Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 6 Ooooh that Smell

Ooooh that smell, Can't you smell that smell, Ooooh that smell, The smell of death surrounds you!  Much thanks to Lynyrd Skynyrd for that perfect lyrical intro to my Nurgle miniatures collection.  Taking second seat to Khorne, Nurgle is my next chaotic power patron of choice.  I’ve always liked their design and the range in general.  I don’t have much painted for old Papa’s army but I do have a few miniatures.  First up is another of my favorite pieces, my demon prince conversion for the rotted one.  I originally thought that this guy was a special conversion that was featured in the Troll.  

For those uninitiated, the Troll was a was a fanzine type sales brochure published by the GWS mail-order department back in the day.  Not sure if they did it across the pond but it ran for a number of years here in the US and was included with WD subscriptions.  It was much like an upgraded sales flier.  As I did some research, I dug through my collection of old Trolls and couldn't find it in any of the conversion corners.  

I'm guessing that it must have appeared in a WD then.  The original conversion was a single set of arms.  I expanded upon it and added another set of arms trying to get that six legged insect look.  It consists of an old Greater Demon of Nurgle head, 2 sets of forest dragon arms, possibly another set or at least a set of forest dragon feet, a 4th/5th edition Demon Prince body, and some ROC era Nurglings including the legendary one flipping the bird! 

I stuck with earth tones and putrid colors and added the purple later as an accent for the claws, I think I was going for a poisonous look.   

It was a lot of fun converting and painting.  That’s it for painted figures, everything else for the lord of rot is bare lead and given my recent Leadly Sinner confession I won’t post any pictures of these unpainted figures.   

I have a Palanquin, a few bases of ROC nurglings, several of the ROC Nurgle champions, and a few Plaguebearers which I think are actually more like 4th/5th edition figures.  The one thing that I really like about the multiple versions of Plaguebearers is that they, out of all the chaotic powers lesser servants, seem to have kept a fairly consistent design.  To the extent that you can readily mix and match them without creating a major eyesore of a unit.  A unit made up of the 4 versions of Bloodletters would just look hideous.   

I also have an original tentacle headed slug Beast of Nurgle.  In my most humble opinion the best version of one of Papa's pets.  I’d like to mold up it up to create a unit of Plagueriders but that is a few months if not years off.  Does anyone know if they ever released an actual Plaguerider unit with rider and beast?  The current version is great, plague bearers on giant flies, I hope to pick up a few someday.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 5 Release the Hounds

Part 5 presents the Hounds of War, or better put the Fleshhounds of Khorne.  I’ve rambled on about the multi-part metal miniatures now for a couple of posts. 

As you can see from the old catalogue page there were multiple parts providing a variety of combinations.

A pretty good variety, not sure I have all the heads but certainly I have all the possible body and front leg/ruff combinations.  The purple ruff fellow is supposed to designate the unit leader/champion.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 4 Giddy up!

Part 4 of this series stays with the lesser demons and gets them some wheels, or better put, hooves.  I read about the Bloodcrusher unit in ROC but I honestly don?t remember every seeing Juggernaut models packaged with anything other than chaos warrior riders.  

The 1989 Orange Catalogue has the ROC Juggernauts of Khorne listing but doesn't show any Bloodletter riders.

The 1991 Red Catalogue has a different listing titled Chaos Juggernauts.  As you can see from the picture a different mix, one less head, one less banner pole, and three Bloodletter rider bodies.  To be honest these look very similar to the regular bodies but I do have to say the stock numbers are different.  And surprisingly enough, no listing for the upper torso's for the chaos warriors!  Not sure if anyone can confirm that they were packaged together here in the US.  Regardless I had to have some so I set about collecting Juggernauts over the years and grabbing the odd bloodletter or two as riders.  Eventually I ended up with the requisite eight to form a unit.

I went a bit over the top with the conversions on these guys.  The leader is actually a conversion with the head from a 2nd version leader.  I still have some work to do on them like adding pennants and flags but these are one of my favorite units that I've ever worked on.  

One thing I would like to ask the community about.  I have all the possible combinations of Juggernaut parts except for this head from the Orange 88 catalogue.

Again, not sure if it was ever released in the US but I'd like to get my hands on one.  If you have one or a whole model I would love to discuss a possible trade just let me know!

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 3 Little Guys

Deamons Part 3 is about the little guys, the rank and file lesser demons and deity aligned beasts.  As a devout flower of Khorne I liked the dichotomy of the Bloodletters.  They had a skinny, frail, distorted look to them in their initial release yet their deity was all about violence.  They are almost Geiger-esque with the elongated heads like everyone's favorite killer alien! I snatched up a few blisters and ended up with a unit of 16.

 

 
These are very early paint jobs by me in my late teens/early 20’s.

Not bad given the state of paint and inks, or lack thereof, at the time.  These figures were re-worked for their 2nd iteration into what I refer to as the “Arnoldletters”, muscle bound brutes.

The 3rd version was a departure in a couple of directions.

The “Goatletters” took on a goat head like look and they swapped out their swords for axes, they are still interesting figures but they don't hold quite the same appeal for me as the originals.

With the 4th version they reverted back to the big headed, skinny body model and they got upgraded (or downgraded depending on your opinion) to plastic models.   I’m an original type of guy and prefer the first version, they were some of the first multi-part metal models released and provided you with a ton of combinations.  My goal is to have at least an 8 man squad of each type in the future.  The 1st and 4th edition are taken care of now for the versions in between.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 2 Pride and Joy

I broke this chap out on his own.  He is one of the half a dozen or so miniatures that I am proudest of over my years of collecting, converting and painting.  This is the 2nd version of the Bloodthirster model and my pride and joy.

He has the distinction of being the only miniature that I have ever entered into a Golden Demon contest.  It was back when they held them in Chicago, I managed to coordinate attending with a visit to my brother-in-law in the area.  I even left the ID sticker on the bottom of it!

I was incredibly proud of this beast,  and still am, but I was quickly humbled as I registered it and got to look at it beside the competition.  I don’t think he made it past the first cut, but I’m still glad I had the nerve to enter him.  I did some minor conversion work on him and re-positioned the arms, added a 2nd ax, and worked up the base.   

I'm most proud of the veins that I did on him.  Based up the skintone, then highlighted them light blue, then did some more skintone layering on top to blend them in.   

Here are some additional figures, 1st versions of Scyla Anfingrimm that I intended to represent his flesh hound pets.  I’d like to attach them via chains as if he is taking them for a walk but haven’t gotten around to working that out yet.  I hope you enjoy him.

Mining for Warpstone Chaos Demons/Deamons Part 1 Big Dogs

Well this troop type is certainly the most entertaining of the miniatures lines and the one for me that has the most paint.  When ROC came out I was floored and fascinated by their look and design.  I quickly fell to the sway of the chaotic powers!  In this part I will present some of the big dogs (all puns intended), the greater demons of Khorne.  First up is the guy that started it all for me, one of the original ROC Bloodthirsters.

In my most humble opinion this is the iconic image for Khorne.  The design with this helmet has been illustrated numerous times in countless publications around the ROC era.  A similar, smaller plastic version appeared in a Heroquest expansion.  With the ROC releases GWS started to get into the multi part metal kits with a variety of bodies, heads, weapons, etc… allowing you to customize figures without the pain of hacking into them or in my case getting totally frustrated by your utter lack of sculpting skills.   

I was a huge fan of the Bloodthirsters and lived by the adage of “if one is good two must be better!” and I ended up buying several of the Bloodthirsters over the years until I had every combination of parts. 

They only ever released 6 heads for the models and well that just didn’t sit well with me given Khorne’s sacred number of 8 so I did a couple of conversions.

Now there might be a few purists that cringe with my mixture of ROC era and later parts but I’m sure they will get over it!  I also have the head and ruff from Arbaal the Undefeated's fleshhound mount that I can use if I ever pick up an additional body.  My future plans are to have each of these bad boys painted up with their own unit of underling Bloodletters as well some secondary units like flesh hounds, warriors, thugs or beastmen.  Up next will be another Bloodthirster that I am particularly proud of!