Tuesday, February 12, 2013

I made something actually good!

I finally made the one model I needed to make my Word Bearers scary.  It wasn't that I didn't own the thing, it was just a matter of finding the time to do it.  And I did.  I actually built this model last week as the final act before returning to work.  And it made my week.

What is this model?  Well, what is the single model all Word Bearers should have besides the Dark Apostle?  The answer?  An even more badass Dark Apostle!  "But, Jay..."  I hear you saying, "how do you made a Dark Apostle more badass?"  Hmmmm, that's a great question if you've never played Chaos before.  What do the Chaos gods do to make any worshiper more awesome?  They turn them into Daemon Princes!

Yes, I already have a Daemon Prince.  But that one is rocking the sword and is obviously a very normal Warlord-turned-Daemon, and that just will not do for my evil Chaplain.  I picked up a plastic Daemon Prince model a couple of months ago and let it sit on my shelf, not thinking that it would matter anytime soon.  But I've been losing alot of games lately and I figured it was about time I started focusing on 'upgrading' my collection.  I've added a ton of Cultists, I've bought a Heldrake, I've recently built a new Destructor, but I still felt that I was missing something.  Then I remembered the Daemon Prince model...

I made sure that this one had three big things:  the first is obviously Power Armor.  40k is too full of bullets to not take that.  The second is Wings.  After all, the ability to get up close to the thing you want to hit is rather important.  Plus, Flying Monstrous Creatures are pretty beast in 40k right now.  Finally, the third thing is the most important of them all- the Black Mace!

The Black Mace is 45 points of 'awesome' in the hands of a monster.  It's the same strength as the wielder and AP 4, which means that putting this weapon on the normal Chaos Marine of any type just seems like alot of points without a lot of gain.  But in the hands of a Strength 6, AP 2 monster, this weapon really becomes valuable.  Add to that the 'Daemon Weapon' rule (+2-6 attacks, usually) and the 'Cursed' rule (AoE T tests or death vs. the enemy), and this is a cocktail of amazing!  Plus, it's a Daemon Prince with a Crozius, making him the perfect stand-in for an 'elevated' Dark Apostle.

Do I believe that this model is going to win me more games?  Maybe, but I'm certainly going to have more fun bashing in faces.  Any Chaos Marine player I know insists that this model is almost a 'must-have', but I've put it off.  I finally added it, and I'm happy.



By the way, for those of you wondering how I made the mace- I took the Daemon Prince's axe, hacked the blade and spike off, and added the three Chaos star-halves.  Those 'stars' are from the banner-tops found in the Chaos Space Marine box set, and I just happened to have three extras.  Simply cut the 'teeth' from the bottom, shave the area flat, cut and shape the axe-head area to being however many sides you need, and then glue the 'stars' to each side!  It was simple and took me about ten minutes (6 of which were ripping through my bitz box looking for anything I could use).  If this doesn't make sense, I apologize.  But I guarantee it was very easy to do.  

I hope you enjoy this model as much as I do.  As always-  Happy Hobbying!