Beastlord Maynard calls the herd!

[Rhys]

so i decided that with a new edition, my beasts needed a new face as well, so i traded all my old models and grabbed the new ones. here i have several battalion boxes and some minotaurs to start with. i will be chronicling this army's trek to the tabletop, any modelling/painting advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Chase]

Awesome, I look forward to the progress.

[Rhys]

ok, so I usually assemble my armies by unit, but i decided to do a battalion box first just to get familiar with the kits and to see how much variety they have. so here's the first box done and first impressions are good, the kits have alot of good stuff in them without being too overwhelming. and after dealing with bloodletters and horrors, these guys are SO easy to rank up! and i gotta say, the bestigor kit is one of the best i've seen, these models are awesome! gear loadout is pretty standard, hand weapons and shields on the ungors to take advantage of the parry rule and additional hand weapons on the gors for maximum killage

[Rhys]

Ok so here are a couple pics of the progress so far:



the entire herd as it stands right now



block of 40 gors with command and additional hand weapon. in the few games i've played so far, this unit usually contains the BSB and an uber-killy goat lord (8 attacks!) and is the linchpin of the army. not too shabby in combat either, they claimed a horde of corsairs, a hydra, and a unit of witch elves in my last game.

in front is a screen of 10 raiders.



40 ungors on the left with hand weapons and shields to absorb damage. these guys are tricky to use, they need to be near the beastlord for the LD. i've learned this the hard way, courtesy of a big unit of cold one knights that they were supposed to tie up.

center is a horde of bestigors, the meanest unit in the army. i haven't used them in a horde yet, but i plan on putting a great bray shaman in with them (malagor model, once i get him assembled) either kitted out to kill or with the stubborn crown. the only unit in the army that can take a magic banner means they get the standard of discipline so they can operate away from the beastlord.

2 tuskgor chariots behind, useful for that extra oomph to help the gors out, or chasing away skirmishers and fast cav.

on the right, a 6 man mino block. i love the models but the unit has performed less than impressively. i'm excited to see how the unit does with mino characters though, they are no joke.



support unit of gors. i don't ambush them, they're really just there to guard a flank or scoop up the beastlord and BSB if the main gor unit gets mauled.



BSB WIP. he's is mainly the standard bearer from the bestigor kit with suitably impressive horns. the bannerpole was extended and topped with the banner from the minotaur kit and the khorne icon from the bloodletter kit. i'm not sure what i want to do with his other arm though, maybe a shield(as thats how i equip him) or a suitably impressive weapon. i made him an arm holding a bloodletter sword but i don't think it looks feral enough, beastmen don't really look like the type to use swords.

now to figure out basing (i'm thinking snow) and then its off to prime!

[Rhys]

Ok, so here is the inital color scheme test run;

i wanted to do something a little different than the usual brown beastmen so i'm testing out this gray theme with very light fur and dark red clothing for contrast.




i like the menacing look of the gray on the faces, these guys look like they mean business

[Rhys]

from the back you can see what i'm doing with this light fur, almost albino look i'm trying. i'm not sure how i feel about it, any feedback would be great.










as you can see, i haven't done the horns yet, i really hate painting horns/bone/skulls. so if anyone has a good method for bone please let me know. i'm looking for something simple that can be done relatively easily, i don't want to basecoat/highlight/shade/re-shade/re-highlight/blend/drybush all the horns, skulls and bone on 180 beastmen! on the other hand, i am willing to put in more work than base-coat/wash so share your bone recipe if you have one!

if anyone has thoughts on the color scheme as well, please feel free to share. i'm on the fence about it, but don't really have an alternative to the gray/light scheme. the only thing i'm opposed to doing is the boring brown, so feel free to chime in!

[Ian Mulligan]

I like them A LOT. Its a really great departure from the more traditional dark browns. It ties them to their northern allies very well.

Keep it up, dude. I want to see these guys fully painted.


How did you do the grey? I use a similar color for some of my Khador models but its really time consuming.

[Rhys]

its just a base of reaper's rainy grey with a black/deep amethyst mix for the shading and misty grey for the highlights. i needed something really simple and effective (i have almost 200 models to do after all!).

[Rhys]

ok, so i haven't made very much painting progress in a while but i did get some stuff done this weekend.







i decided to scrap the club idea for the bsb and give him a cleaver instead. i added a cloak as well to make him look a little higher on the food chain. i can't wait to paint this guy,  i think he's got a very tough feel to him.







here is my herald of slaanesh bsb for my daemon army. i really like the miniature, i think it has a certain "stripper pole" feel that i think is awesome. the design is the rune of slaanesh, painted to have a very suggestive feel to it, something i feel is kind of appropriate and a nice twist on your run-of-the-mill slaanesh rune. feel free to give me feedback on this one, its not worth doing if i can't get it to look right.








forgeworld keeper. all i have left to do is her leg spikes and some gap filling and she's ready to prime! i can't wait to paint her but i feel i need to work out some kinks in my skin techniques before i tackle her.

anyway, these are just some projects i'm working on that have been slowing my progress with the beasts

[Rhys]

little update for the beastmen-

here's some pics of my WIP kitbashed centigors. there's no way i'm paying $60 for 5 so this is what i'm doing instead











wargor/beastlord kitbash and a little ungor shieldbearer guy. this is what i'm using until i  find a suitable beastlord model. i always equip him with a shield but i felt that he didn't look ferocious enough carrying one so he has a little minion carry his huge sgield around. note the ungor is on a 25mm base so he can go into a gor unit behind his boss.








here's the WIP gor block, all at varying stages of completion.





here's the main reason progress has been so slow with the beasts-

[Izen930]

Really great Centigor conversions there! I really enjoy the departure from brown to the grey fur and skin tones, very well done!

What type of basing are you planning on?

Also are you planning to include any monsters and if so any sneek peeks?

-Mark

[Rhys]

thanks for the compliments, i like how they turned out. i haven't decided on basing yet but i'm leaning towards snow, i think it will contrast the darkness of the skin, armor, and red scraps of clothing. plus i think the gray skin makes them look like mountain or winter beastmen. as far as monsters, GW is supposedly releasing some new monster kits with the storm of chaos expansion this summer, i'm waiting to see what comes out and what i can do with it. thanks for the input!

[Rhys]

update- 39 gors done except for basing.






















30 bestigors needing basing and detail on the unit standard












i'm working on the beastlord and BSB right now, hope to have them done before the weekend. as always, any feedback appreciated!

[Chase]

Oh man, those are looking GOOD.  Nice work!

[Rhys]

beastlord and bsb after the glosscote treatment and ready for basing-


beastlord-











here's the BSB. i know the artwork on the banner doesn't really fit in with the rest of the army, i just really needed to paint something other than gray fur and red. for some reason i painted the banner black in the beginning and when i was trying to figure out what to do with it, i got the idea to use it as a night sky background and decided to do something fun with it.








i might end up re-doing it in the future but i think it looks cool, less chaos-y and beastmen flinging poop and whatnot more "dark forest evil" kind of feel. let me know what you think even if you hate it