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. :(

The Kegox Dragon: Part one.

This is the first part of a 'Work in Progress' blog update. I don't usually do these sort of blog updates, but I have'nt been able to finsh this project in the time I thought and it's a slightly bigger 'one off' project to undertake.

Leafing through the old Citadel Compendiums and Journals years ago there were always several miniatures I always wanted, but for some reason at the time, or since, I never did quite hold of. One of those was the Kegox Dragon. Now I'm not a fan of two-headed monsters, but I always liked Kegox for some reason. I always imagined his two heads chatting or arguing with each other as they both seemed to have different personalities. One angry and roaring, the other more considered and thoughtful. However, I never owned a Kegox until a few months ago when I chanced across an e-bay auction, watched it, and then was sent one of those 'sellers offers'. So I bought him for £110.

When he arrived he was in a dire need of a paint-strip and re-assembly , both of which he received, but then sat on a shelf for a few months awaiting attention. In this time I had considered what to do with him. He needed a big base, so I selected a Citadel 170x105mm Oval Base, but just placing him on a flat base seemed a bit dull. The old 1980's White Dwarf Magazines and the Fantasy Miniatures books had many examples of Kegox on fancy rocky bases, and so that was the way in which I went.

The idea I settled on was based on a little bit of whimsy. I live in East Sussex, the City of Brighton and Hove, on the edge of the South Downs, and I have always pictured some of the many fantasy creatures and monsters stalking through the peaceful Sussex countryside. So with that in mind I decided to place Kegox on a chalk downland base, with the idea of him desending down from the Downs to a roadway to cause havoc to the good people of Sussex. It would certianly make for an interesting local traffic report! And anyway, it can be explained away by some sort of magical rift between worlds or realities, a suprisingly frequent occurrance in this part of the work!

Enjoy :)

 The Kegox Box.

 Advertisment in the Third Citadel Compendium (1985).

Building the foundations of the Downs, as it happens with flint from the South Downs. 

 Adding more stones and lots of Milliput. I also sculpted a stone verge for the road edge. 

 Placing Kegox to get the correct pose.
I wanted him to be leaning out across the road roaring at the traffic.
Stupidly I never took any photographs of assembling Kegox

Adding more filling with Milliput.

 WIP painting.
I decided on a mixed colour scheme of a mainly green body, red underside, and blue legs. I will blend these together, and add some yellow blending.
I painted the chalk rocks from a base coat of grey up to white, with a brow-green wash, adding the brown colours for the soil. For the grass I have so far used a basic coating of flock, but more tufts and flowers will be added.

The WIP from the right hand side.
I had fun painting the road and double yellow lines. I may add a scratch built mangled 'Welcome to Brighton and Hove' road sign as well.

Next update should be the completed Kegox.

Dwarf Catapult (well, sort of!).

So what do you do if you require a Dwarf Catapult, and yet you don't have one, nor the inclination to swap a kidney for a another Gob-lobber on e-bay?

Well you scratch build one!

But scratch building can be challenging, with all those beams and pulleys and ropes and thingy ma doodles. Not to mention counter-weights and the flingy arm thingy. All very tricky for a Goblin like me you see.

So I hit upon the idea of a group of Dwarfs arriving at that this there same problem. Why not have a small diorama of Dwarfs at the planning/pre-construction stage of building the Catapult, but use it as a stand-in 'working diorama'?  And so that is what I have done.

For the Catapult itself, all in pieces, I piled a number of matchsticks on top on one another, to give the impression of a pile of lumber. I added two spare wheels of from an old Empire/Dwarf Cannon to stop it looking like a pre-lit bonfire.

I then chose the miniatures to represent a typical crew of three Dwarfs for the '3-man Catapult. For the Dwarf reading the assembly instructions I chose the D4 range Dwarf Bidur, who was probably originally meant to be a map reader. His less than helpful helper is a crewman from the Imperial Dwarf Bolt Thrower crew, although I converted him to hold a matchstick plank by re-postioning his left hand 180 degrees.
For the final crewman I chose a the limited release 'Jolly Jape' Dwarf. He looked suitably confused and so suited the situation, and I was never going to use him for anything else. To add to his help (or woes!?), I added a spare Snotling Sawmaster from the Limited addition LE25 Dwarf with Inferiority Complex set.
All this maddness was placed on an old Citadel Monster base, and ta-da, a Dwarf Trebuchet, of sorts, but full of 'Oldhammer character'.

Enjoy:)

The 3-man Dwarf Catapult.

From the side.
The pile of clothes and armour are part of the'Jolly Jape' set, and I thought it gave the impression of the Dwarf' rolling up his sleeves' and 'getting down to work'.

Confused with the task in hand.

"Where does this bit go?"

"Well where does one start with this?"
Although not clear from the photograph, I tried to suggest that the plans held by Bidur were from IKEA.

No idea again what the next update will be on.  I have a mind to paint some Goblins, and also some Squats.

Misumena vatia Tyranids

A bit of a random update on some random painting...

I was gardening the other day, not my natural forte I might add, when I saw a lovely and odd looking spidery thing on a white lily bush. Now my first thought was 'that looks like a tiny Tyranid!', how cute.
As it turns out, it was a something named a Crab Spider, common in Southern England, with the Latin name Misumena vatia. I did take a photograph on it, but I seem to have accidently deleted it when I whilst I was having computer trouble. However, there is a picture of the Spider at the bottom of this blog update, not of course at the top, just in case people are adverse to Spiders. I'm not a great fan of them, I was bitten by a False Widow a couple of years ago, and was very ill. The False Widows pop up in the garden now and again, so I kill them on sight!

All this spidery nonsense got me thinking about Rogue Trder era Tyranids. I had painted mine a long, long time ago in the classic blue/purple Genestealer colours (with green Zoats), but had paint stripped them ready for a repaint which never came. So as an aside I tried out a paint scheme based on the spider on a few test models.

The painting was simple. Black undercoat, based coat of Vallejo Stone Grey, highlight of white, a very very very thin wash of Vallejo Lemon Yellow, and then a final white light highlight. The Genestealer Magus received a very very very thin wash of Citadel Xereus Purple twice. The Zoat and Hunter-Slayer guns/equipment are a thined Vallejo German Field Grey. I gloss varnished the Screamer-Killers/Carnifexes to give a shiny carapace look, matt varnish to the other to avoid that same look.

They were fun to paint, and I am happy with how they look. They are test models, and I don't intend painting the army anytime soon. I have another project I wish to do.

Enjoy :)

 Genestealer Hyrid Magus.
I love this miniature, great detail, and full of menace.

Rear view.

Screamer-Killers/Carnifexes!
I mounted these on 50mm round bases to look a lot better. I find it's always odd to consider that many of the larger old Rogue Trader miniatures were confined to 40mm square bases at the time.
It was these miniatures which sprang to mind when I was looking at the spider.

I was never a great fan of these miniatures, nor the paint scheme they were released in. However with a little re-posing of the body and arms, and a different paint scheme I think they look a lot more terrifying.

The other one.

Rear view.
Probably the best view from which to shoot at it!

 Zoat.
I like the old Zoats, and I have about a dozen 40k ones. I think they look a lot better on the Citadel Oval 60x35mm bases.

 Hunter-Slayer.

 Misumena vatia, the Crab Spider.

The next update will be on the little Dwarf diarama which I am finishing this evening. The after that I am going to tackle a 40k Squat project.