Call Jonah Lewie

Working my way through my Christmas haul (it's pretty much a Naughty List in itself) got me to these fellas.

It took me back, getting these Chaos Knights, right back to the first ideas I had for a Chaos Army. Three years now, nearly, and back then I was planning on buying these units then balking at the cost. Look at me now! 5000 points and counting! I'd be proud if it wasn't clear evidence of being a mighty loser.

That's a head from the Warshrine sprue, that. Totally left-field, conversion-wise, me. Really crazy. 

The reason for my nostalgia was that I wanted the Knights to look like their footslogging counterparts, and I couldn't quite remember what colours I'd used. I reread some old posts, but it didn't help any, I wasn't writing down paint guides back then. They're as much for my own sake as anything else - I can't imagine many folk out there are looking at my blurry pictures and thinking they desperately want to emulate anything I'm doing. But I have a terrible memory, and sometimes need to copy a scheme elsewhere, that's what the guides are for.

For the Chaos Knight whose giant horned helmet with the skeletal visor just isn't enough, why not consider yet more skulls? 

Anyhoo - five big knights, and jolly nice models they are too. Although frankly, compared to the Chaos Marauders, they get short changed. Those guys not only get twice as many heads (and better sculpts) to chose from, they also get a better banner and musician option! So the clippers came out in short order.

Ba Naaaaa Na
Ba Naaaaa Na
Ba Na Na Na Na Na Nuh Na Nuh Naaaaaaaa

The horn needed a bit of extra work, and isn't a brilliantly disguised join. But some bonus chains and spikes, courtesy of the Knight sprues, covered it well enough. The head is a Marauder Horseman, with an old Warrior helm balanced on a saddle spike.

It's a bunch of clashing swords on the banner - Runefang Silver treated with various black washes or White Scar blended highlights

The banner has a very obvious join half-way up. The Horsemen carry their banner left-handed, see, and the Knights have theirs on the right. I didn't want to have a Knight with no shield and a weapon, it would be redundant when you've got that many spikes on your banner pole.

It might look cruel to replace your horse's tail with a bunch of spiky chains. But it's a surprisingly gentle way of tethering it outside the saloon bar. 

Enchanted weapons for these guys, it's a better option generally. Unless you have to fight Malekith or something. That said, the Champion has a lance. I wanted the end of the lance to look like it was burning with such sorcerous power that the end has been charred off, which has worked fairly well actually. As usual, the photo doesn't really hack it.

The shield needs a do-over, I hate the way the gold turned out. Note to self - Auric Armour Gold goes bright yellow in a drybrush.

Painting Guide:

• Main Palette - Abaddon Black basecoat under everything. Beaten Copper, Codex Grey, Marine Dark Blue, Bleached Bone
• Bone - is a Bleached Bone base, then details done with first Brown Ink then Black, then a strong drybrush of more Bleached Bone and a Skull White finish
• Copper - Beaten Copper, Brown Ink, More Beaten Copper, a bit of Burnished Gold. I did some of it with Brass Scorpion instead, using Agrax Earthshade as the shade
• Grey - Abaddon Black, Eshin Grey, Codex Grey, Space Wolves Grey
• Enchanted Bits - Stegadon Scale Blue, Kabalite Green, Bilious Green, Hellion Green, 'Ardcoat
• Metals - Generally Mithril Silver on the basecoat, worked up to Runefang
• Horses - Abaddon Black, generally without more added but a bit of Codex Grey on some. Their hairy bits are a variety of light browns, whites and one Underhive Ash (which is a sort of browny-green)

For the size of game I generally play, five of these are plenty. That weighs in as 200 points before you mark, equip or command them. They'd make a good character bus, though, they're a bugger to kill and can be upgraded to resist magic or missiles quite easily. Both, even, as I managed in a recent report (although I lost, as usual, it took two turns of an entire Dark Elf army hurling spells and missiles to finish off the unit).

Not for nothing is the banner painted with a bunch of swords on it! Archaon can now bring his old pals, the Swords of Chaos, and I can be all smug about legit mark painting. Whoop whoop!

And that's not all!

Poor old Phlothos, my Palanquin-mounted Chaos Lord conversion, hasn't been himself lately. His army keeps losing, you see. So to put the broad grin back on his face (and because I've gotten hold of some spare parts from the Putrid Blightkings box), I treated him to an upgrade!

All New Multiple Arms!

I was happy with the old look, mostly, although I felt a bit sad I couldn't find a shield that I hadn't already used elsewhere. And his shoulderpads, taken from original Warrior of Chaos multipose models, looked pretty 90s. Blightkings have a huge number of spare bits, so it wasn't hard to find new arms and shoulders, and a bit of greenstuff finished it off.

All New Mucus!

Also a first turn for Nurgle's Rot, the GW Technical goo. Decent stuff, although not quite as amazing as Blood for the Blood God. It's got the colour and consistency of snot or slime, and it's pretty vile looking once it sets. But it's not quite as translucent as BftBG, so easier to overpower the detail below with, and it's yellower than I hoped. Phlothos's Nurglings now leave a streaky trail of it, as well as a little round his mouth and crotch.

All New Revolting Groin!

I lost a bit of the original dynamism in the pose, somehow - the mace arm went because of the too-small hand, mostly, but the tentacles were the very devil to attach. Without meaning to, I ended up with a slightly static jousting pose, not the ideal for spiked mace wielding. But he is cavalry, technically. I'm sure if he rode it into you, it would still hurt. 

All New Mark-Appropriate Shield!
The shoulder pads and shield are a plethora of Technical range paints (Typhus Corrosion and Ryza Rust over Steel Legion Drab, mostly, with various silvers and golds over the top). A model so focussed on dirt, slime, blood and rust is really shouting at you to go nuts with those paints.

This new look will almost certainly help improve his chances of winning his next fight, simply because going on past form, his chances couldn't really get much worse.