Gandalf's Chaos Army

[Gandalf the Gay]

Hey,
Im Gandalf. I got my first beastmen when they were still in boxes of 8. 6th Ed Skaven was just coming out.

Since then I have restarted my army a few times. I still have a few dozen hideous beastmen on the lower shelf.

Today it is mostly Chaos Warriors, and they are really my current project. I work very slow, and I stopped painting a few years back, and started again last summer. I hope to finish a 2500pt army before I lay it to rest. I am thinking about starting a Khorne Demons army, too.

My latest model is an Exalted Champion. He has an extravagant base, and is made of chaos knight bits, and a marauder shield. He also has a collar from the helmetless CW head. The blade is from an old heroquest(?) mini, a barbarian. The original blade is a bit ridiculous. He is supposed to be riding a Deamonic steed(he has a 50x50base). The steed is rearing on top of two other bases, so he towers over most of the army.

C&C is welcome, tell me if you would like to see pictures of something in particular.

Edit 1:Im sorry bout the pictures, Ill change them when I have more time.

Edit 2:New pics added

[Orodreth]

It's looking good although the photos are very small. I don't know what to request, but maybe some closer shots of your favourites would be good?

[Gandalf the Gay]

First is my Wargor. He has 7 horns, and is made from 6thed beastmen parts, a sword from the mordheim sprue, shield and shoulderplate from the marauders(shield is actually from the old horsemen, so it is metal and a lot thinner than the plastic equivalent). He also has a bretonnian horn in his belt.

All my beastmen are 6th ed or older. There is also a pair of Heresy beastmen in the army. My latest unit has 5 5th ed Ungor, a 5th ed Bestigor as foe-render, 4th ed musician and swordsman, and a converted old plastic Gor. the last one is a Heresy dude. Quite a cool unit, I think.
Ive considered getting some new plastic beasts, but I have to finish a lot of Warriors first. Im pining for a Brettonian army, so maybe I wont get any new Beastmen at all. I think the army is 500 points now, with 6th ed rules. It is not made for 7th, as I have mixed herds. I liked mixed herds a lot, so Im sad they are gone.

Second is a few marauders. The musician is 5th.ed(?) and is metal. I think it is not supposed to have pants, but I painted some, and I think its fine. The guy in the back has a Midednlander head(which is actually displayed on the regiment boxes - even though it is not in the box!) and ahorsemen arm. The front guy has a 5th ed bret helmet, a heroquest(or is it talisman?) elven sword and an empire shield from the Giant box. He is a bit of a looter. The champ is also there: he has a catachan body and CW legs, with the Horsemen champions axe.

My Lord rides a chimera(MANTICORE, lol). Ive heard a lot of bad things about the manticore model, but I love it - it was because of that(and bolt throwers... and the Hydra!) I considered collecting DE once upon a time.
The Lord himself is a standard knight(CW head), with a flaggelant banner on his back.
I wanted him to have another pair of legs originally, but they wouldnt fit. 2 of the 5 pairs of legs work, the ones with chains and stuff dont fit on the chimera(MANTICORE).

[logan054]

Well its certainly nice to see you have alot of painted models, it takes alot of time and effort, i certainly think you have room for improvement, really i think you best bet is to have a look on cool mini or not http://coolminiornot.com/article and have a look at some of the aritcles.

[Gandalf the Gay]

I'm gonna show you some of my cavalry.

First picture has almost all of it, except the hounds

5 horsemen w/ sh, thr. spear, champion and musician
5 horsemen w/ LA, flail, full command
6 knights, full command(unfinished)
10 hounds
1 Exalted champion on deamonic steed, w/ shield

Im planning on making five more hounds.

So far, only 3 knights are done. Im working on the musician, whose steed is already done, too. The knights all have different weapons. The guy in the red beard has a great hammer, and the other has double hand weapons. The champion has a lance.

I dont use horsemen heads for my horsemen. I actually like the look of the old marauder heads, so I mix those with warrior heads. There are a few conversions in the bunch...

Spearmen champion has a sword from the CW champ, which is held pointing to the ground. I think it makes him look royal.
The musician of the same unit has a drum from the brettonian command sprue.
The champ of the other unit has an axe made of a flail and a CW axe. His head is from the flaggelants. The flames are painted as hair.
The musician and standard bearer both ave hand weapons in their left hands.

EDIT: No the uploads say I can only post pictures of 197kb, before it was 900 something. Is it according to my internet operator?

[logan054]

I would suggest you try later in the day, some service providers restrict the speed at certain times of day, failing that make sure your computer isnt running some sort of update.

[sigur]

Nice army you got there. All colours seem to be in place. May I suggest getting some GW washes to make everything "pop" a little more? Like gryphone sepia on the skin, devlan mud on the clothes, horns and such? Would add much to the effect.

[Gandalf the Gay]

Nice army you got there. All colours seem to be in place. May I suggest getting some GW washes to make everything "pop" a little more? Like gryphone sepia on the skin, devlan mud on the clothes, horns and such? Would add much to the effect.

Yes, Ive been considering that, but I dont think I want to change the style of the army when Im already half way through it! I also dont think it would work well on the warriors and Im frankly afraid of ruining my models, since I dont have any experience with the washes. Re-doing old models does not appeal to me.

If this army ever gets finished, I might start a new Beastmen or Brettonia army, and if I do, I will definately use washes.

[Gandalf the Gay]

Got some more photos up!

I updated an old post with photos and here is another of some of my marauders.

My marauder unit is heavily converted, with all kinds of small bits and pieces. The two marauders in this photo are flaggelants with horsemen heads. I am currently painting three more, so that "flaggies" will make up the whole back rank of my marauder uit of 25 models. I might expand it more in the future.

The idea with the flaggelants is that they are followers who join in battle, while the normal marauders are actual norsemen. The flaggelants are armed randomly, and only one has the hw+sh that the unit is equipped with. Among the other models there are a few flails and great weapons to make the unit look a bit chaotic. I like the unit a lot, and I might photograph a few more individual models eventually.

The guy in the middle is the champion of the unit. CW legs, catachan body, hoseman axe, warrior helmet, and a warrior sword strapped to his back.

On my workbench there is also an exalted champion of Tzeentch on a disc, and five standard marauders for the unit, which will make it 24 models. I am not sure what I will do for the last model, but I have a few options...

[Gandalf the Gay]

Small update.

A few new models.

A warhound, out of nowhere, for basically no reason.

A reg base of marauders that is still unfinished.

Another two marauders pretty much not visible in this picture.

And my new Tzeentch hero!
He was made to represent a hero with the mark of tz, a disc, a shield and the Glaive of Putrefaction. This is a build that I heard of as a "trolling weapon" agaainst powerhouses like the Bloodthirster. I think the chance to wound a Bloodthirster on the charge(strike first, as in 7th ed) was something like 25%(not really good or reliable) and if the Thirster is wounded he loses most of his strength and toughness. Pretty awesome.
The model is half Catachan, half Marauder with an old Ungor head, Horseman shield and Silver Helm sword. The blade of the Glaive is the dagger from the old Warriors set.
The disc is the banner top from the same old Warrior set, with the nosehorns from one of the new Knights horses, a Marauder shoulderpad and a Zombie banner top, plus two bits from the old warrior bannerpoles. This I put on a magic giant foot from the Giant kit. I like it. I am a bit dissapointed with thecolor scheme, I tried to put it somewhere between my warriors and my marauders, but it looks a bit stupid. I am VERY happy with the design of the disc. Plagiarism is most welcome.

Thius is the first character I have built and modeled for this army with a specific role in mind. The others have been very general, or simply built for the sake of the model itself. This was built for the game.
I am not sure if the 25mm base is OK, though. I hope it is. Is there an oficial rule for the size of the disc base?

[Gandalf the Gay]

To bring my ratings up a notch, I got some new stuff that might interest some of you.

First is a bitzpack from microartstudios(I think) It is a bunch of greek-style helmets made to fit CW and knights. I will use two of these to finish my knight unit, and Im planning on using one on a character. We'll see how that goes.

Second is a demon prince! It is mostly built, I'll probably basecoat it today and start painting.

[BobtheInquisitor]

Very nice. I love all the conversions.

I may even have to steal some of your ideas.

[Gandalf the Gay]

Hello again

No Demon Prince today. I finally have 5 chaos knights!

They are all armed differently. One has a great hammer, the musician carries spears, the champion has a lance, another knight has a glaive and a club/axe, while the last one has an axe and a great shield.

Two of them has MAXMINI heads, and the guy with the hammer has flaggelant head and ork(yes, space ork) arms.

I am currently working on a unit filler for my marauders, another single marauder figure, three warriors and the deamon prince. I have just started planning a BSB and the knights standard bearer.

I am not very excited about the deamon prince anymore, and I regret buying it a bit. Maybe it feels better when I start painting it.
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I have also been looking at the army list. I now have 920 points of core(including the 5 warriors and marauders on my workbench) without magic banners. Im not that fond of magic kit, anyway. Im thinking of adding full command to my GW warriors, which would bring the core up by 50pts. add 5 hounds, and I have enough points for a 4000 point army. Awesome.

But I dont know what else to put in my army.

My knights will be a 6-man unit with full command and the fire standard, I think.
The knights are my only special unit. I'm thinking of adding a unit of trolls. I wish I could have minotaurs.
I want a chariot or two, but Im not gonna get one unless there is a new model coming out. Ditto for Dragon Ogres. Deamons would be a natural choice if I could still use them.

I have giant too, and one chaos spawn model that I like a lot. The Hellcannon is good, but I don't like the model that much. I would like a shaggoth, I like the model.

ANYWAY. Right now I'm just a few models away from a fully functional 200pt army. Cool.

[Gandalf the Gay]

My Marauder unit is now DONE, apart from basing a few models.

30 Marauders, hand weapon, shield and light armor.
There is a unit filler in the front rank, and there is also a hound in there. The back rank is made up of flaggelants with horseman heads.


Front rank, left to right:
Middenheimer head, Bret sield from Giant sprue, CW sword. This guy has a lot of gray details.
Banner bearer, has a banner from the Chaos warriors, and his head is from the Horsemen sprue.
Champion, a variety of pieces described elsewhere in this thread.
5th ed Musician. I bought a Gor Chariot from the local store, but the axeman was broken, so I got this guy and a banner bearer as compensation. This was probably 8 years ago.
Unit filler. I knew I needed to use that axe somewhere in my army, but not on the knights, where it looks a bit ridiculous. This is one of 2 models whose chest is painted metal. If I had come up with this idea before, I think I would have painted the whole bunch like that. It looks good, and is a good representation of Light armor. my horsemen with flails also have metal chests. The Giant head is from the giant kit, of course, the arm carrying it is a catachan grenade arm, and the ponytail is ork.

Second rank:
First guy has a club, made using a flail part. He has a catachan left arm, and a Gor shield on his back.
Spearman. I was inpsired by classical Hoplites when I did this guy, that is why he has a chest armor, and the round shield.
Normal guy, CW head, Gor shield,
Another normal guy, Gor shield. I use a lot of Gor shields in the regiment.

Third rank
5th ed Bret helmet, Empire shield from the Giant sprue, elf sword from a Talisman(?) model.
Hound.
Head from the Mortar kit, Horseman axe, Gor shield on back.
6th ed Empire Captain head, axehead from Horseman kit.
Normal guy.
Normal guy, CW head, Gor shield.

Fourth rank:
Greataxe, head of axe from 6th ed Gors.Ungor shield on back. I think this is the first Marauder I painted, several years ago.
Hound.
This guy has just one ear, and a pretty nasty infection where the other used to be.
Middenheimer head with an eye cut out, horseman axe. This head is actually pictured on the Maraude regiment box, but is not part of the kit.
Normal guy.
Pretty normal guy, a lot of grey on this one too.

Fith Rank, the cultists:
2 hw
Great weapon
Marauder with fail
Hand weapon and shield
Hand weapon only
Flail
These guys have every weapon option available to the marauders.

[Gandalf the Gay]

I have been away from my stuff for a while, but I am currently back at my parents house, for a short while. I am currently working on the Demon Prince, who is almost completely painted in a Diablo style scheme. My problem now is that I like none of the heads supplied.... Ive been thinking about bitz ordering a defiler mask to tie it in with my Warriors, but it is quite expensive, it seems.

I reently got 6 6th edition Chaos Knights. I wanted somecavalry that loks more like my Warriors than my current(still unfinished) unit does. If there was a possibility still, the 6th ed ones(currently in the basecoat stage) would be Chaos Knights, and the 7th ed would be Chosen Knights, but as of now there is no rule difference.

The standard bearer for my Chaos Knight is being worked on very slowly, and so is three Warriors with great weapons, another 3 still waiting to be cleared of mould lines and such. After these six Warriors, my unit will be complete, with full command. They will be deployed 2x7, with a Sorceror of Death being the 14th model. This sorceror is currently being basecoated also. It is a conversion of the 6th ed Chaos Lord. I thought that since Sorcerers have the statline of a Warrior, they shouldnt look any wimpier than one.

My camera is currently in another country, so no pictures right now.

[Gandalf the Gay]

TWO NEW CHARACTERS:

A deamon prince to accompany my Lord on Manticore in the skies.

A Sorceror of Death.

On the workbench:
The last Chaos knight in the 7th ed unit, carrying the banner of everlasting flame.
5 Chaos warriors for my GW unit, including musician and standard.
3 Chaos steeds for a second unit of knights.

[Seville]

Looking good! Love the army shot.

[ftayl5]

Great painting and conversions gandalf the gay
Keep it up

[Gandalf the Gay]

Here is a couple of comparison shots of two horses. I think they dont quite convey the huge size difference, though.

Edit: I just had a basing session, all my painted models are now based. New army pictures tomorrow.

[Gandalf the Gay]

Army Pictures!

Army now includes my old Path to Glory Khornites as a 12-man Forsaken unit. That is an old Warhammer Quest(Talisman? I forget) Minotaur as a unit filler.

One Chaos Steed is still riderless. A few men are missing from the GW Warriors.