Steve's Cult of the New Colossus: In My End is My Beginning

It may be my wrap up post but you lot aren't getting away without a few more literary references! As Eliot says in his Four Quartets, "What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." Well that's definitely where I'm at with this project! I've heard it said many times that an army is never finished and it seems almost a shame if one should find themselves guilty of such a thing. Again to paraphrase Eliot, to finally finish something and put it to rest or reach a final end is to arrive at "the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is... Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance."  Sounds a bit sterile and lifeless to me so I think the Cult of the New Colossus will live on - but more on that later.

Writing a post without having anything new painted felt a bit odd so I decided the Cult deserved and indeed needed a new and bigger scenic backdrop. Having referenced Witch-haunted Sylvania as their entry point in to the Empire, I felt I'd best represent it visually somehow.

Water-mixable oils meant I wasn't relegated to the shed because of the smell and I must say I rather enjoyed the process. I'd done water colour painting for a number of years as a kid but the oils were definitely what were needed for this job, especially as I'm no oil painting myself and hopefully this'll soften the blow of my ugly mug later.

I also felt that a Cult of the Colossus post wouldn't be complete without a few narrative bits so I hope you'll indulge me (and everyone's favourite Cult everyman character, Wermius) one last time...

Darkness was falling and already it was hard to see any distance in the shadows of the towering pines either side of the highway. Wermius swayed with the rocking of the cart in which he rode, lulled almost asleep with the soothing motion. In that strange and semi-lucid twilight between dream and consciousness, he mused over the journey he had somehow survived. They were safe for now and heading Northwards in a motley assortment of looted carriages and ox-carts but they had suffered many tribulations to get to this point. Long and hard had been the road with almost insurmountable obstacles but by the will of the Colossus they had made it through. He could hardly reconcile the outlandish sights and visions he had seen with the mundanity of his own existence. The ecstasies and agonies he had borne with equal humility and the awe and terror of what they had unleashed on the world seemed like some fever dream when compared with the banality of his current reality, being gently jostled in the back of a wagon in to much needed sleep.

He felt it were as though he was out of time and place whilst on the road, untouchable and ghostlike. A stillness came over him and he almost felt that he was at the epicentre of an ever-turning wheel, the world slowly rotating about him, dark shadows flitting by inconsequentially in the night. The rattle and groan of the cart diminished and he sensed his vision darkening at the edges of his vision. Was this the gentle kiss of sleep or something else? Shuddering he roused himself from that quietude that had the feel of the grave about it and set his mind to the task in hand once they reached the gates of the Empire and what might be waiting for them further down that dark road... 

It's certainly been an interesting journey this first OWAC of mine! Knowing what I'm normally like (easily led astray by good movies, good booze and good company - not necessarily in that order) and knowing that there were no major gaming events like BOYL on the horizon back in December 2020 that would normally motivate me to paint lots of things, I decided to really push myself in terms of numbers and upping the quality of my painting for the OWAC. I think it paid off and certainly in my opinion this is probably the best painted army I now own.

There's been quite a few firsts for me on this project - first real go at Chaos, first time using a wet palette, first time using colour shift paints, first time using an airbrush (in a very limited way!). Also first time I've ever painted a proper back drop or used oil paints in any meaningful way. For all this I thank you Iannick and your fantastic Old World Army Challenge!

On a personal level, this project has really helped me through some pretty rough times. I know many of my fellow competitors have also had their struggles and I salute you all for your efforts and the motivation and enjoyment all your fantastic projects have provided . Whilst lockdown itself hasn't been too onerous for me and was an actual boon in terms of painting time, it's been at work that I've had issues. Being put in a position of nearly losing my dream job and losing all faith in management thanks to their behaviour put a big dent in my morale. Add to that losing a lot of work friends and colleagues who decided to move on rather than put up with the crap and I was not a happy bunny. Thanks again OWAC for providing a release from the real world. Idle hands and the Devil's work and all that! ;) 

I'm probably droning on and gushing a bit too much but I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said this Challenge wasn't something special. You've created a wonderful thing here Iannick!

Right, down to the nitty-gritty. What did I paint and how many points was it? Not that I usually count points when gaming...

Gorice Bathorey of the Red Hook - Chaos Knight (L20 Hero) riding a winged Dragon, magical heavy armour (Blinding Glare), lance, magic weapon (Parasitic Blade) - 892 points

Fowzt Zapalous - Soulflayer (L20 Wizard), Chaos Armour - 290 points

Piros Horog - Chaos Champion (L15 Hero), Heavy armour, handweapon, shield, magic standard - Bane Banner - 279 points

The New Colossus - Greater Demon - 750 points

10 Minotaurs 506

Pasiphae’s Brood

Hand weapons, standard

Led by L10 Hero - light armour double handed weapon

7 Chaos Centaurs 464

Chiron’s Children

L10 hero, light armour, hand weapons, shields

Dragon Ogre                                87

Hydra                                            200

Cockatrice                                    150

34 Beastmen            568 points

Gorgo's Flock

L10 champion, standard bearer, musician, light armour shields, hand weapons

30 Beastmen            516 points

Prosper's Bane

L10 champion, standard bearer, musician, light armour shields, hand weapons

War Altar                275 points

The Maiden in White

4 guards and magic standard

L10 Wizard

12 Mounted Chaos Warriors 1456

Brother Behell and his Outriders of the Knights Terminus

Chaos Steeds, Standard, heavy armour, shields, barding, lances, hand weapons

15 Chaos Warriors on foot 1184

Brother Gogol and his Brutal Berserkers

Heavy armour, shields, hand weapons, standard

14 Thug archers 222

Giudas Preest and his Leather Rebels

Marauder leader and Champion, standard, musician, light armour, bows, hand weapons

25 Thugs led by a Marauder 264

Kurtz and his Hollow Men

Light armour, hand weapons, shields, standard

17 Cultists of the Red Redemption 249

Marauder leader and Champion, standard, musician, light armour, shields, flails

Oh and I've always wanted to recreate those brilliant pictures of Eldar dreadnoughts breaching the walls of some poor unfortunate Ork Fortress on some medieval planet that feature in the 3rd ed Warhammer Siege book. I heard somewhere that they used a cigar to produce the smoke effects. Although I did feel like celebrating I wasn't quite prepared to spark up my Romeo Y Julietta Churchill that I've been nursing for a while so I figured my pipe would do the job just as well!

Here's the obligatory army shot - I was going to move them inside and set the army up on the coffee table for the Bryan Ansell style shot but that glass in my hand and the lateness of the hour put paid to that plan!

Yes - I smoke a pipe now. Pipes are cool.

Welcome to the Shed of Doooooooommmmmm!

Join us... or you'll never leave. At least in one piece.

This is certainly not the end of this project - the eagle eyed among you will notice a number of absences and additions to the original list. I have a couple of boxes of also-rans who will be receiving some paint in the coming months so I can hopefully clear the decks of Chaos cultists (until some new shiny ones I don't own yet come to my attention!). Assuming I have a place in the next OWAC, in which I'd dearly love to participate, I have a few ideas for the next project. One would be a companion piece to this army in the form of an Empire army. I have a few plans on how to match the Cult of the New Colossus in terms of theme and narrative - Jaeckel's Lost Crusade from 2020's OWAC was a big inspiration for the Cult and I imagine my Empire force to be a Home Guard type version of it with a bit of Hammer Horror Witchfinder General religious intolerance thrown in for good measure. Alternatively I have a bunch of Amazons who'd be a much more manageable project but who wants to follow Mr  Paul "Double D" after his stonking and beautiful Amazon host this year! Then there is the lure of the Steppe - I have various Nick Lund Orcs, a horde of Satanic Panic and Fantasy Warlord Hobgoblins as well as various other gribblies that would make for a great Vassal army of the Great HobGobla Khan. In a similar vein I have a few bits and pieces that would make a nice start on a Cathay army, although other than Foundry's Citadel pieces that would not feature much old lead. Hmm decisions, decisions...

I'll leave it to Brother Wermius to say the last words...

And yet somnolence persisted despite Wermius' efforts and as his senses failed him and the dark closed in, he watched the wagons ahead plunge through the tunnel of night and trees and his thoughts veered towards mortality and the fate of all things. Whether he spoke out loud or in the confines of his self, he knew not, as sleep overtook him. Though the words seemed bleak at times he took some comfort from them though there was not much to take,

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,

And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,

Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

Which shall be the darkness of God.

With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,

And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama

And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away-

There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,

No end to the withering of withered flowers,

To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,

To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage,

The bone's prayer to Death, its God. 

One last thanks before I go - thanks Mr Eliot!!!

Steve's Cult of the New Colossus: The Coming of the New Colossus (0 points)

Wild Card Month

Where I might have once pontificated at length about the process and influences that led me to this latest madness, this time I shall let the narrative speak for itself... (It's been a tough month and I write this preamble with minutes to go before the deadline!)

Long and arduous was the pilgrimage back over the roof of the world yet the Cult tired not. From the blasted pit they had clambered, up in to the heavens, and now they descended once more, down through the dark pine forests that bristled on the beetled brow of the World's Edge Mountains. Glowering over the huddled and sagging gambrel rooves of witch-haunted Nachtdorf, these stony pinnacles gave way to the dreary vista of ancient and festering Sylvania - far removed from the pitiless sands of the wasteland they had dragged themselves from. Man and Beast alike rejoiced at the chill air and damp mists of these heavily wooded slopes, for they were a balm to parched lips and blistered hands and feet. Slowly the weary procession began its painful descent back in to the lands of Men once more.

The journey had been unopposed by the non-believer so far. In the depths of the night they had skirted round the forbidding walls of the Slayer Keep at Karak Kadrin, without arousing the wrath of its doughty inhabitants. The Dwarves' hubris would be punished in turn but for now the Cult had more pressing work in spreading the word amongst their fellow men. Blutfurt was the first human settlement to feel the embrace of the Colossus as the Cult emerged from the forests, fire in hand and murder in their eyes. The wretched hamlet certainly lived up to its name, as the ford it straddled like a squatting peasant soon ran red. Wermius watched on, rejoicing that now the ground had been consecrated with the blood of the innocent, work could begin on the Great Ark that had appeared in maddening dreams, both to him and those others who were attuned to the visions and signs sent them by their nascent deity.

Well maybe I'll indulge a little bit! I've been listening to a lot of Ghost. They are a bit controversial in Metal circles - the common criticism is it sounds like Scooby Doo music at times and can get a bit too close to Pop, although I quite like that. Obviously the subject matter of many of their songs feeds in very well to a lot of the themes I've worked in to the Cult and the whole theatrical nature of the band's shows with their lead singer dressing up as a devilish priest and the nameless ghouls in their masks and hoods is exactly the look I'm going for! I love the artwork for their albums too and had hoped to incorporate it in to one of the banners I had planned but sadly the march of time put paid to that - I'll maybe get round to it in the future.

Timbers and boards were dragged from the still smouldering remains of hovels and huts, and rough axles were hewed from the charred beams of the skeletal remains of the village's rudimentary church. As the impossible structure began to take shape, inspired in part by the living shrine to Moloch that had been dragged at such cost over the mountains, new volunteers stepped forward from amongst the hooded ranks to offer their skills in this monumental undertaking. Former stonemasons laid aside the cruel blades they were now more accustomed to wielding, once more taking up the tools of their old trade to construct a great arch that sat atop two huge boulders, quarried from rich warp stone deposits sniffed out by the Ratmen of the Beastmen pack. Those who had knowledge of smithing set to work melting down what iron and bronze they could find to fashion the sigils and signs of power that would adorn the Ark and hasten the advent of their beloved Colossus. Those who had no such skills did their part in hunting down the poor unfortunates who might be put in to the yoke to draw their monstrous shrine still further in to the Empire of Man.

Many days had passed since the Cult had resumed their journey. Yet another ill maintained and pitted road lay ahead of them and the rain lashed down, turning what had been hard standing in to an unforgiving quagmire. Wermius cursed under his breath after one of the few surviving slaves expired under the grinding effort it took to haul the Ark over ruts and potholes. The ritual to raise the dead had become somewhat routine of late - a gruelling necessity to ensure there were enough in the draught team to keep the Ark rolling inexorably towards its destination. Those members of the Cult who were more bestial in nature unfortunately were not adept in the taking of prisoners alive and Wermius cursed them every time he was forced to call on those Dark Powers necessary to reanimate the corpses of fallen slaves. He closed his ears to the pitiful mewling of the living dead struggling in their chains as the crows pecked hungrily at their eyes. Clenching his fists, he cast his own eyes to the heavens, barely restraining the tirade that threatened to burst from his lips. With a visible effort, however, Wermius calmed himself, instead reflecting on and thanking Colossus for the small mercy that their passage was slightly eased by the reluctance of the craven Sylvanina peasantry to openly oppose them...

The banners I did get done were fun. On the left we have a verse from Byron's Cain, which seemed quite fitting, along with a design I thought looked a bit like the Colossus. The sigils around it are lifted from some Cthulhu mythos artwork I quite liked the look of. The banner on the right references Satan's temptation of Eve when he appears to her as the serpent at the Tree of Knowledge, "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” I'd wanted to incorporate the idea of the blind leading the blind too and Brueghel's painting of the same name seemed the ideal vehicle.

Perhaps they must have been found wanting still by their Living God, Wermius reasoned.That must be why the Colossus continued to temper them in the furnace of affliction. The creation of the Ark had taken a full seven days to complete, but now their perseverance was being tested even further in the greatest trial yet, as they faced the purgatory of this toturous march back in to the heart of the Lands of Men. The firey heat of the Blasted Wastes had tormented them horribly but now the chill water that fell unceasingly from the leaden Sylvanian sky sought either to engulf them in raging torrents that thundered down from the mountains, or to subsume them in to the very earth through the cold, sucking mud that mired all in its clinging morass. Yet still onward did the eyeless living corpses strain with their terrible load and Wermius mused whether it was a case of the blind leading the blind.

And what of their destination? Where would this madness take them? In to the Eirie Downs that bordered Ostermark they were bound, where they could complete their diabolic pilgrimage. To this place they were drawn, guided by those prophets among them who communed in the dead of night with their God. Though fragrant heather and delicate wildflowers now thrived in those bleak peat moors, it had once been a place of great bloodshed and anguish where the souls of men did not rest easy. Here would be the place to summon the living incarnation of their beloved Colossus. Here He could manifest himself and grow strong on the restless souls that clung to the place of their dissolution. Here, once the proper sacrifices had been made, the rituals observed and chants recited, the Word would be made flesh.

Night had fallen on the Downs but the peace was not to last. The air trembled as a terrible crescendo of cracked bass organ notes thundered forth from the Ark's great horn. They gave way to a terrible grinding and rending sound as two realities struggled to co-exist in the same space and the chanting of the cult rose in volume and fervour, in response to this unearthly din. Shuddering with fear and ecstasy, Wermius' eyes widened at the appearance in the great arch of a black smoky mass, insubstantial and slowly writhing and turning in on itself. Gradually it expanded to fill the opening and the monk found himself entranced by the swirling mass of stars and galaxies that slowly wheeled in to view. He felt his very soul being drawn out of his body in to this void and he would have thrown himself in willingly, wholly bewitched as he was.

The ceremony was approaching a climax of daemoniac frenzy and the fell congregation ebbed and swayed in response to their charismatic High Priests atop the high dais on the Ark. Their voices resonated with a terrible power,

"We stand here brethren, on the brink of the abyss with the world in flames behind us. We reach out to and beseech the Beast of many names that he embrace us in his shadow. These are the days my friends, marching towards us. These are the days, racing towards us with blood on their teeth and lips."

A babel of barked and bleated words rose up in praise and adulation and the Magister continued,

"Hear that great trumpet sound ringing out! A great clarion call! Seven times shall we march round the cities of men and watch them fall. For He is the light and the shadow, authority and rebellion, love and spite. In him all things are made and unmade - a vessel of possibilities. Nostro dis pater, nostr' alma mater! Mankind has run its course. Rulers are inept. Corrupt. Defunct. It is time to take back nature's reign - depose the Naked Ape of its malign rule and let Chaos once more be the guiding force. Now is the time of the Beast. "

Behind those lunatic cardinals, blasphemous, half-formed shapes of hell formed vaguely in the rippling haze that now filled the great arch of summoning. Odours of incense and corruption joined in sickening concert, and the black air was alive with the cloudy, semi-visible bulk of shapeless elemental things with eyes. Now an insidious murmuring like that of hundreds of voices whispering unspeakable things emanated from the high dais. That muttering sound, like thick oily smoke from a fat-rendering vat or an odour of noisome decay filled Wermius' head and he knew he was in the presence of the Living God...

With a last burst of maniac and fevered oratory, despite the mortal terror that was writ large on their horribly drawn faces, the High Priests began the final chants and exhortations of the ritual,

“We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully.The horror! The horror! Like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker. So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear. We welcome you O' Colossus that you might be our salvation and ruination.

Between the desire

And the spasm 

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

Plunge from the height, O God, and interlock with Man!

Plunge from the height, O Man, and interlock with Beast!"

With that it seemed as though the sky itself was cloven in two by an almighty peal of thunder and a great foetid wind howled through the hooded horde. In that moment men went mad, gibbering and slobbering horribly. Wermius reeled as though from a physical blow and looked up in horror and wonder at the source of that hideous strength. A gargantuan clawed hand reached out. Its skin looked soft and newborn and yet it was a blasphemous mockery of the image of man. Gripping the arch's stonework, slowly and with horrible deliberation, something began to haul it's indescribable bulk from the clutches of the warp. Like part of some grotesque insect, a skeletal appendage scythed out in to the night air and unfurled. The bat-like wing flexed, glowing and transparent in the firelight, interlaced with a delicate filigree of veins and arteries. Then He was through, looming monstrously above his subjects, his gaze heavy as cold lead. The New Colossus had come.

Well there you have it - the Colossus is finally here! This is what passes for the baggage train and camp kitchen for my Chaos Cult so I won't be claiming any points - even if this has been the toughest month's painting! Just the Leader month to go and I'm looking forward to tackling a dragon and a few other pieces for his entourage...