Beastmasters Part 1!

I have slowly been picking away at my 1850pts force and this week it is all about working on the first half of my Beastmaster pack which consists of 10 Khymera and 2 Beastmasters.

I had been waiting a while to see the new models that GW would be putting out for the warp beasts (as they were one of my fav units in the old dex). I was really happy when I saw the model itself...then I scrolled down to the price and that is when I decided there was NO WAY I was paying $17 PER MODEL for a 12pt model. I was figuring they would be in a box like the Mandrakes or Incubi coming in around $7 each. With that in mind I set out trying to find something I could use as a replacement model for the Khymera. Then I remembered the old Chaos Hounds I used for my first go through with the Dark Eldar - you can see them here:



I have always liked these models and I had 5 of them so I did some fancy trading and managed to pick up another 5 more. The other thing I noticed was the Beastmaster models themselves (metal flying stand models...ugh) were also $18 per model which made no sense to me since I could just pick up a box of 5 Hellions for $7 more and be done with it. The other great thing about this is that I get my 4 Beastmasters is I would have an extra one to convert into my Baron Sarthonyx to lead my Hellions (he is finished, will post him at some point). The only two things I bought that were actually NEW were 2 blisters of Razorwings and a Clawed Fiend since I just loved the way the model looked.

My final squad will be made up of:

- 4 Beastmasters (all converted from hellions) - $24
- 10 Khymera (all older metal chaos hounds) - $0
- 2 Razorwings - $29
- 1 Clawed Fiend - $26

The whole unit comes to 238 points, it has 4 different wound groups that have 28 wounds in total which is freaking amazing. Best part is the whole huge unit only cost me around $80. So, without further adieu here are some pics of how the unit is looking so far:











I repainted the Khymera to resemble the current warp beasts a bit more. So I added muscle texture to their skin and wanted to make it look like bones were poking out here and there. I went really extreme on the highlights (almost to white for all the colours) as I really wanted them to "pop" and make them look somewhat un-natural. For the Beastmasters I wanted to make them look very different then the Hellions from a colour scheme point of view. I changed up their skyboards to red and changed a lot of the black leather over to a standard brown leather. I am also going to add some Hawk Turquoise design work on the boards them selves to help tie everything in together (so they will look like a reverse version of the standard Hellions). After painting the Beastmasters I gotta say I just can't wait to paint the Hellions. Such fun models to do up and they look just fantastic when set up on the table top.

Next Up: Finishing off my last warriors and my 3rd venom. I also am hoping to have a battle report and a "WIP" group shot of the army as it currently stands sometime this week.