The Tortured Throng - my Emperor's Children army log

[Slaanbull]

Greetings and welcome to my army log!

I've been a hobbyist for many years, and am recently back from the longest hobby break since I started painting my first Chaos Warriors at the age of five. The reveal of the Emperor's Children codex is what got me back in, and in this log I will detail my EC-CSM army's transition to a true EC army. No more handicapping myself with limiting my Marks of Chaos, or being miffed that the god-specific keyword had no effect!
I've been collecting and playing 40k with my Slaanesh/EC marines since 5th edition, which means that a lot of the collection is outdated, all of my wonderfully converted Noise Marines are now a bit on the small side, their power-fist wielding champions have no place in the army. Many of my old characters have found a perfect match for size and vibe with new units like for example the flawless blades! So I'll start this log with my then-exalted champion, now flawless blade member 1 of 3.

I didn't realize just how dusty the model was until I reviewed the pictures, apologies! This guy was converted immediately upon the release of the noise marine commemorative model, but only painted two years later. Very indicative for my usual building to painting speed..! I hope to do better with all the new models, after all I need to get these guys on the table sooner rather than later, having vowed to play no more games with half-finished models.

I was inspired by colours of a fresh bruise for this guy, and while I like the usual black and pink for my Emperor's Children, this guy and many of the flawless blades to come will probably come with more individuality in their colouring.

To round off my first entry we need some of the new models as well! This is my first converted group of Noise Marines made from the new models. To be honest I was quite disappointed in the uniformity and cleanliness of the new Noise Marines, who to me look nothing like the augmented monsters I had hoped for, they look very factory made to me, more hulkbuster iron man than noise marine. But even if I liked them, I would probably convert them anyways since that is such a fun part of the hobby! And as disappointed I was in the overall look of the kit, as awed was I by the bits and possibilities in it!
It is such a beautifully tooled sprue, with options for days, and a proper heavy sonic weapon that did not look like a guitar or something equally silly, wow! The clean lines on these guys also makes it so much easier to cut into!

The first changes I made to all of my sonic weapons was removing the fluid containers attached to the underside. This allowed me to cable the Screamer Pistol to the wearer, giving me a compromise giving the small sonic weapon (why would a noise marine ever want a smaller gun?!) some more weight by hunkering it down. I wanted the Blastmasters to stick out a bit more as well, by building the shoulder-mounted cannon and moving the dial to the weapons left side so my marine could still tune it. Both blastmasters also have a backpack with the two weaponized exhausts being reduced to one for a Slaaneshi asymmetrical look. Another part of note is the caped crusader using an infractor head, inspired by talks of caping in Dr Rhuminaus thread.

I hope you like them! I will get to painting as soon as possible so hopefully I can post some of these painted soon, together with a rebased Lucius the Eternal, and my then-obliterator-now-Lord-Kakophonist.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Those are really inspired conversions!  Great idea and implementation with the kitbash with the possessed kit.  Nice use of the cape (BTW, where is the cape from?  Always looking for good capes) but my particular favorite is the over-the-shoulder blastmaster.

[Slaanbull]

Thank you.
The caped guy was the first I built but was missing something, being too front heavy. Then while rummaging through my bits (looking for capes and loincloth after reading your remade guide) I moved a Dark Apostle out of the way before going back and picking up the cape from that model! Had the perfect schwung for finishing his silhouette. 

[RolandTHTG]

Those Marines look great! is that the Possessed kit you mixed in with the regular Noise Marine parts? 

[Tallarn Commander]

Superb paint jobs and conversions, I definitely see the influence of the recently-inflicted bruise. Also, excellent use of colors on the one trooper's vials!

[Slaanbull]

These guys are indeed possessed marines, mostly just possessed bodies and then main bits from noise marines and a few from tormentors for taste.
The next 6 will probably have some Gal Vorbak bodies mixed in as well, requiring me to have some weapons held in the left arm. I also want to use some of my older noise marine bits a lot more!

Cheers, I am glad you both like the miniatures!
 

[Sume]

1 hour ago, Slaanbull said:

These guys are indeed possessed marines, mostly just possessed bodies and then main bits from noise marines and a few from tormentors for taste.
The next 6 will probably have some Gal Vorbak bodies mixed in as well, requiring me to have some weapons held in the left arm. I also want to use some of my older noise marine bits a lot more!

Cheers, I am glad you both like the miniatures!
 

I love the look of them.  I wish I had something to kit bash my noise marines with but all I had was a box of mk 6 that I used to make up my tormentors and infractors with.  

[BadgersinHills]

I love these conversions, excellent miniatures.

[Slaanbull]

Hi again. Thank you BadgersinHills. Glad to hear you like them. 

 

On 5/1/2025 at 2:57 PM, Sume said:

I love the look of them.  I wish I had something to kit bash my noise marines with but all I had was a box of mk 6 that I used to make up my tormentors and infractors with.  

You can always convert the next six! I've bought two possessed kits so far, and scrounged up some more bodies for the last eight (out of 18) models to not have too many repeat poses.

 

I haven't done any painting since last time, but I have been building away. I will need a lot of new champions, as the lack of power-fists and doom sirens (my favourite wargear!) in the new codex is such a challenge. For the last years I've really been scrounging up powerfist bits to kitbash with. Any ideas?

Here's a model from my old army. A legionary unit champion, Flavius the Violator, who's been on double duty as an aspiring champion in games of kill team. He will soon be accompanied with a full kill team, since my kill team models are a bit mixed I've started building more models bridging the new tormentor kit with my CSM body noise marines.

Obviously a student of Fabius Bile. I used the body of a primaris chaplain, with a chosen powerfist, as well as bits from Chaos Chosen, Primaris Apothecary, Legionaries, LotR (severed heads), plastic glue bottle (needle for the gun!), Warpsmith head.

I remember it as being very enjoyable to paint the distressed leather. I also had a lot of fun copying some of the details from the old Fabius Bile model; severed head in the belt, tools hanging from the side, needle pistol.

 

This guy is one of the most recent models I made before my Warhammer hiatus that started a few years ago. His colour scheme probably resembles what I will do going forward quite well. 

[Sume]

Too bad I all ready assembled and primed the third squad of noise marines.  I think I will trade them off or something.  Who knows.

[BadgersinHills]

Beautiful work, really nice conversion! 

[Tallarn Commander]

Flavius is a work of art! Would you mind sharing your distressed leather paint recipe? Over the last year I’ve been trying to improve my ability to paint weathered leather. I’ve found looking at a real life photo while painting helps.

[Slaanbull]

I’ve been building and building but as mentioned I haven’t been able to get myself started painting again. Yesterday I figured that setting up my airbrush at home was a barrier for getting started, so this morning I brought two pinks and some airbrush medium with me to my job, together with the models so I could start painting the basecoat. After checking out for the day I grabbed the airbrush we have in the lab and painted the pinks while I still had the workplace energy in me.  Worked like a charm and have been brushpainting all evening after coming home! Hope to share finished pictures with you all in not too much time.

 

On 5/14/2025 at 1:33 AM, Sume said:

Too bad I all ready assembled and primed the third squad of noise marines.  I think I will trade them off or something.  Who knows.

You’ll need more noise boys for when we get a detachment for them anyways!  Or when using the homebrew one being cooked up om this forum!

 

5 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

Flavius is a work of art! Would you mind sharing your distressed leather paint recipe? Over the last year I’ve been trying to improve my ability to paint weathered leather. I’ve found looking at a real life photo while painting helps.

Thank you Tallarn Commander, very kind. It’s been a while and two since I painted him but I’ll do my best going by what I would do it if I had to replicate it today:

As far as I remember I painted the weathered leather in the store when I was still working for Games Workshop, which means that I would probably use whichever paints were available from the  starter sets or set out for any store projects. Knowing myself the basecoat is 100% dryad bark which is a lovely and slightly desaturated brown. The hatches and criss-crossing is then whichever light browns were available, probably some gorthor brown, baneblade brown, ushabti bone, etc, mixed with the basecoat or fresh from the pot going with darkest colours first and then thinner and thinner lines the lighter it got. Hit natural highlight points with the darkest highlight colours first, some nice fat lines to work the motion into the wrist. And from there you’ll have a nice feel for the rest of the scratches to paint. Don’t worry about layering the colours, just paint them over in different patterns to build up some 2D texture.
I love to ‘shade’ with thicker Contrast type paints which is also why I wouldn’t worry too much about the highlight colours. Shade and glaze the areas with Garaghak’s sewer thinned with water or lahmian medium (or a mix). This allows you to correct any mistakes, pull back an over-highlighted area, or just bring some nice colour onto the surface if the highlights were too pale. After this I would probably go back with the lightest highlight colour once more, but only underlining already existing paint lines (kind of like how you would underline a scratch when painting chipped panels on armour?). 
 

I probably used the same paints but swapping garaghaks sewer for cygor brown when painting the more reddish gun holster (how he will ever fit that needle pistol down there only Slaanesh knows).

I hope that chaotic walkthrough is at least somewhat useful! Let me know if not. 

Edited May 15 by Slaanbull

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

I misread the title of this as Tourtured Thong. Still fits for EC.

[Slaanbull]

 

8 hours ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

I misread the title of this as Tourtured Thong. Still fits for EC.

The Thong Throng? 
 

Still painting my first three noise marines, those possessed have so many details! 
Here’s a possibly uninteresting wip shot for your viewing pleasure. I blocked in the colours, now trying to figure out what my direction for the metals will be. I also cannot figure out if I want to go blue-ish for the black like Flavius posted above. Or if I want to go for a more dirty desaturated black. Any input or tutorials for a nice grim black is very welcome!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Looking good, and I'm eager to see where he goes. 

 

And, yeah, possessed's are far more detailed than you might expect - I remember mine feeling like they took forever, particularly the one with the most tentacles.

[Sume]

I am a fan of the blueish black personally. I did grey black for my slaanesh demons army and I keep wanting to go back and redo the black.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

That's a very cool Noise Narine.