Slaanesh Daemon Prince Complete!
My Work-In-Progress Daemon Prince of Slaanesh is no longer a work in progress. It's done! Tonight, I finished up detailing the metallics, painting the base, and touching up skin tone in a couple of spots (especially in recesses). Here's a set of images to show how she turned out:
I'm still amazed that I managed to turn her out as quickly as I did. From priming to complete was 5 days, and that was 5 days mostly of squeezing in painting early in the morning or in small snippets at night. I'm normally a very slow painter, but when inspiration hits and I'm motivated (as seen in my MERCS minis, which I cranked out in a weekend while sick), I can turn out decent-looking models in a timely manner.
Next up, I have to finish detailing 18 noise marines, and then it's on to Chosen and a Sorcerer.
WIP Slaanesh Daemon Prince
Remember this mini, from March? I finally got around to priming her this weekend, and over the last two days I've started putting down color on her. On Sunday, I had her body basecoated in Dheneb Stone foundation paint (seen here with some Chosen that I'm also working on):
Last night (Monday), I started putting down colors. The shoulder pad, glove, and boots were done with Vallejo Game Color Squid Pink, and the wings and claw were painted in GW Warlock Purple. With the hair, I used my normal technique of applying a wash (in this case, Leviathan Purple), to be drybrushed with Warlock Purple later. I'd found my painting groove, though, so I didn't end up stopping there. I applied a Baal Red wash all over the model, and once it had dried I did an additional wash of Leviathan Purple over the wings and claw. Once that was dry, it was onto the skin tone.
Now, if I had to do it over again, I'd probably use a blend of flesh and pink for my skin basecoat, and I'll probably do that for my Daemonettes to make them more inhuman, but I started with GW Elf Flesh as my base, leaving the red wash in the few recesses and crevices. Once that was down, I then applied a general highlight of VGC Pale Flesh, followed by a more specific/sparingly-used highlight of blended Pale Flesh/Skull White. Her nipples are VGC Squid Pink blended with Vallejo's glaze medium to tone down the opacity a bit. Finally, I gave the wings and claws two layers of drybrush, first in Warlock Purple, and then in Squid Pink.
There's still work to do. The armor pieces have detail work to be done, her eyes need to be painted, the sword needs to be painted, I need to detail the belts, and I'd like to drybrush/blend up some bone on the horns and the claw-tips on the wings. Oh, and the base, of course, but it's easy (paint gray, wash black, drybrush gray, drybrush lighter gray). I'm pleased with how quickly I'm turning her around, though, after having the model in my collection for almost 2 years.
Slaanesh Daemon Prince – Now With Wings!
After trying out a Daemon Prince with wings, and finding that it really is as good as everyone says, I was inspired to finish the job on the Daemon Prince that has been sitting idle since July. Of course, I had made a couple of other design choices with her, but the spines were going to have to go. Wings were the order of the day.
The model that serves as the base for my Daemon Prince, Reaper's Urban Legend Sophie, comes with metal wings, but frankly, I did not feel like dealing with pinning a pair of heavy wings connected by two small nubbins of metal. Instead, I dug through my bits box and pulled out the spare winged backpack from my Possessed CSM set. A little careful cutting to put a notch in the claw arm so that the backpack would fit, a little Zap-a-Gap, and the results were very pleasing. Again, cellphone pics are poor, but it's what I had on hand.
Sorry for the nudity, folks; she's not bad, she's molded that way.
I wasn't done, though. Next, to tackle something I'd been avoiding for the past 7 months: using green stuff to hide the claw arm joint. Without it, the claw arm just sits there with its ball joint hanging out, and that doesn't look good. However, I have no sculpting skills at all, so I'd been afraid of screwing it up. Tonight, I decided to push down my fear and just do it. It's not the prettiest job, but it'll do.
From the left...
...and from the right.
Pay no attention to the mold lines. Those have been dealt with.
There was one other finishing touch I wanted to add. With the winged backpack, I wanted to give the impression that this Daemon Prince had once been a Chaos Marine of Slaanesh, upgraded to daemonhood. This would also allow me to run the model as a Greater Summoned Daemon instead if I wanted. An easy way to emphasize this idea was to add another piece of power armor. In this case, a shoulder pad:
She really has no shame, does she?
I tried in vain to add a nipple ring to her left breast just for the hell of it, but I do not have the sculpting skills to pull off something that small. Also, by that point, my fingers and sculpting tool were slick enough from petroleum jelly that getting a tiny piece of green stuff to stick was just not happening. That's fine; the model is solid as-is. It's not 51% GW parts (at least by size; by number of parts, GW outnumbers third parties 5 to 2), so I doubt it's tourney-legal, but as I rarely play in tournaments, this isn't really a problem.
I can't believe this model is actually ready for priming and painting! I've been sitting on it so long that I figured I might never get around to working on it. Sunday even looks to be a good day to prime. Perhaps... just perhaps... I might actually get her done before a year passes since I started work on her.
Pink is the New Black: The Other List
So, after months of not wanting to run a Daemon Prince list because they seem so prevalent amongst Chaos Marine lists, once I had one I figured that I might as well put together a list that included it. Most of the list - such as the Obliterators, the Noise Marines, and the other Chaos Marine squads - I was happy with, so I really only needed to change up the daemonic portions of the list. Here's what I managed to put together:
HQ: Chaos Sorcerer (1#, 130 pts)
1 Chaos Sorcerer (Mark of Slaanesh; Lash of Submission; Personal Icon)
HQ: Daemon Prince (1#, 135 pts)
1 Daemon Prince (Mark of Slaanesh; Sorcerer; Lash of Submission)
Troops: Noise Marines (7#, 285 pts)
5 Noise Marines (Sonic Blaster x4; Blastmaster; Personal Icon)
1 Noise Champion (Doom Siren; Power Weapon)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)
Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Plasmagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol)
1 Rhino
Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Meltagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Fist)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)
Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators
Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators
Summoned Lesser Daemons (6#, 78 pts)
6 Summoned Lesser Daemons
Total: 1498 points
There's a lot of icons in the list, and that's to make sure that the Lesser Daemons (and if I choose to deep strike them, the Obliterators) always have a spot to come down safely. And yes, it is a dual Lash list, albeit one with only one Daemon Prince. The two Lash users, though, have different purposes. The Sorcerer rides along with the Noise Marines and uses his Lash to pull enemy infantry into the range of the Champion's doom siren. The Daemon Prince, on the other hand, mostly uses it to pull units into assault range (to make up for the lack of wings) or out of it (when facing off against horde armies). Otherwise, the list performs identically to my other Slaanesh CSM list.
I even had a opportunity to run a short test of this list against WDR, one of my friends at the Undergopher podcast, and his vanilla Marine army. We only had time for a partial game, maybe three turns, so we rolled up a mission from the main rulebook. Luckily, we got Pitched Battle/Annihilation, the most basic mission type available. WDR won the roll-off to see who would deploy first and decided to take the first turn. He brought the following:
1 Razorback w/ Twin-linked Lascannons, with 5 Sternguard Veterans and a Captain inside
2 Rhinos w/10-man Tactical Squads inside
2 Scout Squads
1 Dreadnought w/Multi-melta and Storm Bolter
1 Whirlwind
1 Vindicator
1 Predator w/ Twin-linked Lascannons and 2 Lascannon sponsons
That was a lot of tanks to face off against, and those tanks were packing serious firepower. In response, I deployed everything I could, knowing I would need my Obliterators on turn 1 to counter his armor. Then, tempting fate, I attempted to seize the initiative... and succeeded! This turned the tables a bit, and gave me the first turn to get the jump on his army.
Chaos Turn 1: I run my Rhinos up and pop smoke, keeping my Daemon prince shielded from WDR's scout snipers. The Obliterators take some shots with Lascannons, but don't manage any noticeable damage.
Marine Turn 1: He keeps his army stationary, choosing to take shots and make me come to him. He's able to land a couple of wounds on the Daemon Prince with the Razorback and the Dreadnought, but otherwise either he misses, fails to do damage, or my smoke cover keeps me safe.
Chaos Turn 2: The Lesser Daemons come in, and I bring them in 6 inches from the melta squad's Rhino, which puts them within 6 inches of his one deployed scout squad. Everything else moves up closer towards his tank line, and a pair of meltagunners fire from their Rhino and destroy the Razorback, killing two veterans and slightly wounding the captain in the process. The Daemon Prince then lashes the survivors closer, so that it can assault them. The Obliterators also have a decent turn, wrecking one Rhino and taking the turret off the Predator, as does the plasma squad, which wrecks a second Rhino. When time for assault comes, it's a mixed bag. The Daemon Prince slaughters the remaining veterans, leaving only the Captain. On the other hand, the Lesser Daemons only roll a 4 on their Difficult Terrain check, leaving them unable to cross the lip of the crater holding the scouts.
Marine Turn 2: Again, WDR keeps his army mostly stationary. He manages a solid shot with one of the Predator's sponsons on the Noise Marines' Rhino, destroying it and killing one of them in the resulting explosion. Elsewhere, he cuts down half of the Lesser Daemons with sniper gunfire. Near the center of the table, the Captain and Daemon Prince remain locked in combat, with the marine taking a second wound.
Chaos Turn 3: My army continues pressing on. The melta and plasma squad Rhinos pull up and drop off their passengers, who proceed to whittle down one of the two exposed Tactical Squads down to 3 men remaining. Meanwhile, the Sorcerer splits off from the Noise Marines so that he can "fire" separately, lashing the other TacSquad into a teardrop-shaped formation. The Noise Marines then open fire, leaving one marine remaining. The Obliterators have another productive turn, destroying the cannon on WDR's Vindicator. In assault, the Noise Marines finish off their lone opponent, the Lesser Daemons lose two more members after finally getting into assault, and the Captain and Prince remain locked in combat, each unable to kill the other.
Marine Turn 3: At this point, WDR is ready to concede the game - we're running out of time, and I'm definitely in a superior position. However, in true marine fashion, he doesn't want to go out without a fight. His Whirlwind wants to land a shot on the Obliterators, but he doesn't have line of sight to them, meaning he'll scatter without any Ballistics Skill reduction. Instead, he tries to drop the shot on a Rhino he can see... and the scatter takes the shot right on top of the Obliterators anyway! That's some Kentucky windage for you. (Unfortunately, the shot does no damage.) The remaining TacSquad unloads some shots on the melta squad before charging into assault and manages to take a few Chaos marines with them, and the scouts sweep the remaining Lesser Daemon. Finally, the HQ assault is finally resolved - the Daemon Prince is unable to injure the Captain, but he manages a wound on it. The Prince loses the assault, and then loses its life as it fails to save its Fearless-inflicted wound at the end of assault. The Captain is victorious! Unfortunately, he's also surrounded by two angry squads of Chaos Marines and has only one wound remaning. With that, we call the game in Chaos's favor.
I have to say that I like this variant of the list just as much as the other one, although there are still things I might change. I'd like to pump up the number of Lesser Daemons I'm running (which means finding more previous-edition Daemonettes), and to make the points for it, I might consider dropping the Chaos Sorcerer. It's not that he's not useful, but the points have to come from somewhere, and he's semi-redundant with the DP there. Alternately, I could bump the list to 1750 points and have the best of both worlds, although none of my friends have 1750-point lists together yet.
So, where does my Slaanesh list go from here? Come back tomorrow, where I'll take a look at the future of my Chaos Marine army.
Artwork by SelenaH. Used without permission.
Pink is the New Black: Daemon Prince WIP
Yesterday, I finally got a chance to run my Slaanesh CSM list, "Pink is the New Black", in two different variations. I'll write more about that tomorrow, but first, there's something else I started working on yesterday. When I first started putting together my Slaanesh list, I was pretty adamant about not wanting to use a Daemon Prince. However, while I was on vacation a few months ago, I happened upon a gaming store that had the Urban Legends variant of Reaper's Sophie succubus mini on the shelf. Once I had it, I wasn't sure exactly what to do with it, other than to just paint it up as is. After some reflection, though, I decided to make it into a Daemon Prince. I don't feel like GW's Daemon Prince kit was a good fit for Slaanesh, so this seemed to fit my army's theme better.
Rather than just run her as-is, I wanted to "monster" her up a bit. I had a Chaos Spawn sprue that I wasn't planning to use otherwise, so I took some of the bits from that. The large crab claw arm - very Slaaneshi in style - was attached, along with a couple of insectoid legs springing up from where her wings would be. Why didn't I just use the wings that came with the mini? Frankly, because I didn't want to use them. Yes, wings are great on a Daemon Prince, but I feel like they're a bit overdone. True, you see a lot of Slaanesh DPs with Lash of Submission, but honestly I don't mind footslogging her around. I can keep her in cover - that's what the Rhinos are for. The claws were also a bit of an homage to Andariel, one of the demonic bosses in Diablo 2.
Here's a few pics of how she's coming along:
The horns are made from daemonette tails. Unfortunately, all of the tails in the daemonette box are unique, so I couldn't have two of the same horn. I'm not too bothered by it; being a bit asymmetrical fits the theme as well. The base is a 60mm resin base from Micro Arts, and represents my first time working with anything resin. I had to drill into it a bit to make space for the peg on one of her feet. I trimmed that peg down a bit to fit, and trimmed the other peg off entirely; while she wasn't 100% stable before the glue set, it's held her in place quite well.
There's still some work to do before she's ready for priming, mostly involving the use of green stuff. There are still open holes in her back where the wings would have been that the insect legs don't fill completely. I want to fill those in, and I also want to smooth in the joint between the back and the crab claw arm. In addition, I want to add a shoulder pad to one of her arms, although I don't know if I want to use a standard marine pad or one for a Terminator. Her shoulder is actually slender enough to fit a standard one, but I'll try both and decide which one I prefer. Once that's done, she should be ready for priming and painting. I haven't decided if I want to prime white or black yet, but I'll need to decide soon.
On a side note, I also received 6 of the metal Juan Diaz daemonettes for my birthday (thanks, Dennis!) and got them together as well. Right now, I'm planning on using them as lesser summoned daemons in at least one of my Slaanesh lists. I'd like to get at least 6 more; they seem like they fit best in larger units that can absorb some fire before they get into assault with something.
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