Path of Damnation: Thug Life

I've sold my soul to the ruinous powers and am embarking on a quest that will see me achieve apotheosis or consigned to oblivion.

As with so many who.have tried this treacherous path, my journey begins with the humble Chaos Thugs (Marauders), mere pawns of the dark gods seeking their favour through slaughter.

My personal path of damnation will see me building a Chaos army for Warhammer: The Old World using only what I already own. I've no idea whether this will create an effective force, but that's not really the point.

My main aims are threefold:

1. Use the Chaos miniatures I own in a creative way;
2. Try to be a bit more creative with my painting and modelling;
3. Aim to emulate some of the style of the Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned book, which I feel typifies how I see Chaos in Warhammer.

As such, I've decided to use the excellent cover art, painted by Les Edwards, from the Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned book as my main source of inspiration. I've always believed this piece captures the corruption of Chaos and has a colour palette that would be fun to try to match.

This decision also influences which of the great powers I shall be swearing fealty to, at least in the short term. Grandfather Nurgle, the Fly Lord of Pestilence. 

This means there will be lots of greens and browns in the army, and a few splashes of red here and there. It also means I can potentially make heavy use of some technical paints: Nurgle's Rot (obvs), Typhus Corrosion and Blood for the Blood God.

Five of the Chaos Thugs I painted are from the CH6 range released in 1987 and I remember them appearing in the early issues of White Dwarf I bought. Above we have 'Brain Slammer' and the oddly named 'Punter Dunter'.

I had a bit of a battle with the skin of the Thugs. Initially I used a variation of my zombie recipe, but it turned out too green for what I wanted, more like the head on Punter Dunter's belt (I might save that for some more corrupted champions). So I opted to add a thin coat of Kislev Flesh coloured with a coat of Skeleton Horde contrast paint. This has given them an unhealthy yellowish tinge which I like.

'Pin Head's and 'Stabstab' are both a little smaller than the others, which is useful as I'm planning to bring some Chaos Dwarfs into the unit and these two will bridge the gap between the Dwarfs and the larger models.

They also typify some of the quirkiness of the sculpts with 'Pin Head' having shades of Ram Man from He-Man and 'Stabstab' holding improvised weapon (two daggers strapped to a stick) like a bass guitar. For some reason, he reminds me of Dave Hill from Slade.

'Siclesword' (that is the correct spelling) is the only one of the bunch armed with a shield. I'm not going to be uniform about weapons, but instead will equip the unit with whatever loadout is in the majority. At the moment it looks like thiswill be great weapons, which probably means the Thugs will be killed before they get to attack. If it looks like they will be in the minority, I may add shields to some of the others.

Siclesword's hair and armour typifies what seems to be a design aesthetic for Chaos models of this era. All the models in this range have mismatched boots and incomplete armour similar in style to gladiators.

I like this lack of uniformity as that was lost in that later plastic Chaos ranges and really turned me off collecting a force.

The final model in the group is Ironhand the Mighty from the simply titled Heroes for Dungeonquest expansion Dungeonquest board game released in 1987. I have several others from this set which will be finding their way into my army.

He actually is a gladiator and so fits right in with the other Thugs. I think he was meant to be some sort of half-ogre because the dimensions of his head are even more out of proportion than othe miniatures of this time.

To my mind, he's already begun to receive rewards from Nurgle, his blessing marked out by the massive boil on his buttock.

And so my journey down the dark path has begun. 

I feel that I've done a decent job of capturing the aesthetic of the Les Edwards art work, but I'm not totally pleased with the skin and so will try to work on this as I progress. I'm pleased with the basing scheme as it's effective and easy to do.

This chaotic assault on Lead Mountain is part of a two-pronged attack which has seen me selling on a few more miniatures. This time it was some Empire Halflings who's gate was sealed last year when I conscripted my Advanced Heroquest Men-at-Arms into my Bretonnian army rather than start the Imperial force I've always threatened to begin.

Acquired: -29
Painted: 22
Lead Mountain: 608