Beethoven's 5th in Warhammer

Ok so the title may be a bit pretentious, but this post is going to be about picking a common army theme: something that will make my guys easily recognisable as my own. Nobody will ever mistake the opening motif of Beethoven's 5th for anything else and the same idea applies here. I want to be damn sure that I won't be declaring charges against my own forces in a Daemon v Daemon battle. That would be both ineffective and more than a little embarassing.

First of all though, I'd like to welcome anyone who got here through the Daemonic Legion forums that I just joined. I look forward to crushing these uppity forces of Order with you. I've also changed the comments settings so you won't be forced to sell your soul to Google to get your voice across.

My VC collecting friend (who I will refer to as Cheery until I get his permission to use his real nickname) brought up the idea of army themes when I was talking about starting my collection. I'm glad that he did because it's not something that you can easily do after your army is half done.

An army theme can be as simple as a common colour scheme for your troops. You could say that the main colours in your army will be blue and yellow, then everyone sees them as a unified army, rather than a bunch of guys who happen to be fighting next to each other. Cheery is moving his army toward a red and lime green theme, after starting out all those years ago with the standard GW example colours. I had my doubts (largely due to my distrust of lime green as a colour) but it's looking really effective from what I've seen so far. I might get some pictures to put up at the tournament next weekend.

I'm just up to assembly at the moment, so I don't have any pictures of my theme yet. Still, this is becoming a big wall of text so I'm going to put up a pic of the models I assembled last night.

The colour scheme option is a bit less viable for Daemons than for some other armies (like, say, Empire) because Daemons are kind of 4 different armies in one. The thing about them from the fluff is that there is constant infighting between the Gods, so there's no reason for a unified colour.

Another option is to have a theme for your army through other aspects of the models. You could go for a "blood and gore" look (which I believe Cheery is doing for one of his other armies - Beastmen). One idea I toyed with was Elfcrushers, having a HE head or arm at the base of some of the core units and entire models at the base of some of the greater daemons (I'm still considering having my Prince strap an elf to his free arm as a shield).

The theme that I eventually went with was a terrain theme of snow. You could go with a lava, grass, desert, swamp or mountain theme as well, which largely involves doing up the bases to look the part. Just so long as you stay consistent in the theme, the army still looks unified.

Obligatory photo number 2, this time of the 40 BLs that I finished assembling today. Most of them had a big night last night and are still sleeping it off, but the designated drivers are up and ready to spread some mayhem. Johnny Bloodletter says: "Don't drink and drive".

The plan is to keep a constant theme of snow, while the different forces each largely keep their own style. I'm also going to have the models affecting the snow and vice versa, so the BLs will be "cooled" to a darker red than usual, while the snow around their feet will be melted and the revealed earth scorched. The more powerful varieties will be affected less, until the GDs like a Bloodthirster will be warping the ground beneath them.

Khorne will have heat effects for obvious reasons, Tzeentch crystals jutting from the ground to reflect the crystal labyrinth. Slaanesh's vanity will create mirrored bases, while Nurgle's plague will manifest in pools of slime, decay and disease.

That's all for this post, next time I should have a couple painted and I'll be talking about how I'm keeping myself motivated to face this mammoth task I've set myself. If anyone feels like commenting: what's your army theme?