Old School Terminator here to share the exploration of my current Chaos Legions and to look ahead at where the warbands are going!I have been collecting Chaos Space Marines for many years now, so looking at my Chaos Collection together is like taking a trip through time when it comes to my painting abilities. This is where I am struggling. I want to field a beautiful army, but I love my Chaos stuff that I already own, some of it looks a little dated in terms of my painting style, while other stuff is great. Let's check it out to see what I mean.
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First up are my Iron Warriors. They are a smaller warband led by the chained sorcerer here. Many of them are recent but many of them are also speed painted. The soceror is pretty cool and I really do like the Iron Warriors, I just am not too sure if I want an entire 2000+ force of them.
Here are the Havocs I painted up sometime last year infront of the home made Dreadclaw I posted about a year and a half ago. Geez I have been playing Chaos a while!
The rhino here is just one of three that I made specifically for the Iron Warriors. They are all painted, but as you can see, it is a speed job and while it looks cool, I think I could do it better nowadays which is the crux of my struggle going forward. Display an army that encompasses the entire history of my painting style or burn it all and start again ... maybe there is a balance between the two.
Here are the Forge World M2 Crusade Armored Iron Warriors. I have like 30 of them painted up!
Now speaking of striking a balance, this is the Nurgle VIndicator I converted in 2009, had painted by Goatboy in 2009 and then re-painted in 2011. It shows what I can do with a re-paint and strikes a balance between my old and newer styles.
The Plague Marines here represent one squad of the three I have fully painted (four if you take the sacred 7) and they are re-painted to get the style closer to my modern painting skills. They are a little dated by my abilities, but I think they look pretty cool and they are all costom conversions I made in 2009.
Here they are in front of a Black Legion Land Raider (note they are not featured here, but I have about 50 black legionnaires who really do need to be re-painted - they are my oldest Chaos and were painted with markers). The Land Raider is a re-paint of an eBay paintjob (yuck) and looks great on the table despite it being one of my 2010 paint jobs.
Here is my 2009 Nurgle Daemon Prince! He was a lot of fun and I used the model to teach myself about the effects of washes on different colors and also it was my first Monstrous Creature, which was a lot of fun to paint. I still love to whip this guy out even though I would paint him differently today and he still gets a lot of attention from passers-by.
This guy might as well be called skittles. Also painted in 2009, he will get re-painted before he ever comes back to the table.
As far as my 54 Nurgling bases go ... I'll keep them just the way they are. They were a gift from CVinton and I painted them up recently and I am never going to re-paint them. They look great anyway ... now just to get ALL of them on the board at the same time!
Next we dive into my World Eaters ... boy do I love some Khorne! These guys are my Thunder Juggers! I love Khorne Berzerkers on Juggernaughts and while they may just end up as Bloodcrusher conversions, they will hit the table whenever I can weasel them in. They just look way too cool!
Lord Zhofur has at time stood in for Abbadon (who after all this time isn't painted) and I think he fits in quite wel with my modern stuff and should find some good table time with the new rules!
My first Brass Scorpion! I bled all over this model when I converted it! While the paintjob borders on bad, I think I can touch it up to make it perfect for a defiler in my next army!
Let's not forget that I have some epically posed zerks that I made a few years ago and they still need paint!
In addition to what we have discussed, I have hundreds of Chaos models, from painted black legion, Iron Warriors, Death Guard, World Eaters, Thousand Sons and much, much more unpainted. This makes me wonder where to go with it all. I could easily make a mashed together warband of one of the Black Crusades or I could redesign, re-buy and re-paint to modernize my traitors or find some balance in the two ideas. Either way, the time has come to make my choice ... what do you think? Are there any readers out there who are struggling with their own Chaos thoughts on old paint jobs? Anybody had this problem with their armies? Does anyone have any feedback on my situation? If so, I would love to hear what you think!
Although I have other armies, Chaos is my prime boy and it will always be the crown jewel of my collection, but I faced a very similar issue: I basically used Chaos to learn how to paint back in the day, so if you lined all my minis you could actually see evolution from one model to another.
ReplyDeleteDue to that inconsistency, and the lack of a theme to tie everything together (since I tried a lot of things), I decided - after much hurtful thought - to sell everything and start from scratch to prepare for the new codex. It would be bigger, meaner and gory. I've been dedicating my painting time for that big project for almost the whole year now.
What I can say it was - artistically speaking - one of the best gaming solutions I've made. It's been one hell of a ride - findings bits - waiting for bids and stuff, but although expensive, and time consuming making an all custom army do opens up something that the "It's all a Black Legion Party!" does not allow. It allows model individuality, which I think it's a huge thing.
It's time consuming, we are not going to start playing right away, but I do believe that you first need to kinda BOND with the army, otherwise you painting suffers - you don't wanna paint what you don't like for starters - so your gaming starts a WAAC downard spiral of grey minis and uber units spam, and well... that's killing 50% of the experience right there.
Chaos have been serving me well for ages, so it's only fair to pay back the price the Gods demand, and make their 28mm Avatars look as good as possible on the tabletop.
Anyway, my two cents: Scoop the best minis for you, and work around a THEME you like, not an specific legion. We are Chaos. By definition, we can paint ouselves all blue and gold, and still be cool guys :)
I agree. Keep your favs and blow away the rest so you can make exactly what you want. Yes, it's more time and money but you know deep down in your black black heart that's what you want. I did it with my DA many Years ago and Love what I remade them into. Now whenever I do add to the DAs each new "force" is from on of the successors just to keep it fresh and fun and challenging. A refresh of your armies now and then is a great way to get back your hobby mojo, avoid burn out and find a reason to love them again - especially with a new codex so close...
DeleteTotally beautiful work, I've painted over most of my CSM with primer, because they were my first army and a lot of the paint jobs were lackluster. I've had most of them primed and been waiting for the new book for a few months. I scuplted and kitbashed 30 really great looking plague marines, planning to buy the FW death guard kit and make 2 more when I get some spare cash, that way I'll have 6 7 man squads (or 3 14 man squads!). Here's hoping there isnt too much I have to buy to get my chaos army running when the new book drops.
ReplyDeleteSome great stuff there! I've repainted two, going on three armies and though it's a lot of work, I'm always glad in the end that I did it.
ReplyDeleteZab & Warmaster D, I hear what you all are saying and it is ringing true for me on some of these units. When it comes to the black legion, their days may be numbered, some others too, but I think many will stay and some of them will take a repaint to go with the additions. I think it is time to add some Word Bearers to the mix
ReplyDeleteIan, I hope it does work out man. I want to see you put together a good DG.
Sons I saw your article and decided to man up. That's what the blogosphere is all about - support and inspiration.
Amen!
ReplyDeleteI think its a matter of what you want for the ego stroke. Do you like that you have a OST antique army-over-the-ages kind of thing or do you want people to say "Oh wow! That looks awesome!"
ReplyDeleteI wish I had some of my first models I painted to play with and say "yeah, this is the first army I painted" I would give back all the money I sold it for to have it back. Easily. You have to ask yourself if the few hundred you'd get worth loosing the nestalgia. If it is, good bye shitty paint job guys. Otherwise, just pick up the new choas models and get a case for your old ones to display in your workshop.
Hmmmm ... I hear what you are saying. I hadn't considered that. It's good insight from a painter and player like you
DeleteI like putting out my first tac squad, Its a good reminder of how far I've come, I used my old testors model paint, oil based, they SHINE!
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