Slaves to Darkness

Following on from the previous post about my Warriors of Chaos army I present the second element of the army; the maddened cultists who form the marauders:

Obviously, the base for this unit is the Empire Flagellants, with an alarmingly small amount of conversion work and the addition of marauder shields. The colour scheme is designed to blend in with and complement the Warriors and knights.

The mud around the edge of the robes helps to make these guys look wild and uncaring in contrast to their rich purple decorations. I used my usual blood mix (3:1 Red and Chestnut ink plus gloss varnish) sparingly on the rents and tears in their clothing and on the whips and flails.

I wanted the champion to stand out from the unit and represent a perversion of the Empire god of death: Morr. Hence the scythe was used as the traditional symbol of the god, the magical purple flames are clearly a mark of the magister's favour denoting him a servant of importance. The armour comes from a grave guard chest plate with two curving plates from the bits box (NB: "from the bits box" denotes that I cannot for the life of me remember what model I scavenged them from!) forming the shoulder pauldrons. If you look closely you'll see that he has already lost an eye - probably to the mad flailing of his allies - and either hasn't noticed or does not care. Hardcore!

The standard bearer and musician are nice examples of how a little storytelling can work wonders for minor conversions. The standard bearer is clearly carrying the holy texts of the cult giving praise to their evil masters. He long since clawed out his own eyes in insanity from reading and re-reading the sanity-blasting runes of true chaos. Now the cult carry him with them in the press of bodies drawing inspiration from the words of their evil deity (note that the most intricate decoration on the banner is on the back, thus facing the unit) and hoping to unsettle the enemy with his display of devotion. Essentially, I just chose cool componants and assembled them but by adding a little story to the choice of parts and paint scheme I feel I have a much cooler model. The musician likewise has chosen to ring out his devotions on his many bells and has therefore sewn up his own mouth to prevent him from ever breaking his vow of silence. Adding blood effects to the cords make it look as though this is a descision he took this morning before the battle making it that much creepier.

Finally we come to the leader of the cult, the magister. In game terms this guy is a sorcerer on daemonic steed but I liked that he was the reason that these wild cultists existed at all:

Now I love this model, I loved it when it was a golden deamon entry. I cannot imagine the courage it took to authorise citadel to carve it up for casting. Something about the flow of the robes, the pose, that amazing staff. Yeah, I love this model! Painting wise he isn't that interesting weirdly. I wanted to let the sculpting speak for itself and so chose muted pallet of contrasting bone, black and purple to show off the robes with just a little freehand decoration to make him extra ornate (this model was painted a while ago and the photos really make me want to go back in and have another go at the freehand with what I know now).

Thats all for the cult. The new warhammer rules have inspired me to swell their ranks considerably. The main cultist unit above will double in size, pics will of course pop up here when I have finished! Next time will be the last element of the army, the Lost and Damned Masters of the army, the Champions of Chaos!

TTFN