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Hopefully this will motivate me to paint, model and convert a little faster and entertain some Dakkaites in the process!

I started doing Chaos Daemons a long while ago, and recently reinvisioned them as 40k, changing the bases to urban ones and using more complicated techniques and colour schemes. I tend to work on one unit at a time, so expect loving attention and background to each unit I introduce, as it'll be worked on until it's done.

My first unit to be painted and finished is my unit of Seekers of Slaanesh. I also include my Herald of Slaanesh on a Mount of Slaanesh, as this joins the unit in battle and has a very similar palette and look to the others. Due to my background, I generally refer to the Seekers as "Whispers", more on that later .

The Whispers



There are 10 Whispers, with the leader having a conversion with a sword from the Dark Elf Bolt Thrower team, and chain wrapped around her mount's foot. All champions in my army are denoted by a minor conversion and a chain in this way.



The standard bearer is a new addition and I am unsure if I am happy with her yet. The banner is from the new plastic Seekers sprue, and is being held by her tentacled hair. I'm still unsure if that's a good idea or not.

The whispers are still in the painting planning stage, though the bases are finished. I had previously painted two of my whispers, but after coming back to them during my Fantasy -> 40k jump, weren't happy with their quality versus what I now felt I was capable of. The unpainted models you can see are those two, which I stripped using acetone. Works a dream on metal models. (Editor's Note: The two seekers below are models I painted previously and have since stripped. This is not my current paint scheme. )



I've been doing testers, but haven't ended up happy with any of them yet. My newest idea is a base of Codex Grey with a blue wash on the majority, fading to a purple wash on the hands, feet and face (to show greater blood flow in these areas). Then highlighting up to Fortress Grey, wash again, then finally highlight in Skull White. Hopefully it will give a cold, otherworldly feeling to the Seekers. I haven't had time to try this out yet though.

The Herald of Slaanesh

My original Herald of Slaanesh model was on foot, so ended up alone and unprotected on the field and tended to die very quickly.



A new model to represent the Herald on a Mount was in order, and the new plastic Seekers kit was the perfect thing to make it similar to my Whispers without letting it fade into the unit. I didn't like the Seekers' pose though, as the legs lying down seemed static and the mounts seemed to be walking rather than running.



I put the mount on an incline to at least give it a reason to slow down, and am in the process of converting a seeker body to match the old seeker bodies, with crouched legs, and arms holding swords. The swords are from the Dark Elf Corsairs kit, and the head is a Dryad. This is in part due to my converted counts-as-Horrors unit having Dryad heads. I think the model works very well, though it still needs a lot of greenstuff work to go.



C&C welcome, thoughts, ideas, questions, suggestions. I'll go into more detail on whispers and my odd background for my army later, if there's any interest. I figured this post was long enough already!

Liking this already. I hate the poses on the new Seekers, but if you can convert them to look more like the older ones, you'll have something very cool on your hands.

Yay daemonettes that aren't hideous good job so far........

That's a really good idea for using the Dryad heads... might have to borrow that if i ever make a Deamon army.

Can't wait to see more progress on these! looks pretty darn exciting at the moment! subscribed!

Well, did some green-stuffing. Recently got the tip to use petroleum jelly to sculpt it, and some clay-shapers. Really pleased with them, though I still need plenty of practice. The old Seekers are notorious for the tails being badly fitting and needing to be greenstuffed. My screamers all have filled in heads, though this one still needs a champion conversion to make him stand out, bar the chain. Any ideas?







Need to green-stuff the joins between the converted Herald, am going to paint the steed, rider and arms seperately so I can get into all the recesses.

Its nice to see a lady get into the game from time to time, I have high hopes for this fellow chaos follower.

Since this is now front page again, guess I should say something. Well, still trying out testers for the skin, still not happy with it. Current idea is to try to steal the skin from this model from Forgeworld. With blue shadows and cream highlights.



I want to have the mounts be a black with deep blue highlights, like the red-bellied black snake:

Very cool stuff, and I like the concept. Only worry of mine is that you seem to only use 2 colors, black and shades of gray... I don't know if you ever intend to use these in a tournament or exactly how strict a TO would be in this case, just thought I would mention it.

EDIT: lol, ninja'd by OP. Well I guess that takes care of the 3 color thing then...

very cool! looks like its going well.

put up background?

Well my first run through was fairly monochrome, but I'm not too worried about model accuracy as I'm not very into the rules and such. I enjoy playing, I love painting and modelling, but actually having to use tactics and try to win might be a bit out of my league. However, I do want some more life and colour variation to my models.

Background for them... well you did ask for it.

First of all, the idea of Obscuras, the Chaos God of Shadow came from an old edition of WFRP (or possibly fanmade, it was in a collection of "Gods of the Old World" and I really liked him). He was said to have originally been a God of Law, along with Arianka (wisdom), Solkan (vengeance) and Alluminas (light). He became jealous of his brother, Alluminas, and after some time, betrayed them. He fought Alluminas and had his followers attack his brother's and sought to drown the world in shadow. As the two brothers fought, Tzeentch took advantage and sealed Arianka within a crystal prison. The Gods of Law were ultimately crippled and thus began the rise of Chaos. Obscuras himself became a God of assassins, thieves and those who work in the shadows, his only ally being the Great Horned Rat, his only enemy being Alluminas. He was somewhere between a Chaos God and a "normal" God, like Ranald and the like. This army originally began as a Fantasy army, and was shifted to 40k after my brother and boyfriend both picked up Imperial Guard.

So now I had to come up with some backstory for this Chaos God and his varied daemons and followers. I found inspiration in the Dark Heresy rulebook, in the Tyrant Star. The Tyrant Star is a phenomeon that occurs in the Calixis Sector, and has been occuring for some time. It is heralded by riots, bouts of insanity and unexpected terror on the world it has visited. Then, a shadow falls over the local star. It is not always the sun, sometimes it is a distant star or other heavenly light, but only rarely. This darkness lasts for a random length of time, and when it disappears, the sector finally (usually) returns to normal. An entire cabal of the Inquisition is dedicated to finding out what the Tyrant Star is caused by, and what it heralds.

As Obscuras' symbol is the eclipse, this seemed highly fitting and I decided that Obscuras was beginning to emerge, much as Slaanesh had when the Eldar descended into debauchery. I decided that some odd reports of new daemon types had occured several times in the region, especially during visits from the Tyrant Star. Soon, Obscuras will rip itself out of its shadowy womb and his daemons will spill out into the world, if the Inquisition can't figure out what's happening and somehow stop it. This lends itself nicely to a campaign against pretty much any army .

Obscuras' daemons tend towards shadows, cold, fear and a certain sleek, fast look. I chose my main colours as black, white and blue. And variations thereof. They're based as if on the ruins of a destroyed city, both to suit the theme of appearing on worlds beset by the Tyrant Star, and our (one-day!) City Fight board.

See, I knew writing out my background would kill this thread .

Actually, I find it more interesting than most of the backgrounds I've been reading around here...

I really like the idea of using the old WFB Gods ( I'm thinking of doing the same with Malal for my CSM legion "The Lost").
I'll keep an eye on this thread!

Well, I've put my Herald together, mostly, and stuck her on a pin to hold her by and attached it to the bottom of yogurt pot via the miracle of Blu-tac. She still needs the limbs sanding down to follow the new curves and then greenstuffing the missing sections so they don't look like they're missing anymore .





I've also done the greenstuffing and basecoated the Chaos Icon Bearer (hereafter referred to as the standard bearer). Still have no idea what I want to put on the banner. Part of me wants to put the face of Obscuras as he appears in dreams (he turned up a lot in some forum-based WFRP roleplaying I did a while ago and this got decided) which is a pale-skinned man with a black hat with a wide brim covering his eyes and an enigmatic smile. Other options are the eclipse, the raven or the bat; all are symbols of Obscuras.

I had to clip off the Seeker's hand from the banner and covered the resulting mess with a relatively simple ornament/join/fastening on the pole, and filled in the hole in the banner where the arm was supposed to fit into it. I also greenstuffed a tentacle extension to hold more firmly onto the banner with her hair. Thoughts, suggestions?



Also, le gasp, painting the Captain as my first model to test. Painted the mount Midnight Blue and as it dried realised it was a purple colour. Not impressed.

Still painting my Captain, though can't show you any pictures yet unfortunately. Pretty much finished the base, but fluffed up my first try at using weathering powders for a rusted girder and went overboard. Needs some emergency work to take it back to a reasonable level. Think I might try my attempts at concrete dust without a fixer and then I can mostly blow it off the model if I make a mistake. This model is using a lot of techniques I've never done before, which is making me nervous. My old painting style was a fairly standard one of paint base colours, wash with black ink, drybrush and varnish. The rocks on the base work nicely with this method, but I will be trying out painting on highlights, some gentle blending, weathering powders, rust effect, leaking goo from a broken pipe, reasonable metallics and glowing eyes. My little problem with the rust powders was a reminder that this could all go horribly wrong, but also that trying new things is pretty fun and it's nice seeing new effects take shape.

Played around in photoshop after I decided what I wanted on my banner, a flying raven on a sea of stars . I figured as the raven is the fastest of the symbols mentioned, it made sense to give them to the Whispers.



And on the note of the Whispers, here's some little bit of fluff for you, detailing their nature more thoroughly.


+++++Vox Transcriptions Recovered from the Logs of Throne Agent Lucius Val Cohorne+++++

++Log #3 of 38++ (Note: The first two logs were Val Cohorne struggling to figure out the workings of the device and consist mostly of questions and mild curses)

++A buzzing sound, shortly followed by anonymous creaking and mutterings, then the voice of Val Cohorne++

"I am making these logs to study.. to make a note of the happenings occuring now the sun has been blotted out by the Tyrant Star. Most of the city has gone mad, with looters and riots barely being contained by the local forces, some of which are not immune to the hysteria which seems to be gripping this planet. I confess..."

++A long pause of several seconds, then a crashing sound. Cohorne returns++

"I confess that even I have not being able to fully resist the mania that has beset Ferenze, but I have methods of making it manageable. Experimentation has shown that minor violence combined with Class 3 sedatives has rendered it mostly under control, I hope this will help in preparing future worlds for this... incursion. If however, this gets worse, I do not think that the sedatives will be adequate. It is not rage so much as paranoia and fear. Perhaps this will give us a clue as to the true nature of this phenomeon. Is it related to the Tyranid invasion, some kind of descending shadow touching minds far in front of their shadow in the warp? Is it warning of some kind of new xenos threat, or perhaps even related to the Eye of Terror, which is not far from this sector. I shall record any information I find out in this log and hide it away when not in use, in case some new threat should arise and I would else be unable to secure it. So far, I have seen only the sun blotted out, as if by an eclipse though it remains hour after hour, and the riots in the city streets. I feel I should also note the fear that has gripped my heart since it occured, even though I did not know it was the Tyrant Star at first. It is a cold, hunted feeling. It makes me want to crouch down and hide away somewhere close and warm and hidden, but also filled with light, for the shadows hold menaces in my mind now that never were there before. Even with the sedatives to take the edge off this crippling fear, I cannot bear the dark and the lights have been shining steadily now since it began. I wonder if the power station's workers are rioting and if so, how long the light will last. I have a small generator of my own, but it will not last long. I hope the sun returns before it comes to that.

++Log ends++

**

++Log #5 of 38++

"I was a fool. I went out to see what had occurred in the city, drugged and with a lantern to push away the darkness. Sheer hubris to think it would be so simple as to carry a lantern. It was... the road was mostly clear, people did not seem to be rioting in that area at that time. I thought I was lucky, but in truth they had been driven away, run like the frightened children they are to safer places and pulled the earth in after them. Driven by the creature I met. I saw it first as movement, or perhaps another of its kind. Something sprinting along an adjoining street, a rustle of footfalls. I stumbled back, into a hab with its glass broken and the pieces scattered on the ground beside him. Another flash of movement and then a figure, rearing up near me, just visible in the feeble light of my lantern. Its steed was all smooth lines and swiftness, scales glinting blue-black in the light, eyes smoking with a blue radiance. I could feel the cold radiating from the creature, while fear, terror, raised bumps along my arms. At first I did not even notice the rider, so fixated on the creature before me, until it began to whisper. It whispered threats and blandishments with the same breath, its hair a mass of black tentacles snaking about its face, whispered of secrets I have never told anyone, secret failures and regrets, sorrows and joys. It whispered of my shame, and I was so lost in fear and surprise and that endless whispering that I did not notice the rider strike out with a silver dagger and smash the lantern in my hand. Instantly, the dark rolled in. I pressed myself against the wall, as the whispering increased ten, no, twenty-fold. It simultaneously reminded me of every thought and deed I have ever done, while whispering of how easy it would be to lose oneself to the darkness, to be free of the fear and cold and darkness by becoming one with it.

I do not wish to laud myself, but I think a lesser man might have given in to that creature's maddening voice. The twin whispers were so... entwined, that the first seemed to lead to the second as if no other option were possible. What saved my soul was the power of the almighty Emperor and my faith in him, for as I began to chant prayers against the damned, the whisper retreated with but a few choice phrases and I was able to stumblingly make my way back to my room. I have locked and barricaded the entrances now, and that along with the lights should hopefully keep these new creatures, or daemons, away from my domicile. I have made notes on them, sketches, and put them in the safe along with this vox recorder. I have named them Whispers, as a temporary term. I have never heard of anything like them."

++A long silence, lasting several minutes, with various small undefined noises present++

I have another worry, the sedatives are running out. I only have two more boxes left. This will keep me going for maybe five days. Surely this will be over by then? If not, Emperor have mercy. Cohorne out."

++Log ends++

Love the fluff!!!

I have also been inspired by the Dark Heresy background, but your take on the Tyrant Star is nice to read...

And well-written...

This all looks really promising. Love Diaznettes

The fluff is really top-notch. An interesting read, thankyou!

Thanks for all your kind words . I should hopefully have a fully painted Captain model soon, bought a pot of Necron Abyss for the mount especially.

In game, the Whispers are counts-as for the Seekers unit. There are 10 Seekers, one of which is a Captain model (this is called the Chained, as every Captain model has chain around it, and for fluff purposes). The Captain model has the same stats, but has an extra ability. There is also a Standard Bearer, who has a Chaos Icon.

They are cavalry, obviously, and their daggers count as Rending Weapons. Aura of Acquiescence has been refluffed as the effect their whispering has on units that they assault or that assault them. The Chained has Transfixing Gaze, which is refluffed as Icy Aura, freezing the area around it and blanketing the ground in ice when it stops its headlong rush into battle.

I love this unit partly because, with the Herald, it can dish out an impressive 45 Rending Attacks. Ouch! That's 56 attacks on the charge... (I think, I may have fallen behind an edition on the main rules).

The Herald has pretty much the same abilities as the Chained in the Whispers unit, though it's an Independent Character and has a better statline .

Very cool fluff and the models are looking great. What does the full army list look like? Just a suggestion but what about using the necron Nightbringer model as a base for a DP or GD?

BBruser02 wrote:Very cool fluff and the models are looking great. What does the full army list look like? Just a suggestion but what about using the necron Nightbringer model as a base for a DP or GD?

About the Nightbringer, I really do like that that model and he's definitely a candidate for further Daemon Princes (or possibly my re-envisioning of my current Daemon Prince), however I already have a Forgeworld Keeper of Secrets that I'm going to be heavily converting to a Greater Daemon of Obscuras. Here's my concept work, done in Paintshop Pro, for a few ideas on what I want her to look like:



I'll be covering that later when I'm working on them, which may be after the Seekers, or possibly later on. I have a lot of fun units to finish converting and paint up, so it could be a while!

Here's my current Army List, though obviously with no points costs or explanations due to not wanting to step on GW's toes.

DAEMONS OF OBSCURAS ARMY LIST (Spoilered for length)

very cool mock up it will look great I love the mouthless look.

Not having the snarling mouth almost makes her look sad, maybe in a crocodile tears sort of way? I guess its sort of counterbalanced by the gigantic sword though...
Schemewise I think another colour added in key areas such as hair could do well in making the model more interesting, though the black and white do fit the look of your current daemonnettes so maybe youl want to stick with this.
Also, your fluff is very epic, I nearly got chills.

Trilobite wrote:Not having the snarling mouth almost makes her look sad, maybe in a crocodile tears sort of way? I guess its sort of counterbalanced by the gigantic sword though...
Schemewise I think another colour added in key areas such as hair could do well in making the model more interesting, though the black and white do fit the look of your current daemonnettes so maybe youl want to stick with this.
Also, your fluff is very epic, I nearly got chills.

Perhaps I'm going to have to make the pictures more obvious or something. I put the black and white daemonettes up as an example of my previous scheme, I've since stripped the painted models and am currently painting my Chained up in the new scheme. It's going well so far, though the loincloth pattern I want to do (frost on windowspanes sort of thing) is giving me nightmares, the new scheme is a bleached bone with blue shadows skin, a black steed with blue highlights. A lighter, more greyish blue on the steed's "hair" fin things, black/blue/purple tendrils for the daemonette's hair with blended from dark to light horns. Trying out the new metallics technique from the newest copy of White Dwarf (on Althran (sp) the new High Elf character), which is a sort of NMM with metallic paints. Blue gems, of course, in silver settings. The loincloth is a deep blue-green and will have frost patterns on it. The eyes will be glowing icy blue, and the claws are a standard bone colour.

As for the Keeper of Secrets, my concept work is still very up in the air when it comes to colour, as most of my new units will be having a lot more colour to them. I do very much like the mouthless look to her though . She does sort of look sad in that picture. I shall have to test it out with some blu-tack sculpting before I go for it outright.

I do love the mouthless concept as well... And the bleached bone & blue scheme should be nice!!!

Can't wait to see more!

As for your list, it's really random regarding the squads chosen, but it's quite characterful!! As your army is more fluff-oriented than most, maybe you could find something to link the squads, such as a common team strength, maybe related to Obscuras' favoured number... Problem is, 6,7,8 & 9 are already used by the other Chaos Deities...

Yggdrasil wrote:I do love the mouthless concept as well... And the bleached bone & blue scheme should be nice!!!

Can't wait to see more!

As for your list, it's really random regarding the squads chosen, but it's quite characterful!! As your army is more fluff-oriented than most, maybe you could find something to link the squads, such as a common team strength, maybe related to Obscuras' favoured number... Problem is, 6,7,8 & 9 are already used by the other Chaos Deities...

10 maybe? *chuckles* Thanks for the comments, my Captain pic should be up just after the 10th October or so. The squads are also linked by colour scheme, conversions and my obsession with tentacular stuff and chains. If I was a hipster executive, I'd probably say their power words were "cold", "sleek", "mysterious." Antagonistic power words would be "plod", "gross" and "passion". Coolly cruel and very quick, shadowy creatures that bring the frost.

And I really suck at playing, so any tips would be very helpful!

Yes, 10 could do, but as it's a kinda standard number in our decimal system, it doesn't make the units stand out...

Well, I'm not sure 4 is really doable. How about 11? It happens to be my lucky number as well . Would be working on my Chained tonight, but I feel a bit under the weather, bloody colds. However, I actually have every model, and not a single more, for my army list at the moment, so adjusting unit size might be a bit difficult. (Well, I also have a unit of Furies/Harpies but that's not legal except in Planetstrike). I still like the number eleven having significance to Obscuras however, though the idea of the Chaos Gods having favourite numbers and colours always seemed a bit strange to me.

That fluff is awesome.

Now I hate to be the guy who pokes it with a stick, but how do you explain the birthing of a new Chaos God? You haven't linked a specific emotion to Obscuras, which is the formative element for the original Chaos Gods and, indeed, the current state of the warp itself! And it took the debauchery of an entire race of powerful psykers to create Slaanesh... (I'm not trying to cut down your fluff, because I think it's awesome. I'm just pointing out the blank spots, with the end goal of helping you make the fluff even better and also consistent with the rest of 40k lore.)

@DRD: There are loads of other minor Gods already, wouldn't be too hard just to slip another one in there (although i agree about the emotion bit)

Looks good Cassandra, looking forward to some more pics!

Yup, I agree with Vitruvian XVII, in the fluff they clearly state that the 4 Chaos Gods as we know them are the "major" deities of Chaos...

Hence the possibility of minor ones...

As for the emotion that drives Obscuras, couldn't it just be.... fear?!?

The primal awe that strikes at all men's hearts when they lay alone in the dark??