from Silver Tower (right) alongside one from the boxset (left, doing a fine impression of the Venus de Milo with his lack of arms). You may notice a very slight difference in height between the two but I’d put most of that down to the boxset model having been tacked together for the photoshoot whilst the Silver Tower model is cleanly stuck together with glue. Naturally I couldn’t glue the boxset model together as all the bits are needed for separate nefarious projects (watch this space!).

Certainly one could mix and match parts from the boxset to covert unique models for Silver Tower, or throw the Silver Tower models into a AoS warband to add a little more variety. However although they match each other fairly well fairly well for size there’s no denying these are big models. I’m keen to use some of them as Tzeentchian cultists for my forthcoming Thousand Sons, and have already had fun building a few for exactly that purpose, but it’s hard to overcome the fact that they’ll look oddly big in comparison to their power armoured masters.

Here the model from the Silver Tower attempts to get the attention of a stubbornly disinterested Space Marine who glares passive-aggressively in the opposite direction.

Indeed, for what should be skinny armed wizards, they’re almost as big as Khorne’s rank and file butchers, the Blood Reavers. From what I’ve been told about their background this is because they’ve thrown off their disguises and bloated their bodies into their warforms ready to do battle in the Changer’s name. There’s no denying however that with their bulging muscles and small heads they look more like beefy idiots than cunning wizards.

Once again, thanks to Harrison for suggesting I covered this, hope this helps you out and your own Tzeentchian scheme comes together just as planned. And of course if anyone wants to see a Kairic Acolyte posing next to any other model just let me know – if I own the requested models I’ll be happy to oblige!

What Is Best In Life?

With so many projects on the go I’m trying to keep my focus and avoid veering off into any more new territory, at least until I’ve cleared my desk a little. However I couldn’t resist painting up at least one of the models from the Greenskin Wars kickstarter, the barbarian hero. Something about him reminds me of Hirad Coldheart from the Chronicles of the Raven (well worth a read if you’re in need of some old-school cheese) more than Conan.Then again, when it comes to recognisable blog titles Hirad just isn’t as wonderfully quotable.

I went for a dark, tanned skin tone – I figured a man who lives almost exclusively outdoors and fears nothing except wearing a shirt wouldn’t be particularly pasty or pale.

Fan’s of old-school greenskins take note; Greenskin Wars is currently having another kickstarter. There’s still a few days to go before it runs out and in the meantime there’s the chance to pick up several of the models from the last round alongside new stuff like the hobgoblins and bugbears. Speaking from my own experience the service I’ve received has been excellent and the quality of the models is outstanding so if you were on the fence about this one I really do recommend it.

Magic is Afoot

With the power of Tzeentch on the rise I couldn’t resist summoning this cultist to do my bidding.

Wicked Mystic

The release of Silver Tower has me rather excited about all things Tzeentch at the moment. However with a pile of partly painted plastic roughly the size of Mount Everest currently occupying my painting desk – plus the financial strain of upgrading my computer ahead of Warhammer Total War – I’m trying to reign in my desire to shell out on more models. With this in mind I’ve tried to use my resurgent allegiance to the Changer of Ways for good, and finished off this Sorcerer who’s been sitting part-painted for longer than I care to admit.

Of course, every Sorcerer needs a daemonic familiar to help him in his work (although exactly what assistance this chap could offer beyond biting people remains unclear).

As usual, any feedback is much appreciated.

The Times They Are a-Changin’

Of all the chaos gods Tzeentch has always been the one who’s image is hardest to define. Slaanesh is lithe and unnatural, a punk-rock dominatrix who’ll leave soul begging for more. Nurgle is a jolly fat man, slow and generous and ripe with disease. Khorne is a beast-faced bullet, a roaring, stamping wall of bullish muscle waving a chainaxe at the world. All relatively easy to sculpt and paint – whether in violent pastels, putrid greens or bloody reds. Tzeentch is change, mutation and illusion and his colour is the colour of magic. The studio models may be painted in blue and purple shades but that’s only because Games Workshop have yet to find a way to add glittering octarine to their paint range.

In the past official efforts to capture the essence of this ever challenging god have been distinctly hit and miss. Indeed there have been a couple of fan projects recently which have more than equalled the studio’s output. Just take a look at these by Big Boss Redskulls, or these, by Nordic, showcased at the Convertorum. This weekend however the boys at Games Workshop have taken another crack at it, porting their success with boxed games in 40k over to Age of Sigmar and resurrecting Warhammer Quest into the bargain.

A few months ago I commented on this blog “Tzeentch’s followers are now fairly well represented. I might have preferred something a little more ‘Lovecraftian crawling horror’ and less ‘cartoon character’ but that’s a matter of personal taste. Now it would be nice to see some more emphasis on the god’s mortal followers; mad sorcerers, mutants, beastmen and of course the Thousand Sons themselves”. I promise that, at the time, I had no idea that this might be coming – being as I am extremely sceptical of the “rumour’s scene” that surrounds Games Workshop’s output in a haze of wild theories, wishlisting and general tin-foil-hat-ery.

I went on to say “Of all the gods Tzeentch is the chance for them to be the most creative, to come up with something visually arresting and unique”. Did they manage it? A quick look at this release reveals the answer to be a resounding yes.

A leaf through books like Realms of Chaos should be enough to remind anyone that there was a time when Games Workshop was much more adventurous than they’ve allowed themselves to be in recent years. Creatively they’ve become a little timid, preferring to explore already popular concepts rather than gamble with more outlandish ideas. Tzeentch knows however that change is inevitable. The creative team at Games Workshop have the power to be a creative force and it seems the fans are willing to follow them out of the power-armoured security blanket and into stranger realms. The Adeptus Mechanicus, the Wulven, the Genestealer Cults and now the Changer of Ways himself – all recent releases which have demonstrated that, for good or bad, Games Workshop are no long afraid to dig through the good ideas that had previously been thought resigned to the history books.Take the beastmen for example. Once upon a time concepts like this rendered them as true children of Chaos, the first offspring of the gods, an eclectic mix of creatures that over the years became safer and less complex, until we ended up with the goatmen of today. Personally I love the modern goats – as evidenced by my 40k Bloodgors – but I’d never deny that something is lacking; and that something is Chaos. Thus the Tzaangors are in many ways the most exiting bit of this release for me, representing as they do the return of the god-specific beastmen of old. Those wishing to keep their Thousand Son’s armies in line with the fiction can now add the native beastmen from the Planet of the Sorcerers to their ranks, and mix in some Kairic Acolytes for some really impressive cultists.

In this release a good creative balance also appears to have been struck – between the shapeless horror that Tzeentch represents and the almost comical or cartoon-like vibe which grants this god’s followers a particular element of unreality. When pulled together correctly, as in this image from the 1980’s, this creates a particularly malevolent horror which must resonate particularly with anyone who’s afraid of clowns.Sadly the modern horrors have emphasized only the cartoon-like elements, something the Silver Tower model does a little to address. Still with only one sculpt in the box it’s rather too little to make a significant difference. It would serve nicely as another alternative Herald of course – but Tzeentch isn’t really short on those.

This release isn’t just about Tzeentch however. Games Workshop have also taken the chance to show us something of the direction they’re planning to take the Elves in. I’ve always fancied creating a collection based around a Wild Hunt, with the more feral elements of the Dark and Wood Elf ranges combined into a single ferocious force, riding out in the heart of winter to fall like a blizzard upon the weak civilised races. In my madder moments this turns into a force of Exodite Eldar instead. This release contains two wonderfully elemental elves – a mage and an assassin – both powerfully reminiscent of the much-missed Rackham. If these really are a sign of things to come then I look forward to my self control crumbling altogether as I launch myself head-first into another project.If there’s a mistake with this release however it’s the lack of variety in the sculpts. Having pulled out a combination of creativity (the spider goblins are just the sort of mad genius that always brings a smile to my face) and high quality sculpting (the Skaven Deathrunners are particularly nice) they rather dropped the ball by repeating the same models, something which the already eye-watering price tag makes unacceptable. Still, so long as they keep pouring this level of creativity into the followers of Chaos then I’m inclined to be reasonably forgiving… so long as I can find a few bargains on ebay of course…