Beastmen Champions of Slaanesh and Khorne.

As part of my “Clearing the Painting Desk” push that I’ve been on for the past few months, I’m also including “Renovations” as valid. Turning old models that have been sitting unused in cases for years into models that I’m once again happy enough with to display or game with is something that really feels worthwhile. Sometimes it just takes a rebasing, other times it also requires touching up, and other times it requires a significant repaint of parts of the model.

These two date from at least 1988, as they were both part of those waves of models released in conjunction with Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, the tome dealing with Khorne and Slaanesh. The Slanneshi model was originally released simply as one of the “Beastmen”, but they’re clearly a cut above most of their compatriots from those releases in terms of fancy-pants gear, and so I’ve always considered them to be Beastman Champions of their respective deities. The Khorne model dates back to (at least) 1985, a he can be seen in that year’s Citadel Journal amongst the C27 Beastmen, named “Khornag” at the time.

I originally painted both of these two many years ago, and aside from the rebasing (Khornag receiving a new 32mm base due to his size), both also needed some repainting.

Rear View of Khornag and the Slaangor Champion.

The Khornate beastman – Khornag, a Kev Adams sculpt – had a few pieces of gear that were originally painted green (because contrast) were redone in cadmium red, the webbed ruff was reddened, the (badly sculpted) shoulder spikes were redone in black from their original “aged horn” look and the armour and metal parts were redone, with a bit more done to highlight and shade. Painting in the gems across his crown was the final bit of updating.

I never liked this Khornate sculpt, but the rebasing and removal of the garish greens have turned my opinion a little. It feels like a solidly ok figure now. Still nothing great, but decent.

The Slaaneshi beastman – Slaangor Champion, which I believe is a Jes Goodwin model had much more of a repaint. Back in the day I thought that “Slaanesh” meant “lots of garish colours” apparently. The leather legging (originally a pale, bright blue) was repainted to match the corset. The grinning face shoulder pad was originally pink, and repainted a dark gold/brass to match the sword’s furniture and foot guard on the legging – which also features a grinning face. The leather straps were changed from a deep blue to a Deep Purple(!) to better match the tone of the figure set by the corset and legging, and the bag – which was originally a horrid garish yellow was also turned into a Deep Purple. The studs on the leather strapping and legging were also changed to a pale, pastel yellow to match those originally on the corset. I deepened and highlighted the yellow-green of his fishy head-crest to define it a little more, and highlighted his pale skin further, though it’s a little washed out in the images here. The sword was originally a deep, dirty metallic blue, which I turned into a brighter metallic green. As with the Khornate, the brass was highlighted a little. The red crab-claw remains untouched, as does the pink panel on his right breast. I’d have repainted that one, but I decided to leave the freehand Slaaneshi rune untouched.

A fair bit more work, but it’s turned this figure from what I’ve always thought of as a “trash model” into something I really quite like.

These guys will eventually be included in armies for Kings of War, but exactly which armies remains to be seen. My Beastmen (Herd) army will be much more of a “Bestigor”-type army, while these two (and many of the others that are part of my renovations of my older models) are deeply Realm of Chaos-style Beastmen rather than the more feral Bestigor-style.