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 Task, Building a Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh - May (Rank & File)

 

This month's efforts were a bit less focused but had some real gems. The pride of place, without question, goes to the 'Consort of Slaanesh', but we will get round to 'them' in a bit. First off there are a few more daemonettes. 

I painted three more daemonettes not to be another unit, but to be handlers for the Legion's packs of chaos spawn. The Realm of Chaos Slaves to Darkness daemonic legion of Slaanesh army list requires a champion or a daemonette to be included as a handler for each pack of spawn. A Slaaneshi legion can field up to four packs of spawn. I have one champion converted up to lead a spawn pack. In fact, he is almost a spawn himself. But, for the other three packs these three new daemonettes will serve. None of these are original citadel sculpts. The two on the flanks here are Satyr Art Studios sculpts. His offerings are always great at keeping that oldhammer style and fit in nicely with the legacy sculpts. These came from a pack of six the rest of which were retained for another idea. You will, of course, have noticed that one of them is quite different. This model began as a Hasslefree Miniatures sculpt, which was clearly an homage to the "Kinky Chaosette" classic citadel sculpt. 

I conducted some minor conversions to make her a special daemonette model. I clipped one of the hands and replaced that hand with an extra daemonette claw. I then used a whip from another Slaaneshi champion to give her a barbed tail. She was made because there is a slight chance that any individual daemonette comes with a random magic item. In a legion, a player can always buy a model chaos armor as well. This model was intended to allow for either possibility, as well as a daemonette who gained the "chaos lord" chaos attribute. 

The next model added is a familiar. She is an odd little creature who somewhat resembles a daemonette. She was painted with no 'parent' model intended, rather she can server as a familiar whenever one is called for from the random generation of characters. I'm not quite sure where the sculpt came from, maybe Reaper Miniatures. 

This next unit is a bit of a departure from theme as they are mortals (more or less). In a daemonic legion mortal units can be included in the form of units Legionnaires. These models can be of any roughly man-sized race and their profiles are always the same. For my first unit of Legionnaires (The Old World Army Challenge: Frank's: The Great Work - A Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh, Slaves to Darkness Style, "Wildcard", June 2023), I made fallen elves. This time I wanted some 'children of chaos' and opted for classic beastmen. I have had several of these models, in various states of repair knocking around my collection for many years. They were dusted off, rebased, and prepped. One was too thick with old paint so he got stripped, the others just got a clean up and I painted right over them. I also added Slaanesh icons for their weapons whereever that seemed practical.

You will notice that these models are all roughly in the same pose. I believe that they were all created form the same 'dolly', with different armor sculpted on and different mutations. As I had five, I still needed a sixth model, as all units in a Slaaneshi legion have six models. I found another one with a Fiend's head and a snazzy armored corset. I converted him with bits from a champion to make him more of a mutant and to up the armor on him to being proper chaos armor. Now he has two crab claws and chaos armor. He is my sixth legionnaire, but he could be another chaos champion if I needed those mutations, or even a very mutated daemonette. 

Now for the main event, what I'm calling the "Consort of Slaanesh". This model probably should have been in my Wildcard or Leader months, but events conspired to prevent me completing 'her' until this month. This model was sculpted by Satyr Art Studios and is a loving homage to this John Blanche depiction of Slaanesh him/herself from Realm of Chaos Slaves to Darkness. 

I, of course, had to make a few additions of my own. This pose on this model seemed very agile and athletic, and I wanted to depict 'her' as some sort of deadly fast, although still huge duelist. 'She' will serve in the legion as the third and final daemon prince allowed. But, 'she' could also be the sixth Keeper if I so desired. In fact, modern rules for Slanneshi daemons now have a named daemon prince who is a hunter of other greater daemons and some such. So, I gave 'her' a nasty pointy wall-shield, which is really a buckler on 'her'. I also changed her scepter into a full-blown icon of Slannesh. With the new toys, 'She' could stand in for the names Keeper model nicely, and it gave 'her' a distinct look from the other Keepers in my legion.

So, that's all for May. In total, have ten 'normal' models and one 'large', granting an adjusted score of twelve. As to points, well... the Daemon Princess/Keeper of Secrets weighs in at 810, the trio of Daemonettes are 100 each, the unit of legionnaires (without magic items or spell upgrades) cost 168, and finally the familiar costs nothing, as she only appears as a random gift for another model. Total points for May then are 1,278. And as far as my own goals go, this month sees the Daemon Princes for the Legion maxed out. Here they are together looking fabulous.

 

Frank's Great Work Continued - A Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh - Rank & File January

For my first month of rank & file models I wanted to start with one of the units unique to my project. In a Realm of Chaos Daemonic Legion army list, one of the auxiliary contingent options available to a Khorne or Slaanesh legion is an Undead Contingent. Note, I did not mention Nurgle or Tzeentch. This is because when Games Workshop published Realm of Chaos The Lost and the Damned, the auxiliaries portion of daemonic legions were dropped in favor of allowing any mortal fantasy or 40k models to be included in the Legion. In practice this meant almost everything that was available through the Auxiliaries section of Slaves to Darkness was now available to a daemonic legion without restriction. But, some things were no longer available, and Undead followers of the Chaos gods, were one of those casualties. 

In Slaves to Darkness, an Undead contingent has to have a leader model and then an assortment of Undead units. Without the leader, undead just mull about subject to stupidity. Leaders could be a necromancer, liche, vampire, or undead champion of chaos (Slaanesh, in my case, of course). 

 

I opted to start mine with an Undead Champion as the leader. I wanted something unusual so I chose a Minotaur champion. In Realm of Chaos lore, Minotaurs are the guardians of Chaos shrines, and I imagined mine must have died defending his charge and was then chosen to fight in my Slaaneshi legion as a curse or reward depending on one's point of view. His model was a fun conversion. I started with an old Ral Partha Skeleton Giant, and snipped his head and arm off. I then replaced his head with the fleshless Keeper of Secrets head from the original Keeper blister. I added an ensnaring tongue to this to give it a distinctly Slaaneshi appearance. I wanted another chaos mutation on my failed Minotaur Champion, so I used a claw from a 4th/5th edition Fiend of Slaanesh. Those Fiend models were a lot beefier than the originals, and came on 40mm bases instead of cavalry bases. His claw is right on for the Champion's scale. For his weapon I wanted him to have something size appropriate, and I clipped the halberd from a Slaaneshi Champion, which made a nice bastard sword on the big fella. This would be either a daemon weapon or a chaos weapon depending on the day. I also painted his 'one' eye a sickly yellow as I wanted to imply he had the "Evil Eye" mutation. This totaled him up as a Minotaur Champion (random profile) with a fairly low number of chaos rewards, probably four plius his weapon, making him 230 points.

 

   

I could still grant him more rewards if I was feeling spendy, or he could be given any number of chaos attributes for his weapon unless he had been blessed with a daemon weapon already. But 230 points seems just fine for now.

The cheapest models available for a unit in a daemonic legion are skeletons. They are, in fact, at 10 points a piece, the cheapest models in the entire legion. They should be, as they are pretty hopeless on such a battlefield. Their purpose here is not to actually kill anything, but rather to form a walking bulwark of expendable wounds, that will take charges from my legion's foes. Many terrible things in a Khornate Legion have nasty high-tech guns or can fly, not least the dreaded Bloodthirsters. Skeletons can provide the valuable characters of my legion cover, and make it impossible for a flying terror to declare a charge against models following closely behind them.Therefore all these models are included so they may die again in the service of the pleasure god. A theme of failed mortal followers is taking shape in my mind. 

Skeleton models in and of themselves are pretty simple things, and do not tend to have much by the way of chaos flavor or mutations. I wanted to ensure they fit the flavor of my Slaaneshi Legion so I was fairly choosy in who I added to the unit. The first thing I did was find skeletons with a proper Oldhammer feel but were a bit easier to convert the way I had in mind. Most of my skeletons ended up being Crooked Dice sculpts, with a few from Die Hard miniatures as well. Whenever possible, I clipped off the ends of spears, maces and axes, and replaced these with a 3d printed Slaanesh Icon I had scanned from the old Realm of Chaos era Slaaneshi beastman model. 

The mace heads were resized, printed, and distributed as single or double handed maces to give the skeletons some appropriate iconography. I also added extra musicians and a little banner. A cult leader, still wearing his robes, and an armored bodyguard round out the unit. There are 20 Skeletons in the unit, adding 200 points to the total. Or, to put it another way, the price of a pair of daemonettes.

 

The backstory for these doomed fellows had come together for me by now. These models represent what was once the Cult of Unflagging Revelers. This cult had been charged with keeping one of Slaanesh's shrines safe from enemies, but they failed and were found out by a warband of Khorne. The Khornate followers slaughtered the cult, and even brought low the shrine's guardian. Slaanesh was not entertained by this failure and cursed the cult to arise as the Unending Revelers, who now serve as expendable fodder in his Legion. They will die over and over to keep Slaanesh's beloved servants safe for a few moments longer. On the field the Cult continually dances and plays bawdy tunes, as they try to equal the rest of the legion in its joy at the savagery to be unleashed. But alas, they can feel nothing and being undead cannot partake in any of the pleasures manifest around them.

  

All told, this month adds 21 models to the army , one of which could have been a leader entry, worth a total of 430 points. I enjoyed these quite a bit and may well expand the contingent in a later month if I can gather another 20-30 skeletons in time.