Asymmetrical Xeno
11-05-2010, 02:51 AM
Hey there people. I decided to make this thread after getting a dozen emails or so about my Enslaver army - from people interested in making ones themselves and asking for tips on how to do them. It seems my evil masterplan to inspire others has worked, and I've already been surpassed by people with FAR more talent and skill at modelling and painting than I have or will likely ever have (awesome!).
So I decided to write about my views on them as species and what kind of army they are in the hopes itll please those who are interested in building an army of them themselves.
To start with, the purpose of the army was to (other than inspire others) show how they could theoretically look if they were an official game faction. The fluff for them I wrote out expanded them into a more traditionalist Lovecraftian race, less dark evil gods with agendas niche - but more the utterly uncaring and cold approach that simply want to protect their otherworldly dimension (The warp).
Army Variants :
I would see there being quite a few army variants of them. As you may of noticed I prefer to call them as a species 'Krell', which is one of the 4 or 5 names given to them in Rogue Trader.
Variant 1 -
One variant would be "pure" Krell (like I did, with the dominators ect). A small to medium number of large models that fill that "ogre kindoms in space" playing niche. A dozen or so highly psychic and tough creatures, led by a Puppeteer. I saw this as being the more generic/common variant.
Variant 2 -
The second variant I imagined would be more a Krell Enslaver force - i.e. a small number of actual Enslaver unit's and a horde of slaves (I envisioned these to look like a cross between Imperial citizens and the Innsmouth inhabitants from HP Lovecraft's "Shadow over innsmouth" story).
Variant 3 -
Another variant would be a little like nidzilla meets armoured company - with a very low number of several massive tentacled constructs, like baneblade or trygon sized cthuloid creatures. The unit I devised for this variant is the Leviathan, a giant floating squid.
The Army List :
Being that I have absolutely no talent when it come's to writing my own rules I had to use counts-as. I personally used an Eldar Jetbike list as it felt the fluffiest with the 3-man squads and since jetbikes fly it makes sense for them as they float. I used other units for the tougher monsters like the enslavers themselves counts-as wraith-lord's and the weaker units like the enslaver-spawn count as Swooping Hawk aspect warriors. I did write out a complete army-list however, which contains units I did not include personally due to said lack of modelling talent, and maybe for those of you interested in making a Krell army, some of these may inspire you ;
HQ :
Krell Puppeteer (The generic HQ, large brain, floating tendrilled body, various lovecraftian wargear i.e. necroncomicon ect)
Krell Enslaver Prime (Basicly allows for pure Enslaver armies)
Nysen Tetheth - Master Of The Unseen Ones
Kurtu Roturlep - Singer Of The Warp Graves
T'yugethemoth - The Outcast Enslaver (basicly,nyarlathotep)
Gurdenyeet - The Controller Of Dreams
Seitic Myaak - Lord Of The Leviathans (would allow for Leviathan armies)
Y'lumtesia - Heart Of The Slaves (Would allow for slave horde armies)
Elites :
Krell Enslavers
Krell Psyrens (Based on the servitors of Azthoth - Their weird music would lure victims towards them to turn insane)
Krell Fissures (masses of warp tentacles and eyes, I was very much envisioning baby versions of Yog Sothoth at the time)
Krell Gugs (2 headed dominators, vicious close-combat jump troops)
Slaves (the basic rabble, very little in the way of physical changes currently)
Mutated Slaves (a higher stage of the generic slaves, more of the "Innsmouth" look!)
Troops :
Krell Dominators
Krell Warp Stalkers (faster, but weaker dominators, with a psychic blast long-range weapon)
Fast Attack :
Krell Enslaver Spawn
Krell Warp Tendrills (flying tentacles with no bodies, I just watched From Beyond - sue me)
Krell Warp Shoggoths (floating shoggoths)
Medusae (from the dark eldar codex, they feel to me like cousins of the Krell, much like you get different types of archnids i.e. spiders and scorpions)
Heavy Support :
Krell Living Warp Portals
Krell Leviathian (giant squid type creatures, the equivilent of monoliths, tanks and trygons ect)
Krell Ancient Enslaver (more similar in look to the artwork from Rogue Trader, but more vicious - they are meant to be very rare survivors from the Enslaver Plague)
Parasite Slave (A slave who's mind is strong enough to resist becoming a full warp portal - instead It's become a vampiric ogre sized abomination that seeks the psychic energy of other psykers to slow down the process of becoming said warp portal)
Modelling :
For one I think the basic forge world tyranid mietic spore sacks are the best to go with. It's almost like they were meant to be Enslavers anyway considering their look and squad-size of three - and considering other people before and after me also used them for Enslavers it seems like the best way to go.
Customising them is up to the individual of course. I've seen some people use chaos and nid bit's to differentiate them and give them character. I personally used green-stuff, with an eyeball on one side of the "brain sack" and 4 tendrills hanging off the bottom of the sack. If you want to go this way I'd recomend not doing what I did with green-stuffing the eyeballs but buying some BB Gun plastic balls instead and sculpting the eye-lids around them. Genestealer tenetacle heads are quite apt, as are some chaos parts like the Spawn kit or old metal Tzeentch Horror arms.
Painting Enslavers, you shouldnt feel limited - the fluff states they can turn their body colour at will so you should paint them the colours you see fit. I went for classic green and red as I felt it was "classically lovecraftian", allthough if i did a second army of them I'd of gone for grey bodies and turquoise eyes ect.
For Psyrens I would recomend RAFM's CoC Servitors of the outer gods ; http://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RAF&Product_Code=RAF02925&Category_Code=COCMM
or alternatively the em4 servitors : http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Horrors.html
For Enslaver Spawn I used Tyranid spore-mines and put eyeballs on them - but I guess it's up to you.
Slaves shouldnt be too difficult, you could use fantasy flaggelants, chaos and tyranid bits ect to customise them.
-----
Anyhow, I'm not sure what else to say other than I hope that is enough inspiration/help to those of you who wanted advice on starting an Enslaver army. I apologise for my lack of grammar too - I havent slept in 48 hours so please forgive me.
So I decided to write about my views on them as species and what kind of army they are in the hopes itll please those who are interested in building an army of them themselves.
To start with, the purpose of the army was to (other than inspire others) show how they could theoretically look if they were an official game faction. The fluff for them I wrote out expanded them into a more traditionalist Lovecraftian race, less dark evil gods with agendas niche - but more the utterly uncaring and cold approach that simply want to protect their otherworldly dimension (The warp).
Army Variants :
I would see there being quite a few army variants of them. As you may of noticed I prefer to call them as a species 'Krell', which is one of the 4 or 5 names given to them in Rogue Trader.
Variant 1 -
One variant would be "pure" Krell (like I did, with the dominators ect). A small to medium number of large models that fill that "ogre kindoms in space" playing niche. A dozen or so highly psychic and tough creatures, led by a Puppeteer. I saw this as being the more generic/common variant.
Variant 2 -
The second variant I imagined would be more a Krell Enslaver force - i.e. a small number of actual Enslaver unit's and a horde of slaves (I envisioned these to look like a cross between Imperial citizens and the Innsmouth inhabitants from HP Lovecraft's "Shadow over innsmouth" story).
Variant 3 -
Another variant would be a little like nidzilla meets armoured company - with a very low number of several massive tentacled constructs, like baneblade or trygon sized cthuloid creatures. The unit I devised for this variant is the Leviathan, a giant floating squid.
The Army List :
Being that I have absolutely no talent when it come's to writing my own rules I had to use counts-as. I personally used an Eldar Jetbike list as it felt the fluffiest with the 3-man squads and since jetbikes fly it makes sense for them as they float. I used other units for the tougher monsters like the enslavers themselves counts-as wraith-lord's and the weaker units like the enslaver-spawn count as Swooping Hawk aspect warriors. I did write out a complete army-list however, which contains units I did not include personally due to said lack of modelling talent, and maybe for those of you interested in making a Krell army, some of these may inspire you ;
HQ :
Krell Puppeteer (The generic HQ, large brain, floating tendrilled body, various lovecraftian wargear i.e. necroncomicon ect)
Krell Enslaver Prime (Basicly allows for pure Enslaver armies)
Nysen Tetheth - Master Of The Unseen Ones
Kurtu Roturlep - Singer Of The Warp Graves
T'yugethemoth - The Outcast Enslaver (basicly,nyarlathotep)
Gurdenyeet - The Controller Of Dreams
Seitic Myaak - Lord Of The Leviathans (would allow for Leviathan armies)
Y'lumtesia - Heart Of The Slaves (Would allow for slave horde armies)
Elites :
Krell Enslavers
Krell Psyrens (Based on the servitors of Azthoth - Their weird music would lure victims towards them to turn insane)
Krell Fissures (masses of warp tentacles and eyes, I was very much envisioning baby versions of Yog Sothoth at the time)
Krell Gugs (2 headed dominators, vicious close-combat jump troops)
Slaves (the basic rabble, very little in the way of physical changes currently)
Mutated Slaves (a higher stage of the generic slaves, more of the "Innsmouth" look!)
Troops :
Krell Dominators
Krell Warp Stalkers (faster, but weaker dominators, with a psychic blast long-range weapon)
Fast Attack :
Krell Enslaver Spawn
Krell Warp Tendrills (flying tentacles with no bodies, I just watched From Beyond - sue me)
Krell Warp Shoggoths (floating shoggoths)
Medusae (from the dark eldar codex, they feel to me like cousins of the Krell, much like you get different types of archnids i.e. spiders and scorpions)
Heavy Support :
Krell Living Warp Portals
Krell Leviathian (giant squid type creatures, the equivilent of monoliths, tanks and trygons ect)
Krell Ancient Enslaver (more similar in look to the artwork from Rogue Trader, but more vicious - they are meant to be very rare survivors from the Enslaver Plague)
Parasite Slave (A slave who's mind is strong enough to resist becoming a full warp portal - instead It's become a vampiric ogre sized abomination that seeks the psychic energy of other psykers to slow down the process of becoming said warp portal)
Modelling :
For one I think the basic forge world tyranid mietic spore sacks are the best to go with. It's almost like they were meant to be Enslavers anyway considering their look and squad-size of three - and considering other people before and after me also used them for Enslavers it seems like the best way to go.
Customising them is up to the individual of course. I've seen some people use chaos and nid bit's to differentiate them and give them character. I personally used green-stuff, with an eyeball on one side of the "brain sack" and 4 tendrills hanging off the bottom of the sack. If you want to go this way I'd recomend not doing what I did with green-stuffing the eyeballs but buying some BB Gun plastic balls instead and sculpting the eye-lids around them. Genestealer tenetacle heads are quite apt, as are some chaos parts like the Spawn kit or old metal Tzeentch Horror arms.
Painting Enslavers, you shouldnt feel limited - the fluff states they can turn their body colour at will so you should paint them the colours you see fit. I went for classic green and red as I felt it was "classically lovecraftian", allthough if i did a second army of them I'd of gone for grey bodies and turquoise eyes ect.
For Psyrens I would recomend RAFM's CoC Servitors of the outer gods ; http://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RAF&Product_Code=RAF02925&Category_Code=COCMM
or alternatively the em4 servitors : http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Horrors.html
For Enslaver Spawn I used Tyranid spore-mines and put eyeballs on them - but I guess it's up to you.
Slaves shouldnt be too difficult, you could use fantasy flaggelants, chaos and tyranid bits ect to customise them.
-----
Anyhow, I'm not sure what else to say other than I hope that is enough inspiration/help to those of you who wanted advice on starting an Enslaver army. I apologise for my lack of grammar too - I havent slept in 48 hours so please forgive me.