Haven't had much to do with Fantasy for a while (low motivation/been distracted by other things mainly), but after reading the Dreadfleet novella recently, I've been inspired to get back into Fantasy and finally get arround to doing a full army. In the novella, it's revealed that the Golden Magus (the captain of the Araby ship in the Dreadfleet game) is in fact a Tzeentchian sorcerer, and as such, I quite fancy doing a Chaos army themed arround the Magus.


I plan on using the WoC book and a liberal ammount of 'counts as' to build the army (of course this will take some time due to cost/limited time and energy to work on it/etc).


First up, for the Golden Magus himself, I was thinking of a Sorcerer Lord on disk. Originally I was thinking of something like a carpet for the disk, but as there's a magic carpet magic item in the main rulebook and that doesn't explain the disk's flaming attacks, I've decided that the disk would be represented by a fire elemental. I'm not sure what to use for the elemental, but for the Magus, I was thinking of this

Having the word 'gold' in the Magus' title has given me an idea for other characters to have in the army. The first is have one called 'The Silver Sabre' who would be a combat hero and the second would be called 'The Bronze Wand' and would be a regular Sorcerer in gaming terms. The idea being that the Silver Sabre is the leader of an elite bodygaurd/mercenary/cult group (more on this later), and the Bronze Wand is the Magus' aprentice.

Also, to further the theme of the Magus' use of elemental type creatures, I was thinking of using the rules for Kholek and converting a Balrog mini to be a 'Tempest Djinn'. The idea of using Kholek being that his immunity to lightening based attacks being because he's a lightening elemental creature, and Kholek's lightening shooting attack representing that because it's a lightening elemental, the Tempest Djinn could throw lightening bolts arround.

A final hero, inspired by the idea of Arabay mercenaries and inspired by the character Strong Belwas from aSoIaF, would use the Wulfric rules and fluffwise would be a bodyguard/mercenary type character. I'm thinking of naming him something like 'The Free Eunuch' (although this isn't definate yet - I think he could do with a better name, though I'm not sure what atm), and I was thinking of using one of these for him.


The Core of the army would a unit of Marauderers, using these and these painted up in a blue and yellow paint scheme representing Araby troops, either mercenaries, or perhaps the standing army of El Khabbath (the city from which the Golden Magus was recruited from in Dreadfleet, which I'm assuming is the Magus' 'home' port). The working name I've given them is 'the Silken Guard'

In extention, I was also thinking of a unit or two of camel riders (working name 'The Satin Lances'), using the Marauder horsemen rules. Miniature wise I was thinking of these, but they're not perfect, so I may have to look elsewhere. Fluffwise, I'm thinking they could either be a mounted extension of the Silken Guard or be another regional troop under the pay of the Magus.

The Core units would be rounded off with a unit of 'Lesser Fire Efreets' (ruleswise Chaos Warriors with the magic standard that grants flaming attacks). Modelwise I'm thinking of converting bloodletters and/or horrors to represent them. Fluffwise, as the Magus has a variety of elementals of various power levels at his disposal, I think it'd be fitting that he'd employ a group of weaker ones as a single unit to support his paid for troops in battle.


For Special units I plan on a unit of Chosen who will be lead by the aforementioned Silver Sabre and who will go by the name of 'The Soulless Ones'. Haven't decided on what minis to use for them, but the look I'm planning on is something similar to the Imortals from 300.

The second Special unit in the army will be a unit of Ogres, converted to look like the Araby Maneater mini. An group of Ogre bodyguards is mention in both the Dreadfleet rulebook and the novella, so having a unit of them in the army just seems fluffy.

As another elemental choice, I'm thining of using the troll profile for 'eath elementals'. The idea being that the regeneration represents that when wounded, they'd just draw strength from the ground beneath their feet and the fact that fire inhibits the regen is because it makes the rock in their bodies molten/turns the sand in their bodies to glass/dries out the mud and earth in their bodies which then cracks/etc. Again, fluffwise their inclusion in the army represents the Magus calling on his elemental slaves to aid in battle.

Rounding of the Special section of the army is a unit of Forsaken. The idea behind this unit is a bit far out, but I personally like the idea. In the novella it's mentioned that the Magus is fond of his hareem, and the rulebook states that he keeps a hareem on his ship, so I thought 'what if these weren't just regular women in his hareem, but rather some sort of daemonically enhanced hareem?' I'm thinking of something like the Possesed in 40k, and to represent them I initially thought of the previous edition of daemonettes (who are far superior minis to the current plastics in my opinion - far more graceful, beatiful and deadly looking if you ask me), but as they're hard to get for reasonable prices, I've decided to look elsewhere. Due to a lack of nice looking female minis (at least rom what I'm aware of), these are going to have to come from a variety of sources:
first up Gamezone's Harpy hero which I think could make a good centre piece for the unit, especially if I use multi-basing.
an obvious second choice is Gamezone's other harpies (link and link) with the wings removed.
It doesn't quite work because of the robe, but Gamezone's Dark Elf Sorceress looks like she could fit in.
speaking of Dark Elf Sorceresses, AoW's also fits the bill
A Malifaux Doppleganger looks like it'd make for a nice transitory hareem girl (sort of like she between hareem girl mode and daemon girl mode)
the final female figure I've found which could fit is the Malifaux Lilitu mini
Now at this stage I was runnign short of ideas for minis to fill out the hareem when I spotted this and thought 'why does the hareem have to be exclusively female?' Depending on the Magus' tastes, the hareem could also include men in the same role as the females, or alternatively include eunuchs as a sort of hareem guard (not the the girls would need it with my fluff idea, but it helps to play up pretences). With that in mind, I've also thought that using Warlord Games' Celtic fanatics with head and arm swaps (thinking possibly Kroot heads and genestealer arms would be apropriate) would work.


Finally, to round off the army is the Rare section. Firstly for this I plan on having 'Chaos Elementals' (spawn rules). Not sure what minis to use, but the idea behind them is that they're a fusion of other elements into a single elemental.

The second part of this section is two warshrines. I'm not entirely sure what I'll use for these, but the ideas I've got at the moment are 1) a rack/table/etc with a stack of djinn lamps and bottles, 2) a statue of a djinn (a la the flaming scimitar's figurehead), possibly mounted on a chariot or similar device, and 3) four statues back to back (again possibly mounted on chariot/similar), each one reresenting an elemental of each of the four classical elements.


Well, that's it for now; I'll update this thread with fluff details as I get ideas. If anyone has comments or ideas, feel free to pitch in