WIP - Minor Demons

I've been doing a little assembly work on my Undead Chaos Army, which includes, as noted before, two bands of minor demons.

These three demons are conversions, which I don't normally like to use. I like to play figures "as is" (otherwise there'd be no end to the converting). However, I was inspired by these conversions for the 9th Age project which I thought looked really cool and would help me fill out that second band.

These are simple head swaps for Mantic's heavily armored Elohi models. The original pics show Elohi bodies with armored skulls from GW's Grave Guard set. I actually did obtain some of these skulls, but upon further reflection, I thought that these would be an ideal use for my Burning Skulls from puppetswar.eu.

I originally bought those flaming skulls to use with my conversion of my GW mounted Chaos Knights, but the skulls were far, far too small to use with the more robust GW models. However, they fit right in with the Mantic figures and give a really cool infernal feel to these undead demons.
The Mantic Elohi are larger models, somewhat ogre-sized, but not enough to put them in the range of "Greater Demons".

Pictured below are the various parts primed in black (excepting the skulls primed with pure white.

Assembled (sans skulls) and awaiting zenithal highlighting

Assembled and zenithal highlighted.

First pass at the flame effects. I'm going to have to go in and directly apply some more yellow in the recesses and frost the tips with charred black.

We Few. We Infernal Few. We Band of Demons.

As has been noted before, 30 plus years of collecting has left me with more skeleton models than I could ever hope to field in any one game. Unfortunately, games are rare these days with me traveling the world over. But in the ever renewed hope that I may actually have to field a bunch of these figures on the tabletop at some point, I've started an organization scheme that divides my Legion into smaller specific armies. For example, I have my 5th century BCE Classical Greeks - which I've just about put the finishing touches on. I also have my 1st century CE Imperial Romans, my 15th century CE Sengokku period Japanese (samurai) army. I have a New Kingdom Egyptian army (Tomb Kings...duh). I have probably about three Medieval European fantasy armies. I also have my 17th century CE pirate army (probably the least useful to me). With those wonderful Mierce Miniatures Jutes now coming online I think I have enough for a small Dark Age Anglo-Saxon army - well at least a brigade. Plus I have a brigade's worth of demi-humans (orcs, dwarves, halflings, skaven, lizardmen, elves) - although not enough of each. I probably have almost a brigade worth of undead orcs. Elves I can't even field a unit without some conversions.

The latest army I have been putting together is my undead Chaos Army. Granted the line between regular Chaos and undead is sometimes a little iffy to begin with. A lot of chaos models can do double duty. But I have been able to put together, without "counts as" models from Chaos and just a few conversions, a large Chaos army that is specifically undead.

Chaos armies are interesting because they are comprised of a lot of different elements - each of which could have an army based around them on their own; beastmen, chaos warriors, and the element we will be looking at today...demons.

Demons are a staple of Chaos forces, and in at least my experience, generally classified into two types; Greater Demons and Minor Demons. Greater Demons are the large, super powerful, super dangerous creatures who represent the actual fallen angels and lead the armies of chaos across the battlefield. Then there are the Minor Demons who, while still very dangerous to know are less powerful than their masters and usually fight in recognizable units.

Minor Demons

Right now I count 23 Minor Demons in my Chaos Army, just short of the 24 needed for two bands of 12. Mounted on skirmish trays and fighting in a war band formation, these "minor" divinities are the rock solid elite troops of Chaos. Expensive points-wise in Piquet, they are six slot creatures that have extraordinary abilities like "flight", "toughness", and "cause terror" balanced by "formed troops" (so they can fight as a unit) and "weapons skill" (so they can use weapons).

First up is the beautiful, if somewhat diminutive "Judgement" from CMON sculpted by Pedro Fernandez. This is a really detailed and well proportioned sculpt, although it can look a little dainty next to more robust figures.

 Judgement

Dark Sword Miniatures "Death Knight with Scythe" sculpted by Dave Summers.

 DSM7527 Death Knight with Scythe

The following are not produced as demons, but rather conversions. I don't like to field conversions much, as I like to play figures as they're advertised. But I saw these figures which had been converted to act as winged reapers for the 9th Age project and thought that I had rarely seen a simple head swap work so well. They're Mantic Elohi (angels) with the heads swapped with GW Vampire Count Armored Skeleton skulls. They look pretty sweet.

Greater Demons

Trolls!

These guys don't live under a bridge! They are lean, mean and dangerous to know. Seriously. I use trolls to tie down super-strong creatures like Ents. They are extremely powerful and can regenerate. In Piquet terms, this gives them the Extraordinary ability of "Invincible" which means you need 5 hits to effect a stand loss instead of 3. Add to that the natural toughness ability of undead and that means you need to to beat the roll by 6! You roll up against one of these guys and you are not going anywhere.

The biggest thing I remember about watching the Hobbit is walking out of the film muttering to my wife, "Trolls are NOT to be played for comedy!" Verily, they will fuck up your day.

 RAFM RAF03726 Skeletal Troll. A venerable favorite.

 Fenryll FM092 Zombie Troll. Rather small, and I find the sculpt to be too "cartoony".

 Mirliton UD058F Undead Troll. Recast of an old Grenadier sculpt. Just grand.

 Ilyad Retours Des Dieux BLMV09 Grotesque. Perhaps my favorite troll model. Lovely detailed sculpt from the sadly now defunct french company. Fortunately I have their entire undead line, all of which are marvelous. Made from resin and a good example of how good resin can be.

RAFM RAF03719 Plague Troll. 

RAFM RAF03724 Undead Troll. Another of RAFM's awesome troll scuplts. 

Reaper 2680 Undead Troll. Reaper's foray into undead trolls. It's a nice sculpt. 

Chainmail Ahmut's Legion Bsttered Skeletal Troll. Meh. Very small. More like a hobgoblin than anything else.

Titan-Forge Drakskull's Menace Undead Trolls. Two sweet zombie trolls from Titan-Forge to fight with their undead greenskin horde. 

Mantic Dungeon Saga Hoggar, Zombie Troll Shaman. From Mantic's upcoming Dungeon Saga game. Finally, an undead troll magic user!

Mantic Dungeon Saga Zombie Troll. An undead troll from the upcoming Dungeon Saga game.

Mantic Zombie Troll Regiment from their Kings of War line.

Mage Knight Sinister #68 Troll Zombie. Meh. Small, pre-painted plastic.

Bellerophon Rides Again!

Skeletal Pegasus
Company: Mythic Articulations
Part #:
Sculptor: Brian Richardson
Released: 2014

Oh boy, check out these skeletal pegasi and riders from Mythic Articulations! Sculptor Brian Richardson has begun scaling down some of his larger  inch display models to 32mm for wargaming use. Richardson has taken his original Pegasus skeleton model and added spear wielding riders, as well as modifying the poses. This is set of 5 pegasi/riders contains two different poses, one rearing and one flying. Slap an easily obtainable hoplon on the riders and *presto*! Flying cavalry for my undead ancient greek army.

Bellerophon rides again!

I love Richardson's models because they are a) unique and b) anatomically correct. The typical way to go with a skeletal Pegasus is to give it bat-like wings, like with the Mantic vampire lord on an undead Pegasus or this Ral Partha Necromancer on a skeletal Pegasus. Richardson has sculpted true to life bird wings for these models. Pay particular attention to the massive bird-like clavicle and sternum where the wing muscles would attach.

These models are individually printed in a high detail translucent resin. The age of custom miniatures has arrived. If you can dream it - you can print it!