The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Retinue of Chezatro Bourgeoia

Another month, another RoC warband as rolled on YouTube! This is going to be the final random-rolled warband, from here on in I'll be pointing up from the army list based on models I have to hand. These fine fellows are the retinue of Chezatro, son of Vitolio and brother to Luxetia. Chezatro's merry band are in charge of maintaining the borders of the city state and do so with great vigour, bringing back with them spoils from those they have seen off. In this case they have a few captives in their ranks which they are forcing to do a bit of fighting alongside the state troops.

I have had these RAFM Regiments of Blood miniatures for a while, unsure of what to do with them. I think they're meant to be vampire troops, but I had half an idea of using them as dark elves. I knew I wanted to use the Kaleb Daark model as Chezatro so these skull-armoured dudes with their pointy shoulders made a suitable accompaniment for him. For rules purposes they are Chaos Thugs.

I put my small handful of 'more modern' witch elves into the unit too, figuring their pointy shoulders fitted in fine. These ladies are the handlers of the captive beasts driven to fight in the front rank.

I still need to work on leopard print, not quite there yet.

This is a Krakon Games not-Fimir 'Wanderer' that I have needed to paint up for some time. I decided to go slightly differently skin-toned compared to the rest of my Fimir as he won't be joining them for battle. Slaanesh+Fimir=something very predictable so I decided not to go down that road. Instead I figure this chappie now acts as an advisor to Chezatro, putting his knowledge of terrain to good use in planning ambushes and battles. He may wear chains still but I doubt he's running anywhere, his handler has a grizzly reminder of the last of his kind who refused their hospitality.

The orcs are a little more recalcitrant but their handlers know how to yank their chains. I still have to do the banner on this dude- the remnant of his tribe's banner now daubed with cult victory symbols.

These Ral Partha Europe (ex Heartbreaker?) orcs were really fast to paint. Mostly washes over a zenithal undercoat and inks on silver armour. I should definitely have done my orc army that way, they'd have been so much quicker to finish!

 

And, of course, Chezatro himself. Looking slightly more pink than the model is usually depicted, but with enough black and white to remind him of his heritage.

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Retinue of Chezatro Bourgeoia

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Bald Rick's Boomers

 

Ok everyone, you know how this goes...

"Boom boom boom boom...."

These cannon were the inspiration behind this month's 333(ish, 334 I think I worked out in the end) points. They're (we think) previously unreleased Hinchliffe pieces that Mike received among the moulds he purchased when he took on their fantasy range last year. With all those ornate bands and skulls they had to be chaos cannon, Khorne possibly? Well, I'm doing Slaanesh so that will have to do. There are also a couple of nifty catapults which I'm hoping to ge ttogether as Undead and/or Orc/Goblin war machines.

Of course they would require crew. There is actually a kind of alien lizardman crew with the machines but I wasn't so keen on the gunners as on the guns themselves. And, of course, behind big guns you need short engineers...

You can see just how I rationalised my decision and inserted artillery into a chaos army with no war machines in its list in THIS VIDEO.

Here's the crew of the cannon, mostly White Knight/The Assault Group with a couple of Citadel models. Thanks to Matthew Street who donated most of the figures. I am glad I got these done before he got started on his puff and slash dwarves for the OWAC... they will definitely not be able to compare! :D

The mortars' carriages are from RAFM Crecy guns with the stocks cut, shortened and angled to elevate the barrels. I experimented with using the same wheels as on the large cannon but as the mortars are much smaller this looked a bit odd. I think they're similar enough to work with just keeping the colours consistent. The barrels themselves are the scroll cannisters from Warmachine Menoth preachers with one end chopped off and hollowed out. Again a mix of WK/TAG and Citadel crew thanks to Matthew Street. 

The chief bombardier inspects the holy hand grenade, especially blessed ammunition!

I had originally planned to use the bearers to carry the mortar shells, but the one provided was far too large for these mortars. Instead I used them to give a chief engineer some additional height from which to direct operations. Chief Engineer Bald Rick (who wears a helmet to keep his dome warm, with horns to demonstrate there's nothing wrong with his virility) is cobbled together from a plastic Mantic dwarf, WK/TAG arms and a Citadel Fantasy Regiments head.

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Bald Rick's Boomers

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Retinue of Luxetia Bourgeoia

 

So far so good... managing to keep up the first 3 months of the 333pt 3rd ed challenge!

Following the 3 theme here is the third Realm of Chaos warbands- that of the half-elf sorceress Luxetia Bourgeoia. You can see the live roll HERE.

Luxetia herself is a Foundry Revenant Elf that I picked up at BOYL. I love this range and would have a lot more of them if they weren't, um, rather expensive! Anyhow, she paints up well. This was the mini I didn't want to hack up for last month's random champion since I had an idea how I wanted her to look and chose the model accordingly.

She has a quartet of chaos goblin attendants to look after her various magical accoutrements. These fun fellows are by Aaron Howdle, from his Iron Hammer Miniatures range.

She also has an elite bodyguard of beastmen. For this little unit I picked out all the 'random' animal beastmen in my collection- two pigs, a fox (or more likely intended as a wolf) and a sea horse. The idea being that they are victims of her magical experiments. Were they originally human or originally animal? Only Luxetia (and possibly the unfortunate victim) knows. The fox man is Citadel, the piggy dude on the left is a random Akheton miniature (I think intended as a pig-faced orc?) and the other two are from Knightmare Miniatures' first Pantheon of Chaos KS. I have to say I'm not generally a fan of the range and had difficulty picking figures to fill out my pledge having gone in for the one model based on the Tony Ackland nurgle champion from The Lost And The Damned, but I think these painted up nicely.

Now to the dragon ogres... "Dragon OgreS? I thought there was only one" you cry. Well, yes. I did roll one dragon ogre. But see a couple of years back I was commissioned to sculpt a dragon ogre to complement the Nick Bibby original and provide the other poses seen in the Tony Ackland drawing from the book.

So you see, having had a couple of these sat alongside the Bibby sculpt in my cabinet for some time I couldn't only do one of them could I? They needed to be painted up as a trio. And, of course, it gets me ahead for those months where I struggle to find the time...

Onwards to January!

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Retinue of Luxetia Bourgeoia

The Golden Gobbo painting competition 2021

 After a year off the Golden Gobbo is back!

These are this year's entries, and a cracking bunch they are too. Have a look for yourselves...

Squiggy Stardust

Standin' in the Shadows

Prodsaloatl and his trusty companion of the great coastal city of Saltxoats coastwatch

The Unexpected Morley

Halfling Ranger

Moo

Doomwheel

Heer Toaday

Scrutbag da Bone Wiz

Ruglud's Armoured Mate

The Miniature with No Name

Dew-greuvow

Now go take another look and try and decide which is your favourite. 

Hard isn't it?

Got one?

Remember the name?

Then follow this link and vote away! :)

The Golden Gobbo painting competition 2021