Fixing some ancient Chaos models

With the number of reasons to go out reduced and GW closing down, I've had all the time in the world to work on my backlog. The recent restorations of Maalicia Ironhoof and Lt. Varras motivated me to fix some more models I've owned since I discovered Warhammer. Here is the result.

The good, the bad and the ugly?

My first Orruk Boar Chariot rides eternal, shiny and chrome

As my local GW organised a small AoS tournament I had no time to paint on Saturday. I did have a chance on Sunday to finish the crew for the first of (hopefully five) painted Orruk Boar Chariots.

One stick to poke the boars, one stick to find them.

The Siege of Fictitia

To celebrate the fact that I finished my new siege towers, I placed my Realm of Battle board outside, took some old Morheim terrain and a city wall out of their storage containers and made a little display I dubbed 'the Siege of Fictitia'. The ragtag defenders serve as a reminder that I really should build a full Order army somewhere this year. Let's not waste to much words and just go for a bunch of pictures now.

Here is a birds eye view of the final assault on Fictitia by the Warband of Malagor the Malicious, sorcerer lord of Tzeentch.

Khorgos Khul, mighty lord of Khorne

Sometimes I need a quick break from one project to start a new one. At other times (better times?) I use the need to take a break to quickly pick up a project I left (years) earlier. In this case I left the ink on my siege towers to dry. picked up Khorgos Khul and bravely tried to follow Duncan's example of how to paint him. I'm not Duncan, but I'm still pretty pleased with how he turned out.

He's mighty, he's a lord and he has a gigantic skull rune on his back, he must be a mighty lord of Khorne!

I think the models in the Age of Sigmar starter set (and most models that have been produced in the past few years) are awesome. But painting them is turning out to be harder then I expected. Maybe it is all the detail that is there waiting to be screwed up by me, but it is giving me trouble. Still I will not be ashamed if I put this guy on the tabletop. I'm especially happy with the evil eyes on Grizzlemaw (the Flesh Hound). The old paint white first, yellow second rule still applies there.

I Duncan'ed the hell out of that yellow stripe on his back (well I tried to).

I started painting this model the week after the Age of Sigmar Starter Set came out. I was just trying some new things with my airbrush and discovered just how much paint you can accidentally apply to a miniature. I also learned that you should not try to fix too much airbrushed paint by 'wetblend airbrushing' another color on it. To spare you (or myself the telling of) a lot of embarrassing mistakes it was a mess drowned in paint.

Hide the keys to the blood bank! A Mighty Lord of Khorne approaches!

Khorgos spent the last few years on 'to do trays' in project boxes and for a while discarded on my workbench ready to be thrown into the trashcan. That was until I decided to test a new paint stripper and write a blog about stripping paint from miniatures. If you look at the last picture of that post, you can see Khorgos's cloak on the same tissue as the Tree Lord. I had to reassemble to model, discovered his 'kinky handcuffs' have gone missing and had to pin and reattach his axe. I also had to green stuff a rather big gap on the right shoulder (his right) of the cloak.

Now to paint the rest of his friends....

The base is a story in and of itself. I was planning to make lava bases for my Khorne host, but it turned out te be a bad idea. Lava is orange/white and the base of my Khorgorath did not give a proper contrast to the model. As I had already pre-textured all the bases for my Khorne characters I had to do something with it. I decided to go for a filthy shallow stream. This give me an excuse to paint it green which makes for amazing contrast with the red armor. I added some Vallejo water paste to  the textured and painted stream for even more watery effectiveness.

All in all, I'm rather happy with the result and glad I did not bin this champion. Now back to the siege towers....

The five horseman of the Tzeentchpocalypse

I hate painting cavalry. No clue what it is, but for some reason I'm always annoyed while painting cavalry models. These five Chaos Knights are excellent models and I love how they turned out, but even here I still hated every minute of painting them.

By the last breath of the fourth fifth winds blow....

Enchanting death from above

This weekend I finished a Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore. The regular Chaos Lord is still somewhere on my paint station, but I guess he'll just have to wait a bit.

I should not have called my Manticore Simba, now I dare not get off for fear of revenge.

Chaos Spawn join the warband

The Chaos Spawn kit may not be the shiniest and newest in de Games Workshop collection, it is a barrel of fun to glue. You get two basic bodies and enough spare bits to mutate an entire Chaos Army. As I had two of the Spawn kits on the plastic pile I decided to just have some fun with it and build two generic failed champions and two Tzeentch themed monsters.

I tried following a How to paint Seraphon Feathers for the feathers on the Spawn's arms, but I'm no Duncan. I ended up splashing some Agrax Earthshade on the stained mess and now I try not thinking about it too much.  

Mass painting Tzeentch's Warriors of Chaos

I have to admit that I don't really love the Warriors of Chaos kit. The poses are stiff and your choice in assembling them is very limited. You basically choose between two hand-weapons or a hand weapon and shield without getting a chance to modify individual warriors. As the models are rather dense (from a design point) it is not very easy or obvious to make big changes. On the plus side this does allow for some very serious painting speeds if you combine the airbrush with the paintbrush. This unit of twenty Chaos Warriors was assembled and painted over the course of my weekeind.

I am rather happy with the color and design of my freehand banner. 

Sacrifices on the go

The month of Tzeentch continues with the completion of my dedicated Chaos Warshrine. I love the idea of a floating viking longship carried aloft by mutated ogres.

The blue of the Tzeentch icon works rather well with the orange flames.

What I liked less about the model is the original driver. The model doesn't quite work for me on this vehicle so I tossed him into the bits box and used a Chaos Lord in its stead. The pose with the spear works rather well I think.

Have you got a minute to talk about Tzeentch, our lord of change and deceit?

I switched out his head with a (de-horned) Warrior of Chaos helm to give him a bit more sinister air.

I love the shape of this vehicle, it fits with the mutated and deranged viking aesthetic of the Warriors of Chaos.

All in all a nice model that will (hopefully) work just fine in enhancing my slowly expanding Tzeentch warband.

January, the month of Tzeentch!

I spend a lot of time painting and building over the last weeks of last year. So much that I did not update the blog. That means more text for January, expect a few big updates on my Age of Sigmar terrain later on. For now, it is a second unit of Warriors of Chaos, this time with the mark of Tzeentch. With the Warhammer Community announcement of Tzaanuary I focused on Tzeentch.

Ten followers of Tzeentch march in, ready to kill.

I think this kit is from around 2007-2008 and it is getting rather old. You have an out of the box choice between two weapons or a weapon and shield combination and (in this case) a finecast two handed weapon upgrade. What you don't have is a lot of liberty in posing the models. On the plus side, it makes painting a unit like this easy and fast. All horns where removed from the helmets on general principle. 

The airbrush works like a charm on the cloaks of these models.

For the colors I picked blue cloaks and bronze armor with a bit of verdigris. I used the head of a 40K mutant (I think) on one of the models and the bare head on the musician (whose axe-blade broke off during painting). The leader of the unit has the head of a small dragon/large lizard. The rather ridiculous horn from the Chaos Knights kit fell out of the bits box and I felt like having some fun. The banner holds a (Ravenwing) book and a baleful eye freehand. Next step is releasing these guys on a battlefield somewhere, and getting ready to own one of the new plastic Daemons of Tzeentch.