This month included no end of distractions, both professional and personal, and yet the Legion still grew.
As was the case last month, these new units come from the 'Auxiliaries' allowance of the daemonic legion army list. However, rather than the undead contingent, they come from the general Auxiliaries forces. The Minotaurs are quite straight forward and have their own unit entry which allows up to twenty models, four of whom may be characters. The Harpies, on the other hand, are available through the Legion's 'Creatures of Chaos' allotment. A legion may have up to twenty models from the list provided below. Like creatures are expected to be fielded together, but the list is quite diverse. It includes fairly low maximum numbers, but the Harpies can fill the entire allotment at twenty models.
My unit of Minotaurs, The Pale Worms, began their career as a fairly typical warband of their kind. They easily could have ended up in a Khornate army, like so many of their kin. Their hunger for flesh led them to throw in with a Slaaneshi tyrant for the simple reason that gore-covered fodder was so widely available. As these giant beastmen fed their hunger time after time, they became more and more caught up in the other pleasures the rest of the army was taking part in around them. Before long they were disporting themselves with abandon, while also beautifying themselves with inks, dyes, and tattoos to match their new comrades. By the time they were inducted into a daemonic Legion of Slaanesh, The Pale Worms were entirely unhinged, with a monstrous hunger both cannibalistic and debauched. As a unit in the Legion, The Pale Worms, provide a 'beefy' hard hitting contrast to the bulk of Daemonettes. They are actually cheap enough to still be considered expendable compared to the units of lesser daemons, despite having triple the Wounds of those more expensive models.
This unit consists of five Minotaurs, each worth 40 points a piece, and their leader. The Leader will be a Level 15 Hero bearing a hefty Chaos Weapon shaped like a Slaaneshi icon, valued at 240 points.
My flock of Harpies have an interesting pedigree. Unlike the Minotaurs, who are all classic Citadel Miniatures lead models, these harpies are from a number of sources. I chose to model this with a succubus appearance for theme, rather than include classic harpies, who just look like monsters. The two left most are from Heresy Miniatures and are resin casts. The nice girl perched on the rock is from Hasslefree and is white metal. Next is a third Heresy Miniatures resin model. The last two are from Reaper Miniatures and are board game plastic. The first of the Reaper casts, and the Hasslefree model did not actually have wings, so wings were chosen from other figs to kitbash onto them. I am really happy with the paint scheme taken together.
The harpies role in the legion is pretty sad. No doubt they were flattered and seduced by the Daemonettes to participate, by playing to their vanity. Alas, they have little to no combat value on a daemonic battlefield but do bring other useful traits. First and foremost they have wings, which are relatively rare in a Slaaneshi legion, seen most consistently on the Legion's daemon princes. The other trait is that they are absurdly cheap. The entire flock of six literally costs less than a single Daemonette. Now Khornate legions are led by the dreaded Bloodthirsters, who, of course, fly. They also include blasphemous technological weapons capable of shooting down our mighty daemon princes before they can charge their chosen targets. The harpies positive traits combine to solve this problem by being an expendable screen of ablative meat to ensure my daemon prince gets his moment to shine.
Although I did not get as much painted in February as I had hoped, it was a successful addition to the Legion, and still exceeded the minimums for the OWAC. There were twelve models added to the Legion, I think the minotaurs might count as two models each, giving an adjusted value of 18. The Harpies are worth a whopping 90 points, which combined with the Minotaurs and their hero adds 530 points to the total. Maybe next month, I can catch up to my original planning goals...
