Lockdown has done strange things to me. I crave cheap take-away coffees, long for the touch of another human being brushing past on a busy high street, and fantasize about small armies fighting each other in a land of magic and chaos.
Thankfully my fabulous new espresso machine helps me deal with the first of these, while expanding my Warhammer Warcry model collection helps with the latter. The less said about the second issue the better.
With my current Warcry campaign put on temporary hiatus, I find myself with a weekly gap in my schedule which recently has been filled with building and painting warbands that likely may not ever see the light of day in an actual Warcry battle. So far I have completed my Splintered Fang fighters, a second as yet untested warband of Stormcast Eternals, and some allies to bolster the ranks of these two groups. This week I picked up the set of Chaotic Beasts and attempted to paint these so that it didn’t look my two-year-old had spilled paints and play dough all over them.
Chaotic Beasts
For those in the dark, Warcry is a two-person tabletop skirmish game where two factions of fighters battle it out to see who will be victorious. There are numerous set-ups for a Warcry skirmish, and there are four types of cards which determine the parameters for each battle: objective, deployment, layout, and twist. It’s the final of these cards, the twist, which require the Chaotic Beasts to sometimes come into play and interfere with a battle by impeding either warband.
Unfortunately, I arrived a little late to the party to pick up the original Warcry starter set which is now out of print, so I’ve been trying to make up for that by putting together, piecemeal, all of the elements from that box. One of the things you got with that was a set of Chaotic Beasts, so I had to get mine separately. Thankfully you can do this easily for less than $40. In the Chaotic Beasts box you get two types of beast: six Furies—sinister lesser daemons who are nigh-impossible to pin down and look like snarling devils; and six Raptoryx—brutal, frenzied avian predators that look kind-of like the dinosaur that attacks Wayne Knight in Jurassic Park.
Furies
I really like the Furies in this set, and with the opportunity to include them as a thrall in your chaos warband, they have more utility than just as a random twist deployment.
I based these with a spray of Mechanicus Standard Grey and used a base layer of Abaddon Black for the main body areas, which I then layered with Grey Seer and Pallid Wych Flesh. The wings, beards, and horns of these furies are the sections that really stand out so I did each of those areas separately. I used a base of Khorne Red with a Nuln Oil wash and Wazdakka Red highlight for the beard and back spines. For the horns and claws I used Ushbati Bone washed with Seraphim Sepia and highlighted with White Scar. And for the wings I used Ushbati Bone for the base washed with Reikland Fleshade Gloss and then layered Khorne Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, and Pink Horror to highlight.
Once I’d painted the furies I experimented with the bases. Here, as well as some small stones collected from my driveway, I used Army Painter Brown Battleground for the gravel effect, some Winter Tufts for the foliage and some spare sprews from other sets such as skulls, and weapons to add some narrative to these wild, feral beasts.
Raptoryx
The Raptoryx in the Chaotic Beasts set are really cool and a bit different in style from the rest of the Warhammer miniatures I’ve painted, so I decide to try a different approach to painting them. Usually I work with the standard Citadel-style paints which use the base-wash-layer-edge technique, but for these I tried some of the Citadel Contrast paints, which are supposed to be easier to use and create a more polished finish… in theory.
Again, I used the Mechanicus Standard Grey spray to base them and for the areas of skin employed the same Abaddon Black, Grey Seer, and Pallid Wych Flesh combination as for the furies. For the wings I wanted to achieve a kind-of sunset look and used a combination of Lyanden Yellow and Gryph-Hound Orange contrast paints. For these I started with the yellow and gradually added more layers until it met the orange and blended them together. For the underside of the wings and the spines of the underbelly I used the same technique, but used Plaguebearer Flesh and Aethermic Blue contrast paints to make it seem like twilight.
Having finished the Raptoryx pack, I used a similar technique as the Furies for the bases. This time the spare sprews were from the Mindstealer Sphiranx and Daemon Prince sets I’ve previously painted and I added some texture using the Blood for the Blood God technical paint.
Chaotic Beasts
Overall, I was really happy with how these two different Chaotic Beasts packs turned out. The Furies are mean and devilish and I can already see myself using them in my D&D game when my players descend into hell and start making deals with demons. Meanwhile the Raptoryx turned out really nicely and I was pleased with how the contrast paints worked. This was my first time using contrast paints and I really noticed the difference in the final quality of the paint job and how it made my models look more like I intended and less like a close-up unfinished Jackson Pollock painting.
WE ARE AMAZON ASSOCIATES
but can you fit a normal mug in the espresso machine????