Chaos Spawns: I

TLDR: I spent two years looking for the perfect Chaos Spawn model, and all I've got to show for it is the perfect Chaos Spawns.

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The core of my Space Bastards force is a Chaos Spawn factory - a five marine, three wizard thrall unit of Chosen in a Land Raider charging out on turn two or three and casting Gift of Chaos eight times in a single shooting phase before they charge. It's an old tactic, and rarely does it work as planned, but when it does, it is a lot of fun. The idea is to try and end the game with more models than one starts with by turning opposition models into Chaos Spawns.

So, if it does go to plan, I'm going to need a lot of Spawns. I wanted to keep away from the usual "wiggly, deformed mound of chaos flesh" type of Spawn, and do something more in keeping with ny backstory fluff for The Space Bastards - an obliterator cult unknowingly worshiping a dæmon in the form of a living Greek statue, and attempting to emulate his form with their goopy metamorphic obliterator sludge bodies. 

Another strand of my lore for the Space Bastards is the idea of placing the minds/souls/"divine lights" of members of their order into artificial bodies. With this idea, I'm using the old Space Crusade Chaos Android models for my units of Terrors and Flamer Dæmons, using the same lore of "spirits in robotic bodies". Given the way that Dæmons are summoned onto the battlefield, melding that with my fluff for the Chapter, I like the idea that there is something about the moral soul that allows the cultists to latch on to it with a with their unformed metamorphic goo, and build a body there, around it - with or without the soul's consent. 

So, I've been looking around for about a year for something that fits the bill, model wise, of all that for my Spawns. Something in the same family as the old Space Crusade Chaos Androids - so, something skeletal, and and preferably a bit goofy - but also in keeping with the general chunky look of 2nd/3rd edition 40k. Oh, and, of course, it has to be something that'll work in the rather silly "bigger than 15mm but not as big as 28mm" scale that I'm working to. And, I'll need 10-15 of them, without any duplicate poses, because I'm not about that. Not a tall order at all, and it only took about two years to find something that I was happy with — and that was BigMrTong's digital rendition of Hector from the movie Saturn 3¹. 

Frankly, I think the model is just perfect for what I'm going for. It has the skeletal elements, while still being plenty distinct from the Chaos Androids, with it's goofy robo-arms and cantilever eye stalk. They're armed correctly for the role with just big robot hands, and, like just about everything MrBigTong puts out, they fit right in with the 2nd/3rd edition 40k  style. They're from a movie, but the movie is suitably obscure that I'm happy that they can 'be' Chaos Spawns without anyone being distracted as to their identity by their original movie character. And, for bonus points, I love the weird tubes. If you've seen the movie, you'll remember the many tubes of weird fluid all around the robot's body. I like the idea of painting them up in bloody or fleshy colours with the idea that the tubes are the remnants of the Spawnhoast's body, twisted, contorted and reshaped into a spiritual scaffold for the a new body of solidifying metamorphic flesh to take form around it. Oh, and there are plenty of poses available. Should be able to get 12 poses without any looking too similar. Size wise, they look right to my eye printed at their native scaling, which puts them about 38mm tall from the bottom of the foot to the top of the tallest one's eyestalk hinge.

I'm really quite excited to physically get these models in hand and put some paint on them. I'm not sure when that'll be, but I'm hoping my long suffering friend with a 3D printer will be able to fit something in before the year is out.

▲ ▼ Both images taken from BigMrTong's Facebook page.

Footnotes

¹: If you've not seen Saturn 3, it is a movie that is really quite bad, but in such a unique sort of way. It's well worth a watch. The set and robot design are really fantastic - the writing a acting, less so. I'd highly recommend the website: Something is wrong on Saturn 3 — a "Comprehensive Look At What Went Wrong With Saturn 3" — for more about why the movie is the way it is.