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I've been trying to build a Daemon army. For the most part, this has been going swimmingly, but I've arrived at an impasse:

Apart from the fact that many of the more significant miniatures in the Chaos Daemons army are metal, many of them are also very unattractive.

I'm looking for plastic models that still look appropriate for the Daemons, although some cosmetic changes should be fine. I'm using clay mounds for Nurglings, for example. Specifically:

Screamers of Tzeentch
Seekers of Slaanesh

Bloodcrushers of Khorne
Flamers of Tzeentch
Beasts of Nurgle
Fiends of Slaanesh

Chaos Furies

Any advice for how to model these to make them more appropriate would also be appreciated.

One idea...

Bloodletters - Look for the older models. The ones that are much beefier and use big ass axes. Those represent the blood god so much more than skinny little swordsmen.

Actually, besides that I'm not sure what to tell you. You listed a large portion of the units in the codex, and if I personally think an army looks ugly, I simply don't play them.

Edit - Also, you ask for replacement models, then ask how to make the models already there more attractive. Which one?

Actually... I forgot to delete the plastic troop choices. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. My bad.

The top of my list for unattractive models is the Fiends of Slaanesh (lobster claws and horse bodies and fly heads and too many breasts...ew.) and Screamers of Tzeentch (The Lord of Change's Sky-Sharks shouldn't look like just normal stingrays with a rash. But the fangs were nice.)

Ah ok. I hear you on the fiends, those things are damn ugly. You could try Cold ones instead, giving them red eyes, some spines and general thorns everywhere.\

As for the Screamers, I actually like the idea you sorta said. Get some shark minis, give them a red paint job and generally model them to look more deamonic then the common shark. The idea of sharks floating in the air as if it were water is terrifying enough, but daemon sharks are worse.

I definitely like the idea of flying Daemonic sharks, but the only cold one models I could find from GW are already mounted with Dark Elves.

I'll keep them in mind for the Seekers of Slaanesh, but the fiends will be a bit trickier.

Thank you still, for helping me to improve my Daemons by removing the stingrays and ostritches.

Finding cold ones isn't so hard

http://cgi.ebay.com/WARHAMMER-BITS-DARK-ELF-COLD-KNIGHT-5x-COLD-ONE-BODIES-/330542601975?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf5dfd6f7

http://cgi.ebay.com/WARHAMMER-BITS-DARK-ELF-COLD-KNIGHT-6x-COLD-ONE-HEADS-/360352343367?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53e6ac6547


That took no time to track down. A shark on the other hand... Good luck. I tried looking for something like that for thirty or so minutes and found nothing. The things I did find had no picture. Might have to GS one.

I like Toob stuff from Safari Ltd..

http://www.shopatron.com/home/search/740.0.1.1?q=shark&t=product&cf=33307.33319.33569.0.0

They have several real-world sharks.. and their Fantasy stuff is not bad at all!

http://www.shopatron.com/products/productdetail/Mythical%20Realms%26%23174%3B%20Chimera/part_number=801429/740.0.1.1.33308.72997.0.0.0?pp=8&

EDIT - Look! Jokero!
http://www.shopatron.com/products/productdetail/Monkeys%20%26%20Apes%20Toob%26%23174%3B/part_number=680604/740.0.1.1.72995.0.0.0.0?pp=8&

Nice find. I thought about the plastic sharks, or phthalate, whatever they call it, but I was trying to find metal ones (i just like the weight of metal figs).

Also, we're talking about daemons, no need to bring up that slowed unit

Thanks for the help, Necroshea. I've already got a place for model sharks.

The only three left, then, are: the Bloodcrushers of Khorne, Flamers of Tzeentch, and the Beasts of Nurgle.

Honestly, I like the flowing appearance of the Flamers of Tzeentch, but the metal models are financially restrictive.

The Beast of Nurgle looks like an intestine that has been turned inside-out. It's not a bad model for Nurgle, but I'd like to improve on the idea.

And the Bloodcrushers of Khorne are just prohibitively expensive, at about $20 per model for what is really a bulky and angular rhinoceros.

So let's look at the individual units then.

Bloodcrusher - Demonic beefy creature mounted by a sword wielder. Price to beat is 54, or 18/figure.
Flamers - Floating bodies that spew flames. Price to beat is 23, or 8/figure.
Beasts - Large diseased melee unit. Price to beat is 25.

Blood Crusher
Instead of something mounted on something, why not use a big model with a great sword, in a running stance dragging it behind him, with a grove made into the base to make it look like it's heavy enough to leave said groove.

Flamers
I think maybe something along the lines of flaming wraiths might work. Of course, you could think of something else to use that basically melts/breaks down things.

Beasts
Honestly, this should be easy to replace. Find a monster that's big, and GS simple diseased stuff on it, like patches of skin missing.

The biggest question here is how poorhammer are we talking. I mean, it won't do you any good to link you to things like reaper figs if you mean to kit bash bits or anything like that.

Most of them either didn't look right, like the Fiends, or were metal. I don't like gluing metal, or painting it, but I wanted to play the Daemons, so I needed to find plastic alternatives.

The Crushers were the only thing that were way too expensive. And when a squad of 5 terminators costs less than 3 models, it's getting a bit expensive.

For the furies, perhaps you could put nid gargoyle wings on Beastmen? Or the regular bloodletters if you're going to use the old metal bloodletters, as your bloodletters (anyone got that? ).

Ah, I see.

Well, you could make some conversion out of ogre bulles from ogre kingdom.

http://www.dicebucket.com/servlet/the-1814/Ogre-Kingdoms-Bulls-on/Detail

23 ish bucks for 6 ogres (sprue)

If anything, with some chaos spawn bits you could defintely make some "Behemoths of nurgle" to sub for beasts. Doing the bloodcrushers and screamers out of them might make things too ogre-y.

As for the rest...still not sure. About to go to work so I'll see what I can think up and post later on today/tonight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Saintspirit wrote:For the furies, perhaps you could put nid gargoyle wings on Beastmen? Or the regular bloodletters if you're going to use the old metal bloodletters, as your bloodletters (anyone got that? ).

That would be cool. Put black cowls on them, call them Winged Headhunters.

Thank you for all of your help, everyone, but I'm done planning my shopping list. I know what every Daemon (barring the Soul Grinder, which looks hideous and I've never liked as a Unit.) will look like, and how it will be built.

In the effort to make a contribution to the community, I'll be recording my progress with the different groups of modified models on separate threads.