Mallex has commanded the Servants of the Abyss on several campaigns, most notably fighting under Abaddon in naval battles over Cadia in the 13th Black Crusade. As Cadia was destroyed by a Blackstone Fortress, Mallex watched aboard his Hades Class Heavy Cruiser Impaler. The explosion threw him into the Warp, where it emerged deep in Segmentum Pacificus inside a new Blackstone Fortress.

Impaler melded with the Fortress, stranding Mallex and his warband. Since then Mallex has raged in the darkness, taking out his fury at those he manages to take captive. At the same time Mallex hopes to one day master the technologies of the Fortress in order to wield the immense power it commands

Miniature Review

As the big baddie of the box, Mallex is a fairly imposing Chaos Lord. He's not the biggest miniature, the Assassinorum Sorcerer in Terminator armour is much larger, but has a great confident stance and grizzled face.

Somewhat unexpectedly he's covered in tentacles. The game art doesn't make it obvious as the tentacles are painted the same as the armour, I assume the armour has become more 'organic' over time. I plan to make them a bit more obvious, as it makes him really stand out from the other marines. That, and his really cool stone thunder hammer!

Painting Techniques

Black Leather

Hammer

Tentacles

Armour

Bone & Claws

Fur

Steel

Small patches of rust were finally applied using Dirty Down Rust.

Bronze

Skin

Plasma

Base

I mixed sand with glue and applied it to the base. I then drybrushed it with Eshin Grey, then Mechanicus Standard Grey. I then painted the outer base with Rhinox Hide.

Roundup

As I said before I hadn't really noticed the tentacles from looking at the box art, being black on black. I decided to paint them pink thinking they would really stand out, but forgot I was changing his armour from black to red. The pink on red started off a bit too subtle, so I really had to highlight them up more than I had intended.

Having similar colours for the tentacles might actually be the best choice, as if they contrasted too much I think it could be hard to focus on any point of the miniature. For example, I could have gone with my green spot colour, but that would have overwhelmed him.

The face, weapon and cloak could really use some improvement. At this point I really just want to get the chaos units painted, so I can focus more time on the characters. For now the quality looks fine against the rest of the units.