Silver Tower Brimstone Horrors … but Oldhammer

Brimstone Horrors!  The cheeky pairs of scampering bastards you get when you kill a Blue Horror.  I’ve painted four sets of these quarter-daemons, but with an Oldhammer twist.

Oldhammer Warhammer Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch

And it’s all in how you mix the two.
And it starts just where the light exists.

Ever since 1989, Pink Horrors split into a pair of Blue Horrors when killed – it was the Tzeentch lesser daemon gimmick.  But when Silver Tower arrived in 2016, the GIMMICK ALSO SPLIT IN TWO as Blue Horrors started to split into pairs of Brimstone (or Yellow) Horrors.  This troubled me for a little while, as there are several generations of vintage Pink and Blue Horror miniatures with no corresponding Brimstone Horrors if you want to use them with modern Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 rules.  But then I remembered the tiny Epic-scale Pink Horrors from 1992.

Oldhammer Warhammer Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch

Do your demons, do they ever let you go?

Epic was nominally a 6mm game, but these Horrors were hilariously overscaled and make great 28mm familiars – as I discovered way way back in 2010 when I painted Inconstantine Bowie, Champion of Tzeentch.

Oldhammer Warhammer Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch

Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes

It has taken me a while to work out why yellow was chosen as the colour for the new tiny Horrors.  The answer is in this passage from White Dwarf 113 (May 1989), which highlights the importance of colours in the early Warhammer lore.

Tzeentch is the Changer of Ways and, true to his nature, he has more than a single colour. The Pink and Blue Horrors, Daemons of Tzeentch, use magic of their own actual colour, reflecting the changing forces of their master as they turn from pink to blue. However, aside from the Pink Horrors who are associated with the Amethyst College, Tzeentch’s colours are very bright shades of blue and yellow. These colours are often dominant, though by no means exclusive, in the worship of Tzeentch. The two colours are particularly significant because they are the province of the Golden and Celestial Colleges which lie either side of the green magic of Tzeentch’s adversary Nurgle. A follower of Tzeentch could therefore be inferior or superior to Nurgle depending on his colour.

I really like how daemons align to the Colleges of Magic, and will use it as an excuse to model some Golden and Celestial Wizards to be corrupted by Tzeentch.

Oldhammer Warhammer Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch

Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care.

These newly painted Horrors join my existing 1980s Kev Adams Horror force I started 9 years ago. I’ve rebased these minis onto 32mm round bases which means they don’t have any of their toes poking over the edge.  They’ve seen plenty of gaming action down the years so there were a fair few chips to repaint.  I really enjoyed the restoration; it was like catching up with old friends, or wearing an old t-shirt from back when you were 14.

New and old paintjobs together mean I’ve got all 10 of the various daemon incarnations needed to play Silver Tower.

Oldhammer Warhammer Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch

Rainbow in the daaaark!

Coming soon, more vintage lead substitutes for the modern plastic pieces in Silver Tower – some of which you may’ve already spotted on the Ninjabread Workbench.

Curis

Curis has painted for Games Workshop, Forge World, Warlord Games, Mantic Games, Avatars of War, Wargames Foundry, Studio McVey and many others. He's won at Golden Demon and Salute. He publishes monthly painting tutorials on Patreon.

22 thoughts on “Silver Tower Brimstone Horrors … but Oldhammer

  • March 7, 2018 at 5:00 pm
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    You want to use them for the game that cancelled Warhammer?
    hagen

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    • March 8, 2018 at 9:49 am
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      The more distance I get on the changeover to Age of Sigmar, the more I can see it’s a direct continuation of the old design aesthetic and values. You take a look at the last few years of Warhammer Fantasy releases you get stuff like Vilitch the Curseling and the Mutalith Vortex beast that look like they’re straight from AoS.

      Reply
  • March 7, 2018 at 5:01 pm
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    Really beautiful work as always, and a great use for those “little” Epic buggers.

    I always wondered if the WFB approach to magic is a nod to Tolkien with his wizards being tied to a colour (or colours in caseS)? Maybe it is a standard fantasy trope?

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    • March 7, 2018 at 6:55 pm
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      A lot of fantasy is a nod to Tolkien, intentional or otherwise ;)

      Re-scaling of figures can produce some fun and useful results and these are a good example!

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      • March 8, 2018 at 9:58 am
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        Alatar and Pallando both got blue though. Five wizards with the entire spectrum to pick from and two of them go for the same colour.

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    • March 8, 2018 at 9:55 am
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      Yeah, with Saruman going all “Rainbow Wizard” in the books I think there’s a strong riffing on Games Workshop’s part. Which reminds me, was there ever a miniature for a Rainbow Wizard or a Dark Wizard? They’re mentioned in White Dwarf 113 but I only remember models for the 8 Magical Colleges.

      Reply
  • March 7, 2018 at 5:05 pm
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    Hu hu (^_^) ! They are so cute, well scale mix.
    Your old paint job stay a reference for me!
    Nico.

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    • March 8, 2018 at 9:56 am
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      Thanks Nico!

      Reply
  • March 7, 2018 at 5:24 pm
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    This is such a great idea. The brimstones look great, super vibrant, almost luminous. I like the way you’ve mixed the forearms colours up too, it works great.

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    • March 8, 2018 at 9:57 am
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      Cheers. I played down the fiery element of them in the colour scheme as the modern plastic versions are sculpted as animate wisps of flame, whereas there guys are the old fungus monster Horrors of 1989 – seeing them more as “Yellow Horrors” than “Brimstone Horror”.

      Reply
    • March 8, 2018 at 9:58 am
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      Cheers Grove!

      Reply
  • March 8, 2018 at 3:43 am
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    Fucking fantastic Chris! The old blue and pink horrors are a great range of minis. You’ve done an excellent job on them :)

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    • March 8, 2018 at 9:59 am
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      Thanks Papa!

      Reply
  • March 8, 2018 at 1:29 pm
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    The paint job on Inconstantine Bowie is jaw-dropping! Though his base next to the new Brimstonies really shows how far your basing technique has come. I love the idea of replacing all of the new Silvertower guys with lead. Great post; can’t wait for the next one!

    Reply
  • March 8, 2018 at 9:11 pm
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    These are awesome! A perfect choice of model to continue the Horror line with the Kev Adams Pink and Blue Horrors aesthetically, and they look bloody good in their own rights as well!

    Reply
  • March 9, 2018 at 9:33 am
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    Great work–these are awesome! A very nice collection of 80s goodness.

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  • March 9, 2018 at 2:30 pm
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    Like a lot of good ideas, using epic horrors seems obvious in hindsight.

    Brilliantly executed as always Curis.

    Reply
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