The Cult of Slaanesh

After our last scenario/narrative based game (Battle Report: A Rat in the Woods) we knew we wanted to do something similar again. That is over a few months paint a couple of armies, create a scenario that involves them, and some terrain to suit, then when all of that is done, play the game! We threw a few ideas around, but in the end settled on an idea triggered by the Storm of Chaos book from 6th edition Warhammer. At the end of that book is an army list for the Cult of Slaanesh, which is a really fun list that combines the Dark Elves with the Hordes of Chaos armies and represents the forces of the Morathi (The top Dark Elf sorceress for the uninitiated!) when she re-kindles the cult to the chaos god Slaanesh amongst her Dark Elf followers and joins up with other Slaanesh worshippers (of the human variety!).

During the events the Storm of Chaos book relates, Morathi takes her forces to Lustria (Pretty much Warhammer South America) to hunt for Artefacts of the Old Ones. The locals, the Lizardmen, don’t take kindly to such things and a conflict starts. My friend having a relatively large unpainted Lizardmen army and myself having many chaos models lying about we decided this was a good fit for us and started planning. So far we have both written army lists (3000 points!), although we have as yet to come up with a fun scenario to use these armies in!

3000 points is a fair amount of Warhammer to paint although both our respective armies are quite elite and therefore the model counts are at the lower end. Regardless it will take a while to paint everything so time to get started!

First up then I decided to paint a regiment of Chaos Marauders. These are at the bottom end of the chaos pile being pretty much just regular humans (although very muscly already!). They were a good starting point for the army however as being basic troops I’m not too worried if they don’t look fantastic, which meant I could experiment. Being Slaanesh worshippers (although not being recognised enough to get any cool powers for their devotion!) I wanted to paint them as recognisably so, hence the purply/magenta cloth and the Slaanesh symbol on the banner.

The models are quite old now and it shows in the lack of details in the casts, but I think they’re quite characterful and enjoyed painting them. You’ll notice the champion stands out a lot, he’s a head taller, and is a much newer model. He’s a character from the Silver Tower board game originally although he was later released as a standalone model for Age of Sigmar. I’ve had him for a while and just had to include him in this regiment.

I usually make a painting guide when I start a new army so I have a reference I can come back to as I invariably jump between projects. I haven’t bothered here as this is the only unit of marauders the army will have, and all other humans in the army will be in the full armour of Chaos Warriors and have little to no exposed skin. When I come to painting elves I might do some guides then.

Here’s the short version: contrast paints did a lot of heavy lifting here, tackling the furs, leather and cloth (black and purple) mostly untouched. The only areas with proper highlights are the skin, the metallics and the horns. This is less effort than I usually put into my models but I was painting all 16 at once and I think you can get away with some shortcuts in ranked units!

What I do want to document however as it will be repeated on the whole army is the basing.

I knew I was going to be doing some jungle themed bases for the army to fit the setting we want to set the game in. I’ve done some jungle bases in the past for my Necrons (Jungle Bases pt. 1, Jungle Bases pt. 2), and a fair few temperate forest bases recently for my Star Wars Legion army (Endor bases) and my Lord of the Rings Wood Elves (Wood Elves of Lothlorien and Rivendell). I wanted to try something different on this new set of models and went with a classic: gluing aquarium plants as is.

I’ve never really liked the look of the bare plastic, as they look too shiny next to painted models, but I took the gamble that as I would be matt varnishing the models, the leaves would be tied in to the overall scheme. I think it worked well and I’m happy with the way the unit looks when all ranked up.

You’ll also notice some other details on the bases such as spiders and ruins, these are from an old Games Workshop basing kit which had resin pieces for basing amongst other basing bits. These were glued down and painted with the model. The rest of the basing was done after the models were painted.

Here are the steps for the bases:

1. Hot glue individual leaves from the aquarium plants to the bases
2. Cover the bases in texture paint (AK Muddy Ground)
3. Stick down some small stones
4. Apply some AK Slimy Grime Dark in patches on the ground and the rocks
5. Apply some AK Slimy Grime Light in smaller patches. Note this stands out much more so I diluted it with some thinner to help blend it in some.
6. The base is matt varnished along with the rest of the model
7. Patches of AK Puddles are applied randomly to add the impression the ground is quite wet

Anyway I hope you like them! I’m always excited when I start a new project (otherwise I wouldn’t;t have started it!), and am already eyeing off the next unit for the army.