Muppet Baby Cthulhu

Or a Mutalith Vortex Beast, if you want to be pedantic about its taxonomy.

Still reminds me of a itty bitty Cthulhu. Who ya gonna call?


This holy terror has been a staple of our Skype battle reports for years, so it's been proxied several times.

That alone should have been incentive enough for me to obtain one, and when the Thousand Sons codex imported a couple of Age of Sigmar units across to the grim darkness, there was no holding back.

Got a hankie?

Although GW's marketing department outsmarted themselves - they bring out a lovely new carrot for using one of their big, expensive models, and then run of of stock for months on end. Fate favoured me, however, and Kasfunatu was able to sort me out with one of his unwanted boxes.

BEHOLD! OCTOPUS-FACE AND HIS FLAMING KUMQUAT OF DOOM!

It's easier to assemble that it looks. Although the fact that (by design) it doesn't resemble any logical physiology can make it tricky to be sure exactly which bit goes where. To make transport easier, the tentacle-face and back-vortex are magnetised (and leaves the door open if I want to swap it around and have a Slaughterbrute too...).

No less weird from this angle.

Painting it was pretty fun too - I'm coming around to Kraken's way of thinking about painting up big monsters. The only wrinkle came, once again, from it's absurdist design - it's not entirely clear where carapace begins and underbelly ends. Still, it's not like anyone's going to point to nature to prove me wrong.

I had two tries at painting him - the first was looking too 'natural' (if that were possible) and I didn't want any resemble to biological credibility (he's not a Tyranid, after all). So I went with contrasting colours between the body and the tentacles, as if one daemon were trying to crawl out of another.

• Carapace - Black primer, Skavenblight Dinge drybrush, Icubi Darkness drybrush, Thousand Sons Blue drybrush
• Underbelly - Daemonette Hide base, Druchii Violet wash, Genestealer Purple drybrush
• Maw - Bugman's Glow base, Reikland Fleshshade wash, Cadian Fleshtone drybrush
• Teeth/tusks - Tallern Sand base, Agrax Earthshade wash, Tyrant Skull drybrush
• Hooves - Skavenblight Dinge base, Nuln Oil wash
• Spikes - Chaos Black base, Naggaroth Night drybrush, Ardcoat
• Tentacles - Thousand Sons Blue base, Drakenhof Nightshade wash, Ahriman Blue drybrush; Averland Sunset base, Cassandora Yellow wash, Yriel Yellow highlights; Death Guard Green base, Nurgle's Rot.
• Tail - Screamer Pink base, Pink Horror drybrush
• Vortex - Averland Sunset base, Cassandora Yellow + Fuegan Orange wash; Ulthuan grey base, Nihilakh Oxide wash. Coelia Greenshade highlights.

In-game, he's a lot of fun. He's around about the same cost as either a Defiler or Helbrute and, while he couldn't kick out as much damage as either of those two, he does bring a certain durability, plus unpredictability and the ability to crank out even more mortal wounds (Thousand Sons laugh at your invulnerable saves!).

But he is principally a buffing unit, so when you run out of things to buff, he may struggle to be effective. That said, there's always a chance he'll implode and take everyone down with him.

The Proserpine forces grow - and there's still more to come!