Wednesday 5 June 2019

The Ahriman With A Plan

Now the Rubrics are all dusted off, let's finish with the man who started it all...

Thousand Sons Ahriman for Warhammer 40,000


More than any other model - even Magnus himself - Ahriman is synonymous with his legion. He's up there with Khârn the Betrayer, Typhus, or Lucius the Eternal - only with the best series of novels to back him up, and a sweet ride to scoot around on.

Thousand Sons Ahriman for Warhammer 40,000

It surprises even me that, despite a deep dive into Thousand Sons for the past two years, that I hadn't got this model earlier.

This was partly an attempt to forge my own characters for the warband (something I find that falls away once you have such a big named character in there). My impression of him was also soured by his appearance (via proxy) in my very first Thousand Sons battle where he got beaten-up by a Tech-Priest (that's what you get for using proxies).

Thousand Sons Ahriman for Warhammer 40,000

The main factor holding me back was that I was a bit intimidated by the sculpt, and worried that I might stuff up the painting. The box art actually isn't my favourite, so I didn't have anything to directly copy from, and I was left to the rather-limited palette of my imagination.

Thousand Sons Ahriman for Warhammer 40,000

It turns out, I needn't have worried. I had a great time painting this model, and am pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.

I didn't approach it in the usual way (metallics, armour, cloth etc) - I just picked a bit I wanted to paint and went for it. Continuing like that, little and often, did the trick. It also helped that, by this time, I had painted nine other sorcerers. So I had a fair amount of experience to lean on.

Thousand Sons Ahriman for Warhammer 40,000

With Ahriman, there's not a whole lot remaining for my Thousand Sons (I have more than enough models for even the largest game). In game terms, I think he will be even more effective than Magnus, so I'll have to use him judiciously, but I daresay there's some fun to be had.


I'm now thinking I want to do a 'Chaos Champions' quartet - just have to wait on the release of a plastic Lucius...

5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks - just remember to separate your dark matter before washing.

      Delete
  2. Great work! I still don't have this version, just the old metal Jes Goodwin one, since that holds up pretty well still if you don't want him on a Disk.

    Speaking of which, I find Ahriman, Kharne, and Abaddon far more iconic than Typhus or especially Lucius, since the latter two came along something like 5 years after the first wave of CSM Special Characters, and Lucius has never had a Model that didn't suck. It's weird how time flies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree about the Jes Goodwin sculpt of Ahriman - I'd have no complaints if I were fielding that one (although the amount of times I drop models has made me very glad about the shift to plastic).

      Delete
    2. Oh, yeah. Plastic is far and away my favourite material to work with and play with for Models.

      Delete