Coven Mandrake Conversion (Flesh Friday)

Remember this guy?

He was my attempt at my first coven-ified mandrake, based on the idea that if there was a soul-sucking Cronos Parasite Engine, there must—therefore—be Cronos parasites somewhere who were bred up to Engine size/capability. I figured what better place for these soul-sucking parasites to live than in the slot reserved for mandrakes.

Anyway, he now has a whole posse to terrorize the neighbours with:

Including a spooky Night Haunter that is emerging from the shadow of an Eldar Guardian:

Raid Spoils: Coven Clawed Fiend and Urghul

I'm a member over on the All-Dark-Eldar message board, the Dark City, and every christmas they run a Christmas Raid. It's kind of like Secret Santa for the Dark Kin: each participant pledges to give a model-related gift of $20 value or more, and each participant makes a request for something they'd like in their army.

When I drew my "victim" for the raid, he had requested Clawed Fiends or Coven stuff, so I thought this was the perfect excuse to complete my proof of concept model for a feral Grotesque to represent a Clawed Fiend in an all-coven force. As I detailed in my previous post, I used a Vargheist/Crypt Horror as a basis for it, added in some Talos bits and a Nagash spine, some Greenstuff, and—BOOM—Grotesque Fiend:

Coven Mandrakes

Well, with it being Halloween and all, I thought I'd share something particularly horrific from my work on my coven: Mandrakes!

Once I'd found a suitably horrific solution for the Cronos, I had the itch to replicate this hideous treatment for Cronos parasites in other places in my army. I see the Cronos as kind of vacuums/generator for the whole coven. They are black holes into which souls/spirits pour, and they store the energy for the coven. I wanted them to have a pretty central role in the coven, so, if one gets destroyed, there needs to be a fresh supply of replacements.

Enter the idea of including nascent parasites, which are being groomed and grown to one day assume their roles as full-fledged engines. When looking for a role that I could rep with a baby Cronos, the Mandrake was the most obvious ones for me, particularly now that they seem to be stealth DEATH machines with the new 'dex.