Friday, November 13, 2015

The Dance of Lost Souls - Chaos Baggage Train Part 1

"Bringing up the rear of any Chaos horde may be seen their hideous train of camp followers.  Foul beings including those mutants too far gone to be worth putting into the battle line.  They accompany awesome, creaking wagons of  horrific form, riddled with woodworm and decay, and drawn by pathetically deformed beasts of burden...
These weird wains are piled high with cages, cauldrons and sinister inlaid caskets, while implements of torture and insane ritual are hung about them.  A continuous, eerie sighing emanates from the sad, snuffling and cowled figures groping behind the wagons..."
                                                                                                                  -Warhammer Armies


Who among us was not mightily inspired by that passage, reading it as a kid?  Twenty-some odd years later, Nigel Stillman's words have finally resulted, partly, in this.
This baggage train section was quite a colossal kit-bash. The wagon model is based on a RAFM Skeleton War Wagon model.  I bought a pair of them very cheap from RAFM direct and I added some wheels from a new-school Skaven war machine kit, purchased separately on ebay.  The skeletal horse came with the Skeleton War Wagon kit.

Added some other plastic and resin bits from Armorcast and GW, including the cage in which our Devil Pig (I like to think of him as some sort of lesser daemon of the minor Chaos God of gluttony), is keeping a particularly tasty bit to eat later on.  The tasty bit is an old Ral Partha slave girl.
The Devil Pig himself, the whipping horse and most of the camp followers are from Eureka's delightfully old-school flavored 'Chaos Army'.  The line isn't so much an army as a mob of mutants with a very Bosch/Bruegel theme.  Very cool.
The Whipping Horse.  Poor Fellow.  It's a sad figure but I'm very attached to it.  When I saw it, I was immediately reminded of the Devil's horse in Albrecht Durer's The Knight and the Devil.  I found this illustration in a book on medieval warfare when I was a very small boy.  It has exercised a very powerful hold on my imagination ever since. Particularly that miserable horse.  I have no idea why.
The first of the 'sad snuffling and groping figures...a mutant too far gone to fight in the line but still rather scary.  Nice mini. Could easily be a Cenobite from Hellraiser...  A Eureka piece...
An old Citadel Witch.  Seemed like a good choice for a cultist model.  Careful inspection reveals that her personal equipment includes a flashlight/electric torch!  As good as a wand of light, I guess.
Here we have a miserably mutated creature...approaching being barely functional.  I think this is a Heartbreaker model.  I'm not sure.  I painted him a long time ago, you can see he is painted and based somewhat differently from the others.  I thought he'd fit in well, though.
 Bird/crab man.  Very Bosch/Bruegel flavored.  I like him.
Egghead.  Another Eureka  A fun piece.
Another shot of the wagon...
And of the section as a whole...
Still another RAFM cart and lots of Eureka mutants to fashion into a second baggage train section for Aulech Henschblut's Chaos raiders.



Nov 13 2015

9 comments:

  1. Mr. Mouse, what a triumph Sir! Fabulous kit bash, but the combination of spare parts has just created a stunning whole - I love it. Both Bosch and Durer captivated me as a young art student so to see their influence here is just spectacular.

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    1. I love your stuff too, Michael, so hearing that makes me proud. Thanks very much. Although they just came out this year, the Eureka Chaos minis had that renaissance look that I think had a big influence on John Blanche and the early Warhammer look. I thought they were pretty great, and had to have me some!

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  2. Gribbly!! Very well done...the pig demon is one of the more unsettling figures I've seen.

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    1. Thanks, Springinsfeld! I'm glad you like them! Yes, Mr. Pig Demon is pretty creepy. But chaos is supposed to be creepy! So he's great!

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  3. Splendid! What an excellent baggage train. Really love the Egghead and Bird/crab man - inspirational!
    /Hans

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    1. Thanks, Don Hans! That's great to hear! Glad you like them! I still have another wagon to finish, with more strange creatures from the Eureka chaos line. Hopefully I will have them finished before the end of the year!

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  4. Oh, Mouse, this is the most disturbing thing I have ever seen posted! Egads! Simply amazing as a Chaos Baggage Train! And that Eggman and Bird/Crab man...I don't even know, all I know is that I'm glad I'm not seeing them before I go to sleep. And that poor girl...she must be rescued!! Brilliant stuff!

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    1. The most disturbing thing you've ever seen posted, you say? Well, that's quite a compliment. Disturbing was what I wanted, so thank you. As for the girl, she's glued in there, so she's not escaping any time soon. Maybe I should have modeled the cage so she could be taken out, and thus set things up for a rescue scenario. But I didn't. So she's still on the menu for the Pig man.

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  5. This miniature is amazing. I found your blog while looking for some inspiration on Google for Warhammer Baggage Wagons, and I couldn't go out of it. Fantastic work !

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