Frank's Great Task, Building a Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh (Wrap-up)

 Well, half a year come and gone, and another Old World Army Challenge met. My plans for this year were more humble than in the past, and yet, I barely met the challenge. Only 38 models were completed, although some of those were quite large. However, on the WFB3/ROC points scale it is still quite an addition to the overall Legion...

Keeper of Secrets/900, Daemon Prince/810, Familiar/0, Fiends of Slaanesh x12/480, Daemonettes x3/300, Skeleton Archers x12/240, Liche/345, Spectre/200, Slaaneshi Legionaires x6/168

A grand total of 3,443 points added to the legion. So, I may not have managed to finish the number of models I had intended, but there are some accomplishments to be proud of regardless.

First and foremost, the maximum numbers of daemons available to the Legion were reached. This added up to being a new Keeper of Secrets, a new Daemon Prince, another three Daemonettes, and a dozen new Fiends of Slaanesh. There is a little bit of wiggle room to add to that total, but not much. In the case of the Daemonettes, extra Daemonettes can be used to lead packs of Slaaneshi Spawn. But these would be part of the Legion's auxiliaries rather than the Legion proper. In addition, the random chart provided in Slaves to Darkness, allows for a maximum of five Greater Daemons in a daemonic legion. This is a practical limitation, but not an absolute one. The daemonic legion rules indicate that players may agree on any total of greater daemons, but that the maximum greater daemons that can appear in a single legion is the chaos God's sacred number. For Slaanesh, this is six, and thus one more Keeper of Secrets could yet join the ranks. For me, this possible sixth slot is reserved for the elusive unreleased keeper of secrets, who if ever acquired will be my last. 

The second accomplishment is the completion of the Undead auxiliary contingent. There are now 48 models in the contingent. This is after adding 12 more skeleton archers, a ghost, and a liche as the contingent commander. 

Lastly, I am particularly pleased with my final Daemon Prince which was sculpted by Satyr Art Studios as an homage to the John Blanche art of Slaanesh 'themself'. Throw in the unit of chaos legionary Beastmen and it was a succesful OWAC in total. 

Of course, at this point I couldn't resist getting the entire legion out for a parade of horrors. I discovered that they do look quite 'Realm of Chaos' all out together now, a veritable riot of colors and forms. A total points estimate, including this year's additions, would put them at over 10,000 points now, depending on various magical items, chaos weapons, and gifts. And keep in mind that the five Keepers of Secrets are free in a daemonic legion! 

Does this indicate then end of this project? Is the great work complete? There is room for a few more units here and there. Some mortals and monsters could still be added and not break the maximums laid out in Slaves to Darkness. Perhaps, there will be one final push, or maybe I should accept victory here with the daemons fully painted now. What do you think? Is enough, enough?

Frank's Great Task, Building a Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh - June (Rank & File)

I got a late start on the month's batch of models due to a new puppy in the house. He's charming, but exhausting. I had planned to finish off the last of the Legion's Daemonettes, but I wasn't feeling them for whatever reason, and time was growing short. Therefore, I pivoted to completing the Legion's undead auxiliary contingent. 

Now in Realm of Chaos - Slaves to Darkness, an undead contingent can be quite large. I wanted mine to still adhere to the "rule of six" in some capacity, but keeping the chaos god's number in unit sizes is optional in an auxiliary contingent. Also, a lot of the draw of these undead units in a legion is to get some larger units than are available in the rest of the Legion. I already had painted 20 skeleton warriors, 12 skeleton archers, and a pair of undead champions of Slannesh (here). I decided to bulk the contingent out to 48 models (a multiple of six seemed appropriate here). To get there, this month I painted another dozen skeleton archers, a liche as the contingent commander, and I rebased a spirit model to be a spectre.

For the skeletons, I followed the same color scheme I used for the rest of the skeletons, with a lot of contrasting red and naked bones. The archers are pretty hopeless on the daemonic battlefield, but one can give any models armed with them missile weapons and magic ammo. At the cost of another 10 points (also what the skeletons cost) they can all have bows which are magical (and can hurt daemons) and never miss. 20 points per model is still comically cheap on a daemonic battlefield, so that is the plan. Like my skeletons who came before, these were Crooked Dice sculpts. That is also where I found the sculpt for the Liche. I gave her a 3D printed Slaaneshi icon on her staff, but otherwise I left her unchanged. Her wardrobe is already somewhat Slaaneshi, so no changes were needed here. I gave her a pallid skin tone and dark eye sockets to emphasize her almost skeletal and undead appearance. I am really quite pleased with how she came out, and kudos to Crooked Dice on a great sculpt.

The Spectre came from a Reaper sculpt I decided to remove from a Keeper of Secrets diorama base, which I painted years ago. She will hide in a skeleton unit until she gets a chance to make a nuisance of herself. 

All told, this month I added 13 models to the Legion. I am not counting the spectre in this count as she was just a rebasing job.  Her paint job was another attempt at using Citadel Contrast paints. I think this effort came out a lot better than when I tried it on the fiends. The lighter tones do succeed in giving her a 'ghostly' feel.  Simple but effective in my mind.

This completes my daemonic legion's Undead contingent, and a merry bunch they are too...

These models add another 785 points to the Legion.

            Skeletons w/ magic bows x12     240

            Spectre                                         200

            Liche (Wizard 20)                        345

For next month's wrap up, I will go over which portions of the Legion have been completed with this year's effort. I will also provide some updated pics and list of the Legion as it stands today. Till next month...

Frank's Great Work Continued, A Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh - Leaders - June

 Last month was a bit of a hobby letdown. I was forced to burn my Wild Card month to mulligan as I sliced through the tip of my finger in a freak accident. It took several weeks for the stitches to come out and for me to be able to get back to work. But, with such trivial issues pushed aside, I got down to June being my Leader month. 

I have only three models this month, but all are conversions, two of which were on the complicated side. 

First off we have what I have taken to calling the Golden Pair. I wanted an Exaulted Champion to ride with the mounted Daemonettes in the Legion. I took a classic Slaaneshi champion and removed his legs. To this 'rump' champion model I added the legs from the two piece Chaos knight. This was just about right to fit on the Mount of Slaanesh 'seat' where a saddle would go. This was not a pretty adjustment though, and some belt accoutrements and a slung shield were needed to hide the worst of the sins on display here.

I have searched for many years to find the unreleased Mount of Slaanesh to include in my Slaaneshi Legion. It was clear from 'Stuff of Legends' that a key difference between the unreleased model and the Realm of Chaos era Mount of Slaanesh was that it was a single piece sculpt. What I did not realize until I hand one in my mortal hand was the reason it was never sold. It is about 60% the size of the released model. Any normal sized rider, daemonette or otherwise, was going to look comical riding it. But what if the rider was not 'normal' sized, I wondered to myself...  

I decided that my mighty champion would have a familiar. Since he was carrying some dread spell tome it seemed only appropriate. I had a tiny armored combat familiar, and decided he would ride the tiny steed.  To get him on to the Steed, his poor legs had to come off and get reposed to allow something like sitting on the steed. Unlike like his larger master, this was not as messy a conversion and only a tiny shield and some junk to give the impression of a saddle was needed to hide the scars. Lastly I printed him a tiny slaanesh icon to go on his helmet because there was no Slaanesh icon on the model anywhere otherwise.

 

The urge to make these two look as closely linked as possible was too good to miss. I'm sure there is a "mini-me" joke here somewhere. Both got a gold color scheme for their armor with pink lacquered shields. The steeds are mirrors of each other's colors, purple and green. Lastly the Champion got a fancy paint job on his daemon weapon.

 

My next leader character is specifically for the undead contingent. In theory the undead Minotaur Champion could lead the undead troops but as I now had a unit of combat skeletons and a unit of skeleton archers, I wanted a proper leader to provide some sorcerous support. I went with a liche. I decided this model was likely not part of the fallen cult who made up the Legions undead fodder, but rather a fallen necromancer who made a deal with a slaaneshi daemon to extend her life. The result was losing her soul, which is now carried as a jewel in the armor of the Legion's commanding Keeper of Secrets. She is indeed immortal, having cheated death, but has to serve forever at the head of a cohort of doomed fools for her new master's entertainment. For the model, I noticed two of the old Chaos Sorcerers clearly had been made from the same manikin. One was a generic Sorceress, the other a Slaaneshi spellcaster. I simply took the arm with the slaanesh icon wand from one and put it on the other. The result was a convincing sorceress. She got the same red paint scheme that her minions were given.

 

The Mighty Champion of Slaanesh with his mount and his mounted familiar, have a variable cost depending on the number of rewards the champion has. I wanted the Golden Pair to be cream of the crop so I opted for the full 360 points. I didn't buy him the Mount extra, but safely assume it will turn up in all those reward rolls. The Liche I opted for a level 3 caster, which meant a "Liche 20". She costs 345 points and has no optional extras built in. This brings has me adding 1,005 points to the Legion this month. The total models and points for OWAC VIII will be totaled up and shown off next month, as well as totals for the entire Legion beyond just this OWAC. 

ZeroTwentythree's June Undead (600pts)

June Entry

LEADER Month!

 

I decided to save the man... er, former man... himself for last - The Liche!

This figure holds a bit of nostalgia for me. One of my close friends when I was young had an undead army and used this figure from Grenadier as one of his leaders (general?) As I recall he painted it in a pretty loud color scheme. I'm sure I didn't manage an identical paint scheme, but I think I'm fairly close. Since I had to pick this figure up from eBay, I got the original pack with both mounted and on foot. It's nice to have both options!

Here he is accompanied by the army standard bearer, The Candyman. The figure is an old Citadel skeleton, but the scythe had broken off. So I took the logical step and gave him some festive balloons, and modified his shield arm to hold a star-bust swirl lollipop.

 

Next are two undead heroes that were part of the original, less weird OWAC plan that didn't involve flamingos, lollipops, or any of that nonsense. One is an old Citadel mounted wight who was intended to lead the regular undead horse cavalry. The other, on the left, is a more recent figure from Northstar that I was really fond of, and will lead the regiment of armored skeleton infantry. Lastly is an old '80s Citadel Lord of the Rings barrow wight I picked up part way through June. I just had to paint it right away!

 

 

 

Lastly, let us bow our heads to the loss of two more OWAC challengers who dropped out to the Field of Bones - Maciek and Andrea. But all is not lost, they shall fight and paint eternal as part of the Liche's elite painting team. Also, I lost one of the last '80s era paints that was still in usable condition. So it too will be memorialized as a small terrain piece.

 

 

Just when I thought I was in the home stretch and going to finish early, The Overlord posted the below image to the OWAC FB group.

 

I took that as a challenge.

 

Thus, I have a last minute henge, complete with circle of stones, soup, and salad.

 

 

 Here's a candid shot of the Liche about to perform one of his summoning rituals. Soup, salad, and barrels are not glued down, so I can use this for a variety of gaming purposes, not just amassing a skeleton army.

So there it is, June and another OWAC completed! Coming soon, my wrap-up post.

 

June Leader Month
 

1 Liche (lv.15) w/undead horse, pistol.................................... 247 pts
1 Undead Hero (lv. 10) w/Army Standard, lt. armour........... 150 pts

1 Undead Hero (lv. 10) w/ lt. armour, shield.......................... 58 pts

1 Undead Hero (lv. 10) w/undead horse, lt. armour, shield... 68 pts

2 Skeleton Warriors...............................................................   20 pts

1 Wight.................................................................................    100 pts

1 Henge w/stone circle, soup, salad....................................    unlimited skeletons

June Total: 600 pts

Grand Total: 1733 pts

Just John's Undead - Will the Real Heinie Kemmler Please Stand Up (381 Points)

Leader Month 381 Points 

I can't believe I di it, I actually finished the challenge. I feel oddly gleeful about it too! I was happy to get these three guys completed and disappointed not to get Mikael Jaecsen done but he went from one disaster to the next until I finally dropped him and he broke 😭😭. No worries though, a batch in some AFNPR and a bit of TLC will see him back as good as new. Maybe I'll try to get him done before the army shot. Anyhow - I digress.

Heinie here is from TTCombat (I think). He came with an added bonus with a bunch of other halflings and when I saw him I knew I finally had my version of the Lichemaster. Turns out Heinrich Kemmler the most feared necromancer in the Old World was actually a halfling named Heinie. After his final defeat the Empire was faced with the embarrassment of having had their assess handed to them by a halfling so the Chancellor of Misinformation rewrote the story removing all mention of Heinie and replacing him with the entirely fictitious Heinrich. Typical of the big folk if you ask me.

Heinie's bookstand is one of the old chaos familiars and I though they went well together. Turns out that this necromancer is only one of a whole range of undead halflings that TTCombat produce. I can see myself making a large purchase in the future. The Revenge of the Heinie maybe?

The other two figures are the two actual figures from the Lichemaster scenario pack, or at least I think they are. I have since seem another version of Ranlac the Black with a moon face shield but the demonic one if the one used in the illustration from the scenario pack.

Finally there is Lord Krell. I'm not too happy with the green. I put a wash over it and it changed the shade I was going for. Still he's painted now and that's what matters.

Ranlac's stat block in the scenario is roughly the equivalent of a Lvl 5 Undead Hero, which is 30 points. He carries a sword, shield and the remnants of plate armour for an additional 4 points. That's 34 points in total. Krell is described as a Mighty Hero so I reckon he's about a Lvl 20 Undead Hero, which is 105 points. He has plate mail (3 points) with a Rune of Protection (10 points) and a magic two-handed sword (25 points) gifted to him by the Chaos powers. It has two powers Warp Attack and Degeneration Attack (50 & 5 points). That gives Lord Krell a total of 198 points. 

Finally there is Heinie himself. He is probably the equivalent of a Lvl 20 Necromancer (240 points) but he has a magic sword (25 points) with three runes: 2 Minor Death runes (against humans and dwarves) and a Cutting and Smashing rune. The minor death runes automatically kill the target if it is one of the named species and the cutting and smashing rune reduces saving throws by 1. There's no real equivalent in 3rd ed so I just went with Freeze for 50 points. Which if my maths is correct is 315 points. 

That gives triumvirate of terror a total points value of 547 points. Here they are posing for a group photo.

Till next month - slán go fóill 

Overlord note : had to adjust points a little as magic items are not to be counted, as per the rules 

Bulldoglopez's Zombie Dragon (945 pts)

I had a Liche that I had to scratch

HOLY SHIT ITS OVER!!! Time to take my legion of undead out and bone the Old World!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

For my final submission I put a Liche on a Zombie Dragon. Yeah.... TERRIFYING! I spent a little bit more time painting the Liche. This figure is one of my all time favorite undead miniatures and it was nice to spend a little more time picking out the detail on the sleeves and the crown.

The Dragon itself was a pretty quick paint job as well - just a couple passes with the airbrush, a wash, and some drybrushing and then I picked out the details.  I added some tufts of grass and a broken shield bit to the base and pinned the Liche in place.

Lvl 20 Liche (Dust Lord) - 345 Points
Dragon 4 with Dessication Breath - 600 Points

Jesse's Undead - Made it! (492 points)

Another month, another unit of skeletons and a liche for good measure. My monthly updates have become a little predictable.

This month I managed to paint:
19 skeleton warriors with standard, musician, light armour and shields (still waiting on the shields)
1 Grave Fiend (level 10 undead hero)
1 Doombinder (level 10 liche)

This lot added up to 492 points, a bit less than I had hoped to paint. Sickness meant that a mounted undead hero and a corpse cart remain untouched while a wraith and a screaming skull catapult need a few more sessions to be done.

This unit, along with the 10 skeletons painted last month will serve as a monster unit to escort the liche (or vampire) into battle. 

Jesse's Undead (1335 points)

This month was all lockdown so I got stuck into some painting. I was a bit worried after the earlier mulligan so I thought I would try and catch up on the plan I had come up with when I started. I ended up completing all of the units I had planned for the whole challenge so I am going to have to add in some extra units for the last two months.

The new characters, units and war machine.

I had a good time painting most these guys. The beast head champion and the beast pelt musician from the grim reaper unit were really cool miniatures. I had a couple of failures, my first liche and a vampire ended up in the stripping jar, which caused me to rethink my character choices. I painted a necromancer to see what trying to paint non-undead skin was like and it turned out ok so that gave me a necromancer. Next I wanted to try painting yellow so that turned into an army standard and resulted in all of the characters having a yellow element to make them stand out. Finally, the warhammer 3rd editition beastiary describes liches as 'power crazed weirdos' so I looked through my miniature trays to find something that matched that description.

Liche WIP

This miniature looked like it would work but I decided that a bone mask might make him look more liche and less chaos sorcerer.

The final breakdown of characters, units and war machines was as follows:

Level 20 liche 345
Level 10 necromancer 85
Level 15 undead hero, army standard, light armour 137
Level 20 undead hero, heavy armour 108
Level 10 undead hero, heavy armour 58
17 nightmare legion, standard, musician, spear, shield, light armour 266
Level 15 undead hero, light armour, double handed weapon 89
14 grim reapers, standard, musician, light armour 224
Stone Thrower & screaming skull ammunition. 85

Necromancer, Liche and Army Standard

The Grim Reapers

Knightmare legion

Stone Thrower