Kaleb Daark, The doomed one - Battle Chaos part6

Here is an absolute classic for old timers : The doomed one...
I won't go through an explanation of why Malal is no longer supported by GW since others before have done it and well A good ewemple being this one.

The very concept of Malal is excellent and I find all the fluff around hime deeply inspiring. In this situation, I feel compelled to have and paint the only miniature related to the rebel God.

You can find two versions of him : a mounted one and one on foot.

The chaos Steed Kaleb is riding seems ridiculously small if you compare it to the latest knights but still, it gets us to have 2 minis to paint instead of one ! The sculpting style (espacially the heads and the dreadaxe) reminds me of Jes Goodwin's but I'm actually not sure at all he is the actual sculptor of this guy. Feel free to correct me if you happen to know...

I've chosen to link my version with the rest of my army so I kept the black armour. I also wanted an old school feeling at the same time so I went for Bright red edges for the shield and the shoulders. Malal's device being a 2 colored skull, I went for a black-white pattern on the shield and a silver-black one on the armour (to keep the black-white pattern light and to avoid a "chessboard" feeling).

I painted the severed head with blond hair to lighten up the mini, but I feel now it attracts the eye where it's not necessary, maybe I'll do better next time...

You will have noticed the poor attempt on OSL around the eye zince Kaleb is supposed to have a Malestone eye. The helmet make him look more like a lost eldar than a chaos champion...

After that, I'll have to show you Kaleb's 2 nemesis : Jaek and Elwud Chaos. If I remember right, these khornate lads are the ones to have killed Kaleb as a symbol of GW ending with stuff they don't own...

For now, keep on painting my fellow leadaddicts...

At your command (take2) - Battle Chaos part5

To give some extra power to this army, I thought about adding the Chaos lord on daemonic mount since the mini rocks and it's a perfect generic hero since I still want Lothar (cf. part1) as the general in every game size (I'll build versions of him on mounts and all but that's for later...).

Chaos Champion on Daemonic mount

 For this mini as for many others I used a special recipe for metals I use a lot since I find it good looking and very rapid to apply.
It mainly consists of a very generous "tin bits" drybrush followed by a more subtle "boltgun metal" one (feel free to use the equivalents since none of these are produced anymore). And then comes the nice part.
I use a mixture composed of :
- 2 drops of black ink
- 2 drops of brown ink
- 1 drop of PVA glue
- about 10 drops of water
I'm looking for a mixture that does not cover much but will leave a thin layer on big surfaces and drown the holes. I then just need to highlight with boltgun metal on the edges and with mithrill silver on the tips.

I've also recently added some conversions and missing dudes to the rank and file units (ie chaos warriors and marauders) :

The first marauder is a lady I designed because I had the remaining legs of a chaos warriors (you'll see an undamaged version of him in little time) and the torso of a 4th ed daemonette. The three others use parts of minis taken from an old MB game to help me go from a 25 to a 30 men unit. I wanted a drunken marauders because maurauders ravage, kill, rape and drink. I think the weapons leave no doubt for the first two activities. I'll have to work on the remaining one.

The warrior on your left (If you're reading this facing your computer that is) is built from two different Khorne champions and a halberd taken from onf of the new chaos knights (the undamaged champions are also on the painting range right now). The one on the right is a very conventionnal interpretation to match the ones presented before.

The lone wanderer - Battle Chaos Part4

There is a kind of minis that have a life of their own, some minis you don't plan for an army or any project but you love them because you feel a story behind. The golden age of the realm of chaos era was full of such minis and Jes Goodwin sculpted many of them.

This one is not especially designed to fit in my chaos army but could very well do so. It's actually this guy :

He doesn't have the cool attitude, he's bald with weird eyes and his sword seems somewhat too heavy for him.

The lone wanderer, he has been seen on many battlefields, before, during and after battles. He is slow but relentless, fighting whoever he encounters.
It's been centuries now little children hear his tale from their parents when the latter want to keep them from going too far from home.
He is said to have been the first man to kill another on a battlefield, and the legend says it's the very pleasure that ran his vein at that moment that kept him searching for more soldiers to slay. He was there when a man dedicated his life to chaos for the first time. He was behind Morkar when he became the first chaos chosen ever.
Day after day, years after years, he kept on roaming and quenching his bloodthirst. His mind is so totally dedicated to his bloody path he has rejected any other consideration including the laws of nature.
Though he's incredibly old, his power won't let him die, his weapon and armor are rusty and worn out but they'won't break.
Though he is no berzerker and he doesn't run towards the ennemy, he has in his very long journey, killed so many men that no other man on earth can rival his carnage, and that pleased Khorne...
He has abandonned everything in the world, including his own mind and body to his purpose, he has let his body decay and his armor rust, and that pleased Nurgle...
He has broken the laws of men and even those of nature by living against all odds, and that pleased Tzeentch...
He has been in search of the pleasure he felt when killing his first man during his whole life, and that pleased Slaanesh...

Because he has pleased all the gods of chaos, they have taken him from the hands of Morr on many occasion, refusing him the right to die. His existence is an insult to life now, when killed by a stronger opponent, his body always comes back in motion after days, months or years, his flesh livid and his armor rusting.
He is neither alive nor dead, he is just following an eternal path to chaos...

The lone wanderer

Coming soon - Battle Chaos part3

Just some WIP photos for the future releases : Jes Goodwin champions and... more Jes Goodwin Champions YEAAAAHH :

Yeah yeah, comiiiin', I'm nearly done here...

Come on guys, hurry up, we're gonna be late for the match

 Note the presence of a rare tzeentch artefact : the powerball

Rage, rage, murder, death, kill, blood for th blood God

Who yo lookin' at bitch?

Magnet magic and heavy support - 40K Chaos part3

I've recently had the opportunity to go looking in my deadlead box and found 2 more chaos traitors (from the Perry twins) amongst which one is the heavy weapon bearer with the mk6 helmet.
Since his multimelta was not an option with the codex and the weapon itself looks like shit, I decided to give him one of these wonderful chaos heavy weapons I have left. I actually chose an autocannon more for the conviniency of the conversion than for the rules of the weapon itself :

Chaos traitor with autocannon

This guy still needs some green stuff to merge the weapon with the rest but nothing impossible here.
Amongst the other treasure that arose from my search was a converted Ahriman that was just the base I needed to start with a sorcerer. A simple change of head and staff (both used for a terminator tzeentch champion) and the hand from a missile launcher bearer to make him look like he's catsing a spell and bob's your uncle !

Chaos space marine sorcerer with force staff

And since it was Christmas a few days ago, I also had a wonderful touch to add to this army in the form of a ferrocentaurus. The mini is reaaly imposing and since I'm not planning on waiting for next christmas to get a new one, I wanted mine to be as versatile as could be. I've aleady tested rare earth magnets on smaller projects but this time was a debut with mounting huge arts like these.

I use cylindric magnets which are 1mm thick and 2mm in diameter. I drilled the holes before mounting the hole mini to have as much acces I could and to help me fix any problem. Sinc rare earth magnets are really powerful, I estimated only two magnets would be enough to stand the weight of the weapons and to make sur they're placed the right way. Three would have been good though but I was lacking room on the parts and getting 3 drills aligned on both parts was a too much pain the neck.

Magnets are in place

Pas de bras, pas de chocolat...

Since I decided to give some attention to the ectoplasma cannon head by adding the askull part from the apocalypse cannon, I realise two magnets are the absolute minimum to hold such heavy pieces, yet , the head doesn't fall when I hendle the mini and unless i shake it, it won't go away. Now at least I can get all the option from the 'dex just by removing bits in th eblink of an eye! How much cooler can it get? (Yeah I know, I could had boobs to it but it would be waaaaaay too cool...)

I removed the tongue from the bestial head since it looks silly to me, I'm actually considering adding green stuff flames instead...

A bit of make-up and new friends - 40K Chaos part2

My chaos spacemarine leader got some luv' and some make-up with teh help of the incredible guys from Hobby shop in Grenoble. If you ever come here, pay them a visit, they rock.

They helped me get the hang of what I wanted this army to look like.

There still is a lot to paint on this one, but this is the result I'm aiming with this army, black, dark, dark black and black dark. There will only be light touches of red and metal where needed but no gold or shiny bling for these lads.

I also dug in my dead lead box and found these littles guys I massacred when I got them 15 years ago. I had to strip them from their 47 layers of thick paint and repair the damage done by unskilled converting and now I can sing "different strokes" when putting these guys on the table as chosen.

hey hee, hey hoo... Well... Chaos squats

Squats were weird with their drunken biker feeling, chaos squats on the other hand always looked fine to me and though these minis are really tough to paint, i felt like ding them justice...

Since I want this army to have a vintage vibe with the dread and some other pieces, I will also add full units of chaos traitors, but everything in its time... For now it's gonna be TERMIE TIME !
The termie lord is an absolute must-have for any reasonnable chaos player/leadaddict. I wanted to give him an Horus feel and decided to just add him the lightning claws from the termie sprue (though this sprue really sucks compared to lots of others).

Chaos terminator lord with lightning claws

The chaos terminator lord sprue is kinda like the terminator sprue, it sucks. Nonetheless, I took it because I wanted to have as many entries I could and I wanted to use the daemon weapon on a sorcerer. I also like for sorcerrors to have a hand using something else than guns orthings like that, I like them to cast spells or in this case to open a copy af Harry Potter to unleash hell on their foes. I'm currently working on an Arhiman version casting a spell with his free hand.

Chaos terminator sorcerer with daemon sword

Don't know what else to say...

At the dawn of an army - Battle Undead part1

Ok, now

Here's the last army I started for WFB (mimics creepy voice), an UNDEAD army. How cool can it get?, you don't care about your soldiers dying, THEY'RE (un)DEAD !

I'll stick to my rule and start with giving these lads some leaders to go ta battle.
Since the army general is of great importance for such an army, I had to give him everything I could to help him on the field.
Vlad von Karstein is an absolute hit for me, I really love the dark nobility in him and your really feel through the mini this guy isn't here for fun.
I also love the rules for Mannfred von Karstein and the fact he can mount nearly everything attracted me. I chose the Varghulf with an alternative head :

And because everybody needs somebody, I felt like givin't Mr Longteeth here a nice lady. The female vampire GW sells was one of the only options when I started (the new Isabella wasn't released) but her head was just not what I wanted. Though her head kinda sucked, I remembered how great and noble the one from Lucrezia Belladone is and I tried some surgery to mix both minis :

I know what some of you will say and you'll be right, the upper part is nothing more than a copy of the actual mini. I'm not planning on copying minis or anything but I wanted to try to copy parts to be able to reproduce in large numbers some of the conversions I made for large units. It also saved my life for 2 chaos dragon-ogres of mine missing the tail part that I was able to copy this way from a mini I got on Ebay.
Anyways, this is done with an excellent mix called Silligum which consists of two gums which solidify but remain flexible in just 5 minutes, you just pour resin in the mould and 10 minutes later you have an excellent copy of the part you wanted. This method cannot allow to copy whole minis but only parts and it's just fine the way it is...

So now...
We have a fine couple missing something..., undead are not known for being great parents but maybe they can take good care of a pet like a giant werewolf?
Since th Varghulf cannot fly, its mini doesn't need wings, and since I already used its mini as a mount I needed something else. The idea of a giant undead werewolf poped into my mind and turned into this.

Bits from a chaos spawn, legs from archaon's mount and the head from a chaos hound (plus minor green stuff addings).

Since the photos uploaded here aren't the best to show clearly what it's all about, I'll undercoat them or take new ones.

For now...

At your command - Battle Chaos part2

Okay now, we've seen before that we have our Chaos champion and a sorcerer friend of his to lead the chaos band to war. I also decided I wanted to use satanic iconography, not because of any personnal belief but just because I believe it fits a Chaos army as well as any other thing.

One of the main inspiration I used for the devices on the flags and even the choice of colors comes from the comics "Requiem" and the tatoos and spiritual drawings you can find in here. If you don't know this comic by Pat Millls and Olivier Ledroit, I highly suggest you to read if you don't mind about violence, moral deviance and superb drawings.

The first units to come were with no surprise 2 blocks of 15 (well 16 since it started a few editions ago) Chaos warriors. I'm going for a black armour with a bleached bone cape. The aim is to use as few colours as I can to keep a strong link between the units :

Weapon and shield unit command

Weapon and shield unit command

A few pets to follow my men and keep them warm at night would be pretty nice too not to mention they are absolutely brilliant as cannon fodder or to be a pain in the ass (a flank can do just as good).

Chaos pets

I will develop the army's background and fluff but the idea so far is that it doesn't come from the wastes as chaos warbands usually do but rather from some Imperial province or somewhere in Bretonnia. These Chaos warriors are disciplined, they are well equiped and they follow military strategies rather than just running towards the ennemy. All this discipline vanishes when in close combat where their rage explodes and they just become maniacal butchers.
The talent of Lothar, the champion mentionned in part1, is to have added to this discipline the raw and brutal force of bands he has encountered in his path. I've added units with a less refined look which was a good occasion for using these incredibles Jes Goodwin Chaos warriors :

The rank and file of the plastic warriors is less interesting so I only showed the champion, musician and banner. For the old wariors, each of them is a wonder to paint. I'll update with more of these guys, and the champion I converted for them with the musician and the standard bearer.

Then we'll see the other elements Lothar has gathered around him like beastmen, snakemen and so much more...

More to come...