Buzzgobb Phesterlick, Chaos Knight of Slaanesh

Buzzgobb Phesterlick, the dread knight of Slaanesh, leads a troop of his Minotaurs across the Black River, through the Tulgey Wood and into the fringes of the Baron Von Refn's realm, seeking for slaughter and captives to bring back to Buzzgobb's evil city of Lost Veguzz.

In the ruins of that ancient and once beautiful town, now a broken shell on the breast of the eastern desert, twisted shapes writhe and cavort amid leaping flames and swinging cages full of screaming prisoners.

Chuckling, giggling, gurgling things slouch and shuffle from shadow to shadow, feasting on broken bodies and sometimes on each other.

Out from the unholy city, out from amoung the broken walls, the leaping fires, the heaps of corpses and the piles of  malformed bodies entangled in the ecstacy of blasphemous, orgiastic rites, rides Buzzgobb, Knight of Slaanesh...

...astride his shrieking, gibbering steed...

...under the blazing banner of his unfathomably filthy and evil God...to rape, raid and plunder amoung the green pastures west of the river.  

    His bellowing minions lumber after him, eager to bath their blades and muzzles in blood...The Baron Von Refn has sworn to slay Buzzgobb and to hang his head above the gate of the Refnsburg.  The Orc Warlord Big Blackey has sworn to slay Buzzgobb and hang his head from his chariot.  The Dwarven Lords of Thunder Mount have sworn to slay Buzzgobb and use his head as a cannon ball.   None of them seem to have had much luck in these endeavors yet.

                                                                Buzzgobb Rides!!!

Ukko Fartblast's Chaos Dwarf Gunners!

Limping. shuffling, hopping and stinking they come from out of the squalid streets of Lost Veguzz...porting their weird weapons and contraptions of war, bent on carnage and destruction...the Chaos Dwarfs!  

Amoung their ranks, prancing and capering as he directs the steams of hot steel and liquid flame onto their tagets is the infamous Chaos Dwarf engineer Ukko Fartblast!  Horribly mutated and utterly insane, Ukko commands all the war engines of the Chaos Dwarfs of Lost Veguzz.  Many enemies have laid handsome bounties upon Ukko's bony head, but no one has caught him yet.

Ukko's dreaded swivel guns make up his main battle line in any fight.  The rules for Chaos Dwarf Swivel guns did not appear in Warhammer Armies.  They were first published in White Dwarf #108.  Orlygg has posted them here.

Here the gun line is supported by a brace of deadly bazukas...

Their presence bodes ill for any enemy of the Chaos Lord Buzzgobb Phesterlick, Prince of the heinous city of Lost Veguzz!

I started painting these guys when I was in Afghanistan the last time.  That's been over three years ago, now!  I wasn't happy with them at the time, so they went into a shoe box until fairly recently, when I decided to dig them out, dust them off and finish them as best I could.

Things aren't always going to turn out looking just the way you want them to.  Just get 'em on the table!

 Rocket Launcher #2....I always liked the grimacing mask on the loader...looks a bit Samurai.

Whoosh-bang!

The whole group...I'm still missing the mortar, but I'm sure these guys will be able to raise plenty of Cain on their own!  Blood for the Blood God!

Thundering Hooves: Chaos Centaurs

Too wild and feckless to join any chaos war host for long, the chaos centaurs thunder over the great plains of the east, seeking for prey...

 Centaur warbands occasionally appear in the ranks of Buzzgobb Phesterlick's chaos horde as allies, but invariably part ways with the horde after a battle...they have small interest in serving any lord or champion for long.

 Centaurs are unmatched in their skills as scouts, skirmishers and foragers, and the Chaos champions of Lost Veguzz happily make use of their talents whenever possible.

 There have been reports of troops of centaurs riding with the Mad Hunt of chaos from time to time.  May the gods have pity on any poor souls who cross paths with the hunt while the centaurs ride with it...

Holy 80s, Batman!  I went a little over the top on this fellow.  I'm not sure what I was thinking.  He sticks out like a sore thumb in his unit.

The two-handed weapon troop...It took me a blasted long time to collect all these boys, but it was worth the wait.

This might be my favorite mini out of the bunch.  Maybe its the facial expression.

I like this guy, too, although there's something about his faces that makes me think of the muppets...

My Chaos horde is well past 3k points now but in all probability, I'll never stop adding to it.  GW just made too many wonderful chaos things back in the day.  I have a troop of harpies, a beastman regiment and a Tzeentchian sorcerer in a chariot on my short list of chaos models I want to get painted.  Hopefully I'll get around to them all during the winter. 

Minotaurs

 In the tangled depths of the Tulgey Wood, a minotaur war band assembles for a raid on the hated human settlements of the Sudmark...while keeping a sharp eye out for the Jabberwocks!

It's hard to say no to including units of minotaurs in one's chaos army.  They have so much visual appeal, looming above the ranks of lesser creatures like beastmen and chaos thugs, and what with their beer bellies and big ol' horns...

Minotaur Chief rallies his Bully Boys for battle...

One thing about Minotaurs in 3rd Edition, however...

I sometimes wonder if the combat power of a minotaur really warrants a 40mm base.  Minotaur units do seem to whither away to nothing damnably quickly in my games. Part of it may simply be that being big and threatening, they tend to attract more attention.  I don't think it's just that, though.  Compare the Minotaur to his lowlier cousin, the chaos Beaman, who costs 10 points.  The Beastman has strength 3, wounds 2, and 1 attack.  The minotaur costs 4 times what the beastman does in points.  His advantage over the Beastman is that he has strength 4, wounds 3, and 2 attacks. His toughness and initiative are no better than his smaller cousin's, but he has a dramatically increased frontage due to his large base so that, if if a rank of 3 minotaurs were fighting, say Elves, the Elves would be able, from their 20mm bases, to bring at least 6 attacks to bear against the Bull-men, meaning that the minotaur's extra attack is no advantage at all in many cases.

The minotaur has a couple of other things going for him.  He has move 6, which makes him almost as fast as an Orc Boar Boy, and he's large, so he causes fear, which is good, but being large also means he's a large target for missile fire.

Minotaurs are further hamstrung by the fact that you can only have 5 per unit.  That's it, and their Blood Greed special characteristic is a mixed blessing at best.  So are minotaurs really worth the points?

I wonder if the designers of WFB3 weren't a little bit unsure of that themselves.  In the Rule Book, the base size given for minotaurs is 25mm, the same as the beastmen, and some of Citadel's earlier Minotaur models, such as the fellow above, were well suited to a 25mm base.  The book also shows several photos of Minotaurs mounted on what are clearly 25mm bases.  By the time we get to Warhammer Armies and Realm of Chaos, the requisite base size has been changed to 40mm, and by then Citadel was producing considerably larger minotaur models. 

We know that there was confusion about the desired size of the Fimir models.  The sculptors created models that were larger than the game designers had intended, with the result that you ended up with a figure which some players felt was underpowered for the 40mm base which the model's size demanded.

Was there at some point a confusion with minotaur figures similar to that which occurred with the fimir?  I've always wondered about it, but I suppose I don't care that much.  I still like minotaur models, so I'm pleased to add these Bovine Belligerents to Buzzgobb Phesterlicks's chaos horde.

Happy Hackin'!

Cavalcade of Corruption - Chaos Baggage Train Part 2

 

Another collection of ruined things, degenerates and bestial horrors trailing feebly in the wake of the Chaos Horde...

This completes my Chaos baggage train project. at least for the time being, and overall, I'm pretty proud of it.

Again, I used the RAFM undead war wagon as the base for the cart model.  This time I left the wagon pretty much intact, keeping the side panels and the original wheels.  I did add some bits here and there...some extra shields, etc. 

To the front of the wagon, I added a Citadel plastic lantern from some Mordheim kit or other, and some poor unfortunate metal impaled guy by Armorcast.  Most of the crates and barrels which fill the wagon are Armorcast, too. I think.

As was the case with the last baggage train section, I used mostly Eureka figures for the camp followers... Here is Mr. Log.  He's big. he's heavy, he's wood.

And here is Mr. Cthulhuoid snail/mollusk thing.  Despite his cruel and severe mutations, he still seems to know how to dish out violence with that kitchen knife he carries, so watch out.

In spite of his own mutations, Lizard Lad is still quite agile and dangerous, and makes himself useful by inspiring the cart's beasts of burden to ever greater efforts with blows of his iron shod staff.

Here one of the cart's draft animals can be seen laboring away.  This is also a Eureka mini.  The figure has two faces that are sort of melted together.  Fun idea, but unfortunately one of the faces is invariably obscured by whatever the figure happens to be pushing on, so you can never get a really good look at him.

I think all Oldhammer fans recognize these guys.  I was lucky to be able to snatch them up by themselves on Ebay a few years ago for a pittance.

Last of the Camp followers.  These are cultists rather than mutants.  Citadel witch on the right and a Grenadier Drow or Vampire on the left.  I bought the witch about 4 years ago with the intent of using her as a camp follower for a baggage train someday.  I had no idea what the finished project would look like at that time.  It's taken a long time for all the other pieces to fall into place.

Another view of the Eureka cart pusher....

...and of the other side of the wagon...the standard came with the RAFM wagon kit.  I added the iron bells from I think the Citadel plastic giant kit.

The dog is also part of the Eureka miniatures 'Chaos Army' line.  He's a nice touch.  I roped him to the axle of the wagon with a scrap of wire.  When I saw him, I immediately thought of the dog in Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death. 

I'm not sure if the sculptor was thinking of this piece when he made the poor creature, but there's certainly a resemblance to the miserable, depressing looking beast, which is helpful when you're working with a Chaos theme.

The completed baggage train.  Completed for now, anyway.  I still plan on adding quite a few points to Buzzgobb Phesterlick's Chaos horde, so there will be room for more wagons and camp followers in the future.

A sick and twisted but highly satisfying project to have completed.  Now I just have to finish Willie da Wheela's Goblin chariots and steel myself to repairing Big Blackie's chariot and finish painting Big Blackie himself.  Then I'll be ready for the big showdown between the two most heinous-est and evil-est hordes in The Black River country!