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.

Ah what a wonderful morning

So I got up at quarter to six, because I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Apparently I should have stayed in bed because some random person on the internet has decided to describe my writing style as boring and my name as terrible. It seems odd that someone who has chosen the email address of superluckybestgoman@gmail.com would find my actual name so offensive. What can I say my dad made it up, it is a shortened form of an historic Norman name that has all but died out.

Perhaps if I used RANDOM CAPITALIZATION and purple text and nonsensical words such as “hiyo” I could be l33t and girls would talk to me on MSN or at least someone claiming to be female would message me out of the blue claiming they were lonely and just wanted to talk….

Remember “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

Apparently I was wrong to expect on a blog devoted to painting miniatures in a post about painting miniatures there would be some actual painted miniatures shown instead of just ads. Furthermore I was incorrect in my assumption that using a particular colour or technique is just another tool in the toolbox and should not be so hastily discarded, apparently to build on my stellar reputation I should write a guest post on a blog and announce to the world that hence forth I would not be using “Devlan Mud”. Apparently this passes as big news in some people’s lives.

“You should never argue with a fool, people might not be able to tell the difference.”

It is doubly important to remember this quotation while using the Internet. It is also wise to remember the words of Ezra Pound, “Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.” This whole blog post so far is just asinine like the people who inspired it.

If you’re just discovering my blog thanks to an incoming link on this post and you’re having trouble with some of the big words such as “asinine” and you’re trying to figure out if you’re being insulted or not. Just remember asinine starts with “ASS” and if you put it all in capitals and make the text purple people will know you’re not to be trifled with.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled boring blog post about miniature painting on my now one month old blog about miniature painting. I’m sure more people will comment any day now.

Last night I got up and revised my Servants of Decay army list so it is Plaguemarine free. I want it to be WW1-esque to go along with the trench table I’m making. Although elite assault troops with high technology is probably tactically sound, I thought my army needed more artillery so I’m thinking Earth Shaker Cannon and with all the comments I’ve been getting on the ten to fifteen year old paint jobs on Sluggie, Slimey, and Esmeralda I thought some crazed spawn storming the trenches along with the zombies and rabble would be very cinematic.

New Fancy Square Bases

I’ve been devoting too much time to the square base game, when I started this blog my plans were to finish my Astronomi-con Vancouver army, build my modular trench table, and an Imperial Armour 7 based rebel scum army to go along with it, maybe play Nick’s Death Korps in some sort of big showdown. I built a couple trench tiles and finished some test figures, but then I painted a couple of Plaguebearers just for fun and made the mistake of telling people about it who should really just shut up and paint their own models instead they finally moved me to unsubscribe from Bell of Lost Souls because I just can’t be bothered with trying to wade through all the incredibly well written and insightful comments that thoughtful, articulate, people leave there.

Ahh… where were we? Oh yes I’m going to paint a Chaos Sorcerer as a stand in for a Herald of Tzeentch as no suitable models were on the shelves of Strategies and I think at 1500 points, in 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle, on battlefields populated with Level 4 magic users, I need to up my defensive magic capabilities in the Mighty Empire campaign. As I’m using older and thus smaller models I bought some more substantial bases to give the models more presence on the table. I have less than two weeks to get the Herald done, but for this week’s game I need to base 54 Night Goblin mercenaries and make some more movement trays.

I didn’t do much hobby related yesterday but I plan to clean and base the three models I dug out of my OOP miniature collection. The Plaguebearers and the Sorcerer will be base-coated black. No guarantee I use Devlan Mud Wash on them, but they will be darker in tone. I’m thinking of trying to do a Fleshy 2.0 and his mate beside him will probably get some sort of wet and shiny green paint job like the slime I did on the champ’s sword. I’ll probably paint matching Nurglings for them and after those Nurgle Daemons are done that is the last I’m doing for a while.

Resin Skulls I may use in basing

I’m thinking of priming the two Slaneesh demons grey as lots of top painters seem to have opted for this as a base coat colour. I’ll test my Krylon Grey Primer on a plastic Gretchin from the 2nd Edition 40K box set, I have plenty of those sitting in a box somewhere. It is good to try out new paints and techniques on less important models first, that is why my Forgeworld Khorne Terminator Lord is still not painted and I’m doing a 2nd test bezerker so I get my red technique tight and dark. I also have one or two other bigger flashy models to do by Astronomi-con Vancouver along with three more rank and file Chaos Space Marines.

“Enough or too much.”

What can I say, over a lifetime of reading boring books and writing boring sentences I’ve collected an awful lot of quotations.

Painted Servant of Decay Test Figure

As promised late last night I did indeed finish this model. I took the pictures this afternoon and realized I should have put one more highlight on his little skull pendent. I fixed that but couldn’t be bothered to retake the pictures. 

The model is an old Necromunda Orlock I pulled out of a bag that had been in my mom’s storage room for over a decade. I thought they’d make good Mutant Rabble for my Imperial Armour 7 Servants of Decay Rebel Imperial Guard army list. That sentence has a lot of keywords, too bad this blog doesn’t get any search engine traffic…

The model was started alongside the WW1 Canadian Corps test figure as after painting my original Foundry Triad test figure I decided brown, more specifically English Uniform Brown might make a good primary colour for Rebel Imperial Guard. Brown is a solid Nurgle colour and I’d already ruled out all black. They have to blend in a bit with the Nefarious Fire, well not really but I wanted them too. So purple flames and chaos stars on a black background will still be present. I’m thinking of doing the tanks black and purple, but I figured the uniforms would still be basically Imperial Guard for the Militia and for the Rabble I thought they’d be kinda dirty earth tones too, but they’d grab some purple rags or what not to symbolize their allegiance.

That is why this Orlock made such a great test figure. I used Liche Purple and the first two colours, the A and B from the Foundry Royal Purple Triad (#19). It has no wash and I think I may have found my new dark and evil purple recipe. The skin is the other unifying feature of this army.  All the models will have sickly pale blue skin. I’m using a recipe I stumbled upon via trial and error painting Nurgle daemons and other chaos figures over the last two years or so. I use a Foundation Grey (Astronomicon Grey) base coat with the infamous AwesomePaintJob.com Cool Grey wash, with Space Wolf Grey highlights. You can highlight to white even and I probably will on the character models.

The AwesomePaintJob.com wash is finicky it tends to separate. It is more grey than blue. I previously used thin blue and green washes on my pale skin, but I gave this product a try and if you’re patient, and use the right amount which sometimes is one coat, sometimes is two or more, you get a really nice and relatively easy to paint sickly blue-grey skin tone. Unfortunately if you make a mistake getting the tone back is a little bit difficult, so I discovered when correcting one eye, the one on the left of the model if you want to see my touch ups.

Well that is more than enough text. Like the WW1 Canadian Corps figure I think I can do better job with the painting, maybe simplify it a bit more, but I have other miniatures I need to get done in the next month or so…

Taking and holding trenches in Warhammer 40,000

So now that I’ve finally started work on my modular trench battlefield, I’ve been thinking, how best to take and hold trenches, or more succinctly which armies and units would be best for the task. My goal with the battlefield is to take Warhammer 40,000 back to its World War One influences, alas I fear no amount of carving foam will stop skimmers, jump infantry, or deep striking. To that end I think Codex Space Marine and Imperial Guard armies will do the best on this board and the mission that will go along with it. Those armies are quite versatile and have access to skimmers with transport capeability.

But what about… Eldar and Tau they have skimmer transports? Eldar in particular with all their specialized troops may do a pretty good job of taking entrenched positions, but holding them? Eldar are supposedly not geared for a war of attrition. As for the Tau, even with Kroot I’m not sure they would do a very good job at storming the trenches. Now Orks and Tyranids, they can send waves of troops at the enemy, but digging in defensively really isn’t their forte. Deamons are a total wild card and the specialty marine codices, which are getting a lot of love online, mainly bolster the offensive capabilities. Lots of jump troops may gain you the enemy trenches but holding them plus your own defensive positions? Space Wolves might do better than Blood Angels at this type of thing due to the awesomeness of Long Fangs and Grey Hunters.

While giving this all some thought I even wrote up a Codex Marine 1500 army list and looked at more obscure chapters, but since I’m trying not to buy any new minis, starting a new army, even Marines is out. So the question then becomes what can I do with my existing armies and their rule books to make them more effective on the battlefield I’m building?

My trench table is destined for next year’s Astronomi-con Vancouver. You could say I’m starting early, or you could say I’m starting too late for this year’s Astro… I currently have two painted armies in my display case, the Diseased Sons and their non-Nurgle allies the Nefarious Fire plus my old, old Ork army. The orks will see the table top again, but optimizing them for a mission isn’t a priority, just getting the units legal again is the priority. This year I am running Chaos Space Marine at Astronomi-con Vancouver, but next year I planned to run the Servants of Decay from Imperial Armour 7.

No one seems to be using that list or building an army for it. The regular Imperial Guard Codex is too good, most people are using it for their traitor guard too. Not me, I like to be different and I’m not afraid of a challenge. I made a quirky assault oriented list, knowing full well that WS2 and WS3 troops with questionable leadership doesn’t sound like an elite offensive force. While thinking how hypothetical armies would do on a hypothetical battlefield in a hypothetical mission set 40,000 years into the future, well I decided maybe I should adjust my proposed army list.

I wrote out another list, selling back some things, adding others, but I continued to avoid the option of taking plague marines. I wanted a pure traitor guard force, even though taking plaguemarines would save me money an painting time. Plus when I looked at other army list I recognized the need for elite assault troops to gain the trenches, but for my own army I was trying to make due with Rabble and Rebel Militia. Finally I said enough is enough, lets throw a squad of ten plaguemarines into the mix. Plague marines aren’t cheap pointswise, I had to sell back Rabble and Plague Zombies, as well as eventually removing my Fast Attack and Heavy Support choices over the course of tweaking the list.

Non skimmer Fast Attack I think will just get bogged down in the mud. Jump Infantry might work, I intend to try it with my Chaos Space Marine army, but they too could die crossing no man’s land. Getting rid of my lone heavy support choice may seem odd, but if you’ve read the army list, the command HQ can take a pile of heavy weapons teams. I’d already maxed out on mortars before I even thought about making my list more effective on the battlefield I’m building. Hopefully I won’t miss one or two extra heavy weapons a turn.

The army list I ended up with has Plaguemarines leading the assault. They are supported by Rabble and Militia men. The Plague marines might be able to breach the defenses and/or tie up the enemy for a turn or two allowing the Rabble and Militia to advance.  I bought my militia squad an armored personal carrier, figuring it was worth a try. If it gets stuck, they just get out and walk. The plague zombies I feel will make better defensive troops. They are Fearless and harder to kill, but they are slow. I think they work better occupying space, though they can tar pit the enemy too, if in sufficient numbers.

Before I added in the Plague marines, my command squad were my best assault troops having two models with WS 4, whoo hoo! Alas they are few and they aren’t armoured. I bought them an APC too, but they may be better served getting out and hunkering down.  I now forsee using them as a counter assault force. The leadership they potentially provide to the rest of the troops on defense necessitates them being placed centrally.

I just counted and my proposed 1500 point Servants of Decay army list with the 10 Plaguemarines, has 14 models with WS4 and 18 models with BS4. My Rabble alone have more models than that, they are WS and BS 2, booyah!

My mortars will go in my trenches or behind them. Massed mortar fire isn’t popular in 40K, but I’m still going to try it. It is historically accurate and with a little luck could pin the enemy in their trenches allowing my Rabble and Militia men to advance across the battlefield. Also to be used in a defensive role are the best troops available to a Rebel Militia commander, the Disciples of Xaphan. These are basically veterans with superior moral and access to a wide variety of guns and equipment. They have BS 4 unless they take a heavy weapon in which case their ability to aim magically decreases. This is an odd quirk of the list, it is impossible to get heavy weapons with BS 4. I think regular guard can do this, or through orders or special characters or something can improve their aim. Regardless, even with the addition of the plaguemarines, I’m still treating my Disciples as an elite unit. They are basically my sharp shooters. They’ll be deployed with the best field of fire and will pick off advancing enemy infantry.

That’s about the gist of it. Assault force of plaguemarines supported by Rabble and a few Militia men. Doesn’t sound too intimidating, most armies should either be able to out shoot my army or out class it in close quarters fighting. That’s the lot of traitor scum I guess. Even sending out almost 50 models into no man’s land I’m not too confident I can take the enemy’s position. Sending that many models to attack which is both likely necessary and historically accurate leaves my sharp shooters, my mortars, and my command HQ defending my lines, plus of course zombies.

“Using zombies to bolster your line” by Muskie McKay coming to Osprey soon.

I gave a go at making a Chaos Space Marine army list that might excel at trench warfare, but I’m going to experiment some more with it. Astronomi-con allows the use of Imperial Armour rules so that makes things a little more interesting. I still think Marines and Imperial Guard will be best for this mission, any one else have an opinion?