SHOWCASE: Painted by G's 500 point Chaos Army

Today I have a special guest article by the very talented Painted by G. I saw his small Chaos army he took to Blood and Glory and was instantly in awe of it. Every model is converted and painted to such a high standard, and uniquely amongst AoS, it's an Undivided army!



Without further ado, here is G himself to talk about it:

G: Thanks Tyler for asking me to write a few words about my 500pt Chaos Army! Words aren’t my friends, but I’ll do my best.

I’ve been collecting Greenskins almost exclusively for a very long time but at the beginning of the year I thought it was time for a change. I’d been eyeing up the lovely new Khorne models that came in the Age of Sigmar starter set so decided to go with Chaos. 

Some of my first miniatures ever! Mum didn't like the Slaves to Pleasure banner.

Now Chaos were actually my first army when I was a kid back in the 80’s and my nostalgia was rather strong, I always loved the old classic Chaos Warriors, all the black armour and slitty helmets so I decided that is what I’d try to emulate. 

Inspiration

The plan was to start with a core of Slaves to Darkness Warriors and Marauders, a generic Sorcerer and Chaos Knights, then I could expand the army from there adding Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch or Slaanesh further down the line, as I knew I’d be tempted with whichever cool new models were released! The long term goal being to be able to run an army devoted to any god, but with the core of the army remaining the same.

Since I had all the starter set models, it made sense that the first faction I branched out into would be Khorne, hence the inclusion of the Slaughterpriest.

This force was selected for a side 500pts tournament at Blood & Glory last November. I selected this small force from all my favourites that I had completed so far in a hope of winning the Best Painted prize as I have no hope of winning anything for actually winning games! So if you think it’s a bit weird having a Wizard and a Slaughterpriest in the same small army, that’s why!

I knew this was a weak army compared to what I’d be facing, I think I lost all 3 games, I can’t remember, it wasn’t important to me. They’re all good units really, the Warriors have an excellent 5+ Save Vs Mortal Wounds which is very handy, the Sorcerer has a great buff that lets you re-roll Hits, Wounds and Saves of 1, the Slaughterpriest can dish out D6 Mortal Wounds at range or pull enemy units towards himself and off objectives which can be very important! Unfortunately in small games such as these, he was the standout target for all spells and missile fire, so he tended to die very quickly. I’ve already bought a second one for larger games!

To take the very Khornate models back to making them undivided (or Everchosen, I guess) took a fair bit of work, especially the Warriors.

Everchosen Warriors

They were made mostly from the Blood Warriors in the starter set. When I was planning it, I figured it would just be a few head swaps, filing off of Khorne symbols, whack a shield on them and done, easy! When I actually got the models though, stuff like simple head swaps weren’t simple at all! They’re very cleverly made but the heads aren’t separate and are often buried deep into the shoulder pads and gorgets, I had to slowly grind them out with a Dremmel, it took quite a while as I had to be very careful about not damaging the surrounding model. Turns out the Blood Warriors you can buy in their own box are a lot more traditional, with separate heads, arms and legs, and so they would have been much easier! So if anyone fancies doing the same thing, I’d recommend doing that!

The Warriors were built back up again using shields and helmets from the Chaos Knights kit, my favourite, the Standard bearer is made from many kits like the Chariot model and other bits and bobs I found on eBay.

Warriors WIP

The Slaughterpriest is also converted slightly. It’s such a nice sculpt, the musculature in particular, and I thought it was shame to have most of it covered up with those big horns over his shoulders so I removed them and gave him a sort of bony halo instead.

Slaughterpriest

Turning the Blood Warriors into Marauders was fairly simple, just had to remove most of the Khorne symbols and replace their extra weapons with shields.

Everchosen Marauders

I also added the Darkoath Chieftain from Silver Tower as their unit champion, because it’s such a nice model!

Darkoath Chieftain

The final addition was the Sorcerer. It's an old Games Day model I believe (found on eBay). I loved it as soon as I saw it so it had to go in. He has become affectionately known as Shazza. Come on Shazza!

Shazza the Sorcerer

I decided that with all the black armour in the army the bases would need to contrast with that and so went for snow. I just use the Woodland Scenics snow, mixed with PVA and water, it works a treat!

Display Board WIP

The display board was hastily made from Styrofoam and a cheap photo frame just in time for the tournament. I managed to get 1st Place in Best Painted, mission accomplished!

Bad phone photo from the tournament

Next up, I just need to get the Knight done (plus lots more Marauders) to finish the Undivided core, then paint up some more Khorne to fill it out to 2000pts… Hmm or Tzeench.. they do look pretty…

Thanks again Tyler! You're a star!

Follow me on Twitter @PaintedByG and Facebook to see what I'm working on next!

Cheers!

G
www.paintedbyg.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/GrahamShirlie
@PaintedByG on Twitter

Thank you G for taking the time to put this wonderful article together! I definitely look forward to seeing more of the Undivided force in this army and I'm sure the Khorne or Tzeentch (psst, do Tzeentch) detachment will look just as great. I highly recommend that you follow him on Twitter, he has tons of great stuff he's always posting up, like a pretty awesome Vampire Lord recently.

Until next time,

Tyler M.