Dark Angel Tactical Squad

I have been slowly painting up the Dark Angels part of the Dark Vengance box, plus a few other models, over the last few years. I have finally got round to painting the tactical squad, and I really wish I'd done this sooner! Although I painted them to a basic standard, seeing the finished picture makes my heart leap! The face and pose of the model at the front brings back memories of my very earliest forays into Warhammer 40,000, since Dark Angels were one of the most attractive looking colour schemes of the Space Marines. I always wanted a force of Dark Angels in those early days, although I soon forgot about them when I got interested in other factions. Now these are done, I look forward to making more! I will post pictures of the completed army once I've completed at least the Dark Vengeance Captain and the Sergeant who is missing from this tactical squad (I need to rebase him and repaint his robes). I also plan to make a scout squad with sniper rifles.

Bohemar Infantry complete!

I was so excited to finally near completion of this project that I got up early and stayed up late over the last two days to complete these models, but they're finally done!

The desire to create a Renegades & Heretics army was actually born about 18 years ago, believe it or not. When I first became interested in 40k, I had the 3rd edition rulebook and spent many hours looking at the images of models within. This page, in particular, captured my imagination:

The models on this page all had a battle-worn, grimy look that was at odds with the shiny, clean space marines on previous pages, and I was drawn to them. To me, this page really showed the breadth of war in the 41st millenium. I was enamoured with the Imperial Guard and wanted an army of hardened yet insignificant soldiers and tanks. Somewhere along the line, the warped scions of Chaos took me and my first models were a scattergun collection of Chaos Space Marines. The Guard were forgotten. 

However, many years later, the Eye of Terror Codex was released. The Traitor Guard depicted in the book were the perfect marriage of my two favourite factions: Guard and Chaos! Yet, still I did not create the army! I think I originally stayed away from Guard because of the cost of buying so many models, and then stayed away from Traitor Guard because I was not confident in my ability to convert and paint the models.It would be many years before I finally created a Traitor Guard / Renegades & Heretics army.

Here are the images from the Eye of Terror Codex that most inspired me:

As you can see, the army I created is not a million miles from what you see in these images. The colours are even similar! What I eventually created is not quite Traitor Guard, but rather an army of untrained cultists from a semi-developed Manufactorum world that was taken over by a cult of Khorne. The leaders of the cult believe that Khorne is actually a facet of the Machine God. They therefore could be seen to worship Khorne and the Omnissiah simultaneously. The world is Bohemus, and these are the Bohemar infantry. They are human, but now many of them are part machine as their leader, Stroj, replaces their injured limbs and organs with mechanical parts. Part mechanical warriors may slaughter in the name of Khorne without faltering or tiring, and therefore are superior to normal humans. Even some of the Chaos Space Marines who later came to the world have had limbs replaced with mechanical parts at the hand of Stroj. Warlord Krev Grazl, the Chaos Space Marine who now rules over Bohemus, has tasked the Bohemar infantry with defending his fortress on Bohemar when he goes offworld in search of glory. Occasionally the Bohemar accompany Krev Grazl on missions when the need for massed infantry or rumbling tanks is needed. 

Now you know who they are, lets take a look at the models in detail. 

This is the command squad. Stroj is the biggest character with a power axe and bolt pistol. There are some Forge World Renegade Militia Command models in here, and a two plastic cultists.

Next are the three squads of the first platoon (the first is the platoon command squad). Some of these models have been shown before, but the squads have been reorganised slightly, so there are some new models here. The models are mostly kitbashes of cultists, Skitarii vanguard, Cadian troops, Catachan troops and Empire flagelants. There are also heads from Bad Squiddo games and a ganger from Necromunda. See if you can spot where the parts came from!

Next up are the three squads from the second platoon (the first is the platoon command squad). The models are made in the same way as those above, although you may see some interesting parts not found above.

Next up are the veterans. These guys are bigger, badder and more bloodthirsty than their comrades, and are made of various larger models - mostly blood reavers, but all are heavily converted. These guys carry a lot of equipment for their raids behind enemy lines. I'm particularly proud of some of the poses and the lasguns poking out from their cloaks. Oh yeah, the cloaks - blood-soaked cloaks that sport the icon of The Bloodstorm.

As you can see, the blood-soaked cloaks match the banner on the rear of their chimera:

I've posted them before, but I might as well post the heavy vehicles while we're at it! If you want to see more detail from these, check this post: http://needmoreskulls.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/tanks-of-bohemar.html

Finally, the Blood Slaughterer, which was the first Forge World model I completed!

And that's all. Now for more pictures of the force assembling on the desert plans of their homeworld! Until next time!

The Unknown update

Today, I finished a significant model for my Nurgle force, The Unknown. That model is the Lord of Contagion model from the Dark Imperium box. You can see I have made some small conversions to the model. I trimmed off everything that contained plumes of smoke, as I am not a fan of that kind of thing on models. I left it on my Dark Angel Interrogator Chaplain, as it works on that model, but it's hard to make smoke, fire and other elemental effects look realistic. I swapped one of the censers for a skull, which matches up nicely with the skull near his left heel. I also trimmed the monstrosity off the top. I feel the model now has a more muted look typical of the Death Guard. 

Like a lot of people, I never liked the cartoonish way that the GW team painted the models for the promotional images. I also have a very grimdark colour scheme for the plague zombie models, and so the Lord of Contagion was never going to be painted in bright colours. Instead, I went for a base colour of grey, with tan and green thrown around the model. I've never been a fan of blood and guts on models, but it's kind of obligatory on Nurgle models now, so I painted the guts with red, pink horror and a wash of red. I then added, having just bought it for the first time, a dash of Blood for the Blood God. It really does look like blood in the pot! That turned out quite well, I think. I kept the trampled nurglings quite muted, so you can't really make them out well. I prefer them as something you have to look for, rather than a focal point. The base, like that of the zombies, is fairly bare - just a couple of spent cartridges litter the floor, lending a bleak feel to the model.

Will he be joined by more plague marines? Probably not! The story behind The Unknown is that this character, Lord Knar, was a member of the Death Guard, but he felt their ambitions were too vainglorious and so he left the Death Guard. He wandered off during a battle, slay the crew of a Thunderhawk and flew off to lead a more humble existence, sewing death and plague wherever he went. Where he goes, he turns humans into plague zombies, and they now inhabit his Thunderhawk and follow him into battle. He visits unknown and under-populated worlds, slowly walking through the streets, cutting apart local defence militias and waiting for them to reanimate as skulking abominations of the Plague God. He refuses to fight alongside other space marines, as he finds them too ambitious. He turns his back on them, fading into a cloud of mist and flies...

Some more zombies

The Unknown are coming along slowly, but today I can show another seven zombies. I'm sure painting them in batches of seven will please Father Nurgle in some way. The colour scheme is really easy to do, and I'm currently adapting it to paint the Lord of Contagion from the Dark Imperium box. I hope to post that soon!

 

More cultists!

Some more cultists for the ranks of the Bohemar! This is one of the more unique squads in the army. As ever, I mixed parts from the Empire flagellants, Skitarii rangers and cultist kits.  This squad, however, has some additional heads from the Bad Squiddo Games range, to add a more diverse gender mix to the squad.

Alternative Bloodthirster models

If you look back through my posts, you'll see I am a big fan of Bloodthirsters. I have completed six so far, and have two more on the way. I'll make a post to showcase them all together once the last two are completed. You'll notice that there are many conversions and alternative models in the group. Xanakionahr is a an alternative model, from Ultraforge Miniatures, and I stumbled across the model almost by accident. It's difficult to find alternate miniatures sometimes, because clearly the manufacturers can't use GW's IP to advertise their products. So it takes some research to know which models are available to you as alternative miniatures. Therefore I thought I'd make a post that brings together all the models that I know are available as alternative bloodthirsters. Some might be intended for use in another game system, but if it looks like a passable bloodthirster, I have included it. If you know of any more, please leave a comment and, if they're suitable, I will add them to the post.

First, let's remind ourselves of the GW models:

Here we see the classic Bloodthirster with its two head variants and the modern one with multiple different looks and three weapon loadouts. Both are great models in their own ways and look fantastic on the tabletop. I have both models, and in fact have two of the new one, so I am by no means a critic of these models. I just think it's great to have some choice when it comes to centrepiece models, and I want to have eight bloodthirsters, which is difficult if there are only five different variations of GW bloodthirster, in a grand total of two poses!

Oh, and there's this beast from Forge World:

It's one of the greatest Warhammer models ever made, and if you're into Khorne, you've probably coveted this model at some point. At £155 however, it's not cheap, and you might wonder what alternatives there are to represent your mighty daemon.


So let's see what else there is:


Ultraforge Greater Wardemon

The Ultraforge Greater Wardemon is a fantastic model. It has most of the classic Bloodthirster features - classic demonic visage, cloven hooves, leathery wings and armour plates. There is a visual difference between this and the GW Bloodthirster, and that is the size of the body. This one is much more muscular and chunky. The GW one has a smaller body, but the wings of the two are faily similar, so the wings on this look a bit odd next to the GW one. It's a minor difference, and only noticeable if you put them side by side. I have one of these, and it's a large and solid chunk of resin. It's also relatively easy to build. The only difficulty was getting the left hand to sit on the rock whilst simultaneously fitting the shoulder into its socket. I personally didn't like the sword, as it's a pitted and Nurglesque item. I swapped it on my model, Xanakionahr, for an axe from the GW thirster kit. Ultraforge is a small Canadian company, but the model is available from a seller on ebay for £65, which is a comparable price to the GW model, and the overall height of the models is similar.



Krull, Servile Lord of Dis

Wow. This model is fantastic. Just look at it! I saw it in a battle report on youtube and immediately wanted it. It's big, intimidating and super cool! The model has most of the hallmarks of a bloodthirster - leathery wings, edged armour and cloven hooves. It doesn't have a real Khornate face; instead it looks a little like the aliens in the film Pitch Black, which really works, but perhaps not as a bloodthirster. That said, it's a minor drawback for what is otherwise a very bloodthirstery model. It even has an axe and a sort of stabby weapon which seem entirely appopriate. Bloodthirsters of different ranks are equipped with different weapons, and given that only three ranks are actually described in the fluff, who knows with what other bloodthirsters are equipped? There are approximately 16,777,216 bloodthirsters somewhere in the galaxy (according to the Khorne Daemonkin Codex), and so there is a lot of scope for creating unique characters within that, and why not equip them with some more unusual weapons? Although the descriptions of the thirsters in this codex imply that the thirsters are only equipped in one way, according to their rank, I think it's reasonable to think that these ambitious creatures might seek out ancient relics and artefacts to fight with, or steal weapons from their slain foes.

Size comparison:

It's as big as Anggrath!


I haven't built the model, so can't comment on that, but I can tell you that it is available from http://mierce-miniatures.com for £132.99. It's twice as expensive as the Ultraforge model, but it is bigger and I think it's a lot more dramatic.


Creature Caster Warrior Demon

The model looks very Khornate, but it doesn't have armour or cloven hooves. The wings are huge, the face is aggressive, and the weapon (an axe) is suitable for a bloodthirster. The pose is fantastic too - it's dynamic and it looks good from all angles. The model is 16cm tall with a 16cm wingspan. This doesn't appear to be available in the UK, but it's on the Creature Caster's US site (http://www.creaturecaster.com/products/warriordemon) for USD79. I'm very tempted to get this model!

GW Balrog

The Balrog. The Balrog is a great model. Some say that the concept of the Bloodthirster is based on the description of the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings, so it's not surprising that the Balrog model looks fairly Bloodthirster-esque. My version, Kraadax, has a head swap and an axe from the thirster kit, which I think makes it look like a convincing thirster. Now that it has a whip and an axe, it makes a great Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury. The model has a tail, which is not a thirster feature, so you might want to dock the tail if you want more realism. The model has no armour either, so I added a couple of pieces from the thirster kit. You get a lot of extra bits in the thirster kit, so if you get a Balrog and a thirster kit, you can easily make two great Bloodthirsters. The model is shorter than a standard thirster, but the wingspan is huge and gives it an intimidating presence that belies its actual size. The kit is £37.50 from GW, which makes it one of the cheaper (albeit smaller) alternative thirsters out there.

So, there you have it. A range of models from which to choose your Bloodthirster(s). Have fun choosing and creating your model to represent one of the greatest bringers of death in the galaxy!

Gorfan the Skulltaker

Today, I post something a little different! A good friend of mine, Martin Wrona, has done something that I've always found an interesting niche in the miniature wargaming scene - he has recreated a piece of artwork from the 40k background. The image in question is of Gorfan, a member of Lord Zhufor's World Eater warband, The Skulltakers. He is a Champion of Chaos and was the leader of Zhufor's bodyguard at the Siege of Vraks.

The original image appears in the Imperial Armour book, The Siege of Vraks III. Martin is a skilled and inventive modeller, and I hope to feature more of his models in my blog in future. You can see his keen eye for detail in this miniature.

The model makes use of parts from Chaos terminators, the FW Terminator upgrade set and the face is from the Chaos Terminator Sorcerer Lord. The chainsword bayonet is from the Eldar Guardian kit. 

The details are all there - the trophy rack, the icon on the shoulder pad, the skulls on the chest and the ammo feed on the bolter. Even the pose is spot on. The model, by Martin's own admission, is not quite finished in terms of the paintjob, but it looks fabulous already. Gorfan will be a welcome addition to Martin's Skulltakers force.