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The Canphor system was Lord Inquisitor Squaw’s biggest headache, and had been ever since the first notice of unusual activity in the sector had come across his desk.

When they first arrived, the locals of Canphor II – unwashed feudal tribes, living knee deep in snow and building shrines to their Emperor-proxies out of woolly cammoth bones – called them angels. They descended from the heavens draped in silver and sang harmonies so pure they sent the unclean into fits of apoplexy.

The Goraldan 91st were the closest regiment, having been stationed a few systems away, and were deployed as an immediate precaution. That had proved fruitless – no men returned and an entire armoured company was reduced to unsalvageable scrap.

The Third Company of the Lions Resplendant were called in from the Curac salt moon to deal with the threat but found the planet empty – of not only hostiles but human life also.

Fatline comms were lost on return to their Stormbird and the Lions were never seen or heard from again. Sensitive readings showed an enormous spike in warp activity originating from one of the outer planets in the system.

Navy cruiser Sutrovex was stationed nearby and monitored Canphor IX, sending data back to the sector’s Inquisitorial Command Station regularly.

That had proven to be a costly mistake. The cruiser was soon taken from Imperial control, and then the Command Station itself was host to an incursion of the Canphorite daemons. Though they had beaten back the initial offensive, the Station’s distress beacon had caused further outbreaks at each of the bases that had received the message.

The system was lost, and the loss was spreading faster than the Inquisition could contain it. Squaw sighed, licked his quill, and continued to pore over the records.

There must be something here…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

G’day everyone, here is where I am up to with my Chaos Daemons army – I have recently hit just over 2k points and thought it was a good time to take a group photo.

I have taken a bit of a different path with this army. GW’s vision of chaos tends to be very Moorcockian, being very visceral and gruesome with lots of eyes and teeth in the wrong places. This is a visually spectacular aesthetic that is grounded in a lot of sci fi and has become an iconic part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

I think there is space, though, for a subtler chaos – one that is more mentally/psychically horrifying than physically so. Based in Lovecraftian ideas of true chaos being totally alien and unknowable, I have used this army to play with the concept that the models being placed on the table aren’t actually the daemons themselves, but are your brain’s way of processing what it is seeing without instantly going mad – thus the reduction to basic geometric shapes that I picture constantly shifting and rotating and fractalling and glitching out as you try and take in the whole thing.

In addition to Lovecraft, there are three other major influences on the design of the army; Gwaahr’s brilliant Cubes of Tzeentch army, the angel Ramiel from Evangelion, and the monoliths of Space Odyssey: 2001.

Although I have no intention of ever using this army competitively, I have gone to some effort to make sure it is playable. All units are internally consistent and distinct in form from each other and on their correct sized bases. In addition, I have tried to keep the models close in height to their GW counterparts and tried to at least include some inspiration or suggestion of the original unit. For example, the pink horrors splitting into smaller blues and brims, flamers being tall and lanky…

Some models do hit the mark more than others. My personal favourite models in the collection so far are the herald on disc who I think just captures the concept most singularly, and the furies – who are the simplest build, but their interaction between form and function just make me happy.

There is plenty more to come, but I am very happy with how it has come along so far!









Individual models/units will be spoilered below.

Lord of Change



Soul Grinder & Nurglings



Disc herald


Flamers


Exalted Flamers



Daemon Prince



Screamers



Horrors & Foot Herald



Furies



Comments and critiques are always appreciated. Thanks for looking!

 tzurk wrote:
Although I have no intention of ever using this army competitively

...thank goodness for that.

Joking aside - what a brilliant concept! I too find the idea of what Chaos could be fascinating, but it's rare to see that kind of imagination brought to life. Great work on the shifting colour scheme, too!

Love it.

It's weird, it's unique, it's a great concept for a daemon army.
The painting really adds to it as well. It's messy and un-uniform, but at the same it is oddly uniform. Which I feel fits really well with the whole concept. And I think you've used the right sort of colours as well.

What are the spheres made up of circular bits? They weren't in any of the individual pictures.



And maybe it says more about me, then the models themselves, but I can't see the exalted flamers as anything but buttplugs.

 Super Ready wrote:

 tzurk wrote:
Although I have no intention of ever using this army competitively

...thank goodness for that.

Joking aside - what a brilliant concept! I too find the idea of what Chaos could be fascinating, but it's rare to see that kind of imagination brought to life. Great work on the shifting colour scheme, too!

Hahaha - well that is one of the first questions that always pops up and I think puts some people offside with the army, is that they'll one day face it across the table when they're playing for sheep stations and they'll have a bunch of headaches working out what everything is. I am lucky enough to have a good group who are all mates outside the world of 40k so there's no dramas there and they still get to see some action.

Thanks for the feedback! The colour scheme is something that just sort of grew organically; there has been plenty of repainting and starting over, but that's the wonderful thing about these is that they're essentially blank canvasses - or LEGO - and if you stuff up it doesn't take much to just try again.

 Snrub wrote:
Love it.

It's weird, it's unique, it's a great concept for a daemon army.
The painting really adds to it as well. It's messy and un-uniform, but at the same it is oddly uniform. Which I feel fits really well with the whole concept. And I think you've used the right sort of colours as well.

What are the spheres made up of circular bits? They weren't in any of the individual pictures.



And maybe it says more about me, then the models themselves, but I can't see the exalted flamers as anything but buttplugs.

Thanks mate, appreciate your comments! I tried to stick mostly within the realm of the Gods' favourite colours just to add a layer of consistency with official material...I tested out a few different things like golds and rainbows but always came back to something simpler.

The spheres were actually my first crack at nurglings, before I realised they were supposed to be on 40mm bases instead of 50mm. They snuck into the group photo but they are currently in limbo until I decide what to do with them; I think rebasing them to 60mm and running them as Beasts of Nurgle is probably the most likely outcome.

As for the Exalted Flamers' buttplugginess, you are not the first person to mention the resemblance! It was unintentional, although I did make the connection during build phase and kept pushing through. Suitably unsettling, I think...maybe they will end up rededicated to Slaanesh as the army expands...

Love them.

Absolutely brilliant idea and execution!

I don't understand why you painted an army of my parents fighting....

Seriously, cool concept brought to life.

Brilliant work and concept.
I really like daemons, tzeench beeing my favoured patron -and this is such a great take on the wonders of cosmic horrors.
Great work.

What an amazing concept - very cool OP, very well done too, and I am going to shamelessly steal the idea!

KingGarland wrote:Love them.

Thanks mate!

Shadow Walker wrote:Absolutely brilliant idea and execution!

Thank you! I have struggled with perfectionism over the course of the army given its sort of "high concept" base. There are some minis whose execution doesn't quite match what I had in mind - e.g. screamers, exalted flamers, and some whose final product I think actually manage to cover up some shoddy ideas (Lord of Change), but I do think overall there's enough of the theme in everything to make a decent snapshot of my brain...

Green is Best! wrote:I don't understand why you painted an army of my parents fighting....

Seriously, cool concept brought to life.

Psychoanalysis via alien mind invasion...it's gonna be big

Fayric wrote:Brilliant work and concept.
I really like daemons, tzeench beeing my favoured patron -and this is such a great take on the wonders of cosmic horrors.
Great work.

Appreciate the kind words mate. Tzeentch always held a soft spot in my heart too - a bit subtler compared to the excesses of the other three. Lots of creative space that I think has been left unexplored!

Skinflint Games wrote:What an amazing concept - very cool OP, very well done too, and I am going to shamelessly steal the idea!

Haha thank you - I think that is the highest praise you can receive! I have shamelessly stolen from a bunch of people much more brilliant than I am in the creation of the army so I am glad to see the ripples continue. Would love to see what you come up with!

LOL, nice way to save $$$$.