The new edition Warhammer TOW (The Old World) has rekindled a bit of interest in painting some more fantasy. Riding that zeitgeist I have come back to the Beasts of Chaos to try to paint enough to play some games this year.
I have kitbashed some MB Battlemasters beastmen with classic plastic Games Workshop Chaos Marauders to create some overcompensating Ungor.
They are painted using contrast paints with some quick highlights on the reds and the areas of skin where it looked a bit patchy.
They were quick and fun to make and paint and they are bound to elicit some giggles during games. They will certainly round out the army as they are some of the few options with some ranged attacks and should make for fun skirmishing troops. I am looking forward to their first outing!
The keen eyed will have noticed that there is no musician in the unit at the moment however I have one of these guys lined up for that duty….
Traditional rough rider units ride the Terran horse. That is fine and everything but what about sticking them on some traditional space lizards instead. To that end we have our Attilan who has swapped the horse out for something a little more scaly.
The riding lizard is from a Lizardman Saurus cavalry unit. I converted the neck so that I could drop the head down to get it in line with the tail level to give is a closer to the ground feel while I was adding pouches to disguise the original harness on the neck. I added some chains from the GW Flagellents unit as suitably strong reigns for this beast.
The colours are a variation on the standard colour scheme for my Cityfight Imperial Guard force – greys and browns, red, blue and yellow. I added some grenades and skulls and various bits to the base to decorate.
In order to really get the opportunity to get this guy onto the games table I will need to paint up his 4 other buddies to create the full squad of 5. They will be a useful addition to the Imperial Guard force providing me with some fast hard hitters for army sized games such as Xenos Rampant or 40k.
An Ork Mega Gargant conversion for you this time. The stock model for this one is a bit funny looking so I gave it a decent bit of conversion work with the putty to get it looking a bit more like the old Kev Adams Gargant sculpts.
I replaced the weedy arm gun with a gatling gun as big as other races titans and stuck the mortar in the belly to give it some more dakka where it counts. This thing has a very large number of weapon systems which all aim forwards.
Painting was mostly contrast paint over the silver base colour. I used oil washes to shade.
I have added a number of epic orks to the base to communicate the scale of the model.
WIP of Mega Gargant Conversion
This model is intended to be the centerpiece for my Epic 40k Ork force.
Some reinforcements for the Imperial Forces, The Concrete Jungle Fighters are hardened veterans of the Imperial Guard. Each one is a survivor of countless skirmishes having honed their craft to a razors edge. They are a concentration of roided-up gung-ho superheroes who are equipped with serious firepower in the form of bolters, personal side arms, a grenade launcher and a heavy bolter. If they can’t rip it apart with their bare hands, they also carry grenades and close combat weapons for close encounters.
They have been created by combining the old RT Imperial Guard plastic head with slightly less old plastic Catachan and Cadian Guardsmen.
Catachan Jungle Fighters – plastic models
The Catachan plastics are action figure like unless you do a bit of work on the shoulder joins with green stuff before painting.
I only used one of the original heads for the Sargent, opting for classic plastic heads and a Space Wolf Blood Claw for one guy.
Some official Catchan uniform patterns from Games Workshop
Nearly every Catachan mini you will see painted, is painted some shade of green. Rather than do that, I quite liked the blue version so based these off the blue scheme tailored for urban combat, but rather than going with the red bandanas, I choose yellow.
They have been painted with a fairly quick approach and then enhanced with some decals. I have used contrast paint to glaze the skin tones onto the base, on the black, on the camo pants, on the leather bits. I could spend some more time on the details and effects it’s time to stop as I am happy with the look for the effort that went into painting them, they are ready for some gaming now and I have a lot more Imperial Guard that I want to get painted up to a similar standard.
Going forward I have some of the nice old metal Catachan models that will be perfect as support to accompany these glorious heroes on the future battlefields. Certainly specialists, snipers, heavy weapons support, more regulars etc. would not go amiss.
Now this is definitely one of those bucket list models from the Rogue Trader background which I don’t recall ever seeing anyone create – prime real estate for me to plant my banner in then!
Not even Blood Axes would “knowingly” ally themselves with the Imperials. Blood Axes are happy to hire human mercenary groups however, so in order to infiltrate Ork space and stir up trouble amongst the Orks, Imperial units often pose as mercenaries.
The standard bearer is an important person in the squad as they essentially carry the advertisement for the mercenary bands services. In this case it has been topped with the heads of particularly ornery orks – the orks wouldn’t take them for serious mercenaries if they just had human heads on there, although Space Marine helmets are of course acceptable, being human nobz in the ork way of thinking. Space Marine helmets are not appropriate for our undercover Imperials, and chaos marine helmets would probably mean that the whole Imperial company would be executed for heresy (since it’s not generally seen as worth mind scrubbing and re-educating guardsmen).
Blood Axe Imperial Guard Squad – From Rogue Trader: ‘Ere We Go P.196
The colour scheme is essentially mundane light brown and grey, but I have opted for some bright yellow and purple to emphasise the sci-fi nature of this model. The stripe on the trousers gives them more of a dress uniform feel – I want it to feel like they have cobbled this mercenary uniform out of spares from the company quartermaster.
To follow up on this guy, I plan to paint the rest of the squad so I have a good Freebooter option to support my Blood Axe Boyz.
As the inset text says, these are lobotomised eunochs used as auxiliary troops for the Slann. I stuck to earthy tones for these guys with a contrasting bright blue for the woad style markings. I either used wooden style shield sculpts or painted on wood grain effect on the old citadel shields.
Labotomised Human Slaves Led by a Slave r
The Human Slaves were assembled from a combination of Perry Mahdist Ansar plastics, old citadel thug and a couple of Katsina miniatures. The Slaver boss is called Grandpa and is one of Doti’s sculpts. The grisly totem is from an old Kroot Carnivore squad.
Forward you pink brutes!
In games these can be used an inexpensive reserve unit or simply to catch cannon balls.
Bubbles the spider trainer commands some of the most fearsome fighters in the army by use of special control crystals implanted into the spiders heads by means of some techno-magical secrets known only to the spider trainer cult.
Bubbles with a quartet of giant spiders
These spiders are two different sculpts of a giant spider by Doti for Katsina miniatures. She has managed to combine some cute features with some real menace – the large size of the models helps in this regards.
I have painted them with very bright threat style markings that warn other creatures that this creature is deadly. It can afford to advertise it’s presence so any other creatures better watch out!
Bubbles is of course also one of Doti’s sculpts. He has been designed alongside the spiders and shares some of their creepy cute menace vibe. They are no slackers on the tabletop so far and have already sacked the shrine of Rigg at BOYL 2019. I expect great things from my spider force going forward and will probably have to get Doti to make some more of them as they are such great fun easy models to paint.
I had a test model for the Warrior Priests done ages ago and only recently actually finished the unit, such is the way with these things.
Warrior Priests unit entry in Warhammer Armies (Warhammer 3rd Ed.)
The Slann Warrior Priests are the elite warriors in the army and are limited in number. A unit of 10 is all you got in 3rd edition for your army, with the exception of the 4 Warrior Priests who guard a war altar if you took one.
Slann Warrior Priests
They could can a 100pt magical standard, so I have represented this on the snake banner with some lightning bolts to represent a Divine Icon of Wrath spell. They can also carry a 25pt magical instrument and so I have given them a guy with the elaborate horn from a Citadel plastic goblin as the hands are about the same size.
In games they are fun, being subject to frenzy. It’s hard to get these guys to frenzy as their cool value was so high it was rare to fail the test. Mages have a better cool bonus than heroes so are a better bet to lead the priests if you wanted to get them to frenzy.
I painted them with sinister looking black war paint with red palms and feet to evoke the hands being drenched in blood. Most of them are carrying enormous hearts and sacrificial daggers. They have no pupil so they look more like glowing magical orbs that are the same colour as the highlight on the dagger.
This is a prototype home casting of the second totem warrior I sculpted. He is a big improvement from my earlier efforts. I would certainly change a few things on him now but I am pleased with most of him for now.
I am planning on making more of the totem warrior style frog people as they have great potential for some fun sculpts and look great as an elite element in the Bizaza armies.
The more eagle eyed will notice that he is more slight than the Bizaza Guard in the photos, this is deliberate as he represents an elite regular Bizaza rather than being spawned for the duty of soldiering like the Bizaza Guard are, the implication is that they are not necessarily as smart as the nimble Jaguar Knight who has had to fight to earn his position.
Looking forward to developing some more animal suited friends for this guy soon.
I converted and painted this for the #Naismithery challenge on the Oldhammer Facebook page.
Dark Angel Falling – Background image from Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader
He is of course a Dark Angel space marine based on the artwork from the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader book on page 241. I am not sure who the artist is but it’s was always one of my favorite images from the book.
It’s amusing as he seems to have been stumbling backwards when the shot hits…but in this case as it gives the picture a sense of animation I think.
Dark Angel conversion based on the RTB01 Imperial Space Marines Kit
He was a fun build which had sat unpainted for ages so the competition was a good excuse to paint him up. He will form part of my fledgling Dark Angels force.
TheOttoVonBismark 
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