Chaos Cultist #2

Once again after my job interview I headed down to GW Highgate to amuse the staff. This time I had a slightly better plan and bought the box of 5 Chaos Cultists for I think $12.50 a veritable bargain in GW land and once again took one model pretty much from start to finish in a single sitting. This time it actually took less time because the cultist was only in two pieces and I used less paints.

I did buy my own brush and still couldn’t do really fine detail work and I didn’t do my best on the greys or the skin tone or the metallics or the blacks but I did some useful browns and tans and a passable purple. I also pulled off some strange hair colour again using some mystery colour which I blended with some other colours.

This model is good enough. I’m one of the only people in the world who wants to paint less well. There are things I’d like to fix on this model, it also needs basing. I made some fundamentally poor decisions in the name of experimentation and efficiency. I should have base coated black or at least grey. I should have probably done only one brown or if two browns then done less work on them. I should have done a darker grey. I should have not kept trying to use GW’s blue shade. I think their blue glaze may be more to my liking. Some parts of it are purple that shouldn’t be, some parts are brown that probably should be purple etc. etc.

I also think I’m a “Layer” man. The thicker high pigment paint is fine for most but even more efficient me likes the smoother applying paint of the Layer range. I’m not in such a hurry that I can’t do two whole coats of paint. A base coat whether with a “Base” or a “Layer” then a wash then a highlight looks good. You can even use your base coat as your highlight colour or your base coat mixed with a little white, grey, or even one of GW’s flesh tones.

I even helped some kid base coat his Tau. He didn’t seem too concerned with quality control. I want to paint more efficiently if I can get by with two colours and a wash, great! But I still want to clean my model carefully. I want to apply my colours evenly and cleanly. I want to take 5 or 15 minutes to let the washes dry. I want to use more than one brush so I can paint some finer highlights. But first I need to get a new job and a new slightly larger place, one with room for a dedicated paint station. Also the CFA will rear it’s head again soon so 40K season for me is only a couple months long.

I really don’t know how to play Warhammer 40,000 anymore. I will learn the rules again. I own plenty of models. I can play the game, but I don’t really care to play the metagame as some have termed it. I also think given my limited time and the fact that getting a model done in four hours is “quickly” for me. I need to choose an army and models that have high points values and are quick to paint. Alas I have plenty of painted models, what I want is generally new tactical options and to paint the fancier models, painting Chaos Cultists is not that efficient in an hour per point way of thinking or more correctly 1.25 points per hour. Also the game has moved to a more over the top playing style where people are deliberately fielding unbalanced armies and GW will happily sell them more models to do so.

My reliance and loyalty to Nurgle doesn’t really cut it in a world with special characters that are released in a limited edition and models that are 888 points each in game. There is definitely an arms escalation in Warhammer 40,000 from a simple squad game with say twenty men and squad level commander to armies that are anything but troops.

I tried to make this cultist at least similar to my test model, but with completely different paints and not having the original test model to compare with, it isn’t perfect, but since when did Chaos Cultists all dress the same. Thor apparently painted 105 Chaos Cultists in a batch in approximately 2 weeks, I’ve now painted 2. If I can get 30 done I’d be happy, I want them all to have auto pistols except the champ and three flamer dudes.