Over the past few weeks I have been in the midst of building a new Chaos Warriors army, now normally I do this through a process of constructing army list upon army list slowly eliminating those that are unplayable until only a handful lists remain from which I choose the best – but not this time.

Stef prefers a buy what is cool and mould that into a workable force method, Cooper combines the army list method with what looks cool, Spencer picks a theme and holds on to it die hard to the end even if his vision was rose tinted.

I have chosen to this time pick a theme in this case a Nurgel mortals list with a preference for Warriors, I then looked through the catalogues and trawled the miniature pages for inspiration and only once I had my theme and some festering Nurgelish miniatures in mind I built a list.

Points costs at this integer are not important as we have just begun playing games at higher brackets (with the smallest at around 3000), the list breaks down like this:

Chaos Lord – I’m still looking for a model for this one but I normally leave the character’s to be painted last as I find it is a nice reward for the trudge through rank and file.

Chaos Champion – I’m planning to use the GW champion of Nurgel as it is a nice enough miniature and will fit well with the themed rank and file and work as a nice centre piece for the core units.

2 Chaos Sorcerers – For one of these I want to use the Avatars of War Necromancer as it has a very atmospheric feel and almost oozes a feeling of death and decay, the second will more than likely be one of the numerous Nurgel characters from the GW collectors range.

2 units of Chaos Warriors – the normal plastic kits are great, the models are detailed but still easy to paint in batches and always look nice when ranked up. I plan on using snow bases to contrast the putrid greens and browns I’ve used on the armour.

2 units of Chaos Marauders – I’ve never been a fan of the plastic marauders for reasons I’ve never been able to put my finger on until recently, a customer at the shop pointed out they all suffer from what he called ‘ Schwarzenegger syndrome’. Each of them is muscle bound in the extreme with this added to their already exaggerated ‘Heroic proportions’ make them comical.

After a brief wander through the catalogues I received a well timed e-mail from GW them selves! The new Beasts of Chaos range was soon to be released, and with them new Beastigores! The models are amazing and fit perfectly with my imagined theme, so they replace the Arnold Schwarzenegger Marauders in my army and happily so because frankly painting so much flesh would not be a fun day…

1 unit of Chaos Knight’s will for the hammer to the warriors anvil against which I will crush my enemies (Or that is the plan at least).

1 Chaos War shrine the plan for this conversion I’m afraid remains and closely guarded secret.  

This more or less forms the majority of the force, with the first unit 99% finished and the theme already to my liking it is only a matter of time before I march to war, but I wish to end this article as with my last one with a question.

When you make an army how do you go about it? Buy cool models before making an army list? Theory game list after list before you have one that is unstoppable? Or do you buy miniature to paint and before you know it have a small army ready for the table top?

How do you make war?