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So, it's time to start a new army now that my Baneblade is outta the way. This time I'm going with Chaos. I like the new models and I also like the new direction that the current codex has taken the army, despite what a lot of chaos vets seemed to be complaining about :p

My first idea for the army was to go Iron Warriors, but I figured I'd want a bunch of tanks and I already did that with my guard, so I decided to make my own warband. The first idea for colors was to use more modern "army" colors, olive greens or maybe a desert armor kind of color, and have the armor and tanks all beat up and rusted out. I thought on it more and I really just want to go with a color scheme I've never really done before. Everything I do is always dark and mostly black, so i decided on Bleached Bone as the primary color in the army, black trim, kind of like the Deathmongers in the new codex. I'll also have red parts and I think black power weapons with green highlighting. It's been a long time since I had to use white primer...!

I want to try and get the power armor to look like actual bone, not bones attached to it, but more like the chaos gods have turned the thick metal armor into a thick exoskeleton. I'm thinking bone as the main color, highlighted with white, and shaded with brown lines, like the way folks paint the bottom parts of horns, etc. So with that bone look I need a fitting name, something dead sounding.. Undertakers seemed a bit too cliche, then I thought of "Krypt Keepers" .. so I think I'm gonna go with that.. or does anyone have any other ideas?

I did a recent army trade at my local game store and have a lot of store credit to use up. So the first thing I picked up was their last remaining Chaos army box set. Out of this box I intend to make 1 Terminaor lord, 10 marines, 8 Khorne Zerkers, 5 Chosen, 5 Terminators, 5 Posessed, 2 Spawn and 1 Defiler. I'm still on the fence about what to expand with to get to 2000 pts, but I'm thinking probably a box of death guard, 3 obliterators and a second defiler cuz I really like that model. I'm planning to convert it with a WFB hellcannon as the battle cannon

So, here's a few pics so far. I have the lord and the 10 marines mostly done. After that I will prime them and start painting a couple marines for test schemes.




If anyone has any ideas feel free to share

Names: Bone Lords, Sand Scorpions, Desert Ghosts, Death Wind, Knights/ Brotherhood of Silence, Howling Ghosts, Desert Spirits, Soul Razer, Corpse Grinder, Golden Shrouds, Tomb Knights...

I like the name "Bone Crushers"

I would put some white lines on the bone armor to really give it some texture. Also, I would find a good contrasting color for your trim, because bone really contrasts well with a deep color like black, dark red, dark blue, etc.

Yeah I'm gonna make the trim be black. Cloth parts, emblems, etc will be dark red, possibly the boltguns too.

Bone crushers sounds good, so does Bonesaws.. I could add a saw theme maybe for the defilers and give em big circular saw blades instead of claws Or skip the power weapons and go with chain swords & axes for everyone.

I was also thinking of using nid scythng talons to represent lightning claws, maybe like 2 blades made to look like they're coming outta the armor just above the wrist

Frankly I like Krypt Keepers myself, their armor is gonna be pretty BONE itself so don't know if it needs to be in the name specifically

Psyched in general to see some Chaos boys from you Necros, I'll be watching

- Salvage

Well here is my take on the two names:

Bone Saws - The only thing I don't like about the name is that is sounds like a tool rather than a threat. If you face off against the Bone Saws, oh no, I am facing an inanimate tool. On the other hand though, like you said it does lend itself to a myriad of conversion opportunity's, like how about for lightning claws you have a forearm mounted circular saw. You can even go crazy and make your chainswords look like Bone Saws and make the force really aggressive looking.

Bone Crushers - Even though that is the name I came up with, I like it because it is very intimidating upon hearing it. Like your army actually wants to walk up to you and crush you. "I must break you" indeed. The conversion opportunities are there as well.  Imagine Defilers with Industrial "crushing" instraments. Legion symbol can be an ironed fist crushing a skull.



I like it, I think something similar was done for the old Legion of the Damned article in their modeling section. You can actually make that a recurring them and not just special weapons. Make all the Marines look like part of their mutation is protruding blades and talons protruding from the armor. Kinda like the Superman villian Doomsday

I think Krypt Keepers conveys too much of an undead/under taker feel.

The heavy gothic of Krypt Keepers I agree could be a bit much. First thing I think of is Tales from the Crypt actually, which is good and bad I suppose.

"Bone Crushers" has the brutality I like to see in CSMarines, and there's the bone you're after. I think this is a strong second choice for me, depending on how much of the gothy overtones of KK you want to run with.

- Salvage

My first idea for the Krypt Keepers was to go with a spooky/fun halloween theme, possibly mixing some Vampire Count bitz into it, a baneblade that looked like a haunted victorian style house, bats and spooky eyes. But that would be a little too silly. That whole idea comes from the show really, and yeah I'd have supernerd moments where I whistle the theme song while I assault stuff.

But the name itself could still work for an army themed around killing stuff and collecting the bones of their enemies. My idea for the emblem is just 2 K's with the first one reversed, sort of like the dead kenedy's logo if you've seen that.. but with a fanged skull in the middle.

But I like the bonesaw and bonecrusher names... so what I'm thinking is maybe I stick with Krypt Keepers (so I can still whistle the theme song :p) and add those names to the fluff for the army as names of stuff. I'm torn right now between my heavy support being obliterators with 1 defiler or 2. I could name one defiler bonesaw with saws all over it, and bonecrusher for the other with steamrollers and hammer heads and stuff like that. Or, have one defiler and 1 demon prince. I think a DP with big bone saws for hands would look pretty nasty

I vote for incorporating semi-random Tomb Kings bitz into your army.

Yeah I was thinking about that. I have a bunch of random bitz left over from my TK army, but most of it is just little things like bows and shields. I was thinking of going with an Egyptian kinda theme too, but I didn't want them to come off as a Tzeentch army. I'm going for Undivided but with a touch of Khorne and Nurgle.

I think a lightly Egyptian theme (like the Tomb Kings) when combined with your plans for bone-ish armour wouldn't come across as Tzeentchian in the least.

If I were to go with the egyptian theme though, I would probably want to base it on the same theme I did with my tomb kings, which is based on an song (now a whole album) from a band called Iced Earth. Kind of a sci fi spin on The Omen, with a secret groups of ancient egypt folks trying to infiltrate human society to destroy it one day. t's got a rich background built around it and I always thought it would lend itself good to a Chaos army with a few fluff tweaks. I'd keep the same name too, The Wicked. I could still do the bone look but other elements that I'd want to incorporate are snakes, maybe just by giving a demon price a cobra looking head with some greenstuff.

What about the "Bone Collectors"? I kind of vaguely remember a movie with that name that was spooky, and while it sort of bring Paris Hilton fleetingly to mind, it would be pretty cool to make an army that looks like their armor was plated with bits of bone etc. as well as having bits dangling from armor like the purity seals and scroll cases of loyalists. Plus it fits with Khorne and the gang. You could even make some defilers and/or dreads that look like they were built entirely from skulls and bones then possessed... that could be pretty hot.

I don't know, Wehrkind. The word "collector" doesn't exactly bring to mind a brutal, savage, chaos-powered killing machine.

I definitely just got a mental flash of an obliterator with a small pair of spectacles on, hunched over a small desk and an equally small chair, cursing under his breath as he fumbles with tweezers in his power fist hands, lining up the glue on some dinosaur skeleton model...

CK

OK I gave it some thought during the commercials in Heroes last night and decided I'm gonna stick with Krypt Keepers.

However, my defiler will be Bonesaw, he'll have the lower body of a normal defiler, upper body will be a WFB Hellcannon as the battle cannon, with the reaper cannon on top of that, or TL Lascannons, haven't decided. I'll keep the claws but in addition to that mounted on the underside in the front will be 2 or 3 circular saw blades.. down low so it can saw up some infantry

My other heavy support will be starting with 2 obliterators that I'll convert out of the 2 spawns in the army set and a lot of left over guard heavy weapon team bitz.

Instead of 2 defilers I'm going to just have Bonesaw, and then I'll have a demonprince named Bonecrusher. Instead of a big sword, he'll have a big hammer. Possibly made of bone and part of his hand the way nid weapons are.

Tonight I'll be getting my old nid and tomb kings bitz together and I'll start adding stuff to the terminator lord and regular marines. I'm gonna swap the lord's sword for a powerfist or chainfist (can't remember if there's one on the sprue or not..) But I think the regular marines will probably be less "boney" and I'll save that for the chosen and posessed. Speaking of the posessed, I'm also thinking of merging those 5 man squads of chosen and posessed into one 10 man squad of chosen and just mixing all the bitz together as much as I can. That'll free up an elite slot that I can use for either more terminators later on or maybe a dreadnought and give me an excuse to buy one of those cool lookin forge world dreads

I have my terminator lord and unit of marines all built & primed now. Tomorrow I'll paint up a test model or 2

Also here is the KK emblem I came up with. I'll be using custom decals that I'm gonna print out to have on shoulder pads. Hopefully the crusty detail will still be there on the teeny decals. The black lines in the skull will stay black but the arrows will be dark red on the decals

OK here is my first test model. I still have a few more metalic spots to paint but he's mostly done. I was going to paint lines along the edges of the bone color like the way folks paint nid shells and stuff like that, but I got lazy, and also I liked the shading as is. I made a wash out of Dark Flesh using the same water & matte medium mix I used for my Baneblade.

I'm not sure if I'm totally sold on the black trim after all though. I'm wondering if maybe I should have done it blood red? I was also thinking gold, but I think it would make the whole thing look too "brown" ... or does the black have enough contrast between the gold color to make it stand out?




Anyway, wadaya think?

now that I'm looking at the pics again here at work.. I'm starting to not really like the colors.. I think it's the black trim that's messing it up for me.. it looked really cool when I was painting the wash on over the bone. So now I'm thinking, what if I just don't paint the trim at all.. do it kind of like death guard where it's all rotting flesh, but these would be all bleached bone. Then the lighter colors will show the weathering even better.. I'm planning to muddy up their feet and lower legs and it might be cool to play with some rust effects that will stand out much better with lighter colors

Or just try something else entirely.. another idea I had was dark red/maroon armor with silver trim, but bright red chaos symbols and stuff.. or, that same dark red but with black trim... or dark red with bone trim? I just don't want em to look like Khorne thats why I tried to stay away from that and I wanted to go with brighter colors since I always paint dark colors... But I think for Chaos dark is gonna have to be the way to go for me...

What about a lighter contrasting colour, like blue and gold squares? (Think Tomb Kings)

You maybe good with a Bone-ish version of this:




I say that something to really make the army stand out is to show the armor, through judicial GS work, as warping of growing in bone like protusion. The ozing fluids fit because it shows that the armor is actually becomeing part of the marine rather than a disease under the armor. It's tricky to describe, but is doable.

I like the symbol, just as long as you know that the whit will be transperant. I think you should show the whole undivided star though, maybe add a fist holding/crushing the skull, kinda like if you are looking a a ball you are holding in your hand.

Yeah I think that might work. for the normal marines though, I want to have them not too mutated, and even the lord and terminators.. I just want them to look like bad-ass Imperium haters. but the chosen will be a lot different. I'm going to mix marine and posessed parts together as best I can, and mix in some nid tallons and extra shells and stuff like that. And the demon prince also. And the the spawn/obliterator conversions should be pretty freaky too.

I think the Deamon Prince needs to look very similar to a winged Superman villain Doomsday.

Aye, all bone for the rims and such, which should actually make it easier to paint I'd think
The bone looks very nice though, I like how smooth and polished it's come out. Nice work.

I figured your possessed were headed for chosen-dom, and I look forward to that madness.

- Salvage

Removing that black trim worked wonders.

Here's a before and after pic, the new one on the right.



I still have some back though, like on the belt and the emblem on the empty shoulder pad will be black too. I didn't want to add the goo running out of the cracks after all though. I think he looks dirty enough just like this.  Also the bases will have a lot of junk on them too.

So now next on my list is to paint up the rest of the unit plus the terminator lord like this. It should be a bit quicker too, since really all I gotta do is coat it with bleached bone, give it a brown wash, then drybrush more bone over that followed by a little white. I may do some blacklining along the edges of the trim though to make it stand out more, this guy is kind of like that now because of the black that was on there before.

yeah I like the non-black trim version myself as well. Does seem to be suffering from lack of any eye drawing details at the moment though. Though I reserve the right to completely retract that statement as you finish more on the model ^_^. Looks great so far.

Little update.. First unit is coming along good. I have the first 4 done (minus those missing guns, doing them last) and expect to have the champ done later tonight. Goal is to have the whole unit done by the end of the week. The bases will take a while, I'm planning to decorate them a lot. I have a lot of resin base bitz from GW's basing kits and also a lot of rocks and rubble that I can add too.

That bone wash color that I made kind of makes the models look like they're dipped, but they aren't Though, I did consider it. I dipped my tomb kings and the bone color on them came out great with the brownish stain. Using a wash gives a similar effect, but I have more control over where it goes and if I wanna add more for depth or less for brightness, I can



You may notice heads on toothpics in the background. That's how I like to do marine heads, a pet peeve of mine is not being able to fit a brush behind a head to get paint in there, so I do the heads separately.. I drill a teeny hole in the bottom and then stick em on a toothpick, so I can just hold that while I paint em

I do guns separately too so that I can paint the chest areas. I messed up this time though, I usually attach the gun to the right arm, so the body just has the left arm attached, then I glue the whole right arm & gun on at the same time.. but I got ahead of myself and wasn't paying attention. It's been a pain trying to get paint under those right fists :( But I'm pretty much just getting bone paint in there and then the wash, don't need any further detail where no one is going to see...

These guys are looking great ^_^. The pic here is much more telling of the colors and details. So the blandness is starting to melt away on them. I was wondering if you were considering dipping as a painting solution for them, since the effect is rather similar. Nice to see you chose something a bit more challenging (not that I've dipped before mind you...).

Great progress.

yeah this time I actually set up a light to take the pic. They're a little more "yellow" looking here but it"s a lot closer to what they really look like

Looking very nice Necros, cool to see a whole squad almost done already!

Having dipped a whole army (nice messy nurgle), I can say I look forward to NOT dipping another one. I just like the control of painting I guess, and basing is much easier IMO withou doing the dip first. This could change if I really hate drybrushing my TK in 2008, but we shall see.

Also, what white primer do you use Necros? Always looking for a good one.

- Salvage