Arbaal the Undefeated, Destroyer of Khorne

About the model

It's not often I see a new figure from Citadel and shout 'Yuk!'. One obvious excpetion to the rule is Nagash (Supreme Lord of the Circus!). Another is Arbaal the Undefeated. The pictures for this special character in the Champions of Chaos book depict a mighty chaos champion riding an enormous Flesh Hound. The miniature is of a mighty Chaos Champion riding a shetland-pony sized dog. Oooooh, scary. In my foolishness I duly announced "I'm going to build a bigger version of that from scratch!". This was met with similar reactions to comments like "I'm going to marry Sarah Michelle Gellar." or "I'm going to beat Alessio Cavaltore at Wahammer." and I duly got nowhere fast. However, a friend of mine, one Dale 'Metal' Sellars, was taken by my foolishness, and built me a wire armature for the Hound. Finally, I plucked up the courage to finish the job, and here's the result. The hound is built in Das and Air Clay over the wire armature. The crest down the back is made of Green Stuff for strength, and the various spines are made from that trusty stand-by, cocktail sticks. The Collar of Khorne is made from a chariot wheel, with various spear points attached to make the spines. The big reptilian ruff is made from clay over a shaped piece of card.

The Flesh Hound's Head

By far the trickiest part of this model was making the head of the Flesh Hound. I wish I could give a blow-by-blow description of how I did it, but it was a case of large amounts of trial and error. The teeth were made from Green Stuff and then glued on separately. The smaller teeth were made in strips on pieces of card, and then cut out and stuck in. To make the jaw easier to make, I used a small piece of card as a base for it.

The Rider and Banner

Arbaal himself was left completely unconverted since in all honesty the original model was perfectly good. His legs are plenty far enough apart to fit on the hound, and the banner pole looks great too. In the end all that was needed was a bit of Green Stuff to fill some gaps and keep the banner pole in place. The banner is copied from the picture in Champions of Chaos, because it's a simple and effective design.