The Realm of Chaos

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the Realm of Chaos - Slaves to Darkness Warhammer book which was actually the second Warhammer product I ever purchased (after the Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader book). Besides being full of evocative artwork and loads of rules for both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k, this book had rules for generating Chaos Champions and covers Khorne and Slaanesh. The second book Realm of Chaos - The Lost and the Damned covers Nurgle and Tzeentch. The system is crazy with random charts and almost comprises a game on it's own and was the source of endless hours of entertainment. The random tables can provide some unbalanced results that many today would balk at, but I find them a source for great inspiration and perfect for a solo project.

I've decided to build four warbands, one for each Chaos power, by rolling on the provided charts and maybe using a little divine intervention to tweak the results. The first warband I rolled was for Nurgle because I already had a handful of appropriate models for champions - the one I picked was dependent on the outcome of the dice.

The roll for the base champion was a Human Hero 10. Characters gain two rolls on the Rewards table, but I decided to make my champions more experienced because they get one roll on the Followers table for every two Rewards and I wanted each band to start with at least two 'units'. My four Reward rolls produced the following results: Mark of Nurgle (+1T), Bestial Face - Goat (+1A and +1 Fear Point), Gift of Nurgle - Hide of Nurgle (opponents have a -1 to hit in melee), and GM's choice. Now since I'm the GM I had a lot of latitude to determine what I wanted. Looking through my models, I decided to pick Enormously Fat (1/2M, +1T, and -1I).

So the stat line for my champion comes out as:

	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
Human Hero 10	2	5	4	4	6	2	3	4	8

I plan to field him in light armour and arm him with an extra hand weapon (which will give him another attack).He is a plodding beast, but if he ever gets in range to fight he will be fearsome and the Hide of Nurgle and high Toughness will help make up for his lack of armour.

Now I get two rolls on the table for Followers which works out as 6 zombies and 2 beastmen. I also get to roll Rewards for the followers and decide to pile them all on the beastmen. I end up with Technology - Bolt Pistol, +1S and +1T, and Tentacles. The first roll goes to one beastman and I put the others one the second.

So here is the starting warband for my Chaos Champion of Nurgle (I have yet to come up with a suitable name)...

The champion and beastmen were painted using Blanchitsu, using only Abaddon Black, Whitescar, Balor Brown, Gehenna Gold, and Runefang Steel. Highlights are mixed by building up these monotone shades and then GW washes are used to add color. The zombies were from an existing project, but I added more washes to make them better match the others.

Next up... the Chaos Champion of Khorne!

Yet More Shades of Grey

Here are four more models from my adventures in painting in black and white...

Professor Kettlewell

Slade

Dr Ravenwood

Agent Archer

Hmmm... just realized I already posted Professor Kettlewell in the original post on this project, but that was with the color die for comparison so I guess I leave him here too for the sake of formatting. He is one of my favorite models of all time from any genre! Again all of the models are from Artizan or Copplestone. Next time I'll change it up and post a few gribblies for the project...

The Duke of Schomberg's Horse

Just finished a squadron of the the Duke of Schomberg's Horse...

This is yet another unit for which we have no real information on the uniform or the flag.If you remember my discussion on officer sashes from my Featured Regiments post on De La Melonière's regiment of foot there were a number of choices I could have made for the sashes of the officers. This time I went with white. Schomberg's horse was composed mainly of 'French gentlemen from good families' according to Matthew Glozier's book The Huguenot Soldiers of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. To me it seems more likely that these sort of soldiers would be more educated and likely to remember their past and thus more likely to adopt the white sashes of tradition. The flag is simply based on the Duke of Schomberg's coat of arms (and is available from the LoA shop). I trimmed away the gold fringe on a whim. The grey coats and red facings of the troopers could be used for dozens of other regiments with a flag swap.

For Beneath the Lily Banners, you must designate your cavalry as either Bullet or Blade to represent the two prevailing tactical doctrines of the time. Bullet cavalry advanced slowly and fired pistols before engaging in close combat while Blade cavalry drew their swords and charged! The main of William III's army employed Bullet tactics, but the Huguenot horsemen were all veterans of the French army which favored Blade tactics. I've chosen to call the Huguenot regiment Blade (and signified this by modeling them with swords instead of pistols) for the Irish theater, with the idea that the newly formed regiment was probably more naturally inclined to their old training.

I have a second squadron on the painting table now...

More Shades of Grey

Almost forgot my promise to add more pics from my 'black and white' project circa 1920...

Mannie

Professor Randall

Grace

Dr Holland

Again all of the models are from Artizan or Copplestone.

Guns for King Billy

This week I finished the artillery for the Williamite army...

These have been painted in the uniform of King William III's artillery trayne for the campaign in Ireland - blue coats with orange facings (orange in the same manner that my Dutch Guard were painted - no reason to think the artillery uniforms held up any better than the guard unit). Only trained artillerists were issued with uniforms, with the 'fetch and carry' labor being provided by civilians so I have mixed in a few models in grey or brown. In the last photo you can see I cunningly included an officer and chap in grey which means this gun will work equally well for either side.

The guns are separate from their bases. I intent to paint up limbers for each and will be able to use the same guns. I still need to paint up stuff for the artillery park to go behind each field gun, but I haven't gotten around to acquiring stuff for those.

Two field guns will be plenty for the size games I will normally run on a 4x8' table. BLB recommends no more than one battalion gun per brigade. I actually have four brigades of Williamite foot, but again I think two is enough for my table. When I paint the Jacobites, one of their guns will be generic as well so I will be able to load up three guns on one side if necessary.

I also have two monster guns of position, but I'm saving them for when I begin to build up siege stuff. I want to get the field armies finished first.

In further news, last week I received a very heavy box from Barry loaded to the gills with Warfare stuff. Besides enough infantry to finish my Williamite army (two more Huguenot battalions and St. John's), there were enough dragoons for two squadrons of dismounted dragoons to start on my Jacobites and some spare cavalry to model more brigadiers! A squadron of the Duke of Schomberg's Horse are also on the table and should be finished soon...

LoA Blog Lottery

We're not there yet over at the League of Augsburg Blog, but in honor of reaching 100 followers my lovely wife will throw percentile dice to generate a number from 1-100. I will count through the followers list as it appears here on the site and the lucky winner gets a very rare (I don't think Barry even has one) first edition copy of Beneath the Lily Banners!

This is the first book Barry and I worked on together. Even if you have the second edition this is a great addition. if only for all of the photos. If you haven't signed up on the LoA Blog, head over do it now... there's no prize until we reach 100!

Swedish Flags for Poltava

The Swedish flags for the GNW are finally ready and should be available from the LoA shop soon.









This release provides all of the foot units that were present at Poltava. The last sheet is actually variations for Skaraborg, Uppland, and Kalmar based on descriptions given by the Russians at Poltava - there are official government versions for these units scattered through the other sheets for those who want the earlier flags. Again, thanks to Örjan Martinsson (Tacitus of the Fighting Talk forum) for all of his help sorting through these.

The Loneliest Pikemen

These models have been on my painting desk for a year and I just managed to find the time to paint them last week. The only unit in my Williamite army to have pikes is Hamner's so far. I'm going to paint up a few more stands to go with some of my other units with an eye toward swapping flags and fielding them as something else from time to time - the grey coated units in particular may be used for dozens of others!