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Warriors of Chaos

System: Warhammer
Techniques: Kitbashing, unit fillers, speed painting, snow & blood effects, sculpting & casting
Status: On hold

To me a Warriors of Chaos army is a rampaging, blood thirsty and downright terrifying band of northmen, every warrior a fearsome opponent in his own right and a match for 3 of his enemies.  These guys don’t do rank and file, they don’t do uniforms or standardised equipment, and they don’t respect rules or hierarchy.

My goal with this project is to convey this image in miniature form.

Disorganised Ranks
Obviously for Warhammer models HAVE to rank up, and for some armies neat, orderly rank and file made up of models in similar poses works well.  With Chaos Warriors a case can certainly be made for a grim, coordinated, implacably advancing wall of warriors, but my concept for this army is to impose as much disorganisation as I can in the infantry units while still having them, on the whole, individually based.  Call it organised chaos, or chaotic organisation, but to me this just fits the image of the aforementioned blood thirsty rabble better.

This won’t be easy as the Warriors of Chaos kits tend to be large (meaning there isn’t a tonne of room on their bases once ranked up) and very monopose, particularly the Warriors and Marauder legs.

Model & Weapon Variety
To aid the above goal I will use a variety of bought and home made models in my units.  This is partly to overcome the “monopose” problem the WOC kits have, and partly to add to the ragtag look where every model looks as unique – and dangerous – as the next.

This will mean units of mixed weaponry, which I have seen used to very good effect.  After all, every warrior will have his preferred kit and I don’t see the local chieftan caring whether the men under his (loose) command kill with axe, flail, spear or halberd.   Nor would he be able to impose his will, even if the strange desire to impose uniformity were ever to take him!

Obviously I’m throwing the WYSIWYG principle out of the window here.  With the  mixed weapon units I’ll need to work out a way to indicate what each unit is actually armed with in game.  I’ll work that out when I get there.

Unit Fillers
I love seeing well made unit fillers in a Warhammer army and their use will be important to impose “disorganisation” on a ranked up unit, as a few bigger bases among the ranks will allow much more freedom for model placement and posing.  Also, they will help to convey the theme and background of the Warriors of Chaos as a marauding band of merciless savages, hacking and pilaging their way into the Empire.  Initial ideas include Marauders harnessing chained up wolves, mid and post combat vignettes strewn with blood and corpses, scenes of ritual sacrifice and so on.  It will also allow me to express my love of terrain building, if only on a small scale!

Also, I admit it, I get bored painting the same thing over and over and unit fillers help to overcome that problem by filling up space that would otherwise need to be populated with more models.  I’ve got no “moral”  issues filling up space with less models, as I know the unit fillers will look fantastic and have just as much if not more effort put into them.