Falling to Chaos, part three

…it was inevitable, really!

While I’ve always been a xenos player at heart, I’ve nevertheless enjoyed building and painting the odd space marine in my time, and often have thought about wanting an Ultramarines or successor company to play on the tabletop. I never really thought I’d sell my soul to Chaos, but now that Shadowspear is out in the wild, and there is so much more Chaotic goodness coming out way, I thought it might be time to look again at my thoughts on the heretic astartes and all of their diabolical instruments of war…

First of all, I just want to say that I really do still want to get that army of Chaos cultists off the ground sometime soon. I’m not entirely sure when, because this year is shaping up to be pretty seismic with another house move hopefully on the cards, but I would like to get a few more of these fanatics painted up before we see another Sanguinalia.

A little over a month ago, I was rambling about my plans for a Chaos army, and was pretty determined to fit in a lot of the Blackstone Fortress stuff, as that had been the catalyst for my desire for this army. Now that we have at least some decent Chaos stuff out here courtesy of Shadowspear, I think it’s time to start looking at how to fit all of this stuff into my army!

And so…

I’m intending to add more to this as we see the full range of New Chaos unfold. I’m very likely going to get more Marines, and I do really want some Havocs for heavy fire support. Furthermore, I want to get the new Dark Apostle miniature, which I’m feeling fairly certain will have a points increase when we can add in his two mates as well, so this 1009 points list is very likely going to be changing in the coming weeks!

I’m still trying to go with the Cultist vibe, but I really want to add to that the idea of cultists who have gone a bit too far, and have managed to actually take things to the next level by summoning daemons and the unholy powers of the Warp. I’m not entirely sure how I want to play this just yet, but I’m thinking of getting some Daemonettes into the fray, and possibly some Bloodletters, though the important thing here is that I’m going Word Bearers for my Heretic Astartes forces, so I don’t want too much red on the table!

Vigilus Ablaze looks like it’s going to be a must-buy for playing Chaos Space Marines, as it has all of the specialist detachments for the Ruinous Powers that really let you go deep on the army theme. It’s definitely sounding quite exciting, and really plays into the whole Daemonkin thing we’ve had from Shadowspear, so I’m looking forward to getting hold of my copy at the weekend and really delving into this whole thing!

I’ve been quite the fan of the Word Bearers since reading the closing pages of Horus Rising, and seeing just how diabolical the machinations of Erebus truly were. The First Heretic was another high point on that journey of course, but I think it might be time to read the Word Bearers Omnibus soon, and see what they’re up to in the 41st millennium, as well!

We’ve seen a few more new models for Chaos coming, such as the Master of Execution pictured above, and that weird Lord Discordant riding atop his scuttling helstalker:

I’m not really that keen on either, though I did entertain some ideas of buying the latter simply because he looks so silly! There’s a bit of an Age of Sigmar vibe coming from the naming conventions of these chaps, which is kinda putting me off if I’m honest, so I don’t think I’ll be rushing to get either of them when they’re released.

Amid all of the fanfare and pageantry of the new releases so far, we’ve not heard anything about the forces from Blackstone Fortress coming in their own packages, and I’m feeling a bit like they’ve been forgotten now. Sure, they are part of that game and, I suppose, there is an argument there to keep them as their own thing. But I would so like a 10-man unit of Traitor Guard to add to this list, especially since we’ve seen the heretic Commissar previewed for an expansion further down the line! I hope we can get these guys in their own release, as I’ve said before, but in the meantime I’ll probably just add yet more Cultists to the force when I look to round it out to 1500 points…

So far, then, I’ve managed to produce this test mini for my Word Bearers force, and I’m really pleased with the result. I’d started the armour by going along with Pete the Wargamer’s tutorial for it, but then just started doing my own thing – all of the weapon casings are Mechanicus Standard Grey and shaded with Nuln Oil, and the eye glow is Straken Green shaded with Biel-Tan Green. All of the cloth is Zandri Dust, and the leather is Gorthor Brown, both of which are then shaded with Agrax Earthshade. I think it works quite well, though, and I’m looking forward to getting the whole army painted up like this!

I think having an element of the Astartes is going to be quite important for the overall army here – I want the Cultists to look like a rag-tag mob, so they’re not in any kind of uniform. Having a bunch of models who are in uniform will then help to make it feel more like a fighting force, and I suppose I can always add in some links such as red robes for the Cultists, or whatever.

It’s a really exciting project, for me, at any rate, so I’m looking forward to getting ahead with it! Quite how far I’m going to get with this one, I have no idea, as I’m likely moving house at some point, but even so, it’ll be good to maybe get a Kill Team out of them!