Chaos: The Gaunt Summoner

The Chaos army of Archaon for Age of Sigmar is nearly complete. Just the last 3 Varanguard to finish. Here we see the Tzeentch wizard, the Gaunt Summoner.

This guy is nicely alien, mutated beyond any human range. I like his face, mutated to ‘grow’ up his helmet, studded with eyes.

I wanted his skin to have a good unhealthy pallor, but still follow the theme of Tzeentch’s Varanguard (featured previously). I started with a base of P3 Underbelly Blue, followed with a blue wash over all the skin and a purple wash centered around the eyes. The skin was finished with white/Underbelly Blue to really make it stark.

His armor was made a vibrant, but still dark, blue (base Incubi Darkness), edged with silver. The single gold shoulder plate was designed to reinforce the asymmetry of his mutations. His robe is black blending down to a bright pink, with an apron of blue and light purple feathers.

His staff was kept fleshy and organic, with an eye based on an eagle (calling back to Tzeentch’s avian theme).

The Disc of Tzeentch he rides was painted to look like a bronze diatom-like beast, with glimpses of exposed organic flesh through various holes. The hooked limbs radiating out of the edges and the gaping ‘mouth’ underneath it have the same purple. The green/blue flames lifting the Disc are the same colors as the spark leaping from his spell book.

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Chaos: Architect of Fate

The next unit of Varanguard are done. The champions of Tzeentch race to the battlefield, trailing light and color.

The unit ‘leader’ has been blessed with the head of a bird of prey, reflecting the symbology of his god. His armor crackles with lightning, while his shield glows with pink fire. He bears a great blade of gleaming crystal. The mount’s armor is a deep purple, blended to pink toward the front. Its mutated hide bears the spots of some jungle beast.

The head is of course from the Tzaangor kit, the only actual conversion I’ve done for these Varanguard models so far. The Varanguard are great models, showing power and personality. The downside, though, is all this detail. It’s not fun doing 9 of these, I must say.

The last pic is the full unit of 3. They are much more individualistic compared to the Khorne unit. Tzeentch is the god of change and mutation, so it makes sense that they would have little in common, aside from the general theme of brightness. Some detail colors carry over- most of their armor edging is silver, purple and blue appear in some matter on all three, and gold is used as the accent color for metals, rather than brass. I tried to make sure the pink I used for Tzeentch was not the same for Slaanesh. It implies fire and magic, without than any sort of sensuality.

Next is the army’s Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch. He will thankfully break up all these Varanguard. After him, the last unit, the Varanguard of Nurgle.

Chaos: Changer of the Ways

The Varanguard army of Archaon grows. After the first unit of Khornate brutes, we move on to the calculating schemers of Tzeentch.

This of course meant a complete pallet change for the colors. Instead of the no-nonsense red,black, and brass or Khorne, we go to the iridescent colors of raw magic, with blue, purple, and pink being prominent. I wanted to make the Tzeentch Varanguard members very unique, continuing their god’s theme of mutation and change.

 

The first member rears up on his horse (?) raising his axe in challenge. His armor is a bright turquoise (GW Kalabite Green), while his mount’s armor is a deep purple fading to bright blue toward the front. His shield is the same base purple, but brightened up considerably, with a symbol of Chaos breaking through its surface.  His armor is marked in places by runes and magic incantations.

Also in contrast to the Khorne Varanguard, all the edging of the armor plates is a bright silver, washed with blue and purple.

 

The second Vanguard is a riot of color. I wanted him and his mount to be extremely distinct. His armor is a mottled pink, the surface roiling with raw magic. Small eyes break the surface in places, matching the single eye on his helmet. His shield is a deep blue (one of the transitional blues from the first Varanguard’s horse armor) with a dark gold also found on his horns and the horse’s armor spikes. Again, it was a study of contrast, distinct from both rider and mount.

The horse’s armor is a golden yellow, with purple-tinged silver edging. Its hide is a deep indigo-blue (GW Necron Abyss from the old Foundation line). In all, I wanted this Varanguard to be the proper eye-gougingly bright you might expect from a servant of Tzeentch.

More to come- the last Tzeentch Varanguard and then on to the riders of Nurgle.

Saga: Goblins of the Underearth

I’ve been working on adapting various armies from Warhammer, Warmachine, and Wrath of Kings into forces for Saga: Age of Magic. So far I’ve readied the Orcs and Ironjawz as the Horde, but recently I’ve finished extra units for the Moonclan to be used as Masters of Underearth.

One unit I’ve added to the Goblins is the Crossbows. In Warhammer, Goblins never got crossbows to use, but they are a weapon option for Underearth Warriors. So far I’ve finished 8 Warriors, though I want to paint up a full 12 for maximum unit size.

The Crossbows are simple parts swap conversions, using the bodies of the old 5th edition plastic Goblins and Night Goblins, with heads from the new Squig Hoppers and Snufflers. The crossbow arms came from a few kits. Most are from the Foot Sergeants kit from Fireforge; the same kit was used to create my Polish Crusaders army. A couple more crossbows and arms come from the Mercenary plastic kit from Mordheim and the Gnolls kit from Oathmark/North Star. I wanted the head and arm proportions to match the other Goblins from modern kits (the old kits were seriously off-modeled due to the GW style at the time). The unit ‘leader’ has a simple arm swap from the Squig Hopper kit, and wears his crossbow slung on his back. I added a second shot of the back of the miniatures to show off detail.

The next pic is an old one of some of the Goblins, as used in previous games of Saga before Age of Magic came out. I sometimes used my Goblins as the Moors or Spanish, as I had plenty of Wolf Riders to represent the cavalry. Since this is an old pic, the models still have square bases. I’ve swapped most of them to round bases for Age of Sigmar.

Last is a brand new unit, the Cave Scorpion. It serves as the Underearth’s Behemoth on the table. I painted it to resemble a Texas Cave Scorpion, Pseudouroctonus reddelli. I wanted it to look nicely realistic, and stand out from the green skin and black-clad Gobbos. And just because I liked it, a tiny Squig buddy follows behind. A small detail shows the size difference between the Scorpion and a Goblin. The Scorpion is from Reaper Bones.

I got in a battle of Saga this week, with my Moonclan (Masters of the Underearth) versus a friend’s Orcs (The Horde). We played the Looting & Pillaging scenario. In this scenario, 3 objectives lie in a line across the center of the table. While VP’s are based off armies’ surviving model after the battle; you gain extra VP from grabbing the objectives, with more for marshaling them off the table. The quarrelsome tribes obviously disagreed over the loot scattered over the battlefield.

Battle deployment. Goblins on the left, Orcs on the right. 3 objectives in the center.

Goblins scramble around some ruins, with Shamna and Warboss behind the lines.

Another shot, with the crossbows and spears.

The Trolls hold the extreme left flank with some Warriors.

Orc Warboss directs his bow Levy, a small unit of Hearthguard, and the War Chariot.

Orc Hearthguard flanked by bow Levy and mounted Warriors (the wolf models standing in for now).

The Moonclan had a Warlord with great weapon (his faithful Squig), 10 Crossbow Warriors, 18 spear Warriors, 12 bow Levy, 3 River Trolls (bipedal Creatures), a Fungoid Shaman (Sorcerer), and the Cave Scorpion (Behemoth Monster).

The Horde had a Warlord, 4 Hearthguard, 8 Hearthguard with great weapons, 24 bow Levy, a War Chariot (borrowed from my own Orc army), Shaman, and 8 mounted Warriors.

The game started off with the Horde momentarily held off with a lucky chasm blocking some of the units from advancing, while the Goblins rushed to the center line, aiming at the loot. The next turn though the Horde did their thing, rushing the War Chariot into the Goblin crossbows and the big unit of Orc Big’Uns into the bow Levy. Immediately the Goblin line was faltering. The Scorpion was charged by the mounted Orc Warriors, but luckily was only exhausted instead of getting killed. This did mean it spent two turns recovering.

The Trolls chased off one Orc bow Levy unit but couldn’t kill enough to really hamper them. In return they were charged by the small Orc Hearthguard unit. The Hearthguard were killed in the fight; however the Trolls were exhausted and did little else during the battle, eventually being cut down by repeated bow shots. However, they did buy a unit of spear Goblins time to grab an objective, which spent the rest of the game running away to my starting edge.

The Goblins counter-attacked the Orcs in their lines, the Cave Scorpion killing most of the big Hearthguard unit, though it was itself struck dead in the combat (10 hits and no saves!). The Goblin Warboss and his Squig destroyed the weakened Chariot. A crossfire of bolts and arrows failed to kill the surviving Hearthguard, forcing the Warboss to stomp him dead and launch a unit of spear Goblins across the field to push back a bow Levy unit. With that the Orcs lacked numbers or ability to press the objectives, so conceded. The Goblins had one objective, as well as more surviving models left alive.

Chaos: Blood for the Blood God

 

 

Skulls for the Skull Throne! The Khornate Varanguard unit is finished!

The last member got a unique white color scheme, based off bone and brass. The dull off-white color certainly makes him stand out from his mount, and gives him nice areas for decoration. On some plates I added runes, the Khorne skull symbol, and the 8-pointed star. The final mark is a bloody hand print on his shoulder. The mount used the more typical Khorne colors of red, black, and brass.

The last pic is the full unit. The brutal charge of the Lords of Khorne is ready to overrun all opposition.

Next up are the devious champions of Tzeentch!

Chaos Varanguard 2: Flame of Battle

The Khornate Varanguard unit continues on, with the second member finished. This one, his Khorne blade raised, will serve as the unit ‘leader’.

The theme with this fellow is fire. His mount’s cracked red armor glows with inner heat, with pits like furnaces glowing with inner fire. Even some skulls face out of the chest plate, lit like coals. The fire theme carries over to his shield and sword. In contrast he has cinder-black armor, spartan except for a glowing Khorne symbol on his shoulder.

In addition, this Varanguard is unique in his unit for not wearing a helmet. His pale blueish skin helps his head stand out in the mess of detail.

He’s tied in with the other Varanguard with the armor trim in the same brass and bronze. I wanted to create better contrast, so the mutated beast he rides is painted a reptilian green. To avoid the Christmas color problem (red/green has such a strong connotation) I used deep red and dull green. Taking advantage of contrast, the red has brightened, while the green gets warmer.

The third member is in-progress. He will also have a unique color scheme, but within the theme of Khorne.

Chaos: The Varanguard

I’ve started on a new army for a client. This one will be interesting, as it only contains 11 models- Archaon on his dragon, 9 Varanguard, and a Gaunt Summoner. This means I can put plenty of detail into each individual model. The army will effectively be an army of characters.

This is the first test model for the Varanguard, a mighty Knight of Khorne. His color scheme follows the typical Khornate colors of red, black, and brass. The red is a brighter (fresh?) blood color to really distinguish him from his mount and its black and brass armor. The same dirty brass is featured on both the mount and rider’s armor. I took advantage of some basic color theory to make the same brass edging have a different appearance, depending on the color of the plates themselves (thus the red armor made the brass brighter and redder, while the black armor brought out the gold).

The beast he rides was kept low key, with dull brown fur and bone protrusions, in order to lessen the visual clutter.

The plan for the army will be to have 3 units of Varanguard, each under a specific Chaos god. Thus I’ll be completing 3 Khorne, 3 Tzeench, and 3 Nurgle. While they will all follow their gods’ color schemes, I want to give them their own character within that range of colors. More to come!