Chaotic Distractions

Starting with Abbadon and Fabius Bile that were featured in the last blog entry, I've been going through a spate of painting up a series of Chaos miniatures that were released in 1996. This is mainly because I'm easily distracted idiot, torn away from other painting projects by the slightest hint of 'old model that I always wanted to paint'  and because they're wonderful, wonderful figures. These  excuses have been compounded by the recent acquisition of some 90's gems that demanded attention including these 1996 release Terminators. These guys are hecka nails, they're covered in spikes and trophies and are perfect examples of Goodwin's Chaos output. They were a joy to paint up too and Abbadon doesn't seem as lonely as he has done.

Worst stag do ever.

The mid-90's were an awesome time for little men. However, there's a very disparate clash of sculpting styles within this release, with the confident, classic GW stylings of Jes Goodwin, (blessed be his name) the Khornate marines and Juggernaut by Dave Andrews to the more (excuse the expression) chaotic output of Aly Morrison. Whilst I may be accused of being a Goodwin fanboy, it cannot be ignored that the majority of his sculpts from this period are still relevant and officially obtainable today, whilst the passage of time hasn't been quite so kind to the other releases.

'What this stormbolter needs is a chainsaw'.

'What this combo-melta needs is a chainsaw'.

'What this power fist needs is less digits and more chainsaw'.

I think the main downfall of the non-Goodwin sculpts is that they don't have the same solidity of design. Much of the armour looks organic, (more of a smashed trifle on the floor than HR Giger) and despite incorporating some great ideas such as furs, pendents and older-looking equipment, none of this coalesces into a pleasing final form. There's two many horns, oversized gloves and funky-looking weapons. The helms of the marines themselves are puggish and ill defined. I've a few Aly Morrison figures knocking about which I love, but these are definitely not his best work. That said, these miniatures cannot be mistaken for anything other than Chaos marines; there's no way you could convert them into anything else without loosing that element of them, so they succeed in that aspect. However, it feels like a missed opportunity to have had some decent bad lad spacemen who didn't look like they were made of blu-tac.

B R A Z E N  D O O M

"We're going to need a bigger pooper scooper".

Although the Juggernaut by Andrews may be criticised for being a very static looking model, it is a huge improvement on the earlier incarnation which looked like an angry egg. I've waxed lyrical about his previously released Khornate marines and would love to get a chance to paint some of those up some day. Seldom seen on the tabletop, they scream feral brutality some 20 years on. In summary (and if I recall correctly) Andy Chambers once said that 'not all Chaos marines are possessed mutants, most of them are just really bad men'. In essence, less is more design wise. Unless you're a Khorne Berzerker then more is more. I'm not really aiming to make an army out of these guys as the models I'd like for it are a little too expensive on the second hand market right now. However, I'm looking forward to indulging myself over the next few months as I've been lucky enough to acquire a lot of these figures through job lots. To finish off, here's a rad little Epic Great Unclean one for the Corehammer monthly paint competition. Productive month so far!

Gonna need more antibiotics.