Charge of the (very) Heavy brigade

At the end of my last post I promised new pictures by the end of the week and spectacularly failed to deliver. It has been, not quite two weeks since then, so apologies. On the more positive side, I now have two new Chaos regiments painted instead of one, so that means a few more pictures.

My ten strong unit of Chaos Knights in all it's glory. The units were clearly not intended to get this big, as is apparent from the fact that the bulky tails make it impossible to get them to rank up. It is fairly unlikely I will every need to use all ten in battle. So why buy them?

Bit of an indulgence really. I am something of an obsessive fan of Chaos Knights. Ever since my first Chaos army in 1994, when I bought two box sets of the newly released knights plus a command group, netting me 8 models. Given that they were 80 points each with Chaos Armour, and the Standard twice that, it was an over the top unit back then.

But I have always loved the idea of large unit of the most powerful heavy cavalry in the Warhammer game pounding across the table. The psychological impact alone is huge. I got my first five of the new knights in the Chaos battalion box. But when I ended up at the annual wargame show at the Bovington tank museum a few weeks back and discovered a box for only ten quid I couldn't resist the opportunity to double the numbers. In retrospect I should probably have assembled them as two units. Still, the big unit has tremendous visual and psychological impact.

A close up of the rear rank to show a little more detail. My first Chaos Knight Unit were armed with lances. It always irritated me that the Knights were effectively neutered in the Hordes of Chaos army book by having their lances taken away from them. It always felt, to me, like an attempt to reduce the Knights status compared to other heavy cavalry like Empire or Bretonnian knights.

Ironic then, that I ended up giving my new unit hand weapons. I ummed and ahhed over this for a while, but I went with hand weapons, or rather ensorcelled weapons because they give the Knights +1 strength and count as magic. For 5 points more, lances give +2 strength which is lost after the first round and no magic weapons. Not much of a bonus as far as I can see given that you are required to lose the ensorcelled weapons and not take both.

As far as painting is concerned I followed the same basic Colour scheme as my Chaos Warriors. Tamiya Nato black highlighted German grey for the plate armour with old citadel brazen brass for the detailed bits, of which there were rather more on the knights than the Chaos Warriors.

For the steeds I had some trouble. I wanted them black, but this did not contrast well with the armour. I considered red, but thought that might be a little too colourful for an army I wanted to look dark and grim. In the end I went with black, but painted them flat black and highlighted nato black to make them even darker.

I added some colour by painting the steeds hair red. I liked the idea that the hooves actually caught fire as they ran. These are chaos steeds after all, partly daemonic and not just conventional horses. This ended up taking ages because I couldn't bring myself to dry brush and highlighted each individual hair.

This is my 'bonus unit' the Dragon Ogres. Like the Chaos Knights, they have been a big part of my army since fourth edition. Unlike the Knights I am still using the same models. They have beaten the Marauders record and now hold the record for 'longest time between buying and painting a model.' 14 years in this case.

The Knights and these guys more or less sold me on Chaos back in 1994. Of course, as a 15 year old with very little income I had to buy them up a bit at a time. I started with three and added the other two over a year later (I honestly don't remember when). These guys had been sitting around in bits since I gave up on Chaos in sixth edition, but have been brought, deservedly, out of retirement.

They are showing their age, but for sheer bulk and character they are still some of my favourite models.

With summer activities getting in the way I have only managed to get two units down in the last two months. Hopefully I will get back into routine soon. I have my first Chaos character all but done, I still need to finish his base, so more pictures soon. I also have, potentially, something big to write about. Not a new model, but something rather different. I won't be any more concrete or set a definite date for posting more, because I am conscious of failing to meet it.

I will post more when I have the chance.

Chaos Rising

In my last post I mentioned that I was taking a break from Samurai to paint some Warhammer Warriors of Chaos. Here are the results so far (with a few random games and action figures from my hobby room in the background):


Between four and five units complete so far. Four if you count the Chaos Hounds as one unit, five if two, I will probably vary them depending on circumstances.

My Chaos army actually dates back as far as 1994 and was actually the second Warhammer army I ever collected. The models have changed a lot in that time, but I still have a few left overs from my original army.

I was inspired by the battle report in White Dwarf 176 when the newly released Chaos army took on the Dwarfs. Two major components of that army were a unit of Chaos Knights and a Unit of Dragon Ogres and it became my goal to get big units of each for my army.

The Dragon Ogres had to wait as they were £9 each and back then that was a lot for a single model. My initial army was bought at the 1994 Games Day with birthday money and contained 8 Chaos Knights, one unit of 12 beastmen (including a Shaman), one unit of 10 Beastmen (plastic) and a Chaos Sorcerer riding a disk. Thanks to a generous birthday present from a friend I added 8 Plague Bearers. Back then the Chaos Army was a wild mix of all different kinds of troops with beastmen, daemons and warriors mixing freely. Marauders hadn't been thought of (actually they had, but were pretty different from what they became).

My army grew pretty rapidly, adding plastic Chaos Warriors, more daemons and, eventually, my Dragon Ogres. I started with three, but eventually upgraded to five. My army remained almost entirely unpainted, however.

In 1997, Games Workshop decided to rejig the Chaos Army dividing it into the separate Beasts, Warriors and Daemons we see today (though all three were covered in one army book). They also released the first multi-part plastic regiment box in the form of the Chaos Warriors. I snapped up two and set about reworking my army adding Marauders and two Chariots. My beastmen were quietly retired.

I never got on with the 6th edition army list. Partly it was the use of 'of Chaos' left and right. No Chaos Warriors or Chaos Knights any more, now it was 'Warriors of Chaos' and 'Knights of Chaos.' This always sounded pretentious and the fact that only one unit of each could have Chaos Armour really irritated me as did the removal of the option for Chaos Knights to carry lances. Despite attempts to revitalise my army, including the purchase of a Giant, my Warriors stayed in the draw for fifth edition.

The new Warriors of Chaos book is a huge improvement in my view. Not too happy that Daemons have been given their own army (it never made sense to me that armies of Daemons would be wandering the countryside) but I didn't really use them anyway. And my Dragon Ogres were well and truly back where they belonged. So with a new Army book and a battalion box acquired I set about reworking my army once more.



The Chaos Warriors were completed first and were a good test for my planned colour scheme.

I like my armies to have a consistent look and so keep to the same palette of colours. With a very uniform army, like my Dwarfs, I will stick to the rule that the same types of things are painted the same colours. So all cloth red, chain mail and metal metallic grey, leather black, fur brown. Though hair colour is always varied for some added realism.

For a more undisciplined army, like my Greenskins, I will stick to the same palette of colours, so blue, brown and black and the same shade of each, but vary where the colours are painted. So one Orc might have a blue tunic and brown trousers with black boots and another will have a brown tunic, blue trousers and black boots, with a third having a blue tunic, black trousers and brown boots. This helps the army stay coherent, but makes them look unruly.

For Chaos I wanted my army to have a dark and grim look. The other approach is to go very bright and colourful, but I preferred grim and forbidding. With that in mind I stuck to black and grey with leather in dark brown. Although the uniform look might not seem appropriate for a Chaos army, I reasoned that it was more an effect of necessity. My Warriors simply didn't have access to dyes and had to make do with what they could. I did, however, decide that scraps of cloth, including banners could be painted red to add a little colour.

This Chaos Warrior close up shows a little more detail.

I learned recently that the best way to paint smooth, plated armour of the type used by Chaos Warriors is to highlight the edge of the plates, as well any ridges. I'm not sure why this works, as I always assumed that you should highlight the raised areas on a model and the edges are normally not raised. But the effect seems to work.

Painting black has become immeasurably easier for me since I started using Tamiya paints. Games Workshop only produce Chaos Black and their darkest grey, codex grey, is not particularly dark. When painting a single model this isn't much of a problem as the colours can be mixed. But mixing large quantities in order to paint an army is a major chore and maintaining colour consistency across a unit, let alone a whole army, is impossible.

Tamiya, however, produce a colour called Nato Black, a slightly off black colour that doesn't dry as glossy as plain black and looks more real. They also produce German Grey, a much darker grey than Codex Grey. The Chaos Warriors armour was painted Nato Black and highlighted German Grey.


The Chaos Marauders show rather more brown and flesh tones thanks to being more lightly armoured. The metal areas were painted terracotta, a red-brown colour that Games Workshop, criminally, discontinued a while back. Fortunately I stocked up. After the terracotta they were drybrushed boltgun metal. The traces of red-brown produce a quick and easy rust effect.


This Marauder unit is made up of models that date back to the fifth edition Chaos Army book in 1998. I waited weeks for them to be released and the release date was put back by two weeks, forcing me to make an additional trip to Games Workshop. I bought up 20 in one go on the day of release.

There were actually four different models, but some how I managed to not get any of one of them. Consequently it's pretty tricky to arrange the unit so that two identical models are never next to one another.

Having bought these in 1998, they have had the longest gap between purchase and painting of any of my models. Though my Dragon Ogres will over take when I get to them, they date back to 1995.

Each unit of Marauders took over a week to finish, in contrast, the Chaos Hounds took two days. The bulk of them is fur and that was drybrushed. A little highlighting covered the bare skin and that just left scales, tails, scars and bone to paint, none of which took long.

I am currently hard at work on my ten strong Chaos Knight Unit. In painting time they sit somewhere between the Hounds and the Marauders. More pictures when they are done.

As usual, these pictures plus more can be seen at photobucket.

The Ii Red Devils (in 6mm)

A while back I mentioned that I had been looking into collecting Samurai models and here are the results.

These are 6mm scale samurai from baccus miniatures. For my first historical wargames army I choose to build an army for Warmaster Medieval - Games Workshop's recent rejig of the Warmaster game to cover Medieval armies. I choose this game for two main reasons, firstly I really like the fantasy version and it's grand scale approach to warfare. Secondly, because they have actually bothered to produce a Samurai army list, which few others have managed.


Fields of Glory are doing one and you can get one for DBM, but I find both of these games a little fiddly and over fussy.

Of course Warmaster is designed primarily for 10mm scale. But I choose 6mm scale because I it makes for even larger and more impressive forces and because Baccus is dead cheap. I picked up a 1000 point army at Salute for only £40 (including the cost of the bases). A 10mm scale army of the same points value would have cost as much as twice that.

These are Senngoku Jidai (or age of warring states) Samurai. This period encompasses the 16th and early 17th century and was a period of near constant civil war as well as great military change. The Samurai became less important as new weapons such as the arquebus, brought by Portuguese traders, placed greater emphasis on large formations of lower class retainers called Ashigaru.

Unit of foot samurai armed with yari (long spears).

Yari Ashigaru unit. The difference between the models in this scale is not huge. The Samurai are slightly heavier armoured. So I painted the somewhat differently to make them stand out.

Ashigaru Teppo unit. Teppo was the Japanese word for Arquebus. Though it's hard to see here, this unit actually includes both arquebusiers and archers. This was quite common during this period as the archers could keep up fire allowing the Arquebusiers to reload.

A unit in Warmaster consists of 3 stands of 40mm X 20mm. The number of models on the stand doesn't matter as long as the stands are the same size. In this last image the stands are positioned side by side for maximum fire effect.

As can be seen, the painted detail at this scale is pretty low. The point is to make the models look good (or at least decent in numbers).

I choose to make my Samurai army represent the army of the Ii clan as lead by Ii Naomasa. It took me quite a while to come up with a theme for my army. I was very keen to ground it in some kind of historical fact. I'm not a purists, but I didn't want my army to stand out as obviously ahistorical and I wanted a good hook to build my army around.

I found my hook in the rather excellent Samurai the World of the Warrior by Stephen Turnbull and published by Osprey (they of the million and one military history books). This is an unusual Osprey book as it is something of a prestige piece of over 200 pages, though it contains the usual excellent illustrations and photos. I picked it up in a discount bookshop in Brighton for an absolute bargain price of £5.99. It's a great overview of the Samurai class as a whole through its history and a nice introduction if you're thinking of getting into Samurai wargaming.


In one chapter I stumbled across the story of Ii Naomasa and immediately grabbed it for my army concept. I am surprised the story hasn't been turned into an Anime or Manga, it seems so ideal.

At the start of the 16th century the Ii family were retainers of the Imagawa family, who had ambitions for conquest. This lead them into an attack on the province of Owari. At the time this was ruled by a minor Daimyo (warlord) called Oda Nobunaga. Unfortunately for the Imagawa, Nobunaga was to become the first of three great unifiers of Japan and would have conquered the whole country if he had not been assassinated by one of his own generals.

The attack turned into a disaster and the heads of the Ii and Imagawa clans were both killed at the battle of Okehazama.

This disaster lead the new head of the Imagawa, Imagawa Ujizane to become somewhat paranoid. So much so that he accused the Ii of plotting against him. He had the head of the family and his brothers and sons murdered. Only his grandson, the four year old Ii Naomasa survived, hidden in a buddhist Monastary by his aunt, who was a Nun.

When he grew to adulthood Naomasa went seeking his fortune. With no way to reclaim his ancestral lands he offered his services to another local Daimyo. He fell in with Tokugawa Ieyasu. This turned out to be astute, Ieyasu was the third great unifier and would go on to found the Tokugawa Shogunate that would rule Japan for 250 years.

Naomasa proved valuable to his master , saving him from an assassination attempt in 1576 and helping to capture Takatenjin castle in 1581. He rose quickly through the ranks.

Naomasa fought with Tokugawa at the battle of Nagashino were the Takeda clan were defeated with ranks of arquebus fire. At that battle Naomasa observed the Takeda retainer Yamagata Masakage in action. He dressed his followers in red armour and Ieyasu suggested that Naomasa follow the practice. Naomasa did, but took it to even greater extremes. His samurai were clad entirely in red lacquered armour, right down to their spears. This was unusual for Samurai armies, which generally did not adopt any standard uniform. Naomasa himself took to wearing a helmet with huge golden horns.

A reconstruction of Naomasa's famous golden-horned armour

The red armour and reputation for ferocity of the Ii troops caused them to be nicknamed the Red Devils. Naomasa himself was sometimes referred to as akaoni (literally red devil).

Naomasa fought for Ieyasu for a numbr of years and ultimately at the battle of Sekigahara, which established Ieyasu as Shogun. Naomasa received a bullet wound in the elbow at this battle which Ieyasu tended to personally, suggesting something of the high regard in which the soon-to-be Shogun held him. Naomasa was well rewarded after the battle with lands in Omi province. But Naomasa never fully recovered from his wound and died in 1602. He was ultimately succeeded by his son Ii Naotaka who maintained the family tradition and the Ii family would continue to be influential up until the fall of the Shogunate in 1868.

The Red armour was enormously appealing for me, both because it looks striking and because I have painted an all red army before (Warhammer Dwarves) and know how to do it. Along with Naomasa's own story this made for a highly characterful army.

So far I have two each of the Yari Ashigaru and foot Samurai as well as four units of Teppo Ashigaru complete. I still have two more Ashigaru, two more Samurai, 2 units of mounted samurai and the army commanders to paint. Once these are done I will post some pictures of the complete army in all its red-armoured glory.

More Anima Tactics

Here are some more of my Anima Tactics miniatures for your approval or not.

This is Griever a Level 70 leader class character for the Empire faction and personal guard to the Empress herself. He is surprisngly lightly armoured for an Empire character of this level leaving me with only a small amount of metal to paint.

Metal is quite easy to paint, but quite hard get looking great. I tend to rely on dry brushing with games workshop metals over a black undercoat, working up from Boltgun metal to Mithril silver and using less paint at each stage. The end result looks presentable, but hardly stunning. Some people do wondrous things with metals, but I have never quite been able to get the hang of it.

I am pretty pleased with his robes. I used Privateer Press (the makers of Warmachines and Hordes) Menoth base and highlight for this. Purely because I got the cheap in my FLGS (Friendly Local Games shop). The base is kind of beige, while the highlight is an off white with a faintly yellowish glow. I like them because it can be quite hard to paint white without it looking light grey, which can be good but isn't always the effect that you want.

I am pretty pleased with the effect on the sword blade which was done by layering lighter shades of yellow until it was almost pure white. I have never had the patience for blending, but this has come out quite well.

Ophiel is the leader of the Dark Samael, a Magneto to Dinah's Professor X. I am very happy with the base, which was made by scoring a layer of 'green stuff' (modelling putty) and painting it black. Ophiel was tough to paint because he is mostly black with pure white skin. With the heavily textured armour I resorted to drybrushing, but am not one hundred percent happy with the result.

The skin was a nightmare. With such pure white shown on his box illustration I had nowhere to go for highlighting and the end result looks rather underfined. I already repainted the face once, but I may have another go. Good enough for the table, but not my finest hour.

Much happier with this guy. Tsubasa Kuokami is a freelance samurai how is depicted in all red. This involved a lot of red highlighting with white to off set it. The differences in shades can be quite subtle, but I am pretty satisfied with the end result. I am using him as something of a test case for my 'Red Devil' Samurai army, of which I hope to show more soon. Certainly this guy will attract attention on the battle field.

A quick shout here for Janiel, another light Samael. I don't think this picture does her justice as the more subtle changes of tone on her face don't come out very well. Of course that only means I am a bad photographer rather than a bad painter. Still, I am pleased with the colours, which were hard to get right.

The model of Janiel doesn't look much like her card picture, the model has far more frills. So she was tough to get right, but the end result is quite striking. I have never really painted a model quite like this before, most of mine have tended towards more warlike clothes and poses, so she was a bit of a change.

I hope to have more Anima stuff soon. I have a few more models to show off as well as a scenario and, with luck, a battle report. I also have some tiny samurai to show off.

Anima Models

Below are a few of the models I have been painting for the fantasy skirmish game Anima: Tactics.

For people unfamiliar with the game, it is set in the world of Gaia, which may or may not be a future Earth. A world in which advanced technology once existed, but has largely been lost except for recovered artifacts referred to as 'lost loggia.'

The game is very small scale, each miniature acts independently and, so far, all miniatures represent individual, unique, name characters (a range of more generic 'agents' are on the way, but essentially each miniature is an individual). Characters have levels rather than points, but it works much the same way with characters so far varying from 35 to 80 levels. 200 - 300 is a rough scale for the game, so most games use no more than half a dozen models at most.

This is definitely a strength, because the models are quite pricey for what you get. An average model come individually packed in a blister for about £7. For that you get the model, some counters and a two cards, one with the rules for the character and the other with either additional rules or an 'artifact' or team card. You can also get larger models in boxes for £12 to £25, but other than the size you still get the same cards and counters. Size does not, incidentally, correspond to levels.

Fortunately, the game works very well at the small scale demanded. Characters have action points, represented by counters. They recover a certain number each turn (usually 3), and can carry a maximum number (4 or 5). Action points not used can be carried over from turn to turn, meaning this is essentially a game or resource management. When a character activates they can use their points to perform basic actions, walking, running, attacking, etc, or special actions listed on their card. They can also perform 'reactive action' in response to the enemy, such as dodging, so it pays to hold back a few points.

It's all very tactical, as you work out good action combos to use, and plays pretty quickly. The unique models are also fun. The game has a manga-ish style to it which gives additional appeal to me.

Anyway, on to the models. I don't claim to be a great painter. Good enough for the table is my goal. That said, I have improved a great deal over the years and these models probably represent some of the best I have, personally, painted. That they are all individuals helps as I can focus a lot of time and effort in each one and treat it as a seperate 'unit.' When painting for larger scale games such as Warhammer I have to adopt a more 'production line' approach.

These are my models from the Empire faction. From the left Janus Faith, Daniella Meris, Lord General Yuri Olsen, Duncan Reid and Claire Adelheid. Since I took this picture I have added Vayl and Griever to my collection but haven't gotten around to photographing them yet.

The Empire are a former great power in decline who have been revived, somewhat, by the young Empress Elisabetta. They are a pretty straightforward bunch. They are tough, do quite a bit of damage, but don't have a lot of support powers and don't rely much on special tricks.

Models in Anima can belong to factions or be 'wanderers' with no faction. All characters have an alignment: light, dark or neutral. When choosing a force you can select models by alignment (no mixing light and dark) or faction, in which case you can add one 'mercenary' wanderer. The Empire is mostly a light faction, with two dark and one neutral so far, suggesting they are, crudely, the good guys.



Janus Faith was the first Anima model I painted, I am not particularly proud of the job I did on his face, I have gotten a lot better at that, but am pleased with the armour detail. I think it stands out rather well and gives him quite a striking look.



Lord General Yuri Olsen is a leader level character. You can only have one leader in a 300 level game. The armour follows the same style is Janus and helps to give a consistent look to the Empire. I am quite proud of the cloak, even though when examined up close the pattern is a little shaky.



The Samael faction here. From the left Dark Cheshire, Shinigami Ayl, Konosuke, Kairos and Bael.

The Samael are a mixed faction of supernatural and fantasy beings. They seem to have a role similar to the mutants in marvel comics. They divide pretty neatly into light and dark. The Dark Samel, represented by the miniatures above seek to overthrow humanity and are lead by the fallen Angel Ophiel, who I think of as Magneto. The Light Samael are lead by fallen Angel Dinah and are closer to the X-Men, seeking to live in harmony with humans. Of course that's often easier said than done.

They are fiddly faction, fast and hard hitting but with weak armour and little staying power (with the exception of the monstrous Konosuke at the back, though he can't dodge which weakens him a bit).



The aforementioned fallen Angel Dinah here, accompanied by her spirit guardians Lucera and Umbra. I am very pleased with the white colours on these models. I picked up two cheap pots of white and white-ish paint from Private Press and they work wonderfully for this ivory effect. The alternative would have been a kind of gray which I don't think would have suited Dinah as well.



I am very proud of the effect of this model of Dark Cheshire. I always try and paint my models in the style they appear on their character cards. On his card Cheshire is stepping out of the shadows and most of his body is silhouetted. I tried to recreate this effect and was quite please with the result. I tried photographing against a black backdrop, but the effect was no very successful with too much reflection. I will have to work on my photography before trying again.



I am including this picture of Bael because I am quite pleased with both the skin tones and the light effects on her latex boots, which was done with a simple line of light grey paint. I think she looks rather striking with the combination of feathers and latex.

Since taking these pictures I have painted a few more models and will post more pictures when I get the chance. I also have a couple of scenario ideas and a battle report to upload, so stay tuned for more Anima stuff.