Reaper 14207: Traeg, Reven Hero/Beastman Champion (Neglected Model September ’18)

September 27, 2018 by Azazel

Hey! A Reaper Miniature that’s actually not a Bones model!

This model is a long-neglected one with a story behind it. Sometime in the mid-noughties, the main independent games store in the Melbourne CBD (Mind Games) was having a painting competition involving Reaper models as a sort of promotion, apparently involving Reaper Miniatures themselves. I was a regular back then, and so I decided to join in. I looked amongst the offerings, and found this guy. So I bought him and took him home. I didn’t like the shitty square, lipped base that he came on, and decided to rebase him on a larger base, and as I’d “envisioned” the leaping-over-rock pose from the moment I saw the model, and a 25mm round just wasn’t large enough, or have enough gravitas.

So the next time I was in, a few days later, or possibly the following week, the sales attendant who I was on good terms with asked how it was going. I told him I’d started it and it was coming along, and that I’d changed up the base. He told me that the base thing would prevent me from entering and pointed to the part of the sign that for some reason specified that the figure needed to be based on the base it came on. I don’t remember my reply (it wasn’t rude, I’d have remembered that much).

So the next time I was in, he asked me about how the model was going again, and I told him that I’d lost interest because of the basing thing and wasn’t working on it anymore. He then told me that the base woundn’t matter, and encouraged me to finish it anyway to enter it, but the thing was, by that point, my enthusiasm had been completely deflated and the figure sat for over a decade, every so often I’d think about wanting to try to finish it, but basically, fuck-all had been done on it since.

And that brings us to now. This figure has sat in the tubs of stuff I’ve wanted to finish for at least a year now, but my recent run of working on Beastmen, along with this being a Neglected Model month was enough to finally get me to properly work on finishing this model off, though it was still something I had to force myself to do for the entire process – and it involved a hell of a lot of the work, as I hadn’t gotten a huge amount of it finished before the comment about basing that put me off completing the model.

Anyway, as you can see, he fits in reasonably well with the Citadel goat-headed Beastman Gors, despite quite a few colour choices that separate him (skin, fur, loincloth, shield). As I said, though – I was building on what was originally done in 2005 or thereabouts while trying to finally finish this bastard rather than going for a complete repaint (because then I’d never get the fucking thing completed). The armour was originally black where it’s now a blued silver, so I was probably going for a Khorne-theme back then rather than generic. Bloody typical!

Oh! And he’s now available in Bones!

This guy concludes my little Beastman/Beasts of Chaos tangent for this month, unless something amazingly unexpected happens in the next three days.

Realm of Chaos – Slaves to Darkness Beastmen VII: Slaangor (Neglected Model September ’18)

September 26, 2018 by Azazel

I’ve completed a few more of the old Realm of Chaos Beastmen that have been hidden away, part painted in figure cases for years or decades. This trio feature a pair of duplicate sculpts, both with broken weapons, both repaired in different ways at different points in time, and a variation on the same sculpt. These three of course are Slaangor – that is, beastmen dedicated to the Lord of Pleasure, Slaanesh.

The two on the ends needed their weapons repaired. The original weapon was a mace shaped into the rune of Slaanesh, as you can see on the beastman on our right. I attempted to repair it into it’s original form by making a replacement using another model with the same weapon to create a simple mold with Oyumaru and then greenstuff (kneadatite) for the part – then pinning it onto the stub. It turned out nicely on the front half, and rough as hell on the rear. I did this a couple of years ago. For the other model, I did it a few days ago using the pick end from a Chaos Marauder and simply pinning it onto the end of the broken mace, in order to differentiate the two models a little more.

All three were incredibly garish when I got them out of the case. Here’s an example of some of the flaws I used to make in terms of composition years ago. As you can see, I could still freehand just fine, but I apparently thought that there was a need to use all of the colours on way too many models. Speaking of freehand, please enjoy the four photos of this model, showing off some of its many tattoos. There’s also a rose you can’t see on the upper inner left thigh, as it’s now covered by the shield.

I think the updated and completed version is a pretty solid improvement over the overly-garish (unfinished) attempt from years ago, while keeping the best elements of the original paintwork…

Here the three are alongside the other Slaangor that I painted awhile back. It’s on a larger base because I decided that it was a Champion of Slaanesh. You’ll note that all three sculpts share the same base. Keep this in mind next time you see someone bitching that GW’s new digital sculpts reuse elements.

Once again, these are Jes Goodwin sculpts, though these aren’t amongst the strongest of his work. As with many of the figures of the day, they’re not particularly dynamic, and these ones are also particularly “flat” sculpts.

Realm of Chaos – Slaves to Darkness Beastmen VI: Dog-faced Khorngor III (Neglected Model September ’18)

September 23, 2018 by Azazel

Okay, so only one of this pair is actually dog-faced, and both seem kind of generic in the sense that one of them looks very Werewolf – though human sized rather than the Ogre-sized Werewolf that seems to have taken off in the past few years of Miniature Gaming. That figure in fact is the brother figure to Wilhelm Chaney, the original 2nd Edition Bloodbowl Werewolf (bottom of the linked page). As such, the model could easily be used as a Werewolf if needed for something, albeit one armed with sword and board.

The second one of this pair of early Khorngor could just as easily be used as a Slaangor, at least for us Oldhammerers, due to the bovine head that could tie nicely in with the original Keeper of Secrets.

The reason I went with Khorngor for this pair – at least for the title of this blog post is because when I looked them up in Slaves to Darkness, they’re both pictured in the “Khorne” section as Khorngor. I’ve kept the paint suggestive but generic, so they can easily fit in with a “proper” Khorne unit, but also just as easily be used as unaligned Beastmen. Similarly, I’ve used Chaos Marauder shields on them, both because I think they work with the models and poses of this pair, and because I didn’t intend to freehand any rules of Khorne et al onto them.

Like the others I’ve completed recently, these are Jes Goodwin sculpts, and the quality shows through even today. Such a shame he’s no longer sculpting…

Realm of Chaos – Slaves to Darkness Beastmen V: Dog-faced Khorngor II (Neglected Model September ’18)

September 15, 2018 by Azazel

What’s the hot new thing for all the hip players out there? Beasts of Chaos? Beastmen? Well, time for me to be topical for a change (no, not like that lotion…)

Which brings us to the first of this month’s neglected models – a pair of my old Khorngor Beastmen from the Realm of Chaos era. The armoured one of the two is the only one of these that I have, while the second, less armoured model here is one of three of the same sculpt duplicated in my collection.

Like the pair that I just linked, this pair were again part of my nascent Imperial Guard in days gone by (aka, the original Rogue Trader era), but were kept when I sadly sold off my original Guard force and stripped – only to have started repainting in… well, fuck knows when. But it was when I was still giving my fantasy models square bases, and even using green flock. So quite awhile ago. All I really did was base them and basecoat the fur on the one, and that plus adding some bright red armour with horrible bright yellow trim on the other. So basically, these two were the opposite of something like the Warzone guy I shared the other day where it was mostly touch-ups – this pair was pretty much done from (almost) scratch. Such are the variations within the category of Neglected Models.

One thing I am particularly happy with is the freehanding on the shields, especially the red one. I originally worked up some Chaos Marauder shields, but then checked out what I’d given previous Khorngor and so went with the freehand route instead. I’ve got a couple others coming up who I’ll probably give those sculpted shields to, though. When I finish them. Interestingly, it seems that the upcoming Battletome for Beasts of Chaos features rules to Mark our Beastmen once again, so proper Khorngor (and the others) will be a thing on the tabletop again.

Realm of Chaos – Nurgle’s Children 2018 #15: Plague Toads (Forge World)

August 23, 2018 by Azazel

Back to Nurgle again today. Finally. A second trio of Plague Toads. Even though it’s been almost exactly two months since the first trio that I shared, I actually started on all of my Plague Toads at once, I just ended up splitting them off into their overall colours, and so the “brown” ones got finished first, and now, finally, I’ve finished the “green” trio.

These are some really nice models, really – but so very busy, especially when compared to the smooth lines of the new plastics. I’ve got a few more old-school metal Nurgle models still to assemble and get through before I go onto the plastics, though – as well as a bit more resin and a couple of extra surprises that I’m already working on.

As with the brown trio, I gave these green ones some broad stripes of darker green across their backs, the rear view being where they stand out the most. I felt that it gives the green a bit more depth and makes these unnatural, daemonic beasts look that little bit more “natural”.

I also ran some thinned purple and yellows through them in various places – again to vary their flesh tones that little bit.

Now here’s some individual portraits of the three of them – I’m basically out of words, so enjoy the photos!

Delicious!

Realm of Chaos – Nurgle’s Children 2018 #14: Plague Toads (Forge World) (June-It ’18)

June 21, 2018 by Azazel

Back to the Nurgle Daemons today. It’s been awhile, I know, but these three have been a slow march, mostly because other stuff keeps taking their spot in the queue. Now, finally though – it’s their turn to shine! Or glisten.

I’ve actually had these Forge World resin models for years now, but like so much in my collection, they were bought because I wanted them to eventually paint up for [army] and then they just sat there. Since this year I’ve been doing the Nurgle Daemon thing, they finally got their time. I still have a bunch of other metal Nurgle mobs to paint up before I allow myself to start on the plastics, but I’m allowing resin models to be painted thoughout.

There’s not really a great deal to write about these things. They’re pretty nifty in the current edition of 40k, and I assume quite nasty in AoS as well, though I honestly haven’t looked up their stats there yet. I’d have had these posted up earlier, but we’ve had an entire day and a half of rainstorms and occasional thunderstorms here, along with quite cold weather – which has meant a rather unsuitable climate for spraying. As we move into midwinter, that will of course only get worse, so I foresee a more sporadic posting schedule to come – where it will only be every few days (or on the weekends) I can manage to spray new models, so we’ll have “dead air” here on the blog while I wait for a suitable day and completed models pile up, followed by a mass of photos once I’ve had a spray day that gives me a backlog of stuff to spray.

Depending on how that goes, I might end up doing some more “thought” pieces, like finishing that post about paints that sits half-finished in my drafts folder, or some painting tutorials (provided I can remember to take the photos. I still need to do one on iron/metal, and I’ve been thinking of documenting how I paint Isengard Uruk-Hai and their skin. Provided I start painting the bloody things!

Here’s the usual size comparison shot, showing how they stack up to a couple of friends and a couple of foes.

They’re pretty nice models, all in all – at least in that messed-up Nurgle way. They’ve also got a pretty impressive stature to them, and are quite a bit bigger than I’d expected when I first ordered them, oh so many years ago.

Realm of Chaos – Nurgle’s Children 2018 #13: Malifaux Killjoy (Metal Version) as Herald of Nurgle

May 14, 2018 by Azazel

OK, no pretence here – I picked this model up a few years ago both because it looked like a cool model, and like something that would drop perfectly nicely in with my Nurgle forces. I know that Malifaux is supposed to be a rather excellent skirmish game, but I’ve already got a ton of games I’m not actively playing, so I’m not about to dive down that particular rabbit hole right now.

I figure that this guy fits perfectly well in a Daemonic Nurgle force for either 40k or AoS as a Herald. I’m pretty happy with how well this model turned out. It’s a great sculpt, and I guess that’s the thing that really inspires taking it that bit further. Could I have converted him slightly by sticking a monohorn on top of his head. Sure. Does he need it? I don’t think he does. He’s more of a small Great Unclean One than a large Plague Bearer.

Beyond the use as a Herald in the Warhammer games, he also fits well into the Kings of War Undead army as a Flesh Golem or some such using the Undead Troll stats, or could optionally drop into a Renegades and Heretics 40k force alongside the Bones Flesh Golem as a Renegade Marauder Brute. Along with that, there’s obviously the D&D-ish role-playing options along with potential use as a Zombicide Abomination. Quite a cool model with a lot of versatility.

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Painting, Modelling, Miniatures, 1:6, Games… Whatever else I find interesting.

Category Archives: Realm of Chaos