The Ruinous Powers – Hedonism

There I was, yesterday, pondering how I had never created a follower of Tzeentch in all my hobby life. And what do you know, today I realise I’ve never done a follower of Slaanesh either.

This particular blunder is quite a bit easier to explain however: First of all, Khorne abhors Slaanesh, so there’s the most basic explanation for you. But it’s also the fact that I could never seem to find an angle about the Slaanesh followers that interested me. All the sexual innuendo (severely pared back in the last decade or so, probably to make the hobby more family friendly) some hobbyists keep making such a fuss about seemed rather trite — but that’s just me: I like my wargaming served without any cheesecake, thank you very much 😉

I also wasn’t all that fond of the horribly loud and clashing pastel colours. But as the legion came to be more and more defined and their pursuit of perfection twisted into hedonism and relentless pursuit of new experiences, I started to get a handle on the Emperor’s Children.

It still took a long time until I finally built my first Slaaneshi model. When I planned the conversion, I once again started to reflect on the different archetypes that were available to me: The classic Noise Marine, fixated on visual and aural stimuli, wielding clunky sonic weaponry and armour painted in hues that will would make you bleed from your ears. The, well, Alien Sex Fiend of ambiguous gender, clad in studded leather and sporting either more or less breasts than would be anatomically sound. Those two concepts did not seem all that compelling to me.  I rather chose to explore the third possible avenue, namely the Emperor’s Childrens’ pursuit of perfection, the original vice that led to their fall. My idea was to build an accomplished warrior, elegant and refined, and so twisted as to appear almost daemonic.

Luckily, I still had a rather eclectic collection of leftover parts. So I got to work and ended up with this:

The model is mainly a combination of the leftover half of the WFB Sorcerer Lord I used to built the champion of Tzeentch, combined with a pair of backwards-jointed legs ending in hooves that came from the plastic Possessed kit.

I added an arm from the regular Chaos Space Marines and another from the WFB Chaos Marauders. I also used a wing from the Sanguinary Guard kit to represent a stylised version of the Emperor’s Children legion badge on the champion’s shoulder. And I thought that for an elegant and distinguished warrior such as this, a half cape across the shoulder was quite appropriate.

As for the weapons, I chose a Plasma pistol (if only because it gave me an excuse to add a small OSL effect) and a wickedly shaped sword (originally a Dark Eldar weapon). Using the WFB sorcerer’s horned heas as well as his torso was a bit of a spontaneous idea, but I think it works.

Even though the post-Heresy Emperors’ Children are usually portrayed wearing armour of pink and black (or, like I said, a combination of all kinds of eye-watering pastel hues, but let’s not go there…), I decided on a different colour scheme: Even though this guy was a twisted monster, I wanted to make him look almost regal, so I chose a deep, luxurious purple for his armour and added gold trim.

I went for very pale skin to contrast the armour and to give an almost marble-like quality to the champion’s flesh. As usual, the application of washes and accents nicely rounded out the paintjob. When it came to the point were I needed to decide what backpack to use, I surprised myself by going for yet another backpack from the Possessed kit, which you’ll see below, along with the finished model:

Regarding the base, I originally wanted to add something pointing to either a defeated servant of Khorne or a loyal Marine. But then I thought about who would have even more reason to hate and fear the Emperor’s Children, and the Dark Eldar came to mind: Surely, the Dark kin would be an object of contempt for the servants of Slaanesh, fearful hypocrites, who hadn’t dared to follow the path of hedonism to its logical conclusion. So I went for a defeated Kabalite warrior, trodden into the mud by the Chaos Marines’ hooves, and built what is maybe my favourite of all the bases I have done to date. Take a look:

I realise that I may have gone a bit overboard with this guy, but after the initial complications in marrying all the seemingly disparate parts, he was just so much fun to build and paint. And should I ever decide to build an Emperor’s Children force (unlikely as that may be), he can definitely serve as their leader: He looks the part!

Captain Gades Elphenor, of the Emperor’s Children Traitor Legion

A dance of death
A line of crimson
The sweet caress of pain
What does it matter
Who lives, who dies?
When all is rapture
And pleasure alike
Show me more!

 

Three down, one to go. You know what’s next…