Frank's Great Task, Building a Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh

Welcome dear readers. This is my third OWAC, and, as always, it shall be focused on my Oldhammer obsession, the creation of a Realm of Chaos era Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh. I thought I would start this year's challenge with a quick look at what has come before. This pic shows the fruits of my two previous OWACs, as well as a handful of models done in the intervening year.

This is enough for a proper Legion with appropriate proportions of lesser and greater daemons as well as a few mortals and even undead auxiliaries. My method for planning and building this to date has largely been one of "follow your dreams". Meaning, I collected whatever felt right and spoke to me. This year's OWAC effort is going to be more targeted.

My goal this time around is to max out the daemon portion of the Legion within the limits laid out in the Realm of Chaos Slaves to Darkness. These limits are as follows...48 Daemonettes, 24 Fiends, 4 Daemon Princes, and then the Keepers of Secrets. In a daemonic legion battle a chaos power may field up to its sacred number of greater daemons; so, six for Slaanesh. In daemonic legion games players field an agreed number of greater daemons at no points cost. Slaves to Darkness provides a chart to randomly generate this number if players can't agree or want to leave the number to chance. The most possible on the chart is five greater daemons. 

I currently have four Keepers of Secrets, one (or perhaps two in a pinch) Daemon Princes, twelve Fiends, and 42 Daemonettes. So, doing a bit of math, I want to produce 6 more Daemonettes, 12 Fiends, 2 Daemon Princes, and 1 more Keeper. I shall leave the sixth Keeper of Secrets slot open for the ever-elusive unreleased Keeper of Secrets model (pic from Stuff of Legends), should I ever get the chance to acquire one.

I have been gathering the models for this effort for the past six months. The most difficult portion of which was finding twelve more Fiends in a good enough condition to be brought back to life. I did eventually get them, although this generated some beat up spares I sold along and traded.

Earlier this past year, the fabulous sculptor at Satyr Arts Studio made a set of three mounted Daemonettes. I have managed to aquire a pair of the unreleased Daemonette riders and converted another ten of these from standard Daemonettes. That effort is documented in OWAC6 here. I bought two sets of these and did some minor conversion to mix up the riders. They will fill out the Daemonette allotment of six more nicely. 

Next up were the big boys (and girls). I wanted a different look for the Keeper of Secrets. In order to make him stand out from his brothers I went all in on claws. Then Satyr Arts impressed me once again with a large model with a stunning resemblance to the John Blanche depiction of the Dark Prince. This "guy" was perfect for one of the Daemon Princes.

Taken all together, this OAWC will see me producing the following addition to my glorious Slaaneshi Legion...

    Keeper of Secrets x1            Free         Leader Model

    Daemon Prince x1                810          2 or 4 models

    Daemonettes w/ Steeds x6   720         12 models

    Fiends of Slaanesh x12        480          24 models

    Daemonette x1                     100          1 model

    Chaos Familiar                     Free         1 model

The whole effort will meet the minimum model count requirements, while still adding a whopping 2,110 points. This is the baseline for what I will be painting. If I do more, you can expect some interesting Champions, another Daemon Prince, or maybe some spawn.

Suffer not the Daemon: James WRR’s introduction

G’day! It’s me, your local Chaos enthusiast back again for my second OWAC challenge attempt. This time round, I thought I’d do something unthinkable … Paint an Imperial army.

Look, the way I see it, I need some kind of foe for my Emperor’s Children to face. And what better foe for my debauched, daemon-loving psycho killers than an army of ruthless, holier-than-thou psycho killers?

For this challenge, I’m heading back to the hallowed pages of Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness and picking out a rather obscure army list: The Ordo Malleus. The goal is to summon an army of psychic Space Marines, corrupt space coppers and expendable levy troops led by some of the most horrid bastards in the galaxy.

And the great work has already begun.

Do not adjust your television sets. This is not a black-and-white photo.

The Inquisition has always been one of my favourite aspects of Warhammer 40,000. The faction is key to the grimdarkness of it all, the pinnacle of the brutal repression that is somewhat (and quite horrifically) justified in the 40K universe. Inquisitors and their lackeys can also be just as weird and wonderful and terrifying as any Chaos army, employing everything from mind-wiped super soldiers to screaming daemonhosts and even alien orangutans.

Something I’m very keen to capture in this army is the fact that the Inquisition, and the Imperium as a whole, are not the good guys. There’s been far too much revisionism in modern 40K—too much “Marvelisation”—to the point that many have come to see the Space Marines as gleaming heroes, led by charismatic, demigod-like personalities.

And that’s not the way it should be. A Space Marine should be an absolute monstrosity to witness. I mean, if you were approached by an 8-foot-tall, roided-up child soldier with a gun the size of a Triumph Bonneville and tubes sticking out of their face, you wouldn’t exactly see them as an avenging angel. No, I see “real” Space Marines as the awful living weapons of a collapsing theocratic regime. The Grey Knights of the Ordo Malleus are just the super-specialised version of these weapons, pointed at the gribblies crawling from the Warp. Any glorified version of them you might see depicted in art and stories is nothing but Imperial propaganda.

The inspiration.

Like my fellow OWAC challengers, I’ve also picked out an artwork to be the “inspiration” for my army this year, and it’s this piece above that I feel most accurately captures the overall vibe I’m going for. It’s from the Rogue Trader rulebook (by, I believe, Will Rees, though I'm happy to be corrected) and is one of many glorious depictions of body-horror Space Marines within those pages.

There’s just something so evocative here, and true to the Oldhammer spirit. Sure, the proportions are out of whack. Neither of the characters are as defined as they would later become. But it’s just so wonderfully gruesome and provocative. You can really feel the anger coming off it—largely thanks to the “KILL” and “HATE” armour markings that were the style at the time—but also the sense that this is all just a bit silly. It’s perfect. Peak 40K.

While this’ll be my main inspiration for my own wacky, out-of-proportion mean marines, I’ve also got a few other works in my back pocket that further inform the styling and vibe I want to achieve with this army including those by the inimitable John Blanche.

In terms of models, this year I’ve been collecting a host of era-appropriate Marine bits from various online sources. The thrill of the chase has always been a big part of the Oldhammer appeal for me, and it has definitely been fun to hunt down these models and let fate somewhat shape the army. I’ve ended up with a horde of plastic RTB-01 marines that will form the bulk of the force (and the start of a future marine army), as well as enough big metal guns to make up a whole Devastator squad.

The big-ticket item this year is the squad of Grey Knight Terminators and the two leaders in Terminator Armour. I’m absolutely blown away by how detailed and crisp these venerable models are for their time, especially in comparison to the slightly blobbier Chaos Terminators and practically gooey metal power-armoured Marines that came out around the same time. I can’t wait to get started on them.

The aftermath of the Great Stripping.

As it stands in December, my Ordo Malleus force looks something like:

• Daemonhunter in Terminator Armour
• Grey Knights Captain in Terminator Armour
• Techmarine on Bike 
• Dreadnought
• 5x Grey Knights Terminators
• 10x Grey Knights Tactical Marines
• Rhino Armoured Transport
• 10x Grey Knights Devastators
• 6x Adeptus Arbites

And so it begins! It’s been a high-pressure start already to get to this point, as I’ve moved house recently and have been painting walls instead of minis. But I’m looking forward to hitting the hobby table hard over the coming months to bring this army of zealous monster-men to life. The fact that my chosen colour scheme is mostly just spray-painted silver should help with that.

Keep watching this space, citizen. Don’t let the Inquisition find your obedience lacking …

The elite of the elite, daemon-killers all.

Some superhuman scumbags ready to take on the supernatural powers of the Warp.

Byron's invasion of Ulthuan - Introduction Post

Goblins. 

This project has been many years in the making. When I first started playing Warhammer back in 2004, I always loved the night goblins. But, I had the 6th edition night goblins. While 6th edition certainly had some fun metal night goblins, the rank and file multi-part goblins were always uninspiring to me. I had lots of them, but they never quite scratched the goblin itch in the right way. 

Fast forward to 2023 and I decided to sell off all of my 6th edition night goblins. Since then I have been gradually piecing together a new goblin horde. A proper goblin horde. 

This OWAC I am going to paint that horde. 

A picture of the nearly complete horde.

So what's the challenge?

There's a bit going on here, so I will do my best to explain what I have in mind. 

First, this year's OWAC theme is artwork. Challengers were invited to select a piece of artwork from the Oldhammer era and use it as inspiration for their project. 

For the background of my Ikea shelf I took some packing paper, burned the edges, glued it to the back board, and then did the same to the top of the 4th edition starter box.

The artwork I have selected is the cover to the 4th edition starter box. I plan to use this image as inspiration for my army in a couple of ways:

• Matching the color scheme - red, yellow, teal, and purple
• Grom
• Heaps of Goblins
• Eltharion

For the color scheme I got a new set of Coat D'arms paints that generally match the colors.

Craft paints and Coat D'arms

For Grom, I've mixed a handful of bits together. Not all of my goblins are Kev Adams (as much as I would have liked, I have instead adopted a strategy of just getting lots of ugly little guys together). The recent release of Bequest Minis goblins included a Grom look-alike. I like him more than the original Grom, so he has taken his place on the chariot. My Nibblet was missing his banner (so he has been converted to a Clubber boss and is happier with his new role) so he has been replaced by another Bequest goblin. The wolves were replaced with Bob Olley wolves from Ral Partha (all of the wolf riders right metal wolves from by Tim Prow or Bob Olley). 

His base is just foamcore and some caulking to smooth out the bevel. 

Close-up on off-brand Grom

For the heaps of goblins, buying the old Kev Adams night goblins was prohibitively expensive. I had to settle. This horde is a mix of harlequin nightlings, Checkpoint robin hood goblins, Kev Adams Clubbers and netters, and then most of the archers are early Kev Adams goblins from the 80s. The Squigs are also from Bequest minis - they had a very scrungly vibe about them. (Scrungly is a desirable trait for goblins and the like.)

Goblins.

More Goblins.

Eltharion - A few years back I painted up a small High Elf army for my brother. This army is mostly composed of the 4th ed monopose archers and spearmen. I plan, time willing, to pose these elves in the monthly update pics with the goblins I paint. If all goes well, I aim to paint both Eltharion and Grom for my second to last post. And, hopefully in the wrap up post I will be able to recreate the box art with the battle scene vignette. 

A banner from the High Elf Army

Monthly goals

This OWAC my goal is to fill up the entire shelf with goblins. To do that I have to pace myself.

I have placed rough intervals of painters tape with the months on my shelf. I hope to fill up the entire shelf by the end. 

During October and November I was busy converting goblins and readying them for the challenge.

The final assembly of goblins on the shelf. 

The army contains a lot of minor conversions. All of the goblins from the various ranges had their spears chopped off and replaced with 6th edition goblin spears and were mostly given 4th edition shields. I hoped that these minor conversions would make the goblins feel more cohesive.

I did a little bit of conversion work for the doomdiver catapult. In 4th edition most of the war machines are crewed by orcs. It felt appropriate that orcs would also crew the doomdiver catapult and load the "ammo".

The Black Gobbo. I have wanted my own Black Gobbo for 20 years. I finally got around to converting him. He is nearly identical to the conversion guide from all those years ago.

The Points - 2220ish points (excluding command models [because I am lazy] and non-essential magic items [because OWAC rules])

Grom - 257 pts

Black Gobbo - 33 pts

A few bosses - 45 pts

Goblin Shamans x2 - 166 pts

Wolf Riders with Spears and Shields x 15 - 165 pts

Goblin archers w/ light armor x 35 - 140 pts

Goblin Spearmen x 60ish - 210 pts

Squigs x 11 and Hunters x 4 - 252 pts

Netters and Clubbers x 25 - 87.5 pts

Fanatics x 6 - 180 pts

Trolls x 6 - 390

Doom Diver Catapult - 100 pts

Wolf Chariots x 3 - 195 pts