Limited released Chaos Dwarf Axemen and others.

I've been busy painting, but also very busy at work, so a bit of a hurried blog update.

I am really enjoying painting the 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Big Hat Chaos Dwarfs. The industrial wasteland look is quick and fun to paint, and I think it gives my army a different feel to other Chaos Dwarf armies, not that I am decrying the other armies out there! The rusty look, combined with the pallid green flesh and darker red clothing gives them an evil aspect. I like the idea of them being the despoilers of a 'green and pleasant land' with the 'dark satanic mills of Blake's imagination, and with the attitude of the blue Meanies from the Yellow Submarine!

Anyway, this update is primarily about the three Chaos Dwarf Axemen sculpted around 1995 for Warhammer Quest. These were not part of the first few releases of Chaos Dwarfs, but received a limited release a little later on.

The miniatures themselves are all variants on a one standard sculpt, the main differences being the axes, hats, and the length of the armour. The sculpts are a little smaller than the other Chaos Dwarf sculpts of the same era. As they are rarer miniatures, and I purchased them from e-bay, I was concerned that this was a sign they were re-casts. However, upon a little more research it seems that they were actually slightly smaller sculpts. I'm not sure why, and I am unsure if they were sculpted by someone else other than Alan Perry, who sculpted the main Chaos Dwarf range. To compensate for this I raised them on the base a little to bring them more to eye level with the other Chaos Dwarfs. The painting followed the standard template as the others.

I have also painted a lot of Blunderbuss Chaos Dwarfs, and started other elements of the army. I haven't had the time to showcase the Blunderbussers, but will do in an oncoming update. They were fun (indeed a blast!) to paint, and the bases were enjoyable to do, being full of cogs, skulls, and industrial detritus.

Enjoy :)

The three Axemen.

Flat hatted Chaos Dwarf.

Rear view.

The 'Turban' Hatted Chaos Dwarf.
I am not sure if 'Turban' is really the best description of this style of hat. As I live in Brighton and Hove they always remind me of the Domes of the Royal Pavilion.

Rear view.

The other Flat-hatted Chaos Dwarf.
I thought he would benefit from a little bit of extra colour and so I painted a simple alternate patterning.

Rear view.

Bull Centaur.
I love these miniatures, and still need to pick up a couple more of the variants. The green seems to work well on the Bull Centaurs body.

Left side.
I like the slightly bigger basses as I allows me to add bigger pieces of debris and skulls, in this case the Plague Bearer skull and the large spring (see above). 

Scale comparison of the limited release Chaos Dwarfs with a metal Axeman on the left, plastic on the right.

Blunderbussers!
I will photograph these properly at a later date. I had fun doing the bases, which took almost as long as the Dwarfs themselves! It's quite pleasing to be able to paint these so quickly, especially when i have a lot of other comments on my time at the moment.

WIP Fan Sculpt 'Ass-Cannon'.

Next update will be more Big Hatted little Guys! :)

Middlehammer: 'Big hat' 4th edition Chaos Dwarf test miniatures.

 Yes yes yes,  I know I should really be continuing with painting the Daemon Legions, which is a fantastic project. However, yet again I have had a busy month and not had time to do any real painting. Indeed, I have had to dismantle my painting table in order to remove carpets and attend to a leaky radiator! None of these shenanigans, and working, has left any time for serious painting.

Instead, I have only painted a few test miniatures for my 4th Edition Chaos Dwarf army, painting them whilst sitting on a bed and using a couple of plastic boxes as an impromptu painting table! I never really got on with 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. After 2nd and 3rd Editions it seemed such a let down. I was further put ill at ease with the dominance of the so-called 'Red Period' of Citadel Miniatures, both with the painting and sculpting, and so drifted away from Games Workshop for most of the 1990's.

I did however buy a few of the Hobgoblins which I always liked, but I never liked the 'big hatted' Chaos Dwarfs at the time. Over 20 passed and I decided to reappraise my view of the Chaos Dwarfs, and to my surprise I really liked them! I picked a few off of e-bay and, which as is often the case, this led me to collecting an army of them, well over 100+ including Hobgoblins, monsters, and artillery.

I really would like to paint these, but I have never settled on a paint scheme. The old 1990's red scheme is actually quite nice in it's own way, but after a test model or two I found it to be a real faff to do. To paint them in that style would take a lot of time away from all the boxes of other stuff I have to do, and I also wasn't too struck on them en-masse as an army. The paint scheme seemed 'too busy'. I tried a couple of other schemes, but It was only until the other day I considered the rusty look. I like the idea of the Chaos Dwarfs living in some fantasy version of a polluted industrial wasteland, and so have gone for the grimy grim look, using Citadel's Technical paints. I picked up the idea of adding old watch parts to the bases from the Nergling blog ( http://nergling.blogspot.com/search/label/minis ) .

Enjoy :)

Three Chaos Dwarfs.
I used Citadel's Typhus Corrosion over a black undercoat, with Ryza Rust. I have kept the palette quite small and simple to avoid looking too busy.  
I also chose a pallid green look for the skin, to make them look less healthy. I will vary some of the colours and tones as I go on. I also might need to highlight the beards a little more.
A controversial topic, but I prefer them on the 25mm round bases rather than the smaller 20mm square.

Blunderbuss.

I have kept the watch parts on the bases to a minimum to avoid clutter, and also so that I can paint the dark bases with dashes of bright colours to suggest chemical pollutants.

The left side.

I want to keep the red clothing to add a bit of colour and contrast, otherwise them might look too dark and amorphous when in regiments on the table.

Another Blunderbuss armed Chaos Dwarf.

Rear view.

Chaos Dwarf Axeman.
This is one of the mono pose plastic Chaos Dwarfs. He is actually quite full of character for a mono pose miniature. He requires a shield.

Rear view.

Next blog update might be the Daemons or the Chaos Dwarfs. I might even paint up something Christmassy!

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'.