Long time, no post. I'll admit as life got more busy I forgot about updating the blog. I did have a big lore post planned for my Lobsterpot28 warband but after writing it I submitted it to a zine for publishing. Keep a look out for that later this year.
Anyway, over the winter a few friends and I decided to make Realm of Chaos Warbands rolling out of the classic Realm of Chaos Books. I of course chose Nurgle and with some help rolled my first champion and warband. (In the future, I would like to kitbash a champion for each Chaos God).
For the Champion, he was a level 5 human hero with cloven hooves, beastial face and enormous noise. With the 5 equipment points, he received a set of heavy army and a double handed sword.
Next I rolled 6 Beastmen with scaly skin. 1 Magus who can't cast any magic spells yet. And 3 cultists with iron hard skin and Beastial face.
Some how I managed to roll Beastial face or Beastmen for all of my warband. With that I knew that their would not be any human faces in my warband but knew I needed the Beastmen to be different then the other characters. I didnt want to do the classic fat, bloated characters for my Nurgle warband. I wanted to use the Garden of Nurgle as a starting off point as well as different influences.
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| Right when I was discovering my painting style |
A few years ago, I kitbashed this spell caster for my Forbidden Psalm / Mordheim warband. She is the Wicker Woman.
Holy Cleric St. Agatha thought she was hearing guidance from her God during the end times. Continuously he asked her to collect more of the corrupted weird stone to protect the vulnerable from dark magic. the more weird stone she collected, the more her God spoke to her. Her sisters saw the corruption of her soul and sentenced her to be burned at the stake. St. Agatha was set ablaze, left as ash in the countryside upon a hill with a single tree. Her God heard her calls for salvation and blossed her with a new form of the Wicker Woman, she returned to the Fallen City, gaining followers and building a new world that embraced the chaos.
This was always one of my favorite models I've made and I don't get the chance to use her that much. I always liked the branch wings and twig arms on the character. This Nurgle warband was a good excuse to continue exploring that idea which pointed me towards folk horror, folklore and legends as the inspiration for this warband. Inspirations include: Baba Yaga, The Green Knight Movie, The Ritual Movie, Midsommar, The Wild Hunt, Arthurian Legends, Knights in general, Dark Woods, and old manuscripts.
A quick lore about the warband to help explain design choices is that this small village in the middle of the woods began to have issues with their crops growing, not matter what they did all the plant life would die. Knowing they did not have enough food for Winter, the town's one Knight went into the deep woods to see if he could discover what the issue is. After days of walking, he discovered an old dead tree of blackened wood. At the base of the tree was a path that traveled deep into the earth. He ventured deeep underground where no light could reach. As he felt a cold chill down his spine, a voice called out to him. He asked what the Knight wanted and He answered with wanting the town's crops to grow. The creature promised the crops would grow as long as they prayed to him. The Knight took this creature as an old forest spirit and promised a feast in his honor once he returned home. After returning to the village, the Knight demanded the mayor set about a feast for the salvation of their crops. A week later, the whole town celebrated and the next morning, plants sprouted. As summer passed and the crops grew more then ever, the villagers began to notice a change in themselves. The town guards grew thick mains of hair and cloven feet. The farmers faces grew long snouts and roots crawled out of their spines. The more they prayed to the Forest Sprit, the more they transformed into the forest itself.
Later on I plan to do a more in depth story telling for this warband about the named characters and some of the other strange denizens that appear in town.
Work in progress of the WarBand
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| Sir Morcant, The Fly King's Hand, The Spore Crowned Warden |
To start off I worked on the Champion, since his design would dictate the rest of the warband. It actually started out as a kitbash for the original warband. One of the warriors had upgraded to a two handed weapon and heavy armor. The base model was a push fit Storm Cast Eternal model with the sigmar bits scrapped off. I chopped off the head of the weapon to add a more unique option inspired by the Witch King of Angmar. More branches were added to the back to increase the size of the champion compared to what I had originally. A few head options were played around with since Beastial Face was rolled. I didn't want an expected Beast head and happened to have this metal fly face which I was given as a gift for Christmas. With some flocking added to the shoulders and holes drilled into the armor, my Champion was completed.
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| The Black Brair Herd |
A few months before this project was started, I happened across a great deal on some GW models off of Facebook marketplace. I originally wanted the Metal Middle Earth Hero minis but he also had some boxes of monopose beastmen and Skaven. Since I liked both of those armies as well (Big Skaven fan over here), I picked those up as well for my Old Hammer shelf. As soon as I rolled beastmen, I knew exactly which models to use. A million of these Beastmen models exist so I didn't feel bad about chopping them up. Since each model was posed in the same way, I used different bits to change up the silhouette. Luckily the Nurgle bits worked great with all the Dryad pieces. Any parts I think needed extra texutre got sand and flock.
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| Soran the Rotten, the town Mayor |
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| The PoxBound Pilgrims |
The villages were more difficult for me to resolve. I didn't want them to be humans with beast fans as they were also being transformed by their prayers. Luckily I had a few extra Plague Monk bodies and parts that I could use for the villagers. The hunched backs were perfect for the roots along with the plague barrier arms. The scale difference between the Champion, beastmen and cultists really helped the villagers feel weaker in comparison.
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| In progress Chaos Warrior |
Of course, after finishing this warband I was having too much fun mixing all the bits together to create new characters. I was in a bit of a slump of what project to do next so I picked up an old getting Started Set of Chaos Warriors which gave me a great start to adding more units and expanding the characters.
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| In progress Villager |
I wanted a coven of witches and warlocks to use as Chaos Sorcerers. A warband of Chaos Warriors to use as reanimated Knights of old. A Great Unclean one as the Forest Spirit. A band of demons of the forrest inspired by twisted fae creatures. Knights on horseback sent by the Fly King to help the village and of course the Fly King on chariot. I have finished a few of these models so far! But am definitely looking forward to fleshing out their ranks even more. My hope is to finish most of the general units to bring to Under the Dice fest. I can use them for a variety of games like Warhammer, Mordhiem, Dragon Rampant, Forbidden Psalm, or any fantasy game really.
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| One of the Witches from the Coven. Kitbashed by my friend Anthony and it was perfect for this army. |
Over the next few months, there will be more posts about this army as well as some projects I finished previously like my Chaos Giants for Age of Signmar. My goal is two posts of month! I think the next post will a painting tutorial for this army.
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