# Venom Guard - Chaos Space Marines



## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

**Pictures completely updated**

After having gotten interested in 40K about 2 1/2 years back, I started collecting a CSM army (blame the HH series for the inspiration).

Anyways, I still have quite a few left to paint, but finally the vast majority of it is completed. I'm fairly pleased with how it's turned out, as these are my first miniatures/painting of any sort and, while I am by no means an expert, it still looks fairly good when compared to most of the other armies I've faced.

Background fluff for this army can be found here for those so inclined.

A HUGE thanks to LTP and her tutorial on how to use PhotoScape, the first batches of pictures looked like rancid anus, but now they're much more presentable.

*The Wrathful* - Lord of the Venom Guard

















*The Champion*









*Grathagullok* - Defiler









*Squad Bravvick* - Berserkers

















*Squad Paelleoth* - Berserkers

















*Squad Finarius* - Chaos Space Marines

















*Squad Pegerian* - Chaos Space Marines

















*Squad Phagram* - Plague Marines

















*Squad Zecharias* - Raptors

















*Squad Anderan* - Raptors

















*Cult of Heziriah* - Obliterators









*Vindicator and Rhinos*








(Note: the random Black Legion rhino was the first I painted back in '08, and it took me so goddamn long that when I switched from the Black Legion to my own custom army I didn't want to strip it... so it remains)


As a colour-blind person, I'm fairly happy with how everything has turned out. As a non-colourblind reader, hopefully you will be too.

The general paint scheme has been:
Lower legs - Scorpion Green
Upper legs/chest/arms/helm - Goblin Green (or dependent upon Chaos God, i.e. red for berserkers)
Trim - Tin Bitz
Other highlights done in either mithril silver, boltgun metal, etc.
The very liberal application of Devlan Mud in most cases, and Badab Black in limited, gives the dirty-appearance to the armour.

The one thing I'm not happy with after finishing the last 3 plague marines a year after the others is the flesh tones on the green-stuff. I'll have to probably repaint these to give them a better look.

Things left to paint:
11x Terminators (I've had these forever, am finishing simply out of principal)
1x Land Raider (same as the termies)
9x Thousand Sons
8x Noise Marines (had to custom-build the sonic blasters - so stupid the box only comes with one)
1x Dreadnought
1x Rhino
1x Defiler


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## shaantitus (Aug 3, 2009)

Nice work BOC. It is nice to get a painted army on the table. Makes all the work worth it. There is a short plaguemarine in the 6 th photo second from the right on the bottom. Is he crouching or is he more of a slug. I would like to see more. I know what you mean about the odd rhino. I have a couple of squads of word bearers in my black legion and they are going to stay that way. Most repworthy.


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## Sgt Pasanius (Jul 24, 2008)

Looking good so far, need to see more.
My only critsism is that i'm not sure about the two different greens.
I can't wait till ive got a painted and playable force again.


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## Al3X (Nov 7, 2010)

Nice work, I really like the Defiler.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Marines (Anything that wears space marine style power armor) are too bright, and need more shading try using a diluted delvian mud wash to give them more depth in shading like your raptors. (May just be the camera flash though.)


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Shaantitus: The short plague marine has a tentacle instead of legs. At the time, I had run out of legs for converting plague marines, and I was feeling cheap so I opted for green stuff instead. I'll take more pictures today of the completed models and try to get some better lighting so that it looks less like rancid shit.

SGT Pasanius: I definitely see your point on the two greens. Something that I think may have affected about half of the models is the base that I used. I coated many with Chaos Black spray paint, and others I misunderstood the purpose of the foundation paints so they are Charadon Granite colour underneath. The greens (especially the Scorpion on the Berserkers) came out incredibly bright with the Granite instead of the Black. I've made sure to stick to the black since then, and hopefully when I get the pictures of the Noise Marines up it'll show an improvement.

Al3x: Thankya, glad you liked him  I can't lie, painting that Defiler was the single, most unpleasant 40K experience I've ever had. I don't know what, but it was just miserable. And, since I'm stupid, I picked up another Defiler last week, so I'll be posting the complete WIP pictures of it as I progress.

Luke: Which marines? I agree the Plagues are too bright, but most of the others have been muddied down significantly already


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

*Work in Progress*

I just purchased and based this Defiler last week.

Having learned my lesson with Grathagullok (namely gluing it into a static pose, then going back afterwards and magnetizing it), I magnetized the top and bottom halves of the model before fully assembling.

*Vagamemnon*









For the bottom half, I glued the magnet into place inside of the little nub that projects up from the legs, where the top half of the defiler sits. Since the piece was two halves that had to be glued together, I just slid the magnet it, making sure I kept in mind which side was which (for the top half) and glued the pieces together before mounting it onto Vagamemnon.










And the assembled (albeit not incredibly sturdy) defiler:


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Okay, all the pictures from the first post have been updated, big thanks to LTP for the "How-To-Not-Suck-With-Pictures" advice.

I'll get some WIP pics of the Noise Marines tomorrow, possibly even finished products.


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## LTP (Apr 15, 2009)

Heya Boc. No problem with the help . 

Theses are looking well funky, I like them lot even if they are chaos..... lalala

Nah seriously though looking great and that green is awesome as it makes them stand out which is important. 

Keep up the good work 

LTP


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## Al3X (Nov 7, 2010)

I'll give you my opinion when you paint the new Defiler but I'm sure it will be really cool. I've seen the new photos and the comander is also really nice.


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## Dusty's Corner (Aug 25, 2008)

Nice stuff Boc. The way you modelled them is cool, nice bases etc and the paint is very cool too - suits them well. Perhaps paint the sand on some of the bases instead of leaving them as the natural sand look.
Have a rep bump for displaying a heck of models


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Thanks all for the feedback :victory:

I finished up the Noise Marines tonight as well as four straggler regular CSMs, right now waiting on the washes to dry before I can finish basing them.

Speaking of bases, Dusty when you say to paint the sand, you mean with a greyscale stone colour? If so, I'll give it a shot with one of my unused CSMs to see how it looks, hopefully post tomorrow or Thursday.


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## Dusty's Corner (Aug 25, 2008)

greystone or other colour, eitherway paint them. It'll also help seal the sand on the surface of the base. 
You could do:
Undercoat - Black
Drybrush - Scorched Brown
Drybrush - Shadow Grey
Drybrush- Codex Grey, then Fortress
Hightlight with - White
And throw some washes in there.

Hope it helps,
-Dusty


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Okay, finished off the last batch of my tactical CSMs, mainly stragglers that I haven't had a need for so I just hadn't completed yet.

*Squad Arko*

















Next come the Noise Marines. Since I had bought the box not really realizing that, hey, there is only 1 sonic blaster in here! I made all of them from scratch using rationale borrowed from the final scenes of Fulgrim. If, for the most part, many of the Noise Marines' weapons had originated from variations of musical instruments, then they would have many different forms.

For these, I used combinations of Eldar weapons and CSM weapons, cut/green stuffed/glued in whichever way I could imagine (again, definitely not as adept with the green stuff as, say, Svartmetall).

The paint scheme was varied a bit as well, changing up the chest and the heads for most of the models. I used Liche Purple for the bottom layer of the paint, then a thin layer of Warlock Purple on top of that to smoothly layer it up. On the top, I used Rotting Flesh and tried to smooth all three colours into each other, which worked better on some than on others.

*Squad Eudeves* - Noise Marines


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## Azwraith (Apr 23, 2009)

boc,

i really really like these CSM i think they are cool i like how you have red/green colour scheme and the oversized horns on the raptors are just epic man i love them

also gotta say love the oblits and oversized weapons two thumbs up from me


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

@ Azraith: Glad you are a fan of the oversized weapons... because here comes more!

After looking into the Apocalypse: Reload rule book and seeing the data sheet for Lords of Chaos, I thought to myself, "Hrm, I don't have anyone that could be Nurgle/Tzeentch/Slaaneshi Lords. Shit, I don't even have Abaddon."

So I put down the Reload book, picked up Abaddon, went home and immediately mocked up the rest of my Chaos Lords from what I had sitting around.










Missing is, of course, the Champion of Khorne, who is already painted up as The Champion of the Venom Guard.

Nurgle: I've had a giant talon from I think an old Carnifex (definitely something Tyranid) lying around for about a year and a half, part of a crack deal that got me a dreadnought that I've never used. I cut off the talon from the arm and GSd it to the top of the handle from a Black Ork Champion blister, which is where the right hand came from as well. I had to saw off the left hand so that I could properly angle it towards the rest of the now-scythe, and then GS'd part of a termie power-maul on the bottom for shits-n-giggles. The middle of the staff of the scythe came from a thin brass bar I'd bought a while back, cut down to size. With leftover GS I sculpted in some diseased/fungus areas.

Tzeentch: This one is fairly straightforward, as I had bought the Terminator Champion box a while back (The Wrathful) and had the sorcerer's portions left over. The only real customization here was the GS tendril leading up and down the force staff.

Slaanesh: I decided to pair my Slaaneshi champion with the Khorne champ in size. In actuality... I ran out of terminator parts to use, and I was making these models more for amusement than actual play. The GS around his neck is a fur, it should come out fairly well when painted (*crosses fingers). Although it's not very visible from this angle, the left arm is a bare arm from one of the cheap-o Orc boxes you can get, GSd into a mutation-attachment to the Mark of Slaanesh from the tactical boxes.

Abaddon: He's... just... well... Abaddon. That's about it.

The only problem for me as a fluff-nerd, is now I'll have to work them into the fluff side of the Venom Guard, though I've already got some ideas in motion that will luckily not alter the current storylines.

*Squad Phaecias* - Thousand Sons









The latest and last of my actual squads to paint... except for the Serpentis Terminators, who I am procrastinating on purpose. I haven't quite figured out the paint scheme for these, yet, but I'll hopefully get something figured out while on vacation.

Thanks again for reading, any CC/recommendations for paint schemes/whatever is always appreciated.

Cheers :victory:
-Boc


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Since you have a wide mix of CSM, I would firstly go with Chaos Undivided for the Gods youre following. They could be highly influenced by the Word Bearers perhaps.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Well, I have finished vacation and should be updating this again in the next day or so. Currently I'm assembly-lining all of the remaining terminators, 1k sons, and the more regular details of the lords.

However, my completely unpainted BA army will finally be unloaded from the storage conex tomorrow for the Army Challenge, so my efforts will be a bit split. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Okay, managed to finish up my model of Abaddon as well as four of the termies that I'll be needing for a game later today (I hate playing with unpainted models).

I used the same paintscheme as used for the rest of the army:
Greaves: Scorpion Green
Thighs/Chest/Helm: Goblin Green
Trim: Tin Bitz
Weapons: Tin Bitz, Boltgun Metal, Burnished Gold, Mithril Silver (chainblade teeth)
The only real addition was Bestial Brown to colour the back armour of the terminators, as I was not a big fan of how the Desert Yellow had worked out before with The Wrathful. I was going to try it with the Tin Bitz but thought that it would make the back's ventilation grills and the area surrounding too bland.

Team Venenifer (with as-yet Unnamed Chaos Lord)









Now, I was pretty happy with the way that Abaddon turned out, especially some lightning detailing I free-handed on the Talon of Horus (and I suck at free-handing). This was basically just a layering up of greens to keep with the overall theme of the army, the base of the lightning is Goblin Green, with Scorpion Green highlights.









As always, C&C is welcome!


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## Flerden (Aug 17, 2008)

I really like the paint scheme, and the Terminators. The effects on Abaddon's claws are really nice. And I dig the idea of using a Chaos lord with jump pack in a unit of raptors.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

The Chaos Lord I haven't used in a while, as I have switched to using them as tank runters instead of MoK CC specialists. The only problem I ran into with the lord was that the rest of the squad would be hiding out of LOS and the lord would not and the squad would get lit up by enemy fire because of him haha


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## Jae Namkyoung (Sep 6, 2010)

I love their color and organization, great work bro.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Okay, I haven't done a whole lot with the Venom Guard since the new year, since I've been focusing on the Angels of Fire.

However, since I had the Apocalypse game on Saturday, I needed to put together another 6 Obliterators for the Cult of Destruction formation.

The Green Stuff is fairly shoddy, but I did the conversions in relatively the same over-the-top-attach-whatever-I-can methodology with the other 6 members of the Cult of Hezeriah.










While these Oblits are far from my best, I am making some progress on the Thousand Sons squad, and am actually focusing on painting as opposed to just focusing on finishing them before the game starts.


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Boc said:


> Okay, I haven't done a whole lot with the Venom Guard since the new year, since I've been focusing on the Angels of Fire.
> 
> However, since I had the Apocalypse game on Saturday, I needed to put together another 6 Obliterators for the Cult of Destruction formation.
> 
> ...


Some close up on those would be nice to see!


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

I'll get some close ups of them tomorrow (I hope!) It depends on when I'm actually home and it's sunny outside, otherwise the lights in my house make it a bit too dim for quality photos of minis.

In the meantime, though, as I'm on 24-hour duty, I've put my time to good use, and finally finished painting Squad Phaecias.

Unfortunately, I had to use the camera on my phone, and tried doing the level/contrast on Photobucket, so the pictures aren't quite as good as they should be. Phaecias himself (the aspiring sorcerer) I finished yesterday, but he's sadly at the house, but I'll get him posted up tomorrow once I finish basing the squad.

Squad Phaecias:


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

It has been a busy day indeed...

A couple of weeks back, I was perusing aimlessly through my FLGS, and I saw a box of the Warriors of Chaos regiment. I'd never really looked at WHF minis before, but I thought that they would make excellent additions to the Venom Guard. And... well, I love them. Who needs power armour when you look badass?

I put them together right when I got them, minor green stuffing to get the chopped up bits of bolt pistols/CSM arms to fit into the arm sockets. I didn't get around to basing them until a day or so ago, but I painted them completely today during my 24-hour-don't-have-anything-better-to-do-duty. I just love the models overall, and they're definitely a nice change from the ubiquitous lather-rinse-repeat of power armour. Hopefully you like them!

*Squad Hypakrian*

























Again, I promise to get better pictures done up in the next day or so :victory:


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

The new models look better, the others seem very dark and lacking all highlights. The cloak on your lord seems sloppy, the red is spilling over onto it which makes it look meh. I would add some contrasting colors to the models so they are not so monochromic.

What type of colorblind are you?

Looking forward to seeing more, you can tekll as you post each squad you are finding your niche.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Thankya 

To be perfectly honest, I rush most of the models for the CSM army I have, as opposed to my BA where I try to make sure they are without errors. Not really sure why... but I think I've just gotten so sick of this paint scheme I just want to get it over with when I start.

My Blood Angels are also the first time I've really tried highlighting, and I guess I've relegated myself to the fact that since the majority of this army isn't highlighted, I don't want the new ones to stick out above the rest. That probably makes no sense... but it is 330 am and I should be in bed.

As far as color-blindness...
Red-green
Green-brown
Blue-purple

I think that's about it. One of the guys I work with occasionally picks up a red and a green dry erase marker, shuffles them around, then holds them apart and asks me which is which. I win about half the time >.<


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

So you have an issue with red shades it seems? I ask because there is a decent chart that shows what you see vs what I see, was going to go do a compare and see if it would change the advice I would give.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Well I have difficulties with pretty much all shades. Bold colors I tend to be okay with, but once I have to tell one red from another... yeah that's why my paint bottles are labeled!


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Some updated photos for everyone, as I haven't updated this thread in _months!_

*Squad Hypakrian*

























*Obliterator Cult of Heziriah*

























*Grathagullok*









*Vagamemnon*









*Squad Phaecias*









Still to do:
2x CSM squads
1x Landraider
1x Dreadnought
1x Daemon Prince
1x Khorne Lord on Juggernaut
1x Nurgle Lord
3x Sorcerers
1x Biker (Randomly bought him like 2 years ago...)

So for those of you that have liked this project, don't worry, I still plan on cranking these out, it's just that my Blood Angels, as my 2011 Army Challenge, have taken up all of my free time!


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

Since 'Ard Boyz is coming up, I find myself under a fairly condensed timeline to get quite a bit of painting done.

I need to finish:
3x plague marines
5x khorne berserkers
2x daemon princes
2x rhinos

by the tourney in August. Not uncalled for, but definitely going to require something faster than my standard-snail pace when it comes to painting, at least in the last year.

So I started on my first Daemon Prince today, and actually managed to nearly finish him.

Some pictures are with and some without flash... my apologies. Once he's actually completed, I'll get up purty pictures.

















With his chainmail tabard/extended loincloth thing, it was my first meager attempt at non-metallic metals. Fairly simple Skull White -> Fortress Grey -> Codex Grey - Chaos Black transition, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Then again, silver-ish is muuuch easier than gold, but hey, we all gotta start somewhere!

















I still have to do his wings, I'm debating how to do them. After that, then the spines running down his back, face detailing (eyes/teeth/highlights) and I'll be done. Probably about 3 hours or so left, woo!


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