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I am contemplating adding some "Marauders" to my WoC army. Unfortunately, I absolutely hate the way the current Marauder models look. I just don't like the lack of clothing and abhor painting flesh. So, I'm now looking for GW models that could stand in for Marauders (getting flails and/or great weapons will be another problem, but I'd prefer to find a suitable replacement to the Marauders themselves before fretting over the minor detail of equipping them). Below are my current ideas.

Converts to Chaos -
These would represent citizens of the Empire/Kislev that my army has converted (or forced) to serve the Architect of Fate. I could use a mixture of Free Company and Empire State Troops to represent these on the field of battle. Throw in an Exalted Champion with a whip and plenty of insignias of Tzeentch, and they would be unmistakable for regular Empire forces. At a later date I could also throw in Men-at-Arms, enslaved Saurus, or Skaven. (not sure if Saurus could be enslaved in such a manner, but it would be worth is just to paint them to match whatever paint job my friend goes with). I especially like the ragged look that the Free Company models already possess.

Necromantic Fodder -
I have more reservations about this plan. The idea here would be that there is a rogue Necromancer (Level 2 Sorcerer of Death) travelling with my army and he has pledged the services of his undead horde to Tzeentch. I love the Skeleton Warrior models, and I could even add a regiment of "Chaos Warrior" Grave Guard at a later date. As with the Converts, an obvious Chaos hero as well as marks of Tzeentch and painting to match the rest of my army would distinguish these soldiers from their Sylvanian twins. I'm very interested in how a bluish regiment of skeletons would look.

Orc Mercenaries -
These could either be actual orc mercs or they could be converts to Chaos. Plus, they'd be blue orcs. Blue!
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Thank you for reading. I would appreciate any and all feedback (constructive preferably).

I think these are great ideas. However, I personally love the marauders models, so I can't really relate! Will give a think on it, though. I'm currently wondering about the same thing for alternate Ogre models made by GW (other than minotaurs, but they seem to be the best option).

Or, of course, you could use the empire flagellant models, which come equipped with flails (which could easily be converted to great weapons) with all the obviously non-heretical stuff trimmed off...

I like the marauder models tbh. While I hate painting flesh, I went with a frostbite scheme so it doesn't look like normal skin so its fun to paint.

Out of your conversions I would go with the empire theme. I wonder if a simple head swap could be accomplished, that way you get the marauder heads (as well as flails) while still having unique models.

If you can find some old Teutogen Guard models, you can try putting them on 25mm bases. They are pretty decent nordic alternatives.

Orcs aren't the best bet for "naked marauder" fixing. They are better clothed, yes, but are still a lot of skin (I'd practically say both Orc arms are as much flesh as Marauder models as-is).

EDIT: Beorg Bearstruck and his men have the proper bodies too. Wrong equipment, but right shape.

I also hate painting skin.
I am instead going with no marauders, all warriors and other guys.
Also, I might use some cool thing as my trolls.

Painting marauders is really easy:

Spray or base coat them in bleached bone.
Cover them in Devlin Mud ink.
Drybrush Dwarf Flesh.
Paint details like harnesses and belt buckles.
Done.

Not sure why you'd play WoC if you don't like the Marauder models. It's like playing Orcs and not liking the color green.

A lot of people use Flagellants as maruaders and you could put Flagellant torsos on Marauder legs, or just flat out use whole Flagellant models and paint them Chaosy.

You could use Chaos Warriors and just give them flails and paint them differently. Since Chaos Warriors can't take flails, you'd be okay. You'd probably only need the hands off the marauder flail arms to do that.

What would be really cool would just be a flat out Chaos Warrior horde. I will never understand why after four or five Chaos army books, they've still never made it so you could do a viable Chaos Warrior horde.

There's a lot of crossover with some of the new space wolf models. With some Chaos Warrior or Chaos Knight bits, they'd make excellent marauders.

Kasrkinlegion wrote:Painting marauders is really easy:

Spray or base coat them in bleached bone.
Cover them in Devlin Mud ink.
Drybrush Dwarf Flesh.
Paint details like harnesses and belt buckles.
Done.

Not sure why you'd play WoC if you don't like the Marauder models. It's like playing Orcs and not liking the color green.

A lot of people use Flagellants as maruaders and you could put Flagellant torsos on Marauder legs, or just flat out use whole Flagellant models and paint them Chaosy.

You could use Chaos Warriors and just give them flails and paint them differently. Since Chaos Warriors can't take flails, you'd be okay. You'd probably only need the hands off the marauder flail arms to do that.

What would be really cool would just be a flat out Chaos Warrior horde. I will never understand why after four or five Chaos army books, they've still never made it so you could do a viable Chaos Warrior horde.

There's a lot of crossover with some of the new space wolf models. With some Chaos Warrior or Chaos Knight bits, they'd make excellent marauders.

It's called "Warriors" of Chaos, not "Marauders of Chaos".

Warriors are WAY cooler.....just sayin

RiTides wrote:I think these are great ideas. However, I personally love the marauders models, so I can't really relate! Will give a think on it, though. I'm currently wondering about the same thing for alternate Ogre models made by GW (other than minotaurs, but they seem to be the best option).

Trolls? They're about the same size. Plus between the new plastic kit and the old metal ones you would have some options as far as pose and weapons goes.

Leigen_Zero wrote:Or, of course, you could use the empire flagellant models, which come equipped with flails (which could easily be converted to great weapons) with all the obviously non-heretical stuff trimmed off...

Not grooving all the massive bare arms.

Casper wrote:Out of your conversions I would go with the empire theme. I wonder if a simple head swap could be accomplished, that way you get the marauder heads (as well as flails) while still having unique models.

I'd definitely scrounge bits to make them look more Chaos-y, although I'd be worried that headswaps might look strange on Empire bodies. The ones with helmets would definitely be out, although some of the beardy ones could definitely make the band look more ragged.

Minsc wrote:If you can find some old Teutogen Guard models, you can try putting them on 25mm bases. They are pretty decent nordic alternatives.

Orcs aren't the best bet for "naked marauder" fixing. They are better clothed, yes, but are still a lot of skin (I'd practically say both Orc arms are as much flesh as Marauder models as-is).

EDIT: and his men have the proper bodies too. Wrong equipment, but right shape.

The Teutogen's have more armor than I would feel okay with for an unarmored unit. The men with Beorg look nice though, unfortunately I don't know where I'd find them in any large quantity. They are discontinued DoW models, right? You're spot-on with the orcs being rather clotheless.

JSK-Fox wrote:I also hate painting skin.
I am instead going with no marauders, all warriors and other guys.
Also, I might use some cool thing as my trolls.

I was going to go without Marauders, but I'm very interested in the new Horde rules. I may end up not getting any Marauders; it'll really depend on how my army performs without them.

Kasrkinlegion wrote:Not sure why you'd play WoC if you don't like the Marauder models. It's like playing Orcs and not liking the color green.

Like eNvY said, Marauders aren't the focus of the army. They only represent two units in the army. It'd be more like playing orcs and not liking heavily armored models.

eNvY wrote:Warriors are WAY cooler.....just sayin

This is true.

eNvY wrote:

It's called "Warriors" of Chaos, not "Marauders of Chaos".

Warriors are WAY cooler.....just sayin

While what you say is true, the sad fact is that GW doesn't have the elegance to actually make a Chaos army book where you could take only Chaos Warriors. It kind of boggles the imagination that they're so incapable of doing this and the current army book is easily the absolute worst WoC book they've ever done. It is so badly designed and so pitifully inflexible that it pretty much demands that you take marauders.

You could try to play an army with all warriors and no marauders, but I'd imagine that even in the most friendly of gaming circles, you'd get hosed down so frequently that the level of frustration wouldn't be worth bending for style. You would just have too few models on the table and your opponents could always pick and chose where they fight you. They'd always be charging you, always flanking and rear charging and you would have an uphill battle enjoying getting so heavily flogged in every game.

So if you play WoC, you pretty much need to embrace the idea of taking marauders. I feel like they're some of the best models GW has ever done for fantasy, and they were certainly well ahead of their time when they were first released.

BUT THEY ARE ALL SO UGLY!!! (Cookie if you read this in the medic's voice from TF2)
I don't care about that, for my warriors of chaos shall just run up, smash into the enemy, and watch them be slaughtered. Also, Chaos Knights are for the win!

You can win games without Marauders although I do agree that they look nice they are a bit bland.......

Chaos Warriors will chew through units that can barely touch them in combat so you dont need huge units of them say 20 in 4 ranks of 5. Thats 18 attacks before you add in additinal hand weapons or the mark of Khorne.

Give them Halberds and then you're looking at S5 hits - not many units can handle the -2 save modifier.

I agree JSK-Fox - Chaos Knights for the win!!!!