New 40k, New army

So why Chaos Squats? Well Chaos should be weird and who else is gonna hang out with Chaos Men of Iron? Squats that’s who!

I wont insult your intelligence. All I’ve done is head and back pack swap, swapped some weapon hands out.

What will they be? My Chaos Chosen.

But back to weird. Back in the day with slaves to darkness and lost and the damned, chaos was weird. It had a weird mishmash of units, deamons, marines, cultists and chaos squats rubbed shoulders and it was cool. Chaos warbands were eclectic strange groups that felt like they were gathered by a strong champion on their quest to power.

So thats why Chaos Squats.

So the next 1k and what they will be:

10 Chosen – Chaos Squats
1 Exalted champion – Chaos Squat, maybe converted from Hearthguard
1 Sorcerer – Chaos Squat, I think if im buying a box of Hearthguard for the champion, i may as well use that for the space wizard too.

1 Warpsmith – Chaos space marine, i think adding a marine who has chosen to follow the men of iron is thematic and again adds something to make them look chaotic….rather than a sea of black and gold.

1 Maulerfeind – Ive got one so its cheap, but also on theme for an army of machines

1 wardog executioner and stalker – I love the minis and i like the idea of knights swearing to a robot warband. Almost as if the machine spirits of the war machines have opinions…..

3 Flamers. Utility deep strike and effective overwatch, plus i want more daemons, just need to decide on a geometric shape for them.

This leaves me 90 points for something else, so a master of executions to go with my warlord and bodyguard. Yeah i know cultests would be better, but its an excuse to model something. I think it maybe something daemonic, like a summoned bodyguard or extreme mutant.

In the words of the Remones. Hey ho let’s go. I want to go to 2k….or worse, do knights.

All I know right now is want to add 2 war dogs.

I like me a stompy robot so let’s add some. I think I want a stalker after this. Just because it means I can add more close combat assets.

Also the other given is some more daemons. Probably flamers cause they work well with deep striking horrors.

So 1k. Not a great photo. But finished.

Now to decide on if I’m going to 2k or not. If I do it will have:

Geometric lord of change

2 mor armigers

Because cool conversions are cool. 🙂

So armiger done and that’s 1k.

It’s a simple conversion. Just upended the body and added some guitar wire.

I like the cyclops look to it a lot.

Right need a group photo and decide if I’m going to 2k.

So the blue horrors are done. I thinknthey look right. The flesh bursting out like a grim ice cream sandwich works and I enjoyed putting little paintings on some of them(I like the bird a lot).

I also did the change caster. Bigger with more geometry. It has encouraged me to do a lord of change as a mass of floating geometry. So I’m doing a 2k army then…..

Just waitingnon my armigers from goblin gaming now then 1k done.

So geometric patterns that are warp reactions to programs and human sacrifice as ritual.

Its foamboard. I then used neddles pushed into the shapes to give them thrir gloatiness.

Sprayed with white acrylic. The propellant partially melts the foam giving texture. DO IT OUTSIDE!

Then I used a mixture of cracle and texture paint to add corruption. After all chaos cannot replicate proper ordered geometric shapes.

Over this I used the same mix of paint as the mortal types. However pushing the browns harder to give a difference.

Next up their bigger buddies.

So now i have all the parts for the army, although some are not assembled, i have decided on a final 1k list.

I think building armies based on what you like the look of is cool I think for me the building and painting part of it is the important part. Now we have points values an proper rules its worth actually worth building the army for use.

Warlord. Warpsmith – mark of Slannesh, Warlord.

Legionaries – Mark of Slannesh
Champion – bolt pistol, close combat weapon, Heavy melee weapon
4 Legionaries – 2 chain swords, 4 bolt pistols, 4 close combat weapons, 1 heavy melee weapon, reaper chain cannon, chaos icon.

Chaos Bikers
Champion – Chaos icon, close combat weaponm Combi bolter, power fist.
2 Bikers – 2 chain swords, 2 close combat weapons, 2 combi bolters, 2 melta guns

Hellbrute – Slannesh
1 close combat weapon, Multi Melta, Power Scourge

Hellbrute – Undivided
Close combat weapon, Twin Las-cannon, Power Scourge

Noise Marines – Slannesh
Champion – chaos icon, close combat weapon, doom siren, powerfist, sonic blaster
4 Noise marines – 4 bolt pistols, 3 close combat weapons, Blast master, 3 sonic blasters

Blue Horrors
10 Blur horrors

Change caster

War dog Huntsman

Working on not so blue horrors and brimstone horrors.

So needed a boss, and the Kataphron kit seemed to fit the bill. Its a blend of the rust stalker and Kataphron kits.

Ive only used plastic in it, as i felt that using guitar wire tendrils would loose some of the blocky weight. I wanted it to feel heavy, blocky and with an industrial shape at odds with the the nature of chaos.

Also it was important to not make it bipedal or human looking. This is a centuries old thinking machine that uses algorithms to invoke chaos into its code and the code of other machines. It needed to be inhuman.

So whats left? weird monoliths and a chaos wardog, then done.

So the App came out didn’t it? so i had a bit of a fiddle with it realising i needed some sit on an objective and shoot infantry so i added a squad of noise marines…kinda.

So its the same paint scheme, so i wont write it out again.

What are the made of? Delaque bodies with Rust Stalker parts. As sonic blasters i used the flat ended blades, i imagine they are swinging them creating sonic shock waves. The heavier weapons are taser goads.

I think its time i admit that this army is apparently just prawns…..

So new Hellbrute. I’m really pleased with the organics inside it. Rather than it being a brain, i imagine its some unfortunate that the man of iron has nommed to replenish its battery or something equally weird.

Same paint job, same old oils. HOWEVER i want to give a shout out the GW crackle paint. I used AK stuff on this base…..and the GW stuff is so much better…..Who knew?

Anyway, enjoy! Next week maybe i do the horrors, although I may look at the points that got released to day and build a proper list.

So i got a Golden Button. I saw it Sunday when i got back from crewing Empire LRP (3k people in a field).

So one of the things that came up in the video was what paint im using….

Its oil paints. How do i do it? Here we go.

Base coat with random white spray paint. Seriously, its whatever i have. Yeah i know….

Once thats down, its a coat of black oil paint. leave it, wipe it off. Thats the whites done. No really. To be fair theres more than that.

Once ive wiped it down i use a couple of umber oils paints thinned with mineral spirits. and push them around on the white sections to give some tonal depth and warmth.

Next up the pink sections. Those are just layers of red, pink and flesh tone oils built up on the mini. Then using mineral spirits to paint in swirls and lines to give a bit of texture to the paint.

The lights are just red, orange, yellow and flesh oil paints.

Its not acrylics 🙂

So this is the basis for the next Hellbrute. Its going to be a fist and power scourge brute. Im using the Necromunda floaty fish dude for it. Have i started making a prawn and octopi army?……

Ive drilled it out to fit guitar and bass strings (As a basist, bass is different!) and glued them in. This weekend i intend to get it done. I have however got end of year reports to write, i want to paint a canvas and spend some time with my amazing partner….so it may just get the whites done.

I’ll be up front. In the write up on the golden button Blanche’s name popped up.

Not going to lie, I’ll take the name any where near me. But not for the reasons you would think.

As a kid, his and Ian Millars art got me into art. Their art defined my career as an art teacher, gave me my love of art. Chatting to my partner tonight she said that when i talk about art i have so much passion. They gave me that.

Also as a *mumble 47 mumble* year old, John has been incredibly kind and been really supportive of my art. Which has massively changed my output and shoved me to try to make art my main income…..As an artist hearing positives about your work spurs you on. Its why websites like this matter.

Its hard to say which piece of his work I love the most.

Amazonia Gothique change cover art forever. I use it in lessons when talking about feminist art.

The Sentinel. if you look at my sketch books, sub concisely that has stuck in. so many sketches of lone figures watching over a land scape.

Or the flying ships that my teen brain adored.

The pic i’ve stuck at the top is however the painting my friend Ian bought a print of for me because ‘It looks like your upside down head John’. Thankfully i have always adored it.

Another one done, you know the drill so i wont describe in details of how its done. Still needs black rim the base.

So they are on paper chaos space marines…..they really arnt, i think they are humans chopped up and used for parts for to create a body guard for the general.

Parts wise its Delaque gang members, no arms and guitar wire cut and glued in.

The heads and other parts are bits that looked cool in the ironstrider kit, cut up and glued in where they looked right.

The paint scheme is the same, but the amount of whites and pinks flipped to stand out more. It also means when i do the the general i can use more white so they stand out more in amoung their body guard.

What are the weapons? well on paper its chain swords and bolt pistols. I imagine the things have heat ray vision to cover bolt pistols. The gun armed one is either a heavy close combat weapon, special weapon or heavy weapon. I have no idea yet…i think this is very much a project of make cool things and make them fit in.

The same is, although i have decided to stay inside the GW mini ecosystem, i imagine thease models (with the correct sized bases) are too converted for playing at compertition.

I have also noticed the army list keeps changing in my head as i come up with cool ideas.

This was, obviously, an Iron strider kit put on the correct sized base.

I’ve taken the servitor off, putting guitar wire tentacles in its place. using the sensor pack grabby hands to give the look of a prawn….the most sinister of seafoods. I’ve mounted the Las cannon on the back, using the sensor blister as a turret.

Ive used the same paint scheme.

I think it gives a look of something inhuman and mechanical, yet also strangely possessed by something hideious.

Second one. i really think the washed out oil look lends it a sinister look, even if its bordering on barbie pink. Margot Robbie would be proud

So pleased with the first test peice.

Recipe first.

White spray paint base coat.

Followed by:

White areas – black up through brown oil washes.
Red areas – Dark red, through magenta and flesh oil washes
Lights – red through orange to white oils

Base is cracked gw tech paint with black through browns oil washes, allowing the black oil washes from the main mini to drip down and pool around the feet.

So yes im really please with this. It has a ‘painting feel’ and the #28 feel without going too dark. Also i actively chose not to contrast the base. Why? you ask dear reader? well that’s because it makes the lights and reds pop more and gives a more desolate dusty feel. I will not be flocking it 🙂

Also yeah only a 1k army cause im going to cry doing 2k  only another 40+ minis to do……

Guitar wires turned up, things made.

Simple tutorial. Make holes, put guitar wire in, glue.

What you do need to watch for is the wire will get hard sharp bends if you just bend it, so you really need to wrap it round a curve if you want a gentle curve.

So kicking around the design for the Daemons, ultimately i want the mortal element to look grungy and grim dark and i want the Daemons to contrast that. White glossy monoliths that are strange and clean, like the imaterium has spawned geometric tupla.

If i try and make the army as mechanical as possible, as if someone sees perfection in the machine, the daemons become reflections of that attempted perfection….aw crap im doing dark mechanicum arnt i?

I guess im revisiting the army list to get more ‘machines’ in. I think also i need to look at less marines and more ‘machine people’ using marine profiles.

Narratively that makes the new dark pact special rule play out as supercharging the daemon engines in them. That feels kinda cool? Shame that at the moment there is no way of bringing in chaos knight units, as a wardog would make a cool centre peice.

So while i wait for the bits i need, here’s a mock up of the bikers. The cowled one is the leader and the wires will flow back like a lions main, the others will either have the same or like the pictured image, the cables aimed forward in attack.

I still need to think of something to represent a chaos icon.

I will now sit like a bronte hero staring out the window waiting for the post drinking laudanum and composing poems about grey plastic.