Flesh Hounds of Khorne, Bloodletters, and a few WIP.

I've made a start on painting the Daemon Legions, starting with Khorne as didn't want to keep him waiting in case he got angry (not a problem as Slaanesh enjoys the antici..*)  .

The first thing I decided on was that each of the three Daemon Legions of Khorne are to have their own theme and colour scheme. I thought this might be more fun than having a sea of samey looking red Daemons. However, I decided on the larger of the Legions to have the archetypal Khornate red look to give the force as a whole a good Khornate looking core.

The second Legion, the smallest containing the Bloodletters riding Juggernauts, is to be 'fire and brass' themed, so the main colour is to be brass/gold, with brighter fiery colours added. I thought that this suited the heavy metal feel of the Juggernauts as well.

The third and final Legion, the one with the Flesh Hounds, I opted for a mixed colour scheme based on green and red. I didn't have a truly clear idea of what I wanted to achieve, so I thought I would experiment a little and see what happened.

I'm happy with the result, the Flesh Hounds have a weird magical look to them, still Khornate looking, but also in my opinion a little more general 'daemonic realms' looking. I have applied the idea to a test model Bloodletter, and the Legions Bloodthirster as well. It's a simple technique: black undercoat, then dry brush dab the colours on, starting with Citadel's Warpstone Glow, then Evil Sunz Scarlet, Troll Slayer Orange, and finally Yriel Yellow. The black under coat mutes the complementary green and red colours, allowing the later orange and yellow applications to look brighter.
The teeth were painted yellow, and the tongues dark purple with lighter purple. The collars were painted gold.

Enjoy :)

 

Eight Flesh Hounds of Khorne.
The Flesh Hound models are made up of three parts; the hindquarters; forequarters; and head. I have listed which of these I have used for the particular Flesh Hounds, although it was a little difficult to identify which head was which from the catalogue page (listed at the end of this blog entry) so I might have made an error!
They are lovely sculpted miniatures, quite dynamic and menacing, and quite large in comparison to Chaos Hounds and other warhounds.

Hindquarters 1, forequarters 1, and head 7.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 1, forequarters 3, and head 2.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 1, forequarters 1, and head 5.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 2, forequarters 2, and head 7.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 1, forequarters 1, and head 2.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 2, forequarters 1, and head 4.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 1, forequarters 2, and head 1.

Right side view.

Hindquarters 2, forequarters 1, and head 7.

Right side view.

Test model Bloodletter in the same style and techne as the Flesh Hounds.

Bloodthirsters WIP.
On the left one of the is the Bloodthirster for the 'Fire and Brass' legion, whilst the one on the right is for the Multi-coloured legion.

Brass and fire Bloodletters.

WIP standard red Bloodletters and Bloothirster.

The Flesh Hound catalogue page.

Next update will be more Daemons.

*(...pation).

The Slaves to Darkness Daemon Legions.

 In a way, it's been another chaotic month with one thing and another, but also it's been a Chaotic month as well! Due to various family and work commitments, and some (non Covid!) health problems, I have had little time to left to get any painting achieved.

So I have been sorting out my Slaves to Darkness Daemon Legions, with a view to having a particular painting project on which to focus. Of course saying that, with the 'Oldhammer' challenge of 'Orctober', when people are encouraged to paint Orcs (or even Orks) in October, I have been instantly distracted by something else! Anyway, sorry for the half-arsed update of unpainted lead, but they are worth a look, and when I get things sorted out a little more, will be a fine sight to behold.

In case you are unfamiliar with the the idea behind Daemon Legions in the Slaves to Darkness book (3rd Edition Warhammer era) , the idea is to field armies (Legions) of Daemons, plus allies and  auxiliaries. These battles are assumed to take place in the Chaos Wastes and are only fought between other Daemon Legions. Slaves to Darkness only covers Khorne and Slaanesh Legions, Tzeencth and Nurgle of course being covered in The Lost and the Damned.

As Slaves to Darkness was released first, and was the only Chaos volume for a while, I always consider the Khorne vs Slaaneshi confrontation to the archetypal pairing. So with that in mind I also always consider the two opposing forces to be a paired set, both being the flip side of one another and the greatest of adversaries.

In assembling the Legions I followed the guidance in the book. It suggests 5,000 points is a good starting point for a Legion, as Daemon armies are more expensive in points and unsuited for general Warhammer games. In addition, it also suggests that once you have assembled one Legion, why not organise your forces to fight with two, three or more Legions per side? As someone who never does things by halves (well, maybe this blog update, please see above!) I would consider it rude not to take up the challenge!

Given this I have organised the Daemons into three separate Legions per Chaos Power, giving six Daemon Legions in total, with the points breakdown of each Legion being approximately 1,800 points on Daemons; up to 1,650 points on auxiliaries (such as Undead, Independent Greater Daemons, and Chaos Monsters), and the remaining points on Chaos Legionaries and magical weapons. Each Legion will be led by one Greater Daemon, with others added for free as per the rules. In addition, to give the Legions a more coherent feel, I plan to give each Legion, including the Greater Daemon acting as its commander, their own paint scheme to unify them together.

Enjoy. :)

Slaves to Darkness.

The Daemon Legions entry.

The Daemon Legions of Khorne.
For both Chaos Powers I have gone with the idea of having 1,800 or so of Daemons, working out to two or three units per Legion, with the rest of the points being spent on Chaos Legionnaires and Auxiliaries. I also wanted to have one Legion as just ordinary Daemons, whilst the other two having other Daemonic troop choice instead.

Bloodletters mounted on Juggernauts.
These Daemons cost a cool 1,200 points before any additional Daemon Weapons! The ordinary Bloodletters cost 600 points per unit.

Five Bloodthirsters.
The rules for assembling Daemon Legions state that Great Daemons of that Chaos Power do not cost any points, but the number of Greater Daemons to be used (if any) are decided on before the battle, up to the sacred number of the Chaos Power. So I decided to have at least one for each Legion, and then add spares as I go. 

Daemon Legions of Slaanesh. 

Again I applied the same principles to the Slaaneshi Legions as I did with the Khorne ones.
I'm particularly pleased to have a full unit of Fiends of Slaanesh as they are difficult buy now. 

Keeper of Secrets, Great Daemons of Slaanesh.
I only have the four, but like the Khornate Daemons I shall add more as time goes on. 

Fiends of Slaanesh.

Daemonettes of Slaanesh riding Mounts of Slaanesh.
These are cheaper in points, 720 per unit, than the Bloodletters on Juggernauts, and only a little more expensive than the ordinary Daemonettes at 600 points. 

Chaos Legionnaires mounted on Mounts of Slaanesh.
These are part of the Legion proper and so do not count towards the Auxiliaries points allocation.

Independent Greater Daemons.

These can be purchased from the auxiliaries point allocation, and I am looking to field at least one per Legion.
The miniatures are all Citadel and right to left:
Back row: C31 Balgorg; C28 Giant Daemon (Arch Daemon) Amratha Mangorer; CM2 Fire Giant; and
front row: C34 Daemon; C34 Pit Fiend.

TA1 Golgoth, Lord of Balrogs.
He is to be used as another independent auxiliary Greater Daemon.
I do have several other Greater Daemons I can use, but they are requiring assembly/paint stripping too. I just wanted to include this one in the blog update because it's a lovely, and fairly large, old miniature.

Chaos Legionnaries on foot.
These are a mix of Khornate and Slaaneshi Chaos Warriors and will be sorted out into their respective Legions once the points values have been worked out.
The Snakeman in the corner is one of many spare ones I have, and I will probably be using Snakemen miniatures to fill the ranks of Slaanesh's Legions as they fit the Slaaneshi theme quite nicely.

Auxiliary Monsters of Chaos.
Here are a few of the monsters I amy be adding to the Legions, points allowing. There are two Jabberwocks, a Manticore, a Hippogriff, and a Cockatrice. I also have a variety of smaller Dragons, Gorgons, and Harpies, as well as Undead, I might add as well.

Chaos Centaurs, again part of the Auxiliary options.

Next blog update might be on the Chaos Legions, although I am looking at painting up something Orc-ish or Gobliny for 'Orctober'.

C29 Creeping Dragon.

Another Dragon, this time a little dinky one.

This is the Citadel C29 Range 'Creeping Dragon', also released as the 'Mountain Dragon' and the 'Cold Drake'. I'm not really sure why the Dragon went by three different, perhaps that's just the business of Dragons? Who knows?

What I do know is that this Dragon was sculpted by Nick Bibby in 1984, and was for sale until the 1990's. It a two-part miniature: body; and wings, and is solid based. I placed the Dragon on a Citadel 75mmx42mm oval base, and painted it in a green colour with an orange underbelly for no particular reason, blending pink-ish flesh tones around the mouth.

It's a lovely miniature, full of character and detail, such as the spines and the scales. The face is quite expressional, with a creeping look to it, perhaps giving rise to one of it's names!  It will probably end up in one of my 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy armies as a Level 1 Winged Dragon, causing low level monstrous mayhem and pyromania.
Enjoy :)

Creeping to the left...

...and creeping to the right.

Rear view showing the orange underside.

Size comparison to another of Nick Bibby's Dragons, Kegox.

Original 1980's advertisement.

My next update should contain some proper painting, but at the moment I am not finding the time, and when I do I am continually sorting out my collection into 3,000 point Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies. I'm sure I'll find something and post it for next month, and maybe even get back to two or three posts a month one day! :)

The Kegox Dragon: Part Two.

Part Two of the Kegox Dragon updates, and I have finished painting him! I have been really busy with a lot of other non-miniatures related things which have, quite frankly, got in the way of myself blogging and painting, although curiously not in the way of buying!

Finishing painting Kegox wasn't greatly interesting really, but it was good fun. Since the last blog update, I decided to mute the tone of the red I had been using for his underside as I thought it was too bright. I mixed a little dark brown to the red base and then progressively highlighted my way up to orange in places, keeping the depth of colour. I did a similar thing for the turquoise on the legs, redoing the base a little darker and then highlighting to a much lighter shade, this time to a white. 

Concerning the green main body, I gave the body a wash of the original green colour (Citadels 'Warpstone Glow') to dampen down the previous highlights. I then worked the highlighting up using Citadels 'Moot Green', and then progressive mixes of that and white. I chose to do a green/white mix because I wanted the final highlighting to be very white-ish, in a similar vein to some of the older 1980's styles of highlighting on some of the Dragons. This can be seen a little more clearly on the spines, especially on the neck.

In order to tie-in the turquoise of the legs to the green of the main body I lightly dry brushed some of the Moot Green over the turquoise to blend the two colours together. I did this after I had already highlighted the turquoise. In keeping with the Sussex theme, I think this worked out nicely as both colours have a suggestion of the sea. In a flight of whimsy, I think the the green body and turquoise both give the impression that this particular Kegox has emerged from the soul of Sussex, with the turquoise representing the sea, the green the rolling South Downs, and the red representing  poppies and other Downland flowers.

Anyway, enough South Downs rambling. I really liked painting Kegox, and enjoyed the 'Dragon terrorising Sussex' theme. I was going to add more to the base, broken road signs, bits of car, or traffic cones maybe? However, I decided to keep it simple, I didn't want to over clutter the base. I did opt for a mix of flock and grass and flower tufts, to give a more uneven wilder Downland look on the chalk.

Enjoy :)

I have been sorting through my collection of armies, and so my next blog update might be on my 'Big Hat' Chaos Dwarf army which I have been tinkering with, although I do have a lot of other things planned, but I never seem to get the time recently. :(