Chaos – a motley crew of marauders and renegades, marauding renegades, or even renegading marauder, eh? Jokes aside, my first taint of chaos came with my first WD (the nostalgic no. 123 if you remember from my previous post).
The magazine featured a battle report, pitching a marauding Chaos force against Orcs and Gary Chalk was my first introduction to the Realm of Chaos, not Miller, not Blanche or Tappin or Smith, but Gary flippin’ Chalk with this beautiful illustration.
And ever since, the imagery on the shields have stuck with me! That and his coloured banners and shields in RoC Slaves to Darkness
And this is what this post will be about! Colour schemes! Or the lack of to be more precise 😀
Because in the spirit of Oldhammer and 4th edition, I want my Chaos force to be brimming of bright colours! In a downplayed tone but colourful nevertheless.
The inspiration for my first Chaos army came from Blanche (yes, no JB, no party as they say!) and Fraser Gray. Images like below were translated to the best of my ability onto my own beastmen (which I still have, somewhere) and this is more or less the same scheme I want to use for my first unit of (Khorne) beastmen.
So I sat down last week, cleaning up the minis and their bases, textured the bases and primed the lot yesterday, ready to splash paint on the old lead annnnd nothing, nil, naught. I felt numb.
Not even the funky smell of an ancient Blood Red could get me going. Perhaps recent real life events had sucked my mojo dry, perhaps it was the friendly chatting and banter (and beer) at the club that distraught me – I just couldn’t get going, constantly thinking that I should take a more natural and realistic, less bright approach but that’s not chaos, is it?
We want sparkling bright armour and red skin and fur, right? Not brown and black with rusty metallics, no? Well, colour me conflicted, obviously a sign that chaos reigns within me, though I have to decide what to do with these lovely poppies, all prepped and posing, ready for a good lick of paint!
Until next time, enjoy the very tainted yet unpainted beasties of Khorne, toodles!
Oldhammer in the North 
Are you going to be basing the entirety of your army on round bases rather than square? Is there a particular reason in choosing one over the other? I’ve, admittedly, not played much 4th edition, but I do remember most of the games being with square-based minis.
Also, huge fan of the movement tray idea, and I suppose the 4-wide frontage is something that was common for the edition?
My vote is for a mix of the two styles. Maybe not as bright and overly saturated as the original minis, but not so updated that you lose the sense of the history.
Cheers,
Josh
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Hi Josh, thanks for commenting! It’s always nice to hear what people outside our little group thinks!
Yes, it’s my plan to use round bases. I do that for the most of my collection, mostly for the aesthetics as square bases tend not to do the minis any favours (in my opinion) but also for gaming reasons. In regards of 4th ed., I get around it with the movement trays as you noted, which allows me to crossover to other gaming systems not so rigid around basing.
And I think you’re bang on regarding the approach. I’ll go for the natural look on fur and leather, and perhaps some rusty chainmail on the more feral looking beasties as well but then go bright on shields and plated armour, maybe throw in the odd b/w checks, flames, and an orange ogre face for kicks.
Oh joy, I feel a slight tingle now! Slaanesh approves!! ;D
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Thanks for feedback! Really looking forward to seeing more stuff get posted! Hope it goes well!
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