Warhammer Beasts of Chaos: Battlemasters Beastmen Remixed

28mm, Beasts of Chaos, Warhammer Fantasy

I am buoyed up with enthusiasm for my Beasts of Chaos, having recently finished a unit of Minotaur. Focusing on the core trooper it is high time to tackle some Beastmen Gors. I wanted to feature the Battlemasters Beastman model in this army a lot as I have a soft spot for monopose plastic units. I already had started a unit of them with the shields, but I didn’t want to have another one the same.

Solution, scan the old one to an STL and then make my own double axe armed version of the Battlemasters classic. I chopped in half and mirrored the sculpt.

I could have removed one of the daggers, but honestly I preferred the crazy festooned with weapons look. No point in half measures for these guys.

I gave the scan a bit of post processing (Autodesk Meshmixer) to remove the nasty flash lines of the original plastic model and to sharpen the details a bit more and deal with any issues from the scan.

I converted a standard bearer using spare parts from the old plastic Marauders set – a goblin spear arm was used for the banner pole. Some old Chaos Undivided transfers finish it off nicely to give it visual pop as the focal point of the unit. The musician is myfavourite Talisman mini, the Satyr. The last thing the unit needed was a champion with some charisma. I went with this classic Slanneshi champion as my Beasts of Chaos are an Equally Undivided Opportunity Employer.

Now with those Minotaur and these Beastmen, it’s a decent start, but no army yet. We must continue to grow the horde!

Until next time…

Warhammer Beasts of Chaos: Minotaurs

Beasts of Chaos, Warhammer Fantasy

Monstrous denizens of the deep forests of the Old World. Madmen who long ago greedily feasted on human flesh…mercenaries, cutthroats and pit fighters some still bearing some trappings of their former lives. Promises of power twisted by the darkly wicked whims of mercurial gods.

Unit of Minotaurs surge past an ungor scout
Minotaurs surge past an ungor scout.

I have always had a soft spot for classic Citadel Minotaurs. Being a classic mythological creature it’s well at home in the Warhammer World. I love the sculpted variety of body proportions and exotic selection of gear on these old lead beauties. They can have random mutations and are characterful and animated. They are also large relative to other big guys contemporarily produced by Citadel. This unit contains some of these guys converted (http://www.solegends.com/citc/c034minotaurlords/index.htm). I don’t mind the size disparity at all.

I added a crab claw from the Citadel Giant Scorpion model to the largest Minotaur Lord model who was missing a hand. I feel that it gives him something of the wild Tony Ackland “Realms of Chaos” artwork vibe.

Minotaur Lord
Minotaur Lord
Minotaur Lord

There is a Grenadier Barbarian giant (a wee one) in there, which I have head swapped with a suitably bovine head. The head from that wee Grenadier giant has been swapped to a standard sized citadel minotaur body. The long horns are sculpted on to his head to hold an icon of chaos taken from the old plastic Chaos Marauders set from Citadel.

The minotaur with the spiked club has had legs swapped out and weapon swapped out.

Minotaur Lords without movement tray

They have been based on a hand made movement tray to make them suitable for modern Warhammer. I prefer to keep the models on round bases as I may wish to use them in other not square base systems. Movement trays should be disguised or integrated into the army or table ideally. Nothing ruins a nicely painted army quite like a bunch of generic grey movement trays which look as attractive as unpainted cardboard from breakfast serial. Hand made trays are rare now as I tend to 3D print the trays in resin now.

Minotaur Command
Minotaur Command Rear

The unit includes the full command options of champion, musician and icon bearer in 2 ranks. I don’t really have any idea how effective they are or are not on the battlefield, that’s not important though as we are going for form over function. They look cool in a big unit with a command so that is what we do. I enjoyed painting them and would happily add a couple of more conversions to this unit.

Minotaur command without movement tray

I am happy to add this table ready unit to the core force, an intimidating squad of big guys ready to face all who would dare stand against me! A decent hobby start for 2026! I will focus on taking some more half done Beasts of Chaos units over the finish line and get myself a battle ready force for modern Warhammer: The Old World.

Slann Eagle Warriors

28mm, Fantasy, Slann, Warhammer Fantasy

I am happy to have revisited the old Slann Eagle Warriors unit. More models to bring it up to the full 20 and the addition of a converted banner – with fire breathing eagle head to represent a magical standard…of fireball.

Warhammer Armies 3rd Edition army list entry for Eagle Warriors.
I ended up going with mixed base types. They all can live in harmony on the movement tray in my world.

It is great to get this unit finished to a good standard and seeing them done gives me enthusiasm to begin work on some more of the classic Slann models in my collection.

Bizaza Space Frogs from Katsina Miniatures

28mm, Bizaza, Frog Men, Frog People, Sculpting, Space Slann, Warhammer 40K
Bizaza Space Frogs

These guys are our first foray into the more technically advanced frog people. We have a Kickstarter running at the moment if you are interested in owning a set in 28mm or 54mm.

Of the set, three are sculpted by Doti (Space Frogmy, sword guy and banner guy) and the other two are my own sculpts. They have all been hand sculpted initially, then I scanned them using my OpenScan Mini, after which the resulting mesh gets post processed until we are happy with the result.

These are a characterful bunch but I feel like I would like to add some more generic looking troopers to this range when I get around to sculpting them some buddies.

Katsina Miniatures Crystal Spider Swarms

28mm, Bizaza, Creatures, Fantasy, Lizardmen, Slann, Uncategorized, Warhammer Fantasy

Working on my TOW Lizardmen army recently I went all in for some Spider Swarms using our very own spider models. They were sculpted by Doti and they are available here if you are interested in purchasing a swarm.

I wanted to have lots of bases of swarm but have a colour scheme to allow me to split them into units and so painted the legs in 4 different colours.

These spiders are Crystal Spiders and bear the crystal control implants to allow their Bizaza masters to direct them in battle and generally stop them from eating each other.

They were quick to paint up and should provide me with some interesting skirmish troops for Warhammer TOW as well as being useful for any future swarm or insects needs.

Cockatrice / Basilisk

28mm, Beasts of Chaos, Creatures, Fantasy, Warhammer Fantasy

Known as cockatrice or basilisk depending on the origins, this one was sculpted by Aly Morrison for Citadel.

The model I had was damaged, chopped in places and missing a foot so I did a bit of conversion work to fix the deficiencies.

Being made of soft old lead the design is very ambitious that it will stay together so I have mounted it on a wire frame disguised in the perch.

I painted it generically snake-reptilian-chicken so it’s clear what the model is supposed to represent on the tabletop. I chose very bright cheerfully lurid colours to better see it on the tabletop where it will be part of my growing Beasts of Chaos army.

Warhammer Beasts of Chaos: Ungor Skirmishers

28mm, Beasts of Chaos

The new edition Warhammer TOW (The Old World) has rekindled a bit of interest in painting some more fantasy. Riding that zeitgeist I have come back to the Beasts of Chaos to try to paint enough to play some games this year.

I have kitbashed some MB Battlemasters beastmen with classic plastic Games Workshop Chaos Marauders to create some overcompensating Ungor.

They are painted using contrast paints with some quick highlights on the reds and the areas of skin where it looked a bit patchy.

They were quick and fun to make and paint and they are bound to elicit some giggles during games. They will certainly round out the army as they are some of the few options with some ranged attacks and should make for fun skirmishing troops. I am looking forward to their first outing!

The keen eyed will have noticed that there is no musician in the unit at the moment however I have one of these guys lined up for that duty….

Attilan Rough Rider

28mm, Humans, Warhammer 40K

Traditional rough rider units ride the Terran horse. That is fine and everything but what about sticking them on some traditional space lizards instead. To that end we have our Attilan who has swapped the horse out for something a little more scaly.

The riding lizard is from a Lizardman Saurus cavalry unit. I converted the neck so that I could drop the head down to get it in line with the tail level to give is a closer to the ground feel while I was adding pouches to disguise the original harness on the neck. I added some chains from the GW Flagellents unit as suitably strong reigns for this beast.

The colours are a variation on the standard colour scheme for my Cityfight Imperial Guard force – greys and browns, red, blue and yellow. I added some grenades and skulls and various bits to the base to decorate.

In order to really get the opportunity to get this guy onto the games table I will need to paint up his 4 other buddies to create the full squad of 5. They will be a useful addition to the Imperial Guard force providing me with some fast hard hitters for army sized games such as Xenos Rampant or 40k.

Epic 40,000: Ork Mega Gargant

Uncategorized

An Ork Mega Gargant conversion for you this time. The stock model for this one is a bit funny looking so I gave it a decent bit of conversion work with the putty to get it looking a bit more like the old Kev Adams Gargant sculpts.

I replaced the weedy arm gun with a gatling gun as big as other races titans and stuck the mortar in the belly to give it some more dakka where it counts. This thing has a very large number of weapon systems which all aim forwards.

Painting was mostly contrast paint over the silver base colour. I used oil washes to shade.

I have added a number of epic orks to the base to communicate the scale of the model.

WIP of Mega Gargant Conversion

This model is intended to be the centerpiece for my Epic 40k Ork force.

Hardened Veterans – The Concrete Jungle Fighters

28mm, Humans, Warhammer 40K
The Concrete Jungle Fighters

Some reinforcements for the Imperial Forces, The Concrete Jungle Fighters are hardened veterans of the Imperial Guard. Each one is a survivor of countless skirmishes having honed their craft to a razors edge. They are a concentration of roided-up gung-ho superheroes who are equipped with serious firepower in the form of bolters, personal side arms, a grenade launcher and a heavy bolter. If they can’t rip it apart with their bare hands, they also carry grenades and close combat weapons for close encounters.

They have been created by combining the old RT Imperial Guard plastic head with slightly less old plastic Catachan and Cadian Guardsmen.

Catachan Jungle Fighters – plastic models

The Catachan plastics are action figure like unless you do a bit of work on the shoulder joins with green stuff before painting.

I only used one of the original heads for the Sargent, opting for classic plastic heads and a Space Wolf Blood Claw for one guy.

Some official Catchan uniform patterns from Games Workshop

Nearly every Catachan mini you will see painted, is painted some shade of green. Rather than do that, I quite liked the blue version so based these off the blue scheme tailored for urban combat, but rather than going with the red bandanas, I choose yellow.

They have been painted with a fairly quick approach and then enhanced with some decals. I have used contrast paint to glaze the skin tones onto the base, on the black, on the camo pants, on the leather bits. I could spend some more time on the details and effects it’s time to stop as I am happy with the look for the effort that went into painting them, they are ready for some gaming now and I have a lot more Imperial Guard that I want to get painted up to a similar standard.

Going forward I have some of the nice old metal Catachan models that will be perfect as support to accompany these glorious heroes on the future battlefields. Certainly specialists, snipers, heavy weapons support, more regulars etc. would not go amiss.