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Warning: The odd topless or suggestive model may appear in this thread, though there won't be anything you wouldn't see in an art museum.

I've always liked fantasy battle as a game, but for modeling, 40K is much more inspiring. Paint 20-30 more or less identical dudes, the only the front rank of whom will be visible on the table? No thanks, really. Plus 40K just has a lot more scope for converting and characterizations.

However, the release of the new beasts of Chaos book has inspired me to start a new fantasy army. Why, you may ask? Simple - ungors on 20mm bases. Since just about any sort of interesting model could be an Ungor, one could build a true "horde of chaos" with lots of wild and crazy figs. Now a little disclaimer - I haven't bought/read the codex yet, but since I play about 5 games of fantasy a year, there's no real hurry.

I've decided to start with an old Mordheim Slaneeshi Chaos warband "Beauty and the Beast" as a base. Based loosely on the retinue of Dionysus:

From Wikkipedia for the Curious:

"Dionysus or Dionysos (pronounced /ˌdaɪ.ɵˈnaɪsəs/; Greek: Διόνυσος or Διώνυσος) is the ancient Greek god of wine, the god who inspires ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology. He is included as one of the twelve Olympians in some lists. Dionysus is typical of the god of the epiphany, "the god that comes". He was also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans[2] and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. In addition to winemaking, he is the patron deity of agriculture and the theater. He was also known as the Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy or wine.[3] The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the aulos and to bring an end to care and worry.[4] Scholars have discussed Dionysus' relationship to the "cult of the souls" and his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead.[5]

In Greek mythology, Dionysus is made out to be a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. He is described as being womanly or "man-womanish".[6] The name Dionysos is of uncertain significance; its -nysos element may well be non-Greek in origin, but its dio- element has been associated since antiquity with Zeus (genitive Dios). Nysa, for Greek writers, is either the nymph who nursed him, or the mountain where he was attended by several nymphs (the Nysiads), who fed him and made him immortal as directed by Hermes.[7]

The retinue of Dionysus was called the thiasus and was comprised chiefly of maenads and satyrs."

Sounds like Slaneesh to me!

So here's the band (many of whom did not survive)





Various odd figs, but basically some beastmen, some louts, some mutants, and lots of women with knives.

In addition, I'll be working with "the army that I found in my bitz box". I was fortunate to win 2nd place in Bartertown's first conversion contest, and smart enough to choose a bitz box instead of a battalion, which turned out to be incredibly generous, including basically an army's worth of vaguely snake like mutant guys (urban war Koralon, I *think*), along with a ton of other interesting stuff.

I'll be making the army as colorful as possible, and will be including as many banners and musicians as possible (several per unit), and some units will be designed to be dual purpose for 40K (genestealer cult, lost and the damned, etc.)

There will be a few traditional beastman units, but also a bunch of cultists, and also a number of snake beastmen and cat beastmen, and some just plain weird stuff. There will also be some theatre themed stuff. I think GW model ranges have been getting better in almost every case, except for fantasy chaos, which has lost much of its variation and personality, IMHO. So this is wild and crazy chaos army, not a closely packed blocks of boring guys army.

Interesting I like the use of greek myth.

Ok: First unit: "The White Herd" - a group of albino beastmen Gors. Here's the test miniature (yeah, I know, a few things to clean up like the hand. I was just testing the scheme - the effect was meant to suggest a grubby white creature). Since this will be a big block, I want a scheme that's fast and fun to paint.





Here are the first few of the unit, which I'm thinking to be 20. I don't like the ungor heads, and I think I will swap them with gors, or maybe hornless gors. My favorites are the guy the kroot rifle and the one with the chaos warrior shield.



This will a 40K crossover unit, so I'm doing different command figures. Here are some genestealer hybrids for genestealer cult. Not terribly happy with them so far, but I was inspired by Da Greensteala Kult.



Here is the Lost and the Damned power fist champion and a flamer - like these guys much better, especially the champ.



Here's the fantasy battle champion. Really liked this guy as I was working on him, now, not so much. Too static, not feral enough.

I'm not sure about being too static, it looks like he's striding forwards confidently to meet a challenge. He doesn't need to be ferally frothing at the mouth. He's shouldering aside his herd to stare threateningly at the enemy, head down and and pointing his horns at them. Then he is going to rush and gore them. Sort of how antelope circle and posture slowly before rushing and slamming horns together.

Hmmm - I like the head down to charge idea. Have to think about that. I'm warming up to the champ, but he may wind up with a different unit. In the meantime, here's the White Herd in 40K configuration:



Modeling note: Beastmen seem to need most of their greenstuff on the the back of their heads. Some of the head/horn combinations look really odd without extra hair. They have this kind of bald spot and then a pigtail sticking out below it that needs some extra hair IMHO:



Thinking about doing a few beastmen with 80's witch elf "Big Hair" - the middle fellow for a start:



Well, enough looking at the backs of Beastmen's heads. Here's the 40K themed figures up close:



Wow, those are some mold lines. Strange how they aren't nearly as obvious to me handling the figure. I did some with shields so I could field the unit that way for fantasy battle by putting them in the front rank. I like the beastmen shields, but wanted something a bit more "sophisticated" for this unit for some reason.



MOAR SKULLZ!



Here is the unit with shields:



And with 2 hand weapons:



Next up, painting. I'm running into some trouble there - I want them to be albino, but I can't make the albino skin be sufficiently different from the albino hair. As you might expect, being all white. I may have change over to different skin tones. I'll post some pics this weekend.

Nifty concept I enjoy random and varied Beastmen. The Giant Kit is a great set for components for crazed mutants. To seperate out the Skin and Hair how about using a different shade/highlight for both of them?

Different highlights is a good call, but with the whole albino thing, highlights don't seem to show up too much. I'll try it on the next one. Maybe a pale grey on the fur.

Here's a few more "White Herd" beastmen.



I've been working mostly on imperial guard, but here is the next unit - Huntresses of Slaneesh - crazy archer gals in the classic greek tradition.



And their 40K add ons - genestealer hybrid and lasgun champ:

excellent idea! i also have a slanneshi warband for mordheim though mine has more of a brettonian slant fluff wise. Can't wait to see what you have in store! I love bits box armies my genestealer cult was made that way

I'd like to see it - post some pics!

Well, the crash of the brittish pound has put the Fomorian Sirens from the Celtos range within my reach, so I picked up the set. The Celtos stuff has a nice classical feel with great sculpting. Its easy to imagine these gals as some sort of Nymph-Satyr cross, or Slaneesh Ungor Raiders. Sadly, Celtos did this weird giant weapons thing, which makes most of the range useless in my book. The Sirens weaponry doesn't look too oversized though. I've left most of the weapons black except on the test model, as I'm not sure how to paint them. Realistic or flamboyant? I tried to make my weapons red in honor of the original deamonette lobster claws in my original warband.

And now a character.... Captured in the jungles of the Southlands as a baby, he was brought to the degenerate areanas of Tilea, where warriors still battle to the death for the amusement of the mob in the ancient fashion. As a Pit fighter he learned to hate man, but love the adoration of the crowd, the thrill of the kill, and the pleasures with which they bribed him as the number of his victories mounted. At last the Chaos gods appeared to him in a dream, and he slew his owners and fled, destined to lead the forces of the dancing god in the forests of Tilea and southern Bretonnia.... (Counts as a doombull or such) The figure is a Hundred Kingdoms model. They did a sort of Planet of the apes kingdom with a number of interesting figs. I picked them up in a closeout sale - some will be making an appearance in this army, some for trade. The model is not the greatest, but a giant gorilla gladiator was too good to pass up. I'd like to jazz him up a bit - I added the chaos spikes on the shoulder pad) but I'm not sure what I could do.

Haven't done that much painting in the last few months, but here are a few tidbits.
First, a Minatour from the Maximinis line from their beastman 20 pack. I like the human feet (Hooves are OK too, but the current GW flipper feet bug me) and ornate style. Still very WIP. There are some others ones on the site that are similar, but I'm not going to do a unit while I have lots of others unpainted.

Nex

Next we have the Daemonette J'halliav'rll and its half Daemon Daughters. Counts as Gors with 2 hand weapons - an expendable unit that can still do a little damage. Only the modern Daemonette champion was done by me. The old Daemonette lobster claws are pretty fugly, but they are still nice sculpts in their way. Chaos should be disturbing after all. I like a nice all metal unit with some variety in the models. Picked these up in a trade long ago.

I love the conversions, but I also think you'd really benefit from the use of Citadel washes! Also a huge fan of the pics in natural sunlight. Sooooo much better than indoor lighting imo.

I like outside light too - unfortunately, at this time of year in Maine its really tough - there's not that much light to start with, and the angle is really low, even at mid day, so the shadows are very long. None the less here are two WIP units. They use more Ink than the Daemonettes (which I didn't paint). I do want to branch out in inks though - right now all I use is Black, Chestnut, and Flesh Wash.

The Warbrides - Three lost Witch Elves who wound up in Northern Tilea somehow, and convereted to Chaos, and the women they have trained in the ways of Khaine. Slaanesh has blessed them with T4 and really big hair, but the hair slows them down a bit and cuts into their WS and I. Unfortunately, I don't really have any more models that fit the unit. Wanted: Female models with two hand weapons. Must have 80's hair, GW/Reaper proportions, and dynamic pose. The new Lelith Hesperax is a possibility, but cost is hard to justify.







Next we have the Maiades, seven foot tall followers of the Dyonisian cult of Excess, with their drummer and Fertility Totem. Again, only 5 models. I'd planned to finish out the unit with some Kelt Fiannas, and other Rackham models, but with the company out of buisness and the models really expensive and hard to find, that's not looking promising. Perhaps someone will buy the molds and start selling them off cheap. I might hit bartertown to see what I can turn up.





I can use them together as one unit now, though they look a bit odd, given the variety of the figures.

Here are more of the "White Herd" models painted. Still WIP - in fact, I almost always lose interest in figures once they look fairly decent as a unit - generally I'll return to them when I'm going to play them, especially in a tournament with painting scores. That way I get the best overall appearance for an army, even though individual models may not be entirely finished.









Although I think I will fix the cross eyed skull.

Here are the beginnings of some Chariots, made with dirt cheap Mageknight parts.





And a "Sword Bearer" who lugs around the swords of the unarmed models in the Warbrides unit while they're too busy twirling and such.

good, i'm glad you updated this. keep it up!

Things have been progressing fairly well over the last couple of weeks, with a few units more or less done. First we have a Razorgor Chariot (Mageknight Atlantian Ram, costs about $5 online - though I only really got it because I was buying a Dwarf Steamtank to make a battlewagon with and needed to justify the shipping). The rider is a Bloodletter I believe.



Next are Dancing Girls and their sword carrier - for now they are finishing out my Warbrides unit (most of them do have fairly big hair, and thus qualify), but I think they will be a counts as ungor unit after I add a couple more and some musicians. I've decided to go with a heavy outflanking build, with the idea being that the outflanking units are infiltrators - cultists and such who reveal themselves at the last moment.





Here is the Ratwagon. Scratchbuilt, with the beast pulling it being another Mageknight figure. I started out not that fond of this figure, but liked it more as I started painting it - unfortunately, because I had hurried through it, there are some awkward mold lines.





I've started painting my cat unit. The figures are mostly from the Hundred Kingdoms range - got them at a going out of buisness sale 75% off. I'd be more satisfied about that I hadn't bought a great many other figures, some of which I'll probably never use, meaning that those I will wind up using will probably not be that cheap. Still, not bad overall. the quality of the sculpting varies a fair bit - the lions are really well done, the cheatahs not so much. Their spots are sculpted in, which does make them easier to paint, though its a bit of an odd effect. I had a struggle coming up with a color scheme. I haven't been that happy with units of models with no unifying colors - but I wanted to paint the different kinds of cats in their colors. I've been using alot of copper metallic, and that worked nicely for the shields. The teal was a bit of an accident, but fits really well I think. Another challenge was unit composition. In 40K I like to group my squads by activity - a squad firing, a squad running, that sort of thing. I think its even more important in fantasy - units look really dorky with a few models charging and the others loafing about. Units of random metal figs is especially tough. I had to do some converting to make some of the spear models more dynamic, but I think it works. I like that they are small relative to their bases, so you can see each model as an individual.





Next is a little band of mutants and halfwits (ungors with shields and hand weapons) - the outcasts of society, easily lured into thowing their lives away in battle by the pleasures Slaanesh brings. Quite a bit of greenstuff in this unit. The musician is entirely sculpted over a Reaper armature. Makes me realize how far I have to go when it comes to greenstuff sculpting - about the only thing I do well is fur. Anyway, I like the variety of models. They also rank fairly well. I don't think they would look as good as a bigger unit, as it would be too busy, though I have a few other models that would fit.

Finished up the mutant unit last night, and I'm kind of bored with the cats, so its time to think about what to do next.

Right now I have (in counts as terms)

20x Gors - 2 hand weapons
15x Gors - Hand Weapon and Shield
10 x Gors - 2 Hand Weapon
10 x Gors - 2 Hand Weapon
10 x ungor - Hand Weapon and Shield
10x ungor with bows
1 x Tuskagor Chariot
1 x Razor Gor Chariot
2 Minatour characters.

Wow, more than I would have thought.

I could work on my Jabberwokky (Hundred Kingdoms insect queen with Slaanesh steed head)



I was planning to do these snake guys as Minatours - but I'm not as keen now that its becoming less of a 40K crossover project. Also, I would probably want to use the color scheme of the winged figure in order to have them fit in with other painted snake figs, and I'm not sure how well that fits in.



I need some impact for the army - if not minatours, than perhaps Razorgors. I might do toy farm animals converted into "sacred cows of Slaanesh" - a herd of sacred cows trampling the foe fits my image for the army pretty well. On the other hand, good toy cows seem to be hard to find.

I also need to do 2 spellcasters. I have a GW gor shaman and an off brand one who would do, but it seems like they are a bit underwelming in such a flamboyant army. I may use the reaper opera singer for one.

I also have the Bob Olly beastmen from Mega Miniatures and some other random beasts, enough to make another 20 gor unit. They will be another unit with a variety of colors, which is tricky to compose and still have it look good.

I also have parts to make perhaps 25 Ungor with spears. I'm thinking to do them as "spartans" to fit with the classical theme - at least the first rank. The rest of the ranks will be an excercise in speed painting, as I don't see much potential for them.

Hmmm, where to go next?

Love the Jabberwocky. (S)he looks seriously sick and twisted.

Thanks - I have some plans for additional wings that use transparent plastic and should be somewhat mindbending if I can get them to come out right.

In the meantime, I've put together a few more models. First up are some greek themed Ungors. I'm not actually a 300 the movie fan, (I would much rather have seen a historical treatment of Thermopylae) but I must admit it did inspire these guys. I am particularly happy with the way the unit looks as a group. They look somewhat wild as beastmen should, but the ones forming the shieldwall give the unit a more dynamic look than most fantasy units. Plus, I'm looking forward to using cheezy quotes like "Ungors, Prepare for Glory!" when receiving a charge and "No Ungor Dies Today!" when taking saves. Maybe it will make them lucky. I used the larger gor shields for the front rank. Greenstuff on the champ is still a little rough.











Next we have my first mage - perfect for the army, IMHO. The beastman with the Umbrella is something I've been planning to do for a long time, but credit where credit is due - its from Dan Abnett's Traitor General about a world under chaos occupation - I always like the more in depth, textured description of chaos he showed - more "bizarre and twisted" and less "Homicidal lunatic", though there was plenty of that too.





A few more genestealer cult guys - much more happy with the combination of genestealer head and horns on this one than my last attempt.



Finally a few generic reinforcements for the White Herd. The darker plastic bodies are from the new beastman set - and much more interesting terms of their equipment and such than the old ones.

Well, another three months, another update. Inspired by Kid Kyoto's legendary all dancing girl army I worked on that unit a bit - not really happy with any of the paintjobs for the new models yet though.




I'll be using them as ungor outflankers w/ musician. Not sure how to represent the shield though. Probably won't bother. Scarves are kind of like shields, right?

Some rummaging in the discout bin produced this musician. I've enjoyed finding uses for the homeless models of the world. Chaos has a place for everyone. Really.





A couple more Warbrides. The spear wielding figure comes with enough hair to put on another base as its own figure - too much for me even - I lelft only a ponytail and figured I could use the rest for some conversion or other.



Finally, with some trading, converting and scrounging, I've made a start on my Cult unit (More outflanking Ungors). I've decided I want to go heavy on the traditional black and white Slaanesh colors for this unit, as the pastels that feature so heavily in the rest of the army are starting to bug me.




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Whoops, forgot the general. Or a potential general anyway, when I want the army to be led by a spellcaster. Sigh. Looks like the paint still needs work. Cameras are very unforgiving....





I'm considering painting the purple dress black, but we'll see.

The umbrella with your general looks great. I like the dress as it is, but ultimately it's up to you.

Great looking army, really inspiring.

kestral wrote:Well, another three months, another update. Inspired by Kid Kyoto's legendary all dancing girl army I worked on that unit a bit - not really happy with any of the paintjobs for the new models yet though.

I assume you mean legendary in the sense it never existed

What? No dancing girl army? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. : ) Glad you like it - I've enjoyed assembling this army out of various odd figures scrounged from many companies.

Anyway, its summer again, so some painting got done. I speed painted my "300" ungors, and am very happy with the results. Not bad for about 5 hours, IMHO.





I was short a few figs for the 20 I wanted in the unit, so they got themselves a Sacred Goat. The only thing I don't like about working with plastic farm animals is that they are really tough to clean up well, hence the flash on the horns. Greenstuffed on a few extra eyes and the udder.



I'm actually looking for some good plastic cows. I want to do a unit of sacred cows as Razorgors.





The shieldwall. As you can see there are alot of details not painted, but it really looks fine on the tabletop. I like the Dual standards and dual musicians look, and also like placing the standards in the second rank. You get more visual impact out of your rank and file that way I think.






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I also did some conversions for chaos spawn, standard bearers and musicians, which I feel help to bring out the "weird" feel that chaos should have.



My musical spawn (very fond of him) I used this odd form of sculpty that stays very smooth no matter what you do to make the tail.



Finally found a use for the Werner Klock french maid - the greenstuff on the dress still needs work, and the hands are a bit large, alas. Hopefully the "paint the hand dark to make it look smaller theory will work.

These are looking excellent glad to catch up with this thread and the utter anarchy's brilliant. You seen Wargames Factory's Amazons which would fit in brilliantly?

Good call - I hadn't thought of that, even though I've seen a few pics - do you have a link to a picture of the sprue?

Sorry no best call is to type it into google I suspect.

Found it:

http://wargamesfactory.com/announcements/amazon-sprue-images

Certainly some interesting bitz. I wonder if I could make them "Chaotic" enough though.

Not sure I want to do a whole unit, though at $20 for 24 figures, its not too great a sacrifice to get one and not use them all. If I could order a single sprue I'd be all over it. Annoyingly, its NOT one of the sprues you can get by itself apparently. Another downside is the "open hand" style - I've always struggled with it, though a little conversion and green stuff would probably cover it.

Got the beast from a junk bin at a game store - I'm assuming is a Hordes figure, but not sure. The gal on the throne is a reaper figure I got cheap years ago thinking I could cut off the throne and turn her into a mounted bretonnian damsel.




Seems silly in retrospect. I'll probably put a slaneehi icon on her staff eventually. Counts as giant?

Well, summer is all but gone, but the last couple of days saw some painting. Its amusing to watch the seasons change behind my figs.

Painted my spawn. A bit annoying, in that painting brought out some of the problems with my greenstuff. The drippy wash is intentional - wanted it to look slimy and oozy.







Had better luck with the Jabberslythe. Used almost exclusively inks over a white basecoat. Its a fast, fun way to paint, especially on a large model. Still have a few ideas for additional wings, but its good for now.