Daemon Army (BlackEd)

[BlackEd]

I have painted a High Elf army, an Undead army, an Empire army, an Orc army, a Dwarf army and a Chaos army.  I painted those years ago when I was able to play more often than I can now.  I'm getting back to Warmaster because I realize how much I really like the rules.  I've been able to find some folks near me who are still willing to play, and I am trying to revive interest at my hobby store.

I love the Demon army miniatures.  I want to do a Demon army for all 4 Chaos powers, but I can't stand Nurgle.  So I decided on a different theme instead.  I've decided to do a Cthulu-based demon army.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.  So I thought I would join the Tale and get going on the project.

I will be re-purposing some miniatures.  I've got some Call of Cthulu miniatures from Rafm, some Epic scale Tyranids, and my Demon Overlord is from Reaper.  Some miniatures I will be making from scratch.

My army will start with:

1 Overlord
1 Lord
1 Greater Demon
1 unit Demon Beasts
1 unit Demon Flyers

It's not a legal army for playing, but it is where my imagination is at the moment.  I am also thinking about how to do Demon swarms, and I want the swarms to represent "the crawling chaos", a phrase from Lovecraft's writing.

I will post pictures once I have the initial conversions done.  Right now I am converting a Reaper Bthalian Exarch to be my Demon Overlord.  I am working on the Greater Demon as well, which will be a conversion of the Elder Thing form Rafm.  The Demon Lord will be made from a spare piece of the Elder Thing.

The Demon beasts will be Epic scale Trygons -- at least I think that's what they are.  I lost the blister ages ago but managed to keep the figures.  The Demon Flyers will be altered Rippers from the Necromunda range.

Pictures soon!

[BlackEd]

These are not painted, but the conversions are done.

My Overlord, Malhthulu:
He is missing the metal Gargoyle wings (from a 40K Tryanid flyer) that I really want to put on him.  I know I have them, but I've moved twice since I last knew where they are.  And so far my searches have not uncovered the wings.

I like the multiple eyes and tentacles.  I positioned the tentacles.  The body is so-so, but sometimes I have visions of just the upper torso floating in air.  So who knows if he's really done or not.



Greater Demon: A Demon from the Outer Dark

This is a Rafm Elder Thing that has been converted.  I wanted a taller greater daemon, so I decided it needed to float in the air.  It has 5 tentacles, plus a number of smaller tentacles that seem to be used for ripping flesh from mortals.  I put a running Empire handgunner fleeing the daemon.  To me though, the figure doesn't look terrified.  So he might come out.  In back of the daemon is a skeleton.  I will add weapon and arour bits later.




Daemon Lord: The Watcher in the Sky

Since I didn't use the base of the Elder Thing, I naturally used it for something.  I thought it would be cool to have a daemon floating in the sky.  The Eye covers the hole that the Elder Thing would sit into.  I repositioned the limbs.  Still working on the base.  However, I really like this thing.



Demon Beasts:

These are Epic Tyranid Trygons.  I confirmed this when I found the blister that they came it.  I just assembled these guys and put them on a Warmaster base.





Demon Swarm possibilities:

Here are 3 ideas i came up with for the demon swarm.  I sculpted these with some leftover greenstuff.  I like the variant lablled 3, since they are more worm like.  But I wanted to see what the rest of you thought was the best of the three.  These are greenstuff that I painted white, washed black, then painted black around the base to make the swarm stand out.  I was worried that the swarm might not show up well enough to be photographed.  Oh, and they are all facing in the same direction.

As you can see, #3 is fairly flat.  #2 is has some dimensionality to it.  #1 has tentacles as high as an infantry man.




So that's what I have.  I darned sight more than I had before.  Next i need to finish the bases and get painting!  Oh, and find those darned wings...

[Lex]

Did you check out the Skaven ratswarms ??

Personaly for swarm I would go with a combination of 2 and (mostly) 3. Use some "other" stuff to add heigth variation. Think an overrun cart or canon, bits of tree left by the all devouring swarms, skellies on the trailing edge. And by mixing in some #2 sculpts you create an identifiable centre stand (not that that is needed, but I know most of us seem to do that anyway   

[azrael71]

Wow, I knew I was going to like this army, but this is great 
I love all your current stuff they are very thematic so keep up the good work.

As for the swarms I would go with all 3 and mix and match them.
Then do as Lex has suggested with the destroyed cannons and the like.

Although you could always go for the rat swarm idea, I believe HPL mentioned them a few times in his stories.
Looking forward to the next installment.

[Stomm]

First up, bloody nice conversions, etc... And to save myself the effort of clicking reply and doing some typing in the general section, your existing stuff is bloody nice as well. It's actually making me want to hunt down some HPL books, I've never actually read any of his work as far as I am aware...


Anyway, as to this:

Then do as Lex has suggested with the destroyed cannons and the like.

To do this I'd suggest trying to get your hands on some of the Warmaster Casualty markers. I suspect that this is what Lex had in mind, as from looking at his Dwarf Rangers, he seems to have used these in the centre of his bases to show enemy casualties, etc... There is IIRC a Dwarf cannon and crew somewhere in the collection...

[BlackEd]

Thanks for the positive comments everyone! 

Lex, I have some Skaven rat swarms.  I'll take a look and see if they might fit the bill.  HPL does mention rats, so some rats and skeltons and corpses would look suitably creepy.

I like the idea of having the swarm crawling over ruined cannons and corpses.  I was thinking just skeletons, but the ruined cannons would look cool!

I think I will mix in some of the larger crawlies with the littler crawlies.

It just occurred to me that this might be an odd choice of army, so close to Christmas...

[DaveC]

Just noticed this thread - haven't been on here for awhile.

I sculpted a swarm for my Slaanesh Daemons that may suit you or could form a base model - add some tentacles and that.

have a look at them here:

Painted http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/davejc/Warmaster/Daemons/?action=view&current=Slannswarm.jpg

Unpainted http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y244/davejc/Warmaster/Daemons/?action=view&current=IMG_0495.jpg

I have a mold for them and can cast them in metal. The swarm is half the base size and there are 6 identical pieces. If your interested PM me.

[azrael71]

Already pointed him your way Dave 

[Angor]

Hey buddy. For a long time I have wanted an excuse for a Lovecraftian Army. Yours looks great.

It would be cool for your flyers to go for Nightgaunts as they are one of the most iconic Lovecraft creatures now. Also It would be awesome to squeeze in some fishmen. There are quite a few of his books that involve them. Pendraken do a nice range of 15mm fishmen theat would be pretty chunky in warmaster. The size of trolls, but they would work well thematically with the army.

http://www.btinternet.com/~alan.catherine/wargames/fish1.jpg


Oh and they are areally really cheap!

http://www.pendraken.co.uk/sub%20page/fishmen.htm

[BlackEd]

Azarael, DaveC, thanks.  I've contacted DaveC and will ask for some of those deamon units soon.

Angor, thanks for pointing me to Pendraken.  After several hours of searching for photos, I found that the Pendraken 10mm SciFi Aliens look creepy enough for deamon hordes.  However, they are easily identifyiable with the creatures from the movie series Alien, so I decided not to get those.  I may revisit this decision after trying to sculpt my own 10mm deamons.  Also, the Pendraken face huggers make a good start toward swarms, and Pendraken has a "bugs and worms" 10mm sci-fi offering that could help fill a swarm as well.

The Nightgaunt for flyers is a good idea that I will keep in mind.  I was thinking about doing a unit of Flying Polyps, mostly because of the super funny fake ad on YouTube (search for "Elder Sign").  The flyers I made by converting the Ripper swarm are done, now I need to base them.

As for Fishmen:  You have hit upon the same puzzle I faced when I first thought about the army.  I wanted Deep Ones as the demon horde, but in the end I decided against it.  My reasoning is that the Deep Ones, no matter how unsettling they are, are mortal creatures.  If I were to do a Cthulu-based mortal army, I would definitely put in the fishmen some where.

I also thought about including cultists.  I decided against them as well because they are mortal.  This is too bad because the Empire Flagellents would make great cultists.

Eureka has some great looking demons -- in 28mm.  

I have some 30gauge florists wire, and started making armatures last night.  This afternoon I will make some attempts at daemon horde figs.  If this goes well, I will need to find a way to cast these things up.  

[Lex]

I have some 30gauge florists wire, and started making armatures last night.  This afternoon I will make some attempts at daemon horde figs.  If this goes well, I will need to find a way to cast these things up.  

DaveC or Bel may be able to help you there !

[David Wasilewski]

You could use the hounds of Khorne and cut their "collar ruffs" off to make a unit of Cthulhu 'Hounds of Tindalos'?
Shambling horror (is this the right name for it - or is it a dimensional shambler?) could be represented by the bog creatures from the Albion range?

Just another couple of ideas for units.

Dave

[azrael71]

Here is a useful link for imagery from over on the Arkham Horror site.
http://www.sectarios.org/wiki/index.php/Call_of_Cthulhu_-_Indice_imagenes
Hope this helps.

[BlackEd]

Here's an update.

Malhthulu (Daemon General) with wings!


Piper of Blasphemous Melodies (Daemon Lord)


Mi-Go (Daemon Flyers)

These are converted from the Necromunda Ripper Jacks.  They have 3 tentacles facing forward (sensor tentacles) and five around the mouth, hanging down.  I used clear acrylic rod as the support.  To emphasize the chaotic nature of these beasts, they are all at odd angles to the ground.  One is diving on some prey.



Army Shot!


Daemon Hordes test sculpts.
Daemon host after beheading the Chaos marauders:


These daemons are OK, but something bothers me about daemons with weapons and shields.  They were easy to do though.

Some wild and crazy ideas:




I do not like these test sculpts.  After looking at the art work at the Arkham Horror site (thanks for the link Azrael!), I am thinking about Fishmen (or Deep Ones) again.  As a whole, there isn't a feel of cohesiveness.  If I did the fishmen, there would be a theme to the hordes that would make them look right.  In the top shot, the figure second from the left started as a skeleton bowman (GW) before I clipped away an arm, the head, and the quiver on the back.  The figure is closest to 10mm in height.  That will give you an idea of the size of the others.

So, as far as the daemon hordes go, there are still some possiblities that I will check on from Pendraken.  Does anyone know of a US distributor for Pendraken?  And I will see about sculpting up some fishmen.

[azrael71]

These look sweet
I am watching this army with interest
Are you based in the UK?
If so are you going to the winter warmer in a couple of weeks?