From The Depths It Rises...

Another Mutalith Vortex Beast? You betcha. I got the first one to divide between Age of Sigmar and 40k, but this one is definitely for the Thousand Sons.

... which is ironic, because I used an Age of Sigmar model for the conversion.

I like the idea of a second Mutalith in the army. Firstly, it gives me another third Heavy option (and since I'm shying away from vehicles, big monsters are my best route to a Brigade of Thousand Sons).

Secondly, I think running two Mutaliths will be good fun, without actually being game-breaking. they don't really kick out a lot of damage potential, but they're hard to kill and can throw out some very useful, and unexpected powers. Certainly a lot more fun than parking a tri-las Predator at the back and hoping you make your hit rolls.

Anyway, I didn't want to use the same Mutalith model - £50 price tag notwithstanding, it seems odd to have continually-morphing creatures look identical on the battlefield. Fortunately, there are no shortage of beasties in the GW range - step forward Kharibdyss!

I wasn't super-keen on the Hydra/Kharibdyss model in fantasy, but the Kharibdyss with its multiple, sinuous necks and eyeless, snapping maws looks like it slithered right out of warpspace. It's a little smaller than the offical Mutalith, but not dramatically so. I also think it looks better without the Dark Elf handlers.

Despite this, I went with the same colour scheme as the previous Mutalith - because even though they should look different, I needed to do something to indicate that it's the same unit.

• 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
• Vortex - Averland Sunset base, Cassandora Yellow + Fuegan Orange wash; Ulthuan grey base, Nihilakh Oxide wash. Coelia Greenshade highlights.
• Base: Naggaroth Night base, Nuln Oil wash, Ceramite White spatters. Emperor's Children ' Ahriman Blue + Nighthaunt Blue drybrush

I also went with something special for the base, since the model was meant to be rising up out of the water. I firstly added a three-dimensional 'swirl' of Polyfilla, then used the above paint scheme to create a starscape - and hey presto! One monster rising up out of the Empyrean.

I quite like the effect, and it would have been a cool one to do for the entire army (other than a massive drain on time and resources, but that's Warhammer for you).

And you can't have a Vortex Beast without a vortex. The actual one is bugger to get hold of, on account of being awesome, but Age of Sigmar comes to the rescue again - their new Endless Spells provide a smorgasbord of weird blobs of energy that would fit in very nicely for unstable warp energy.

I picked up the 'Malevolent Maelstrom' - it wouldn't have worked on his back, but when its in front, it helps to fill out the base (and I like that one foreleg is almost 'conjuring' it up).

In the narrative in my head (because why wouldn't I have one), the matching colouration is because this is, in fact, the same Mutalith Vortex Beast as the other one: Vortex Beasts are useful assets, but hard to come by, even in the Eye of Terror, so my Thousand Sons thrallband simply went down the timeline of their existing pet to find an earlier version, and summon him into service too. As long as neither of them die in battle, no temporal paradoxes could possible occur.

Foolproof!