Realm of Chaos: Warrior-Champion of Slaanesh

Back in the early 1990’s, shortly after the release of Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, a small set of Chaos models was released. At least one for each of the four Chaos Powers, and seemingly Khorne got a few extras. These particular models aren’t seen a whole lot, as they weren’t sculpted by Jes Goodwin, but by Mark Copplestone – and so had a much shorter production life. They’re not the equal of Jes’ classic sculpts, but they do have an interesting character (there I bloody go) of their own. Objectively, they’re not amazing models compared to what has gone before or since, but I still like them.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

Chaos Warrior-Champion of Slaanesh.

I haven’t managed to find them in Stuff of Legends nor in the old issues of White Dwarf, but I seem to recall seeing them named both as “Chaos Champions” and as “Chaos Warriors” at different times – which also happened with more than a few of Jes’ champions. They’re that “in-between” style of model that could reasonably fit into either category. These days at least, my thoughts on Chaos Warriors tend towards the more generic models as used in more recent years, so I’ll call these guys “Champions” in my own collection – especially as the more generic “foot knight”-style armoured Chaos Warriors were a thing as far back as the pre-slotta days.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

Side view of the Fiend-headed one.

This guy is Slaanesh’s entry. He features all-original paint from the 1990’s as well. Amazingly there were no touch-ups needed whatsoever, nor any embarrassingly garish colour combinations that needed correction. All I needed to do to “renovate” him to 2016 standard was to rebase him – onto a 32mm round in this case since he overhung the 25mm square pretty badly. This way I can legit use him should I ever try Age of Sigmar as well. It doesn’t matter in Kings of War as the game uses regimental bases, so as long as the footprint is sound, this guy and whatever other heavy, psychotic bastards he hangs out with can wreak havoc just as effectively once I actually start on them properly.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

Shield View.

I’ve added flowers to his base not because I see Slaanesh as effeminate, but as followers of Chaos that can appreciate beauty as well as debauchery – just as they were back in the RoC days. The shield is NOT freehand, I should point out. It’s a decal. It had some silvering but a coat of satin over the top fixed that up well enough.

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Chaos Warrior Champion of Slaanesh.

A cheeky grin?

A rather “cheeky” (hur hur) shot to finish up. It’s more than a little silly, but such was life in Nottingham back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and it’s pretty well known that the studio didn’t take themselves so seriously back then, and took the piss out of everything including themselves (and they liked to sneak stuff past management) so I’m willing to give it a pass while if such a thing were released today, the implications would be a lot more disturbing.

I’ve got a Khorne Warrior-Champion from the same release who I’ll show shortly. He just needs a bit of updating, and I’ve been putting all of my energy into a big clean-up of the house and (especially) the war room, which has slowly become a dumping ground for boxes and random junk. So as soon as I can manage!

Brigade Models – Celtos: Fir Bolg Skeletons with Spears (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

A scary number of Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Last June I ordered a bunch of “Fir Bolg” Skeletons from Brigade Models, originally produced and still sold for the “Celtos” skirmish miniatures wargame. By August, I’d managed to paint up a unit of them armed with “Warscythes” to use in Kings of War before my focus in 2015 shifted to finishing off models that had been started months and years before.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Musician and Commander #1

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Quartered Heraldry

With the Tale of Gamers challenge I’ve been running over on Dakka this year, I decided to paint up some more skeletons. After all, they’re quite work-friendly, and it’s always rewarding to finish stuff off. I’ve got a nice bunch of Skeletons done for KoW, role-playing or any kind of skirmish from Age of Sigmar to Dragon Rampant to, you know – Celtos!

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Musician and Commander #2

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Par Chevron Heraldry

Once again, the colour scheme is pretty simple and in keeping with the rest of the army – Red and Black, Iron and Brass, Rust and Verdigris, Cadmium-Red wood – and Bone. The tabards and cloth have either been quartered or feature a par chevron to tie them in with one another or allow a distinction when both units are run side by side. Of course, they can be combined into a “Horde” formation as well.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

The original pair with an unmodified “spike” skeleton. Chest painted as bone and not banded mail this time.

There’s quite a lot of these guys. By my standards, anyway. The initial two models from eBay that led me to Brigade’s website have been incorporated into the units, so that just left me with 22 others to paint up to complete the units. As I’ve mostly worked on them during lunch breaks, they took quite awhile to get done. And yes, I need to touch up the bottom of the base rims.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

A “unique” pair of Skeleton Spearmen

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Skeleton Spearmen

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Jaw-less Skeleton Spearmen

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Jabby, armoured Skeleton Spearmen

Yes, I need to get more brown Renedra unit trays. Unfortunately the last time I ordered them from Firestorm they sent me sets of green ones, which clash with my model bases. Spray paint time, probably.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Awkward shield placement. Crescent shields to the rescue!

I found their shields to be a little problematic. They came with damaged Celt-ish shields, but these three guys were having none of it. I figured out a workaround, which was to use these really old Citadel shields, and then I followed up with the rest of the models by using selected WHFB4 Starter Goblin shields with skeletal iconography – for what is very much an unrealistic but old-school Warhammer-esque Undead look… (Why are “traditional” RPG and gaming undead covered in skeletal iconography? Who is smithing and painting their gear? – At least the sadly-Squatted Tomb Kings had some rationale behind theirs.) The original shields have gone into my bits boxes, and might come back out when working on Historicals down the line.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Charging Skeletons with repurposed Goblin shields.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“At Guard” Skeletons with repurposed Goblin shields.

I used white for the embossed shield devices shaded with Vallejo’s Pale Grey wash so that the shield iconography would be distinct from the “real” bone of the actual undead.

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“Quartered” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“Quartered” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“Quartered” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“Chevron” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“Chevron” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

“Chevron” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Both regiments combined into a Kings of War “Horde”-style unit. …Skeleton Horde.

I know there’s a ton of photos here, but these guys took a lot of effort and a lot of time – pretty much a full month. As much as I enjoy painting bone, I’m pretty sick of it at this stage. I’m still cleaning up the next unit batch of skeletons (only 12, thankfully), but I’ll get the basics done (clean, prime, base coat spray, basing, first wash of brown) and then leave them for a week or two before getting back to them. I think in April I might try to do more character models for the painting challenge rather than masses of troops.

Imperialrebelork requested a tutorial on painting skeletons/bone in my style recently, so I took some photos as I painted these guys up. In the coming days, I’ll sort them out and do a write-up. It’s actually pretty simple.