The ideas you've never realized

[Takyz]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure we've all had this amazing idea of a theme or particular colour scheme for an army, but never got to actually make from a lack of money, time or feasibility. I have, many times, and I thought it could be fun to share those ideas. Maybe we could find someone else's idea so amazing that we end up making it ourselves? Or maybe it could inspire us to find some other cool ideas?

So, what armies would you like to make if you had unlimited time, money, and ability to actually succeed at building/painting?

I'll start :

- Clockwork OBR : One of my favourite ideas I've had, is that of an army using OBR models, but painted to look more like steampunk automatons. Most of the bone would be wood, the joints would be metal gears, and the armour could be stone. I've even started to think about some lore for them, about a clockmaker mage (which I would play as Arkhan) from a town destroyed by vampire hunters, that wields death magic and animates an army of automatons for hire.

- Gaulish BoC : I've always loved BoC, but I agree on the sentiment many people have that they lack a clear design direction. Although I love mutations and Morghur is one of my favourite WHFB characters, I'd really like to make a BoC army that really pushes the Celtic theme. Being French, I looked into the different known Gaulish tribes, and found that the Gabali tribe(which lived near where my family comes from) may have been the origin of the word 'javelin'. That gave me the idea of making a Gaulish BoC army that heavily focuses on javelins (with lots of Gors and Centigors wielding them).

- Frozen Knights of Nurgle : With the 3.0 Nurgle Battletome's release, and my thoughts about what I like to play (that being elite tanky melee), that made me want to make a Nurgle army. Adding onto that a newfound interest in heraldry, and all those really cool (pun intended) 'Frozen Plague' 40k Death Guard armies around the Internet, it gave me the idea of these Knights of Nurgle in a frozen landscape. Those would be a kingdom that was slowly corrupted by Nurgle as a great winter caused an terrible famine. The knights would be granted blessings from Nurgle and become Blightkings and Blightlords, and the peasantry would succomb to Nurlge's Rot and become Plaguebearers, with Beasts of Nurgle used as hunting dogs and the heralds and GUO acting as a clergy.

- Mortal followers of Nehekharan Gods : This is the biggest project I've ever wanted to make. I've always loved Tomb Kings, and have always looked for a way to somehow translate part of them in the Mortal Realms. As OBR didn't really scratch that itch, I thought about what if I did the opposite of what OBR do, that being to use the culture of TKs, rather than the looks. As I love the Nehekharan pantheon, I thought about what would happen if mortals started worshipping the Gods of Nehakhara. With a huge stroke of luck, BR : Teclis happened, ans I now have the perfect reason for it : with Nagash's defeat at the hands of the Elven God, some small fragments of the Gods he ate during the End Times would have been scattered throughout the realms. Then, some people found these and started venerating them, thus making them grow in power (although still not nearly strong enough to be proper gods once again). For now I've only had ideas about a few god's followers, those being desert raiders following Khsar and riding sand rays (that would be played as IDK), snake-people from Ghyran venerating Asaph, and groups of thieves from Ulgu being Sokth's people. For this one, I'd really enjoy your input. What do you think followers of the Nehekharan gods (or any World-that-was gods for that matter) in the mortal realms would look like?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I have so many ideas for Steam Tank conversions that I am always super close to making reality, before remembering that I would be spending 80+ Dollaridoos on making a model that would be basically unusable.

Probably the most exciting one would be to make a Steam Tank into a Kharadron Frigate proxy. The plan would be to flip the hull over to give it the shape of a ship. The cannon would go on the top along with some crew. Because the "window" where the cannon usually goes would be empty, there could be a pilot model inside, looking out with binoculars or something. I was thinking about taking the wing assembly from an Admech Archaeopter and making it like a kind of Da Vinci plane. The only problem: It's about twice as expensive as just buying a Frigate. And I don't even want to run a frigate in my Cities lists.

[Skreech Verminking]

With the skaven range still in shamble, considering how 61% of the range is very bad looking (and almost 20 years old)

Converting units has been my bread for years now.

I‘ve been converting rats with bits I’ve found in my local store for years now, trying to figure out how I can get some decent looking weapon teams or acolytes on the table.

and with the many options we have gotten in the recent, years, I’m basically able to convert a ton of stuff.

one of my favorite conversion being the clalword on brood horror 

or my heavy armored rattling gunners:

and why should a slryre acolyte ever throw a poisoned wind globe with their bare hands, when they can go in style and use a cannon to do their dirty work

Edited December 16, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[Neverchosen]

Here are the ideas that I have that are either beyond my skill or budget:

Beyond my Budget:
Mechanical Gargants (Imperial/Chaos Knights)- I love mechs these are just beyond my budget. I would model them to make them more low tech and also run them as Chamon Gargants. Might even model them with KO pilots.

Lost Legion of the Northern Realm (Nighthaunt and Freeguild) - Just a ghostly paint job on a city of sigmar army. However I would want to add a lot of basing material and spirit hosts to bases and models and this would slowly balloon in budget. 

Fallen Angels (Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines) - If ever I were to get into 40k I might make a small Fallen Angels army using my S2D bitz to kitbash a Fallen Angels army. I don't like Space Marines though and so I feel like this would not be really in my interest but it would be a relatively affordable second army if I ever got into that system. But I would need to have a long shower after each time I played the boring generic army.

Long John Silverbeard and his Cutthroat Crew (Kharadron Overlords) - Honestly this would just be Kharadron Overlords with Skull and Crossbones decals on their boats. 

Other games - I am interested in a lot other systems but don't have the hobby budget. Maybe one day. 

Demons Of Love and Hate (Slaanesh and Khorne Demons) - I have my eyes on a set of Wrath and Rapture, I would love to start this out as it would let me play 40k and still use them with AOS. Between the two armies I could maybe start up a Legion of the First prince army and with some coalition units play both Hedonites and Blades of Khorne. But between models for summoning, terrain pieces and battletomes this great deal becomes a really pricey proposition. I am still likely to pick it up but I am waiting a little while to save up and see if there are any Xmas announcements that peak my interests. It also might get purchased before I get around to it and in the end save me a lot of money... 😒 No creative ideas for modeling but I want to embrace the idea of these Khorne and Slaanesh demons in a deadly alliance of love and hate... maybe having the hearlds share a base and running the Suzerain of Desire from creature caster as a greater demon for both armies.

Beyond my skills:
Lost Prison Ship of the Northern Realm (Nighthaunt) - I really want to make a nautical Nighthaunt army over a frozen sea. The ghosts would look like water spirits rising from the cracked ice and I would use the gloomtide shipwreck as a black coach and a vampiric Eidolon of Mathlann subbing in for Lady O. This is my most desired project and not too difficult but I am not the best at modelling units and I hate working with resins. This could still happen one day but for now it is just a dream.

Spirit Tamers of the Deep (Idoneth Deepkin): Simillarly to the Nighthaunt this involved using resins and basing techniques beyond my skill at the time. I was going to pain the various sea creatures in ghostly fashion. This is the easiest of my projects but as I jumped on SCE with Dominion I don't think I will grab another Order army anytime soon unless it is Cities to make use of Coalition Rules. 

Wendigos of the Glace Hills (Kitbashed Flesh Eater Courts and Beasts of Chaos)- I have been thinking of creating an army of cursed undead beasts that are afflicted with an unnatural hunger. In my mind these are a feral group of Wendigos trapped in the northern regions of my setting a tragic fate that befell a civilization trying to outlast the harsh enviroment. If Beast/S2D soup becomes a thing I might actually follow through with this plan.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Neverchosen

[EccentricCircle]

18 hours ago, Takyz said:

- Mortal followers of Nehekharan Gods : This is the biggest project I've ever wanted to make. I've always loved Tomb Kings, and have always looked for a way to somehow translate part of them in the Mortal Realms. As OBR didn't really scratch that itch, I thought about what if I did the opposite of what OBR do, that being to use the culture of TKs, rather than the looks. As I love the Nehekharan pantheon, I thought about what would happen if mortals started worshipping the Gods of Nehakhara. With a huge stroke of luck, BR : Teclis happened, ans I now have the perfect reason for it : with Nagash's defeat at the hands of the Elven God, some small fragments of the Gods he ate during the End Times would have been scattered throughout the realms. Then, some people found these and started venerating them, thus making them grow in power (although still not nearly strong enough to be proper gods once again). For now I've only had ideas about a few god's followers, those being desert raiders following Khsar and riding sand rays (that would be played as IDK), snake-people from Ghyran venerating Asaph, and groups of thieves from Ulgu being Sokth's people. For this one, I'd really enjoy your input. What do you think followers of the Nehekharan gods (or any World-that-was gods for that matter) in the mortal realms would look like?

All the ideas posted so far in this thread sound amazing! Its always great to see how much creativity everyone has. As far as input on mortal Nehekharans goes, I think there are a few good options for making this a reality. A few years back I built a middle eastern style cities army using a mix of historical minis and fantasy ones from assorted manufacturers. Doing an older, more ancient egyptian style force is definitely on my ideas list too.

I'd check out the Reaper "nefsokar" line. Their backstory is of a mortal kingdom which is dedicated to the ancient egyptian gods, and while there is an undead aspect as you might expect there are lots of units for desert nomads and assorted warriors in the guises of the various gods. The models are metal, but many are single cast making them quite easy to work with. Reaper models are generally a delight to paint, and unlike a lot of the historical options for new kingdom egypt they are in a 32 mm heroic scale, so look more in scale to warhammer models. There are some great historical figures out there, but they will look a bit titchy next to a GW figure.

Another good option to check out is the Desert of the Dead range from TT combat. I backed the kickstarter, so am not sure when/if the models are getting a general release, but along with the customary undead, they also did various desert nomad type units, and a full Desert Elves army, which basically has the entire classic Dark Elf roster, but with an ancient egyptian vibe. The troops are mostly monopose resin, but some are multi part. I've not built many of them yet, but the quality seems ok for kickstarter style resin. You'll have to clean a lot of flash, but the sculpts themselves are nice.

I think there is also a line called crocodile games or something of that sort which i've seen a couple of times, but I never picked any of those up, so don't have any first hand experience of whether they are any good. I seem to recall that each faction was dedicated to a different egyptian god, but couldn't tell you more than that.

Despite the Tomb King apocalypse, there are still plenty of undead ancient egyptians out there which are ripe for kitbashing too!

 

My "some day" project is a dragon mounted army. I know that technically you can now do that in canon AoS, but I have much grander designs than a few stormcast on dragonback.

Basically I want to kitbash and convert a bunch of toy and miniature dragons of different scales, to get a range of different troop types.

First there are the dragon knights themselves, relatively heavily armored with heraldry and fancy armour. they would carry lances and ride medium sized dragons. If they weren't over sized the stormcast could be a good base for this, but I'm not sure the riders swap out easily enough. 

Then you have lightly armoured dragon scouts on smaller wyrms, they act as the rangers and recon, moving ahead of the army, and skirmishing. The riders use mechanical wings to fly along side their dragon mounts, so that they can separate in mid air to outflank opponents and become a whirling dance of blades, claws and fire.

These are backed up by the Dragon Dragoons. They consist of much larger dragons carrying howdahs full of warriors. Some would fight from dragon back, but most are basically heavily armed paratroopers. They have mechanical wings like the scouts, but they don't stay aloft, rather dropping behind enemy lines to outflank their troops.

On the ground is a support system made up of squires, men at arms and assorted siege engines which can all be moved on flying ships pulled by the bigger dragons. I like the idea that pseudo dragons are also in use, in much the same way that hunting hawks are in real life. You could also have drake handlers, and all manner of cool units.

The main  thing I've yet to see is a range of good winged warrior types. I did some designs using heroforge, such as this one for a dragon scout. However, it would be prohibitively expensive to use that for a whole army, even with 3d printing. If anyone knows of a good range of, I don't know, winged valkeries or something like that I would like to hear about it!

[Takyz]

7 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Probably the most exciting one would be to make a Steam Tank into a Kharadron Frigate proxy. The plan would be to flip the hull over to give it the shape of a ship. The cannon would go on the top along with some crew. Because the "window" where the cannon usually goes would be empty, there could be a pilot model inside, looking out with binoculars or something.

Thats sounds amazing! I never thought about it, but flipping the steam tank seems an amazing idea!

 

5 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

one of my favorite conversion being the clalword on brood horror 

That looks really good! I'd say it even looks like if GW released a proper brood horror!

3 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

Wendigos of the Glace Hills (Kitbashed Flesh Eater Courts and Beasts of Chaos)- I have been thinking of creating an army of cursed undead beasts that are afflicted with an unnatural hunger. In my mind these are a feral group of Wendigos trapped in the northern regions of my setting a tragic fate that befell a civilization trying to outlast the harsh enviroment. If Beast/S2D soup becomes a thing I might actually follow through with this plan.

I like all of your ideas, but this one has to be my favourite. Associating FEC and BoC with wendigos seems very logical and in line with their looks. Great idea!

1 hour ago, EccentricCircle said:

Despite the Tomb King apocalypse, there are still plenty of undead ancient egyptians out there which are ripe for kitbashing too!

Thanks for all those references! I'll definitely check those out.

1 hour ago, EccentricCircle said:

My "some day" project is a dragon mounted army. I know that technically you can now do that in canon AoS, but I have much grander designs than a few stormcast on dragonback.

That sounds really cool as well! And I agree that although the stormcast dragons are really cool, they are a bit lacking in diversity to be considered a proper all-dragon army.

[Neverchosen]

1 hour ago, Takyz said:

I like all of your ideas, but this one has to be my favourite. Associating FEC and BoC with wendigos seems very logical and in line with their looks. Great idea!

Thank you, I really want to tackle this but I feel like it will be harder for me to kitbash the larger models like Zombie Dragons and Cygors. I would probably just add the terrorghiest head onto the Ghorgon but I feel like it would showcase my poor kitbashing skills. I am still leaning towards the demon project and I have a scheme in mind for them as my Chaos Warriors have painted their armour red as a sign of their desire to transcend into demonhood. 

The meta narrative of my armies is a frozen region shared between ogors and humans. The ogors are wild Nomads that protect and trade with the humans. The humans are a pious group but have issues with Chaos worship and eventually a hero leads a crusade against Chaos falling to the dark powers. His lieutenant is a former Chaos Warqueen and she remains faithful to Sigmar and is cut down with a number of other devouted followers ascending to Azyr to be reforged into Stormcast. Now these two hosts return to their former kingdom and must battle against the ogors to take over the frozen lands of the Glace hills. So any new AOS army I create will fit into that narrative... I am thinking of a death army to represent the civilians that stayed behind from the crusade. The Wendigo's representing that they had become cursed, the frozen nighthaunt showing that they died. Alternatively they may be in hiding not wanting to enter this conflict of good and Evil and protected by the nature loving Ogors.  

I have even developed a brief genealogy of the Lords of the Region, which ones stand with Sigmar, which rest with Nagash and which fell to Chaos. Then I have also worked out a rough tribal structure for the Ogors and their belief in the mighty Winter Storm. If I make a death army it will be the remains of the civilization who turned to death worship in fear after their heroes abandoned them now they live on as cursed thralls. Finally my Slaves to Darkness are structured like an ecclesiastical order and their members are surrounded by rumour and mystery, all that is known is that their leader is the great betrayer. If I add the Khorne and Slaaneh demons they will be refugees of the realm of Chaos, used by 'the great betrayer' in hopes of escaping their demonic realm and the great game. In this case the death worshipers will be cut in favour of sympathetic demons.

This narrative also has ties to the narratives of other members of my gaming group and I am writing a lore document that I will likely post sometime in the future. I am developing so much of the lore as I am also going to run a tabletop RPG in the setting prior to the Betrayal in a period of great strife. In essence it is a lost realm tainted by demons, with a history of civilizations trying to impose order on the land only to fall to death or chaos, meanwhile great tribes of destruction have learned to accept these lands cannot be truly tamed. Currently we have Slaves to Darkness, Stormcast, Ogor Mawtribs, Soulblight, Orruk Warclans, Cities of Sigmar, and Ossiarch Bone Reapers in our core group. Just on the edge of the map live Daughters of Kane, Gloomspite Gitz and Seraphon from our more extended gaming group. 

Edited December 16, 2021 by Neverchosen

[EccentricCircle]

2 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

Thank you, I really want to tackle this but I feel like it will be harder for me to kitbash the larger models like Zombie Dragons and Cygors. I would probably just add the terrorghiest head onto the Ghorgon but I feel like it would showcase my poor kitbashing skills. I am still leaning towards the demon project and I have a scheme in mind for them as my Chaos Warriors have painted their armour red as a sign of their desire to transcend into demonhood. 

The meta narrative of my armies is a frozen region shared between ogors and humans. The ogors are wild Nomads that protect and trade with the humans. The humans are a pious group but have issues with Chaos worship and eventually a hero leads a crusade against Chaos falling to the dark powers. His lieutenant is a former Chaos Warqueen and she remains faithful to Sigmar and is cut down with a number of other devouted followers ascending to Azyr to be reforged into Stormcast. Now these two hosts return to their former kingdom and must battle against the ogors to take over the frozen lands of the Glace hills. So any new AOS army I create will fit into that narrative... I am thinking of a death army to represent the civilians that stayed behind from the crusade. The Wendigo's representing that they had become cursed, the frozen nighthaunt showing that they died. Alternatively they may be in hiding not wanting to enter this conflict of good and Evil and protected by the nature loving Ogors.  

I have even developed a brief genealogy of the Lords of the Region, which ones stand with Sigmar, which rest with Nagash and which fell to Chaos. Then I have also worked out a rough tribal structure for the Ogors and their belief in the mighty Winter Storm. If I make a death army it will be the remains of the civilization who turned to death worship in fear after their heroes abandoned them now they live on as cursed thralls. Finally my Slaves to Darkness are structured like an ecclesiastical order and their members are surrounded by rumour and mystery, all that is known is that their leader is the great betrayer. If I add the Khorne and Slaaneh demons they will be refugees of the realm of Chaos, used by 'the great betrayer' in hopes of escaping their demonic realm and the great game. In this case the death worshipers will be cut in favour of sympathetic demons.

This narrative also has ties to the narratives of other members of my gaming group and I am writing a lore document that I will likely post sometime in the future. I am developing so much of the lore as I am also going to run a tabletop RPG in the setting prior to the Betrayal in a period of great strife. In essence it is a lost realm tainted by demons, with a history of civilizations trying to impose order on the land only to fall to death or chaos, meanwhile great tribes of destruction have learned to accept these lands cannot be truly tamed. Currently we have Slaves to Darkness, Stormcast, Ogor Mawtribs, Soulblight, Orruk Warclans, Cities of Sigmar, and Ossiarch Bone Reapers in our core group. Just on the edge of the map live Daughters of Kane, Gloomspite Gitz and Seraphon from our more extended gaming group. 

As ever your campaign sounds amazing!

[Neverchosen]

19 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

As ever your campaign sounds amazing!

As soon as I get the prose in shape I will be posting an overview of the history of my setting and I will be sure to tag you 😊

Then you will witness how my fun ideas are seriously out stripped by my terrible prose hahaha. 

[elfhead]

Cool thread:)

There are some projects I'd love to do If I had all the time and money in the world. and also more space on my shelves... I'm just in it the hobby and painting part of the hobby, so I don't really care if a project would be useable on the table. 

I'd love to do a giant war altar using the skaven screaming bell as a base, with lots of crazed devotees pulling it. It could be based in the realm of light, a giant war alter spreading light on the battlefield. It could tie in with the lore about the human city in Hysh (settlers gain?) where it seems the lumineth might be brainwashing the more difficult humans. It could even be a entire army of human scholars and devotees, controlled by elves. A lumineth model could be present in most units to represent this control. 

Another idea I have is to create a nurgle force, combining 40k and Aos models. 

I've also toyed around with the idea to create a Nurgly take on the fungal 'clickers' from the Last of us video game. 

But the first new project will be another Slaanesh force. This time it'll be a really vibrant and colorfull army.

[greg19190]

Always wanted to do a wacky racers themed skaven Doomwheel army... Dastardly and muttly being the main focus... Ork vehicle to start with with some skaven flair... One of the lines in the skaven tome talks about them just raceing eachother arround the battle field seeing who could go the quickest

[Skreech Verminking]

8 hours ago, greg19190 said:

Always wanted to do a wacky racers themed skaven Doomwheel army... Dastardly and muttly being the main focus... Ork vehicle to start with with some skaven flair... One of the lines in the skaven tome talks about them just raceing eachother arround the battle field seeing who could go the quickest

Yes, there is even a mobile game representing  the skaven love for doomwheels

[greg19190]

2 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Yes, there is even a mobile game representing  the skaven love for doomwheels

What!?! What is it called and is it any good?