Chaos HQ Conversions

Chaos Lord on Juggernaut of Khorne

This was the last model that I finished prior to my daughter being born.  There he sat, ready for slaughter, unused for months on end until finally, my first game of 8th edition arrived.  In my desire to field nothing unpainted, the force that I played against my friend David's Imperial Guard wasn't particularly necessarily unbalanced, but it was definitely a 7th edition "one or two of every force organization chart" hodge-podge.  My Chaos Lord spent the entire game slowly chopping his way with a basic power axe (since there was no codex yet and no relics yet at the time) through a squad of bullgryns and a sentinel.  It was kind of disappointing, honestly.  This first game was definitely an eye opener to just how different 8th edition is.

Rules Shakeup

Flash forward a month or two, and the Chaos Codex hits and...no Juggernaut option?  I was left scratching my head until it was pointed out that I could still take the Index version, although it was a little confusing in regards to keywords, abilities, relics, etc.  Considering that hobby time has been at a premium lately, I was a little perturbed that I had just finished this model not too long ago only to see him benched in the codex immediately.  A recent FAQ has cleared up the interaction with the codex a bit, but I'm still curious what the future holds for the Khorne Lord on juggernaut.

The Conversion

To bring this friendly friend in on a budget, I patiently monitored eBay to acquire the cheapest "whole" juggernaut (with shipping in mind).  He wields a fancy power axe (or possible axe of blind fury upgrade) that I nabbed from one of the Dark Vengeance Chosen models.  The slighted chosen was gifted a shiny new power fist to compensate.  I had to do a little finagling with some pose-able Khorne berserker legs and some green stuff-ing that I'm kind of secretly disappointed in (fur is the simplest and laziest cop out to sculpt...but effective) to make him fit on the saddle.  I wanted him to have a fancy chest piece, so I tore apart my "counts as" Huron Blackheart that I wasn't sold on.

I painted his skin to be very pale and did some small blue veins all over his head with a fine detail brush and then washed and drybrushed his head to make them less prominent, but still visible.  I was happy with the effect.

The base was a leftover from the Daemon Prince conversion I was planning...

Tzeentch Daemon Prince

It seems doubly blasphemous to make a post with Tzeentch and Khorne at the same time AND feature a Tzeentch Daemon Prince that's based on a Khornate model.  I'm just blasphemous like that apparently.  I acquired a Khorgorath on eBay, which were cheap and in abundance at the time to use as the base, as I figured it was about the size of the Daemon Prince model.  It's a little meatier, but I'm okay with that.  I was able to acquire a pair of metal wings on the cheap as well.  This whole conversion cost me approximately 8 dollars all told, although the time spent on conversion work means I probably broke even.  There's something to be said for uniqueness, however.

I liked the wiggly tentacle fingers, which I found suitable for a bizarre amorphous spell-flinger.  I covered the Khorne markings on the chest with part of a Tzeetnch icon and the ever ubiquitous green stuff, although I tried to scullpt it in such a way to avoid it appearing less like fur and more like feathers.

Affixing the wings made it predictably unbalanced, but I came prepared with a hefty steel washer that I attached to the underside of its base.

The head is the most pronounced bird-like head from the Pink Horrors frame.  I can't wait to paint this guy up, but I've been trying to get forces field-able first and painted second.

Let me know what you think!

Forgefiend

Progress and setting goals

I haven't done much painting since I became a father.  In the months leading up to my child being born, I set the goal for myself to make some serious progress on my overwhelmingly large Chaos Space Marine army as I anticipated that my hobby time would be significantly diminished.  My goal was to clean/build/convert/base/prime/paint the first 1,000 points of my slowly evolving force.

The order of units created for this project had less to do with making a cohesive, playable force and more to do with finishing models that were heavily converted or done in sub assemblies by necessity.  Addressing models that (in my opinion) benefitted from sub assemblies would ultimately enable me to field a wider range of units, painted or otherwise in a more timely fashion.  I dislike playing unpainted models, and I'm sure I share that dislike with a lot of people, but I valued being ready and able to play when the rare opportunity arose.

I made it to approximately 850 points (in 7th edition points) before my little nurgling joined the family.  The unit that would have pushed me over the 1,000 point mark was a forgefiend that I had assembled and painted to about 1/3 finished.  I finished painting the forgefiend almost an entire year later in the colors of my main force, which I jokingly refer to as "ambiguous red".

DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA

A change in methodology

Perhaps I was just amusing myself because of being tossed in to working under an "Agile" methodology in software development at my place of employment unexpectedly, but at some point I realized that my 40k backlog was seeing very little progress.  If I couldn't finish something noticeable and massive in a single sitting, I tended to not even approach my hobby desk.  To address this, I attempted a change in method.  Instead, I would plan out small chunks of attainable goals that would take up no more than 30-60 minutes per night after my daughter went to bed.  This wasn't always attainable, and I found that I severely underestimated how long certain tasks would take to perform, but I'm starting to get a better handle on it.

For example, the progress on my 40k Orks recently saw me get the entire remainder of my force all the way up to the "primed" phase in the span of about 2 months of work.  Considering that there were a significant number of conversion tasks, customization and even scratch building, I'm very pleased.  I'll probably post something regarding the current state of my orks in the future.  Right now I'm writing up anything I have photography of already.  My hobby space is in a state of disarray for a number of reasons.

Flexibility and/or not being able to make up my mind

A pretty simple conversion based on a
Dark Vengeance Dark Angels tactical marine.

"Ambiguous red" is code for "allow me the flexibility to play as Word Bearers, Khorne Daemonkin, Crimson Slaughter, Renegades, etc.  Primarily intended as a Word Bearers force (although dissatisfied with the brightness of the red), I figured this would allow me more flexibility until I made up my mind.  So far there aren't any distinguishing markings on any of my red Chaos Marines.  Instead, I reasoned that they are one of many sub-groups of the Word Bearers led by one of their numerous demagogues with their own markings and heraldry.

Thoughts on the Word Bearers in 8th edition

The internet gaming community at large has essentially panned the Word Bearers faction rules as being horrible.  In the wake of 8th edition, my only hope was that it provided some sort of flexibility or discount for daemon summoning, and that daemon summoning was still useful.  To paraphrase some of the opinions I've read, summoning is okay if you have a wide range of models in your collection to choose from.  This enables you to pick and choose the appropriate unit to solve a situation at the cost of paying points for reserves.  The Word Bearers' actual trait simply allows them to re-roll failed morale tests like their Imperial counterparts.  Kind of boring, but not necessarily horrible.  The real meat of the daemon interaction comes via a stratagem.

I gave this a long, hard think about whether or not I cared, and I decided I don't.  I might choose to play my ambiguously red marines as another warband entirely or perhaps a subfaction of the Word Bearers that is distinct enough from their parent allegiance to mimic another rule.  Ultimately, I like how important the Word Bearers are to the back story of the state of the Imperium.  Because of this, I'll most likely plod ahead as planned.