Codex: Chaos Daemons gives you plenty of reasons to devote your army to the Dark Powers, but which of the four Chaos Gods do you pick? Faced with such a difficult choice, veteran hobbyist and Warhammer Community contributor Pete ‘the Wargamer’ Harrison decided to dedicate a Soul Grinder to each one, using a variety of Warhammer kits to resculpt each into the image of their patron.
Pete: I’ve always been a fan of the Soul Grinders – they’re formidable in their own right and, like Daemon Princes, can be bound to one of the four Chaos Gods. As such I imagined them inheriting traits from their patron god, and wanted to recreate this.
These conversions generally involved taking the upper half of a Greater Daemon and grafting it to the lower half of a Soul grinder, with a few adjustments here and there.
For the Slaanesh Soul Grinder, I used the Keeper of Secrets and replaced its original head with a slightly modified one taken from the Avatar of Khaine. This makes it look more unique against other Keepers and gives it more of a militaristic appearance.
The Khorne Soul Grinder was built mostly from a Bloodthirster. The right arm, however, was replaced with the barrel of a Skull Cannon and a face plate taken from a Chaos Knight was added. As Soul grinders can’t fly, keeping the wings in place wouldn’t have made sense so they were left off. The remaining holes in the back were filled with skulls and strings of flesh formed from modelling putty.
The biggest divergence came when I tackled the Tzeentch-aligned Soul Grinder. The basic torso and arms were retained from the Lord of Change kit but instead of the wings and a bird-like head I opted for a horrific series of eyes. These all started out as various sizes of ball bearings with eyelids being sculpted on with yet more putty.
Finally, I took on the Nurgle Soul Grinder. The form of the Great Unclean One is vastly different from the other Greater Daemons, so I chose to model the mechanical legs erupting from beneath the mounds of sagging flesh. The gaping maw in place of the head was mostly created around Rotigus’ stomach-mouth with the surrounding tentacles cannibalised from his arm. Finally, the right hand was replaced with a heavy blight launcher taken from a Foetid Bloat-drone.
After some patron specific paint jobs, I was left with four distinct, god-marked Soul Grinders ready to spearhead a Daemons of Chaos army.
Thanks Pete! With Codex: Chaos Daemons out now, the veil between realities is weaker than ever – and we want to see the empyrean hordes you’ve conjured. Show us your work over at our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages, and if you haven’t yet begun your journey down the path to undreamt power, pick up Combat Patrol: Chaos Daemons for a crash course in Khornate carnage.