Lord of Change

"Magnarrr" , the voice purred as the deamon scrutinised it's champion, "you must remember there is nothing I do not know, no-one I do not suspect! No-one, no-one.

The daemon laughed it's mocking laugh once more and Magnar turned his face from that unforgiving stare.

The first painted miniature that wowed me and made me want to not only paint miniatures, but also be good at it, was a Lord of Change on the cover of the "Citadel Painting Guide", a small booklet which Games Workshop sold, at the time, for a buck! 

Lord of Change, upper right

I just loved the vibrant tropical colours and the awesome look of this chaotic beast. I painted one, back in 1991 which for very long stood as the benchmark of my painting abilities. It's still today in my collection, and it has seen a lot of battles over the years (as evidenced by the loss of its tail...).

So for the Monstrous challenge of the The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (Yes, I'm stupidly part of two painting challenges at the same time)  I decided to paint me another one of those! I figured there would be a lot of dark stuff in this challenge, but I would go with a full blown display of colours! I find it a bit sad nowadays seeing people paint their Lord of Changes in mono colours of blue or purple, this is Tzeentch goddammit, the God of Change and mutations, and his servants should be as vibrant and colourful as possible!

At the time, Citadel made three bodies, with randomly available heads and tails. My favourite body was this one, and the two headed was also my favourite head. I waited for a while on Ebay until I found my perfect Lord of Change, and this guy's been in my collection for a few years now. 

So I obviously went with a full tropical colour scheme, inspired by the classic paint jobs of the 80s. I especially like my ultra bright green and the pale blue of the wings. This guy took me a while to paint, what with all the textures and the many details. He was also a pain to hold while painting! But I'm really happy with him, and I believe my 10 year old self would be very happy with his look.

He's going to have a place of honour in my future Tzeentch and Slaanesh allied force I've been collecting and planning in the last few years (my current force is Nurgle, undivided and Khorne). 

Hope you like him, cheers!

Lorhal Kuvax, Nurgle Sorcerer

Let the Old World rot away and all come to Nurgle

I haven't painted a lot of Oldhammer recently, mostly because I've been working on my LeafGrave and Epic project, both requiring figures to play. My Chaos army has reached a good size (3000pts+) and so I feel a bit less urgency in painting figures. Which will surely change next year, when I start my second Oldhammer army...

Anyways, last saturday after a family dinner I felt like painting a single and so I settled on a nice Old School Citadel Nurgle sorcerer. I enjoy painting Nurgle figures since I like all things disgusting and horror and I especially like the hooded ones; I find they look super creepy. This one is no exception. This sculpt, released in 1989 I think for the Realm of Chaos line, was used, with a few modification, as the basis for two Nurgle Sorcerers; one with a staff and one with a sword. Those familiar with Citadel figures of the mid-80s know this was something often done in all their ranges; it allowed them to produce a lot of variety while keeping costs down, and apparently gamers loved variety! Stunning, I know.

You can see the two very similar Sorcerers; top right and middle of third row

The one I painted today is the sword version; I also have the staff one but him I keep for something special. So I present to you Lorhal Kuvax, Nurgle Sorcerer.

Since my Chaos undivided core force is black and poison green (a bright green), I've been trying to avoid green for my Nurgle contingent, and rather go with browns, beiges, yellow and even pinks. So for this one I went with a dirty beige, with pink details. I used just a tad of my poison green, to tie it with the rest of the force.

Of course, this being Oldhammer, a sorcerer needs a familiar! So I also painted a little freak to accompany him. One of the weirdest familiar model from the era, it's basically a gigantic mouth, but he does fit nicely stylewise with Papa Nurgle's children.

And 10 pts for the challenge

Beast of Nurgle (my take)

Sometimes you just do a little window-shopping on the web and you stumble on something unexpected...that's what happened with this piece. I was looking at Fantization Miniature website and I saw this Hell Dorado range I knew nothing about, and this particular piece spoke to me. It was grotesque, disgusting, wormy and, quite frankly, perfectly Nurgle-esque. I was never the biggest fan of the Beast of Nurgle models, even the first one. Always thought it could/should be more disgusting. So this piece would make a fine replacement! I mean, it's a pile of worms, how could it not?!

The figure, however, while nicely sculpted with loads of character, was very fiddly to put together and parts didn't fit very well. If you want to piss me off about a range, that's the way to go! Having said that, the final result is still pretty cool. I went with a vomit yellowish colour, as the orginial white worm colour scheme I tried didn't look very good.

The base is made as if the Beast just rose from a puddle of goo. It still follows my army's basing scheme colour, so win-win.

The Manticore

A triple row of teeth meeting like the teeth of a comb, the face and ears of a human being, blood-red color eyes, a lion's body, inflicting stings with its tail like a scorpion...with a special appetite for human flesh!

One of the things I love about the old Warhammer editions is the numerous monsters available. It is perfectly acceptable to have in your army a few of them, from good Elementals to various Chaos creatures. As it should be, really, I mean we are talking about a fantasy world goddammit!

Citadel produced a number of monsters in the 80s, and of course Chaos being the favourite child (lets not kid ourselves here) a wide selection of Chaos critters were sculpted. Many of these were stand alone beasts, and not the mandatory heroe's mounts like we see today. They were also often of "normal", as in "human" size. The following Manticore is such a sculpt. It was designed by the master Jes Goodwin in the mid-80s and is probably my favourite Manticore sculpt to this day. A good Manticore should always look like its in a very bad mood and this one fits the bill!

It is smaller than the recent offering by GW, but to me the Manticore was never meant to be a gigantic beast. I was surely influenced in this view in part by the well known cover of "The Shamutanti Hills", from the Sorcery! series of Fighting Fantasy books. A creature doesn't have to be the size of a Dragon to be terrifying!

The Manticore has the body of a lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark), bat-like wings, and a trumpet-like voice.

I went pretty conventional on the painting, with a classic beige for the lion body and some dark purple for the wings and scorpion tail. I did modify slightly the position of the wings, I just prefer the look. I love the animation of this model, I find Jes Goodwin has really nailed the feline slow and predatory walking stance.

The base was made with cork, accompanied by the remnants of a skeleton to add a little atmosphere to the piece (he is a man eater after all).

Another nice addition to my Chaos bestiary. In my young days, I used to be afraid of painting these creatures, but they are a lot of fun and a great change of pace between unit painting. After painting a Griffon and now a Manticore, I'll probably need to paint a Chimera soon, I figure!

This piece was entered in the recent Analogue Painting Challenge Bonus Theme Round. This round's theme was "myth", so the Manticore, originally a myth of Persian origin, where its name was "man-eater", fitted perfectly. If you like him, you can encourage one of your fellow Oldhammerer by voting on the page previously linked. You'll also get to see a bunch of fantastic entries.

MM43 Chaos Champion on War Griffon

When I first read the descriptive for the latest bonus round for the Analogue Challenge, "mounts and rider" I immediately decided there would be no way I would submit a boring horse and rider! I'm knee deep in Oldhammer at the moment, so obviously It would have to be a hero mounted on some kind of exotic monster! 

I settled quickly on my choice; the "MM43 Chaos Champion on War Griffon", a classic Marauder Miniatures multi-part kit released in 1990. I was, and still am, a big fan of Marauder Miniatures, and this piece is no exception. A nice Christmas gift to myself!

 

The original WD advert

I will admit it doesn't really fit in the rest of the Realm of Chaos range, it seems almost too clean and the Griffon looks more "Empire" with the tassels and all than Chaos. But at the same time difference is what makes Chaos, and the Champion definitely looks the part! Heavy nostalgia love factor for me in this one.

It took me some time to find one at a decent price, in fact I found it barely two months ago, and the one I got was still in its original blister. And yes, I did what some may consider heresy and opened it and painted it! I'm a collector, but dammit miniatures are meant to be painted and loved and played with! The assembling went better than anticipated (heavy wings are a serious pain to glue!) although those early pieces are always tricky.

You rarely see it painted, in fact I've only seen three painted examples, and that's including the one painted in 1990 for the White Dwarf advert (see above). I painted the Champion's armour a bright colour, in this case green (I think those who follow my blog have noticed my army's green theme by now!), which is something you would often see in the golden age of Warhammer. The Griffon I painted a bright palette, too, mostly of white, green and red. I'm really happy with the way the white fur came out, I think I nailed it.

Not very evil colours, maybe, but the early Warhammer Chaos colours were all over the place and that's something I loved. It's Chaos, not undead! I'm quite happy with the way he's come up, even though I find the photography don't do justice to the red wings at all. I glued the rider in a slightly different position than he was meant to be, so he seems more in attack mode (the original position looks a bit likes he's sitting comfortably on an Elran couch, I have to admit).

I just need to find a proper name for the Champion and his mount and he's ready for combat! Suggestions?

(And happy new year to all!)

Chaos Sorcerers

The Champion of Khorne finally broke through the hordes of enemies. Now no-one stood behind him and the Wizard. He started up the rise and was suddenly crippled by the heat of a debilitating fever. He staggered to a halt and fell to his knees, axe dropping from sweaty hands. Too weak to resist, he watched in helpless horror as the Wizard closed to deliver the death blow.

Chaos sorcerers hold a special place in my hearth, as I would always pick one when playing RoC Warbands in my young days. For you see, I was that guy who always played the wizard in all RPGs. I think it all started because of the Sorcery! "Fighting Fantasy" series and from that point most of my characters were practionners of magic.

 Citadel produced a number of fantastic looking sorcerers in the 80s, and I happen to have a few in my collection.

That Nurgle sorcerer with the staff (top right corner) has been eluding me for years, if anyone has a spare they'd be willing to part with...

The first two sorcerers I decided to paint are true classics, and have fought many a battle for me in the early 90s! So I rewarded them both with a new paint job. Now of course with accompanying familiars (I was always too lazy to paint those as a kid!)

I shall call him "Mini-Me"

The sorcerer above has a very different colour scheme from the rest of the army, just because I felt like doing something different (I will also admit being a fan of the colour pink), so I went with the green flame to tie him with the rest of my force. I also think it looks more chaotic than the classic red flame. I just used reverse colours for the familiar, something I picked up from Napoleonics!

 

I just love this figure by Jes Goodwin. You can see the inspiration behind the later Chaos Lord figure
I went with my main colour scheme on this figure but with a deeper green i've recently been experimenting with, using the Andrea green paint set.

I will probably use these two as undivided chaos sorcerers (although they could be used respectively as Slaanesh and Nurgle sorcerers in a pinch). We do not use a lot of magic in our games anymore, at least not when playing Warhammer, so I really do not need more than two wizards...but I'll probably end up painting a few more, just because I like the models so much. They can always be used as Chaos Champions.

Planning a Chaos army (one year later progress reports)

A goal without a plan is just a wish

When I decided to go back in time to my Warhammer days, the choice of a Chaos army was obvious. It was THE army I wanted as a child, and I spent more time reading and re-reading Realm of Chaos than anything else related to Warhammer. 

I like to plan. Not in every details, mind you, but I like to have a good idea of where I'm going. I think it's a side effect of my youth, when I used to do the opposite! 

 I had two main goals for this project; first to build a gameable Chaos army of minimum 3000pts, and the second to paint and assemble a variety of Chaos troops and Monsters so that I could play some Warbands using the Realm of Chaos rules. I would love one day to be able to start a Warband campaign, and own everything the dice could come up with! Well, that's somewhat of a dream. Back to reality.

So first thing first, building my army.

However, the same questions which haunted me as a child quickly reared their ugly heads; what type of army? Which god(s) to represent? What colour scheme? and, a new question, an army for which edition? I don't know about you, but I can spend hours and hours agonizing about these choices, usually while trying to go to sleep!

Lets start with the beginning shall we? Which Chaos god? I like the 4 Chaos gods, always did, but I think that, like most Chaos Lords, I do have my favourites. In order of preference, I'd say my favourites are Slaanesh/Nurgle (ex-aequo), Khorne and Tzeencht. To be honest if I could I'd build an army of each! But that might be costly and somewhat time-consuming! So after some thought I came up with an idea; to first build a Chaos undivided army. Other than the fact that Chaos undivided has a charm of its own, it allows for more creativity and artistic license, I find. An army of Chaos is not limited by the traditional colours connected to the Chaos Gods. My cunning plan was to then paint contingent of the 4 chaos gods which could just be added to my "basic" chaos army to create variety.  

Plans, no matter how cunning they appear at the time, are meant to be changed, however, and this one is no exception! After a lot of thinking in the last year, I decided to collect and paint two armies of Chaos; one dark and brooding undivided force with a strong Nurgle flavour and a Khorne contingent, and one colourful, diverse, and gloriously pastel Slaanesh and Tzeentch force. I just couldn't match those two styles in one army. The first army will get the Chaos Dwarfs, the other the Dark Elves, etc. Added bonus; it will allow me to play RoC games. Now of course I won't do all this in one go, and after I finish my first Chaos army I intend to move on to greenskins before coming back to the pastel fields of Slaanesh & friends.

How to make a 12 year old boy dream big...

So the first army I wanted was to be a dark, old school (as in Warhammer armies/WHFRP) looking Chaos army. A undivided core surrounded by Nurgle and Khorne followers. I figured my warriors would be clad in blackened armour, and that I would mostly avoid garish colours. I needed a colour to bind everything together, and I settled on various bright greens.

In my youth, I would carefully create a 3000pts army on paper and then slowly try (pitifully) to build that precise force. Lets just say I've wisen up since then! I want to have a diverse force, bigger than 3000pts, so I can pick and choose before a game and keep things interesting. There is also the matter than I want to make my army playable not only for the 3rd edition, but also in more recent editions, mainly the 6th (which I prefer when I just want to play a quick pick-up game without a GM). The more recent editions usually require bigger units, so I will need to take that into account, amongst other things. But one detail is of the utmost importance; what matters is the look of my force, to enjoy painting it and to have fun. I'm certainly not into combos and creating the most powerful army!

So I came up with a "mandatory nucleus", i.e. a core of troops I cannot do without and that I have to build before going into all the extra fluff, and believe me there's a lot of possible extra fluff in a Chaos army! So here is that core :

- 1 mounted Chaos Lord
- 2 Sorcerers, with chaos familiars (hey, you either do Old School right or you don't do it at all!)
- 6 Trolls
- 15 undivided Chaos Warriors
- 10 "chosen" Chaos Warriors (i.e. either Khorne or Nurgle warriors)
- 20 Beastmen
- 6-10 Chaos Knights
- 20 Chaos Dwarfs
- 2 Chaos Spawn

I figured this was a nice core, easily adaptable to many editions or other rulesets (the heresy!). It gave me something to strive to, both in terms of painting and collecting. Otherwise it can be easy to get lost in the myriads of options available, and it can also be easy to spend your money all over the place, and ending up not having enough of this or that troop when you're ready to paint them.

So I planned that core a year ago, and one Jabberwock excepted, I've stayed fairly loyal to the plan :

- 1 mounted Chaos Lord
- 2 Sorcerers, with chaos familiars (hey, you either do Old School right or you don't do it at all!)
- 6 Trolls (almost done...need two more)

- 15 undivided Chaos Warriors
- 10 "chosen" Chaos Warriors (i.e. Warriors from a specific god)
- 20 Beastmen
- 6-10 Chaos Knights
- 20 Chaos Dwarfs
- 2 Chaos Spawn (1 down, 1 to go)

I'm currently working on the unit of Chosens and the 2 sorcerers are almost complete. So yeah, all in all I've been fairly organized and rigorous for a Chaos follower! Once this is done, I'd like to add a few monsters and some Khorne and Nurgle "specialties" (Juggernauts, Nurglings, etc.).

Chaos Spawn, Grenadier style

Stronger men than he had dashed themselves to pieces in the services of Chaos and a weaker creature would have ended its own existence rather than face Lothar's fate with the Chaos Spawn. Yet Lothar had a strength of his own; as he fell, his purpose in following Chaos was reborn, and in his changed nature loyalty flowered again like a rank week. Even as he was changed into a monstrous creature, Lothar shrieked eternal allegiance to his dark lord.

When I found this figure in my pile of old unpainted lead, I figured I had to use him.  It didn't take very long for me to realize he would made a great chaos spawn, and so I decided to paint him. I didn't know what figure it was and forgot to look underneath the base before basing him. After asking over on the Old School miniature Facebook page, I found out he was a Grenadier figure, originally a "Vegetation Beast" released in 1983 as part of "The horrors of the Marsh" set. Almost as old as me!

There is a feeling of accomplishment that comes from painting some of your really old miniatures, and even more so when the sculpt is not one of those sought after classic (although those are also fun to paint!).

So here he is. I think he will blend perfectly with the style of my Chaos Army, I'm happy with the result. Definitely weird looking, and spawn creepy.

At last! They're all mine...

We wants it
We needs it
Must have the precious

Some figures stay with you. You see them in an advert and you fall in love. That's what happened to me when I first saw the Marauder Chaos Knights (officially "Mounted Chaos Warriors").

How many hours I spent looking at that advert as a child?

I wanted them so bad! They probably started my love for Marauder Miniatures. Unfortunately I never could find them as a child. In those days it was a lot more difficult getting a hold of specific figures than it is today, especially living in Canada. No internet ordering, no Ebay. My only option was visiting regularly the lone Hobby shop in Montreal and hoping they would get them in their shelves one day. They didn't. I swore one day they would be mine! And then teenage years happened and I stopped searching. When I started collecting GW figures again they were very high on my wish list. But Ebay is a cruel mistress and every damn time I had them in my grasp I was outbid or such. One time, I found them all in one lot, and I promised myself no price would be too high. I won the auction and ecstatic I was! Finally, they would be mine! The seller, with a perfect 100% rating, never sent them, never answered my inquiries, never relisted them, total silence radio. Oh, life can be so cruel!

I was back to square one, and I was starting to wonder if it was not meant to be. Maybe I was cursed to wander the earth forever, never finding those figures who had been eluding me for most of my life!

And then I found the Oldhammer Community FB page and its sister, the Oldhammer Trading group. So my very first post on the Trading group was inquiring about these knights, and if anyone could lend a helping hand. And then my patience was rewarded. Two members came to my rescue and 1 month later, I have 9 of them. And a tenth is on the way from another member. I have a complete unit! Every variant is now in my possession, including the ultra rare grinning one (you might recall I love the similar Chaos Warrior). Alleluia! Its a pretty awesome feeling finding something you've been looking for over 20 years.

One of my little childhood dream, sitting on my kitchen table

 Yes, it deserves a happy dance!

I'd love to find the shields, too, if a reader has a few lying around per chance (and I could always go for a bigger unit, if you want to sell a few knights). The hardest part will now be to paint them. They intimidate me, as I want to do them justice!

Beastmen, Children of Chaos

Guttering flames from the spilt oil illuminated a nightmare scene of flashing swords and spouting blood as the Beastmen literally hacked their enemies apart in an orgy of unallayed savagery. In less than a minute the human were all dead - a pile of broken bodies and limbs. A slow stream of human blood trickled over the stone and extinguished the flames of the broken lanterns. All was dark and quiet in the forest once more.

In the old days of lore (the 80s!), the Beastmen were an integral part of any Chaos army, providing the Chaos Lord with a (relatively) cheap and plentiful option to help offset the crazy expensive elite units of Chaos Warriors and Knights. Their high toughness and wound scores also made them annoyingly difficult to deal with for any opposing general.

They fitted perfectly well in a Chaos army, twisted and bloodthirsty abominations of the Chaos Gods, always willing to take arms and ravage the lands of men or just fight each other! Eventually, Games Workshop, in their infinite wisdom decided to split them from their Chaos Warriors brothers (the horror). The foolishness of it all...anyways.

The older Beastmen were really cool models, especially because they were really beastmen, and not only goatmen. You had dogs, goats, bulls, wolves and all manner of beasts models available. And, of course. so. much. variety. As it is written in The Lost and the Damned "However Beastmen are Children of Chaos itself, and their mutated bodies can be twisted into all kinds of bestial shape". Damn straight!

My unit of Beastmen is the biggest of my army to date at 20 models, and although I have a few duplicates its almost all different models. 

The Beastman champion and the musician are newer models of the 90s, but they fit really well and the Champion's scale creep quite works well here, giving him an imposing stature compared to his brethren. As usual, I used shades of green to tie the unit with the rest of my army. I think it works surprisingly well with the Champion. The halves and quarters of the shields are, I must admit, a rarely seen pattern for Beastmen, but just green shields did not work well with these guys and, well, I'm just really, really bad at freehands! Still, I'm happy with the results.

When I showed them to Laurie my girlfriend, she said "I really like them, but its just sad that we can't really see them well all tight in their unit." She's right, of course, so here are the close-ups.

The Oldhammerers will notice I happily mix Khorne and Slaanesh Beastmen models in the same unit. I just really like the models, and I don't see myself painting 4 Beastmen unit, one for each God.This part of my army is undivided after all, so they are all a big happy family ;-)

The "Minotaur" Beastmen (second from the right) is probably my favourite Beastmen model, ever. It took some efforts on Ebay to find him!

A close-up of my Champion. I really enjoyed painting him. For all the shit I give them, one must admit GW has produced some really good stuff after the 80s and this model is certainly one of them. 

 

Its not really visible on the pictures because of the shadows, but for a very, very rare time I painted blood (on his axe). It just seemed to fit the model. 

Next on my painting table, some Chaos sorcerers. Although I've been recently challenged in an Old School painting competition over on the Facebook Old School miniature group. Which I might join. I cannot use the sorcerers for the challenge since some paint has already been applied. Not sure yet what model I will use. A few models are currently looking at me on the painting table "pick me, oh pick me"

Chaos Warriors

The most feared of all Chaotic humans are those who openly devote their lives to its worship. Amongst them are Warrior of Chaos, human warriors who have sold their souls in return for strength and power. Those who make such a bargain are tragic figures for they know that they will gain immense powers, but only a fool could hope to survive unscathed. The Warrior of Chaos enjoys a meteoric rise to glory, followed, more often than not, by a swift collapse into bestiality and madness.

Can't really do a proper Chaos army without Chaos Warriors, now can we? 

The Chaos Warriors of the 3rd edition really represented what Chaos Warriors are supposed to be; diverse, mutated and wearing twisted full plate armour. Key word here being diverse. I can't help but laugh at the new all-identical Chaos Warriors of GW. Hmm...Anyways I digress...I see these guys as the undisputed kings of the battlefield. Sure, the knights are more glamorous, but real warriors fight on foot!
I have no idea how many individual Chaos Warriors were produced from the mid 80s to the early 90s, but there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of choice available!

One of many pages of Chaos Warriors made in the 80s

I'm not into collecting them all or anything like that. I like most of them, so really I just try to get my hands on as many as I can! I'd like one day to have at least a small unit of Warriors from each Chaos god, plus one unit of undivided warriors. To do this I like to mix warriors and champions in the same units, to create varied units with no duplicates.

The grinning warrior is one of my all-time favourite

Not surprisingly for those following my progress, I painted my first unit as Undivided Chaos Warriors. Most of the models are warriors or champions from the Citadel Realm of Chaos ranges, although one is a Marauder models. It's a shame really Marauder only ever produced three chaos warriors (see left picture).

 Most of the figures below were from my old collection, and most were horribly painted and needed a good Simple Green bath before I could start working on them. Makes me proud to see them finally having a proper paint job after all those years wasting away in a box. 

I kept to the green and black colour scheme of my Chaos army, although going for a slightly less vivid green than the Chaos Dwarfs. At 15 Warriors, its definitely a very big (and expensive!) unit for Warhammer 3rd edition, but the bigger size will work well if I want to play other recent editions or other fantasy rule sets. I might also use them as Marauder instead of Warriors when playing the 3rd edition. And, well, big units do look pretty good!

The blackened armour was created using chainmail drybrush on black, followed by a wash of badab black. The brass parts on the armour were done by successive sepia and black washes over a chainmail base. Most details were picked up using my standard 3 layer technique, often followed by a glaze or wash to bring out the details.

As for the rest of my army, I will add a banner later after making some tests.

 

Painting this unit allowed me to paint one of the most iconic Chaos Champion figure, the Champion in bone armour. Man he looks the part! The imagination these guys had in the 80s, amazing. And of course, I also got to paint the Marauder grinning warrior.

Up until now everything I have shown in this blog was painted in the last 9 months. It was originally posted on my historical blog but I thought it was logical to post them here for all my new readers to see. From this point forward, we will move on to newly painted stuff. My Beastmen should be first on that list. I varnished them yesterday and I expect to take some pics in the coming days. 

Also expect in the coming weeks some posts on army building, my want list and collecting efforts, and a current inventory of my Chaos collection.