Oh What's in the Box?!?

So it is time to discuss the mystery box briefly mentioned here. I have also made brief mention of it in this post. The package was shipped to me by Rob Hawkins formerly of PP. As I said previously I stumbled across his blog one evening at work. I decided to drop him a line and see if he might be interested in doing some commission assembly/conversion work (didn't hurt to ask right?). I have had a couple conversions in my head for sometime but never got to actually doing them after I bought the parts. Rob got back to me and said that he would be up to taking some projects and we got to discussing details.

As Rob's extreme Khador force played a roll in my own Khador force it only seemed fitting that these should be for the Motherland. After deciding which projects I wanted to do first and what I had  in the gaming budget I sent the parts of to the Garden State. The commission consisted of three projects.

I know what you are thinking: you commissioned a base? The answer to that is no. This is the base for the biggest and my favorite commission of the lot. Due to the size of the project I wanted the base to have some real weight to it so it consists of a metal 50mm base and the scenic base from the dire troll mauler extreme which I didn't use when I based mine. Rob sculpted over the symbol which was in the original rock base as it did not fit very well for a Khdor mini. The remainder of this project can be seen in a few pics :)

Next up is Rorsh and Brine. Again you might be saying: I thought you said these were Khador related? Why did you have pigs assembled? Well they were purchased to be played specifically with Khador and not as a member of a pig army or for my troll army (although they will see some time there). The inspiration behind this was an article on museonminis.com called Death of the Big Red Machine. After finishing up Les' Carver I am really excited to get some paint on these guys. This was a "basic" assembly but he did a fantastic job filling the gaps and making them look organic and sculpting in the suspender in the back to blend in.

Next up is a full unit of Kayazy assassins. I am a big fan of the rules/story behind the Kayazy (I loved the Gavyn Kyle File about the under boss in NQ) but I, like many, am not a huge fan of the sculpts. This conversion has been seen on the PP boards by a few people but it consists of head swaps using Croe's and Circle Druid heads.

This is the unit lead which Rob sculpted trim around the hood to match that seen on the cloak.

Here is just one of the grunts but the one that happens to be my favorite of the group.

This leads up to the big mama of the batch. Saving the best for last here is the Behemoth. This is obviously a take on the Extremoth conversion popular among the Khador boards. He did an amazing job on this beast.

You can see him on the scenic base from the beginning of the post.

Here you can see how he sculpted behind the head and added strips of plasticard/rivets to make it look more like the art seen in Apotheosis and Forces of Warmachine: Khador. He also built a cortex door out of plasticard to and sculpted "toes" to, once again, more closely replicate the art seen in print.

Rob sent me pictures prior to mailing out the finished product but I have to say it was even more impressive in person and I love it. I only have one problem with my Extremoth at this time...I am really intimidated to put paint on it in fear of messing it up. This bad boy will stay bare metal for a little while until I can practice my Khador scheme a little more and feel I really have it down before tackling this giant.

The Warcaster that is going to be the first recipient of these new toys will be none other than the Butcher of Khardov himself. The Butcher is my favorite Khador 'caster and probably one of my top five favorites in the entire line. I love everything about the Butcher from the fantastic new sculpt, the fact that when you flip his card over to ready his special rule it is blank, to his trusty axe Lola, to the stories in the books and NQ.

Here is my Butcher 2010 resculpt partially painted in my 5th color scheme. He has been in this partially finished state for nearly two years so it is time to get him done up right. I need to highlight the armor plates, cloak, pants, and red plate on his chest. I also need to do his eyes and moth to finish his face.

Here is a picture of the beginning of a pretty nice Butcher force.....at least I think. This clocks in at 26pts once I add in the Kayazy Underboss. To round the force out to 35pts I am thinking about something like this:

The Butcher of Khardov (*6pts)

* Behemoth (13pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Kayazy Eliminators (Leader and Grunt) (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Harlan Versh (2pts)
Rorsh & Brine (9pts)

I went with Sylys over the war dog for a few reasons. The first reason is I like the free upkeep on Iron flesh which will most likely be on the assassins prior to being switched to the Butcher late game. The second reason is for the possibility of a spell assassination via obliteration,  Arcane Secrets, and his feat. This when boosted will give me 4d6 drop the low to hit and 5d6 drop the low for damage. When you roll it a out a few time the damage can get pretty scary. Brine is a great Fury target and depending on activation order Fury can get cycled to a faction model prior to the feat allowing both brine and said faction model to bring the pain. OK this has gotten a little long (I am pretty excited) so I will wrap it up. You can expect more Khador updates mixed in with my troll post over the remainder of this year and more projects from Rob as I just sent his a second batch of minis :)