HQs of Christmas Past

Merry Christmas!

And Let the Firewood Burn!

Spawn of Halloween

Once again in celebration of Halloween I'm passing the night away painting something scary. Of course few 40k players will find anything at all frightening about a Chaos Spawn. But with rumors now circulating about both Chaos Legions and Chaos Renegades in the works for Sixth Edition, maybe there is cause to hope that Chaos Spawn won't forever be a waste of points. They're a fun unit to paint and very thematic as well, it would be a shame not to make them a viable choice in at least one Chaos book. Is that too much to ask?

Spawn that don't suck, now that's scary. :)

I built this ugly fellow a couple of years ago for the planned revamping of my Chaos Space Marines army. I don't foresee putting much effort into that project until I have a better sense of what the army will be like in the next edition of the game. I'm excited about the early chatter but it still seems too far out to take anything seriously. In the meantime I'm content to wait and only occasionally paint a Chaos Spawn in supplication to the Dark Gods.

May they give us a Codex worthy of them. Ia! Ia!

A heretic can dream, right? Oh well, back to painting... Happy Halloween, everone!

Chaos Lord Kit-Bash

The other day I noticed some pictures of a fantastically Chaosified jump-pack Chaplin which Rich had posted over at his blog, Ineptus Mechanicus. He's been working steadily on a Word Bearers army for close to a year that makes heavy use of converted and kitbashed models. It's been a really cool project to watch develop because of the creativity, thought, and planning that Rich has put into each model, his corrupted Chaplin being no exception.

Along with admiring his conversion work on the Chaplin, seeing Rich's use of those Possessed wings reminded me of a model that I had kitbashed for a Black Legion army, another project that's been sitting on the back-burner for quite a long time. There's not much to my Chaos Lord, just a simple mix of pieces from various Chaos Marine and Space Marine kits and the tiniest amount of cutting. There are bits from the Chaos Space Marines, Possessed Marines, and Terminator Lord kits, and from the Dark Angels and Space Wolves frames as well. All that's left that I want to add to this model would be some Chaos-style gauntlets made out of greenstuff to his wrists in order to better disguise the loyalist origins of his arms.

Ripper Murdark, scourge of the Groening Sector and diabolical leader of the Black Legion warband, The Cancelled Souls. Having established his base of operations in the tumultuous region of space known as the North Haverbrook Anomaly, Ripper Murdark has since waged a ceaseless campaign of terror and sabotage against the valuable Agri worlds for which the Sector is famous. This aggression reached its peak with his attempt to overthrow Imperial control of the planet Fonsager, fostering a protracted and violent rebellion which was bloodily quelled by the Stonecutters chapter of Space Marines. Having escaped the planet with his Black Legion warband largely intact, Lord Murdark has sworn to take revenge against the Stonecutters and to personally kill the flamboyant leader of its Second Company, Captain Homer, whom he blames for his defeat.

Chaos Space Marines Chaos Lord - Mark of Tzeentch, Daemon Weapon, Melta Bombs, Personal Icon, Jump Pack. 175 points.

That's the basic idea at least. To go along with the Stonecutters and the Blisstonian 9th that I've been gradually working on, I thought it would be fun to include some bad guys to further populate the Groening Sector. Since updating my progress on Captain Homer last night, this seemed like a good time to introduce his nemesis, Ripper Murdark. The Cancelled Souls are obviously in a very preliminary state right now but I've nonetheless enjoyed having an outlet for the occasional Chaos fix. I don't know what I eventually envision for this Black Legion army. At this point I do not have any grand ambitions for them beyond a rather small but still playable collection.

Okay, that's it for this now. I'm going to work more on those Slaanesh Chaos Daemons this week and I will try to post an update about them soon. Happy painting and gaming!

Embracing Slaanesh - A Rationale for Excess, Part 1

As I mentioned yesterday I'm just now beginning work on a new project for 40k, a purely-Slaanesh themed Chaos Daemons army. I did all of the planning for this one prior to my move to NC so I am excited to have it underway after several months of waiting. While keeping in mind lower point level games, I'm primarily aiming to build a 2000 point army, though it should ultimately top out in the 2250 to 2500 point range. This will likely be my main hobby focus over the next couple of months. Allow me to explain why...

Until recently Chaos Daemons as an army had almost no appeal for me. As a longtime Chaos Space Marines player it took me quite a while to adjust to losing access to my favorite daemon units and getting saddled with flavorless generic ones instead. (By the way, Summoned Lesser Daemons are once again one of my favorite units for my Chaos Marines army, but I do still miss those T5 Plaguebearers.) I unfairly held this against Codex: Chaos Daemons when it was released, as well as the changes to their fluff with regard to the Chaos gods newly acquired spirit of cooperation. Partisanship may be a dirty word in politics nowadays but I personally enjoyed the hostility Chaos Daemons felt toward the minions of the other gods. Lastly, their whole approach to deployment seemed at the time too whacky and gimmicky for my taste, and so I therefore made up my mind that the mortal followers of Chaos would be enough for me.

Nonetheless my sentiments softened over time and I found it fascinating to hear or read about others' experiences collecting and playing Chaos Daemons. I liked the new plastics kits and eventually came to appreciate the changes that had been introduced as well, in particular seeing their unique method of deployment as, if nothing else, an interesting change of pace for those playing against the evil critters. I thought that as a Chaos Daemons player the Daemonic Assault rule might get tiresome after a while, but that it would offer a fun and novel challenge for their opponents, so that seemed cool. With so many other armies calling out to me, this gradually developing respect for Chaos Daemons was still not sufficient reason for me to take the plunge into collecting my own batch of Daemons.

It was actually not until the new Codex: Grey Knights came out before the idea of playing Chaos Daemons became a serious consideration for me. Though I should not have been surprised having seen their beautiful range of minis, I had not expected the Grey Knights to take off in popularity to the degree that they seemingly have this year. It seemed too bad that there wouldn't be more armies of Daemons for them to fight against as no doubt the rise of the Grey Knights has been something of a downer for both veteran Chaos Daemon players as well as for those thinking about pledging themselves to the dark gods. Having a new Codex on the loose that was specifically designed to beat up on your army would I think be discouraging no matter how otherwise appealing the bullied army might be. So it was with this set of assumptions that I decided I wanted to build a Chaos Daemons army.

Let me be clear that I do not think I have any better chance against the Grey Knights than anyone else using Chaos Daemons. In fact I am fairly sure I will not play the army as well as many others could and will face even more of an uphill battle against GK armies than would normally be expected. Nor am I doing this to try to prove anything to the Internets. (Yeah right, if anything I'd just prove what an ass I am!) Rather I decided to collect Chaos Daemons just so that anyone I happen to meet with their own army of Grey Knights would have the opportunity to play them against what is supposed to be their preferred enemy. It seems kind of funny to me to imagine all of these Grey Knight strike forces scouring the universe and battling against all manner of xenos, rebels, and traitors, but saying to each other the whole time, "Where are all the bloody Daemons?" And I imagine it must also be frustrating as well to own a Grey Knights collection but then rarely or never encounter a Chaos Daemons army against whom to match your army of goody-goody heroes.

Therefore my initial reason for starting this new army project was to provide a classic foil for whenever I happen to cross paths with a Grey Knights player looking for an amenable antagonist. I am by no means a gamer masochist, though I do like a good challenge and whether I win or lose any particular game is irrelevant to my enjoyment of 40k. Plus should I actually manage to win a game then it would be all the sweeter for the extra difficulty involved, and while losing I can at least still revel in the casualties that I inflict along the way, knowing that my guys have merely been banished back to the Warp, but every Grey Knight killed is a serious loss to the Imperium. So even if this puts me squarely in the land of moral victories, in my mind that's still better than outright defeat. :)

Okay, I see that's all the time I have for tonight, and yet so far I've only managed to explain why I've chosen to collect Chaos Daemons, though not specifically the mono-god, Slaanesh only approach. Therefore I'm going to make this a two parter and will go over my choice of Slaanesh in part 2 as well as getting into the particular elements of the army. So until next time, happy painting and gaming!

Oh, and be sure to indulge in your favorite vices, too. Hooray for Slaanesh! ; )

PS for Silar Lannanaris of The Fallen Princes blog - I've not given up on my Raptors army, nor am I turning my back on the esteemed Badab Veterans. I have a couple of reasons for letting this new project take precedence over my other armies which I'll explain soon, though I did want to let you know it might take me a little while afterall before I get back to my Space Marines. I'll be back onboard with the group and in the Maelstrom just as soon as in can.... Sorry, buddy!

Combat Patrol at AdeptiCon - Chaos Marines

I finally realized the other night that there's no way I'm going to have enough time before Adepticon to paint a new force for the Combat Patrol event (rules can be found here but all pretty standard I think). I'm fairly confident getting my Dark Elves ready by then will take as much time as I can make available. Therefore I'm reluctantly putting aside my idea of painting a new couple of Raptors Legion squads for Combat Patrol and instead have reviewed my other options.

While my Necrons would require absolutely no work in order to be ready, I'm not terribly interested in playing them. It's the same situation for my Tyranids although I might take another look at them at some point just to try out potential lists. Imperial Guard would be fun but require much too much painting for consideration. My very old Orks might work alright but I'd have a very limited selection from which to choose. This means the assignment for the Combat Patrol mission falls to my Chaos Space Marines, the Beasts of Annihilation. All I'd need to do is paint seahorse chapter badges for 15 or so marines and one or two big seahorses for the Rhinos, plus some touchups here and there, and they would be done.

I still haven't gone back to work on this army after finally deciding last summer on a design for their chapter symbol, a little yellow seahorse. It was now more than ten years ago when I first began working on these Chaos Marines and so perhaps it will be the event at Adepticon that at last motivates me to finish such few details that remain. Also due to his group's inability to get organized before the big Team Tournament had sold out, DrGabe of DrGabe's Miniatures will also be playing in the same Combat Patrol event with me. Just in case I find myself matched against my longtime nemesis, I would enjoy using my Chaos Marines against him just like old times.

Knowing now that it's going to be my Chaos Space Marines, I've been working on some potential army lists I could use. It's been a struggle trying to hammer out something I like, but given the nature of the event, I'm not terribly worried about the effectiveness of my "army." Perhaps I'm mistaken but I don't see how you can take too seriously 400 point games of Combat Patrol. Sure I want to do as well as I can but I'm just looking for some fun rolling dice while possibly dealing with an Adepti-style hangover from the night before. With that understanding of my goals and expectations, here is the first set of lists I'm considering:

Patrol A (pictured above) - 400 points

5 Chosen Chaos Space Marines: plasma guns x 2, Rhino

10 Chaos Space Marines: Aspiring Champion, Icon of Chaos Glory, meltagun, missile launcher, Rhino w/Havoc missile launcher

Patrol B - 400 points

5 Chosen Chaos Space Marines: Aspiring Champion w/power weapon, plasma guns x 2, Rhino

10 Chaos Space Marines: meltagun, missile launcher, Rhino w/Havoc missile launcher

Patrol C - 400 points

5 Chosen Chaos Space Marines: plasma guns x 2, Rhino

10 Chaos Space Marines: Aspiring Champion, meltagun, lascannon, Rhino w/Havoc missile launcher

Patrol D - 400 points

5 Possessed Chaos Space Marines: Rhino

10 Chaos Space Marines: Aspiring Champion, meltagun, missile launcher, Rhino w/Havoc missile launcher

Patrol E - 400 points

5 Possessed Chaos Space Marines

5 Chaos Space Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, plasma gun, Rhino w/Havoc missile launcher

5 Chaos Space Marines: meltagun, Rhino

Patrol F - 400 points

10 Chaos Space Marines: Aspiring Champion w/power weapon, Icon of Chaos Glory, meltagun, missile launcher, Rhino w/Havoc missile launcher

5 Khorne Berzerkers: Rhino

That's what I've come up with so far that I like but I'm sure there's many other variations I could devise. I don't know if I care enough to put much more time into this and at least now I have a sense of what I'll use to begin painting seahorses. I haven't seen anything about the actual missions that we'll play during the games but again I'm not too concerned about that sort of thing for Combat Patrol. There's only so much you can do with 400 points of Chaos Space Marines so for me it's not worth worrying over, I expect to have a good time regardless of the composition of my patrol group. That being said, I am really interested in case anyone else has thoughts or suggestions although I am limited by what is already in my Chaos collection. For the moment I'm favoring either Patrol A or Patrol B.

There are 69 days to go until Adepticon and still much to be done before then. Fun, fun, fun... happy gaming and painting, everyone!

Nurgle Drives a Mini-Van

I’m home! What a day, what a day it was. Seventeen hours on the road have left me feeling rather weary and depleted so please forgive me if I seem a bit off. I slept about four hours last night after packing and loading everything up, then awoke with the family at 4am and was on the road driving fifteen minutes later. It rained the whole way and I didn’t once see the sun the entire day. I drove the first half of the way and, after napping through the state of Virginia, spent the rest of the time trying to keep my daughter entertained and happy. Our little one, 22 months old, did very well as always and is turning out to be an excellent traveler for which I am so grateful.

Unfortunately I cannot say her parents fared nearly as well. It was during the last half of the drive that my wife and I both began feeling ill. For sure it made it an even more interesting trip than usual with the onset of our symptoms, but it was worth it to press on so that we are at least home to recover. Sick or not, it’s good to be back. I suspect my brother-in-law may have passed on a mild flu to us as he has been suffering similarly for a few days now. (Cheers, Jeff, I hope you feel better soon!)

Normally I’d say these are less than ideal conditions for blogging. I saw something however on my phone just a short while ago as we neared Charleston that has compelled me to not let this opportunity pass. It’s b.smoove of A Gentleman's Ones birthday today!

Happy birthday, b.smoove! Hooray! I’ve gathered together a bunch of the Beasts of Annihilation to help me wish you a happy birthday and all the best in the year to come.

Leading the huzzahs is a miniature that’s very dear to me, a Chaos Lord of Nurgle (MoN, Personal Icon, Wings, Daemonic Weapon) who now commands this warband of vile renegades. He’s still a WIP but I just had to bring him out for the occasion. Pretty cool, right?

What’s so special about him is that he is in fact from the b.smoove collection, sent to me as a surprise gift following one of my contests in which the Gentleman was a runner-up prize winner. The contest was based around the idea of passing on old projects to new hands and so b.smoove returned the favor by sending me this awesome model to finish and add to my own army. Amazing!

I originally planned to show him off here once I had completed the little bit of work left to do but I can’t wait any longer. Life is what it is and I still haven’t gotten around to completing him yet. I just think it’s too cool of a model to go uncelebrated, and considering the special day, I thought it was time. Needless to say he takes pride of place in my army and will no doubt lead them to glory.

Thanks again, b., and happy birthday!!

My Return to Painting

I painted something! Yippee, it's a Chaos Spawn.

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I previously had anything newly painted to show here. Hopefully this will be the last warm-up miniature that I have to paint for a long time. This particular model has been waiting for something like five years for me to get to it, one of the last few unpainted minis for my Beasts of Annihilation chaos warband leftover from when I was last working on them. I came across him earlier this summer and decided I would save it a little longer until I was about to starting painting again in earnest and would be in need of something on which I could practice.

Since updating the Beasts of Annihilation is one of my current projects I thought working on the Spawn would be a good way of getting back into my painting groove. Having just finished I am very satisfied with the experience. It was fun to paint, I got to have freedom with the colors and techniques used, and I added a cheap throw-away unit to one of my armies. Cool. The best thing for me though is knowing that I have this mini out of the way and now feel comfortable setting into the models that I'm more excited about painting.

May my brushes henceforth stay rust free.

As for the actual painting, I wanted to keep this Spawn related to the Beasts but with a little extra touch of color as befitting its warped natured. The bulk of the creature's body was painted to resemble as closely as I could the army's unit of Plague Bearers. I don't think I was terribly successful in achieving the same effect but I'm happy with the results nonetheless. It was a joy painting the rest of the miniature as I worked with the vibrant colors and experimented with an approach to highlighting and color progression different from my usual habits. I love models like these as you can just be free and try out new things.

One new technique I tried out which can be seen in the picture above was using slightly off-shade variants of white and black to paint the model's eyes. This was described by Brent of Strictly Average not long ago and I tried my best to follow his instructions. I didn't get the shape quite right but otherwise I really like the way they turned out. I think the eyes look appropriately vacant considering this fellow's circumstances and I'm going to look for opportunities to paint more eyes in such a manner. In this case I used P3 paints, going with a 1:1 mix of Thamar Black and Coal Black followed by Underbelly Blue for the off-white center of the eyes. Even with a wobbly looking right eye I am overall very pleased with the results.

I'm considering applying some gloss to the eyes or mouth but otherwise I think he's done. It's truly such a relief to finally get some paint on a miniature and I feel much better already. Thanks, weird Spawn guy!

Seahorses of Annihilation

I'm taking a break tonight from assembling terrain, the pictures of which that I've taken have been mostly either boring or unusable due to near constant toddler-attacks. I've included a few WIP photos at the end of this post just for the sake of completeness after my last posting, but I've got something else on my mind right now that I'd like to address first with this update. This evening I decided it was time to get back to my old Chaos Marines. After a decade of waiting for me to settle on something, they finally belong to a named warband, the Beasts of Annihilation. Having chosen this group based solely on their color scheme more or less matching the one already painted onto my army, this step forward has brought with it a new dilemma in that there is no established chapter badge or symbol for this warband. After taking so long to get to this point, I am eager to hurdle this stumbling block so that I can at last finish this army.

At first the name itself seemed somewhat silly to me, but over the ensuing weeks its appeal has grown on me, especially after an exchange about it with Sons of Taurus. The result of this shift in attitude is that I no longer know if I should go with my original joke idea. I therefore painted my candidate design onto a spare icon bearer, last touched by brush more than six years ago, as a test run. You can see the result below. Well, what do you think... have I taken it too far?

Other than the snout being a bit long, this is essentially what I envision as the Beasts of Annihilation's calling card to the 40k universe. I may try to add some orange shading on the belly but I don't know if it would be worth the effort. I haven't come up with any alternatives so if I don't go with the seahorse it's back to the drawing board. I enjoyed painting it and it passed the main test of not being particularly difficult or time consuming so for the time being I am satisfied with it. Also I would probably have fun doing larger versions of the seahorse on tanks and banners. I just have this nagging feeling that it could possibly be too inappropriate. Then again, I'm also working on a Simpsons army so I've probably already crossed that threshold of concern. Perhaps it was a millennium of taunts and jokes about the chapter seahorse that eventually drove the Beasts of Annihilation to embrace Chaos, due to bitterness and a mad desire to prove their mettle.

My inspiration for this comes from the real-world iconography of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4) with whom one of my best friends served for a number of years. Hence there is actual military precedence for this. I'm fairly sure I've also seen the seahorse used in heraldic devices, but that could have been mere fanciful depictions or even just a figment of my imagination. Nonetheless, seen below is the insignia of the aforementioned USMC battalion.

I'd love to hear any thoughts on whether I should go forward with the seahorse or if I instead need to rein in the stupid and find something more suitable for a bunch of daemon-loving meanies. What do you think?

Below are the photos showing some of my recent work on 7G. The first one is of the space-filler piece, previously consisting only of the pipe sections glued down onto the base, that I have now turned into an impromptu gun nest...

Next is a detail from one piece of a marine who has crashed through this building's ceiling, squishing some unfortunate fellow beneath him. Look for the hand poking out from under one of the tiles to see evidence of this pitiable ending....

Seen below is a damaged building that has become a fuel depot to serve whatever vehicles or generators located in Sector 7G...

Lastly, a WIP of my next double sized building that I'm still putting together. (I ran out of pieces.) You can see I have used one of those shoddy, flimsy GW "moonscape" craters to reinforce the bond between the sections of the base. It worked out really well out in this case so I'm now planning more of these using the rest of my packet of craters.

It's still slow going, but I feel like I'm getting the hobby winds behind my sail.

Chaos Marines Shaping Up

It's been a rather slow week for hobby activities, only getting time to assemble three sets of Citadel Woods. Terrain's important but still kind of blah and cleaning the mold lines has been frustratingly slow. I was able however to spend time with my recently unburied Chaos Marine codex to see how I might adapt my old collection for the current edition. Other than juggling some squad members around and consolidating one unit of Marines, there really wasn't all that much changing that needed to be done. I had thought that if anything the points value of the collection would decrease but in fact it seems to have gone up a bit, and that's after dropping a couple of weapon options and plenty of the old wargear gadgets. If I also included some newly found Khorne Berzerkers (pictured above) and their even older Rhino transport, in addition to changing my former custom Chaos Lord into a simple counts-as Abaddon, I discovered that the army can push well above the 2000 point mark rather easily. It may not be optimized for the current edition but it's at least useable with what I have at hand. And learning that I can play them at those bigger sized games came as a very unexpected but welcome surprise. Cool.

So it looks like I'll be able to turn this collection into a decent sized army without a whole lot of effort. Perfect! I've at last figured out what I'm going to paint as the chapter badge and I'm optimistic that it won't be too hard to pull off. I have decided to go with the Beasts of Annihilation despite my reservations about the name and noticed today in the chaos book that the info I sited from Lexicanum actually comes from this edition of the codex. There's even another two miniatures shown but neither of them give a glimpse of the official badge if there is one. No matter, I'm ready to move on without GW's sanction and go with my own design. It pokes some fun at the chapter's name which is why I'm now kind of glad they're going to be the Beasts. I'll show what I'm up to once I have an example painted.

Now here's where my plans are changing. I noticed after putting together these tentative army lists that if I just added a couple more tank transports then I could potentially field a 2500 point army. What? Seriously, where did this army come from? It helps that one of those tanks would be a Land Raider but that's still pretty exciting news for me. I've already got a couple of Rhinos sitting around for other projects that could easily provide one of the needed rides, and that was all it took to persuade me into expanding the army. I placed the order this afternoon for a new Land Raider. If I look hard enough I might even be able to find some Forge World chaos land raider pieces that I have hidden somewhere to go with it. Obviously that would be sweet. I'll have to look into that.

I've got some touch-up work to do on the army in addition to painting the necessary chapter badges to make them look presentable. I'm going to tone down some of the brighter greens and reds and at last tidy up the last few dudes. Once I get the Rhino and Land Raider finished I will have a completely painted 2500 point force, and one that is legit and useable with the current set of rules. How's that for an army I had essentially given up on years ago? I dig it. I'm looking forward to getting all this taken care of and trying it out on the table this summer. Should be fun, I think. In case anyone is interested, below is the army list I've drawn up staying within the constraints of my existing collection, but with the addition of those previously noted tanks.

HQ

counts-as Abaddon (275)

Elites

8 Possessed Chaos Marines (208)

Chaos Dreadnought: twin-linked autocannon and heavy flamer (115)

Chaos Dreadnought: plasma cannon (105)

Troops

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, meltagun, flamer, aspiring champion w/ powerfist, Rhino w/ extra armour (265)

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, plasma gun, missile launcher, aspiring chammpion w/ power weapon, Rhino w/ havoc launcher (265)

10 Chaos Marines: Icon of Chaos Glory, plasma gun, lascannon, aspiring champion, Rhino (245)

8 Khorne Berzerkers: personal icon, plasma pistol, Skull Champion, Rhino (238)

8 Summoned Lesser Daemons (104)

5 Summoned Lesser Daemons (65)

5 Summoned Lesser Daemons (65)

5 Summoned Lesser Daemons (65)

Fast Attack

Chaos Spawn (40)

Heavy Support

3 Obliterators (225)

Chaos Land Raider (220)

Total Points: 2500

I've also got a few other partially painted HQ options for this army that I never finished, so if I get around to it I could potentially have even more flexibility with this army. Why again did I stop playing this army? I foresee good times ahead.

Let the galaxy burn and such. Rah, rah, rah.

Opera, Chaos, etc.

I hope everyone's had a great Memorial Day and made it through the holiday safely enough. My wife and I became ill Sunday night and so spent most of the day feeling sick and pukey. Fortunately we've recovered quickly as we have tickets for the opera today. Yeah... for real. It's a performance of Flora which was the first opera staged in the colonies back in the year 1736. That original performance was in the very same Dock Street Theater in which it will be presented this afternoon in downtown Charleston. This is the first show for the theater after undergoing a three year, $18 million renovation and is supposed to be the highlight of this years Spoleto Festival. I've never been to an opera before but I'm optimistic that I will at least not have to change any diapers for a few hours.

Jumping forward to the 41st millennium, I've been thinking more about my old Chaos Marines and have decided to not redo any of the painting on the army, thus eliminating my ideas of turning them into either Word Bearers or Red Corsairs. As b.smoove pointed out with regards to repainting the armor's piping, it's quite likely that I would become bogged down in that type of detailed work. I like the simpler approach of only having to paint a chapter icon onto each guy and then being done. So the search for the right Renegade Chapter has begun.

When I was originally collecting this army I had planned on making them a DIY chapter called the Crimson Ghosts, and upon returning to them I first thought about going through with that theme. After some time spent practicing the design I realized that painting all those little skull faces like the one below would again be more of an undertaking than I am willing to accept. Plus ten years after initially starting this army I find myself listening to The Misfits with much less frequency than I used to, nor have I ever really fancied having Chaos Lord G. Danzig as my army's general. So, moving on then....

Unsure of where else to turn and bereft of ideas, I began searching through lists of named marine chapters at Lexicanum and came across these guys, the Beasts of Annihilation. There's not a whole lot in the summary about them but it says that their colors are "Blood red with Gold trim" and that their specialty is "Daemonic Possession." Okay, that looks promising. The name strikes me as rather dumb in that special, fourteen-year-old-metal-head sort of way embraced by Games Workshop, but otherwise things look good so far for these guys as my prime contender. I think I could live with my army having a goofy name as there is just too much history in 40k of terribly bad names to let this one detail stop me, right? Apologies to anyone already running their army as BOA or who thought the name sounded badass, by the way, I mean no offense.

The picture above is supposed to illustrate a Beasts of Annihilation Chaos Lord, though unfortunately the chapter symbol can barely be glimpsed. The red appears significantly brighter than that which I painted onto my own Chaos Marines, but I don't think that is too much of problem... just look at how many different shades of Blood Angels there are running around. Considering how minor of a role the Beasts have in the 40k universe, I think armor a few shades darker would be okay. Therefore assuming some latitude in the colors, I think the remaining portion of their background seems appropriate as the entry states that:

"The Beasts of Annihilation is a Chaos Space Marine warband. These warriors are devout followers of the Dark Gods and frequently allow creatures of the warp to inhabit their bodies. As such the Beasts of Annihilation field an unusually large number of Possessed squads."

All of it sounds pretty cool to me and, perhaps more importantly, like something I can apply to the collection that I already have at hand. The description of this warband reminds me of the Word Bearers upon whom my army's style of play was based in the previous edition of their codex. I have enough chaos icons for each of my squads and more than twenty lesser daemons which I believe would do an adequate job of demonstrating their devotion to the Ruinous Powers. And even though I have only one squad of Possessed marines, that should at least satisfy the minimum needed to be true to the background. So barring some pending flash of genius in the next couple of days, I believe I will be the proud commander of a Beasts of Annihilation warband in the near future.

As for the chapter badge, as far as I can tell there's practically nothing to go on officially so I've got pretty much free reign in choosing a design. I have a few ideas but right now I don't know what I want to do. I'd especially love to hear any suggestions anyone might have, otherwise I'm going to mess around a bit and see if anything looks good (i.e., easy) for me to paint onto my marines. Currently I'm considering either coming up with some sort of stylized monster face to use as their symbol, or else giving each guy a unique set of mystical or alchemical symbols and just not having a common chapter marking. I'm worried the latter might make the army look too disunited but it would nonetheless be good freehand practice at least.

Okay, so that's where I'm at with the Chaos army. Time for me to get ready for the opera... wish me luck!

Flashbacks and Nightmares: Plaguebearers

While messing around with my Chaos Marines yesterday I took some extra pictures of my unit of Plaguebearers that I painted probably about seven years ago. I'm not sure exactly when these miniatures came out but it seems like it has been a long time now and I think they've stood the test of time nicely. This group of ten daemons is still one of my favorite units that I've ever painted and they always make me smile. Also, since the models are basically just a blob of gross on legs and a sword, I remember them being super easy to paint as well. There's no denying it, Nurgle is fun.

I painted these Plaguebearers having been inspired by two of my med school classes, anatomy lab and pathology, and wanted them to resemble the cadavers from class rather than going for the more classic, sort of fantastic style of daemons. It might be macabre but I thought this would be an appropriate way to differentiate my monsters somewhat and still represent the Nurgle aesthetic. I started by painting them like tanned skin and then proceeded to bruise and disease the hell out of them with numerous washes and glazes. One of my goals was to avoid the wet, slimy look and instead intended them to have more of a putrefying flesh vibe going on. I wanted this to be true even for the areas of exposed organs which I tried to make look like rotten fatty tissue streaked with a some blood and pus but without going overboard on this.

The challenge therefore was to use the thinned pigments, maybe even some inks but on that my memory is hazy, without letting too much shine build up. I am happy with the results and I feel like these guys do a good job conveying the cadaverous plague-corpse look that I had envisioned. Green is my favorite color to paint so I was also glad that there were a few nurglings scattered around to get my hue of preference involved. Per my usual style of photography, all these pictures turned out rather dark and shadowy so it's hard to make out the loathsome runts. I just wanted to note them as they were also one of my favorite elements of these miniatures to paint and are really characterful and quite expressive.

It's been fun taking another look at these guys and remembering all the vile times I've had with them over the years. These little abominations have been a staple of my Chaos Marine armies ever since I finished painting them and have been as satisfying to use in games as they were to paint. So thank you for indulging me once again in another trip down Psychosis Lane. Ciao!

(These are the seven I would normally use when feeling fluffy, or when short on points....)

Updating my Old Chaos Army

Inspired by Da Masta Cheef's recent post at Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop, I decided to dig out my old Chaos Space Marines and see what was there. I'm interested in seeing if I can revise them for the current edition of the codex and if possible have some fun with them again. I left this army on unpleasant terms so it would be cool to generate some positivity around them for old time's sake.

I collected this army from around 2000 until the summer of 2004 and it was my standard force for games of 40k until the release of the current edition of the Chaos Marine codex. I never really got around to finishing them, having last painted something for this army at approximately 3:00am the night before the '04 Atlanta Grand Tournament. I had a lot of fun with this bunch but couldn't get motivated enough to wrap things up. Plus I could never settle on what to paint for their chapter badge so I just learned to live with them being mistaken for World Eaters or Word Bearers. Without ever really meaning to my color scheme sort of became a mix of both so I certainly understood the confusion, especially as I didn't do anything to distinguish them visually. So for years now they've been hanging out, just some group of Red Chaos Marines who for whatever reason liked to wage war in particular against Necrons, Ultramarines, and 'Nids.

There were also some painting problems, too. After finishing probably 15 or so figures with GW paints I switched to Vallejo without doing a very good job of matching the primary shade of red. I didn't care enough to go back and repaint the original guys so that the army doesn't have a completely consistent appearance. The other big frustration was when I turned a finished squad almost entirely white due to me trying to defy the Washington, DC humidity with spray matte sealer. I did go back and try to touch them up but I was never able to get them looking right again. Lastly there is a squad of 10 Chaos Marines with bolt pistols and close combat weapons that only need to have some little mistakes cleaned up here and there and they would be done. This has not been done in the last six years due to a lack of interest and laziness. And that is basically where I left this army and haven't painted anything for it since then.

At this point I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with these guys. Is there enough here to make it worth the time required to truly update them for the new codex? Would I rather just spend the time working on something new?

I don't know how much more I'm willing to work on this army, though I think at a minimum I would like to finally give them chapter badges. That means I need to pick out which Chapter they're from, and that's where I would always get stuck in the past. If I'm willing to invest the time into this project I could paint some random panels on their armor black and make them into Red Corsairs. I like their background and I definitely dig the Huron Blackheart model. The quickest alternative would be to just make up an easy symbol to paint and come up with a name based on it, but that doesn't particularly appeal to me. I could also redo the banding on the power armor to silver and make them true Word Bearers. I like summoned daemons but the fact that the whole range of daemons all play the same still bugs me. So those are the three main directions I'm considering taking this collection.

You can see in the pictures the various units I had collected for this army. Right now I don't anticipate wanting to build and paint anything new for them, however. I don't have big aspirations for the gaming side of things with this rabble as I know I'm not willing to adapt it entirely for playing in 5th edition as that seems like it would be more work than I'm looking to do. I just think it would be nice to have these dudes available to goof around a bit and maybe even kill some good guys.

So I think this could be an enjoyable side project for me and one that I should hopefully be able to finish quickly. That might be asking too much, but we'll see.