Warhammer 40K: Hot Mess – GW Needs to Mutate Chaos Spawn
Chaos Spawn live a hard life in 40K, but that doesn’t mean GW should leave them out in the cold of the Chaos Wastes.
Goatboy here with another 40K Hot Mess to look at right now. This is less of a bad rules interaction and more of a why hasn’t the Chaos Spawn model been updated. If you haven’t noticed the new Emperor’s Children book has an updated Spawn data sheet that seems actually pretty spicy! (HOORAY) It has a set of rules that really push it into a usable part of the codex and has me wondering – why is this ancient Chaos Spawn miniature still in use? (BOO – HISS)
I remember a boxed set from a long time ago – I think from the initial 2007 Apocalypse release – that was 10 Chaos Space Marines, and 10 Chaos Spawn – the legendary Chaos Tide of Spawn. That was an amazing boxed set for the time and would be insane to find and utilize now. I remember seeing it about 11 years ago in a small shop I stopped at on the way back from New Orleans. I think it was 100 dollars and I should have grabbed it right then and there. It is crazyto think how these models that were initially cheap as heck are now an extremely powerful unit that will most likely be usable in all the new Chaos Cult Legion books.
The Chaos Spawn is a weird little unit that is pulled from the fluff to live its life as a usually “converted from WFB/AOS” livelihood on the grimdark tabletop. I think I have a few real ones laying around and have used a plethora of things to “fulfill” the role of a Chaos Spawn. I have a pile of Bloody Vampire hounds that represent “fleshy” hound for the World Eaters. I have some giant Ghouls from the Corpse Grinder lines that I threw fat green stuffed bellies on to create “fleshy abundance” of Nurgle. I even have weird single Eyeball ones I used to play with my Thousand Sons mini Detachment with Ahriman driving the wheels to victory. All of these things pushed the idea of their chose Chaos god instead of the weird little boxed set we have now.
It has me wondering why GW hasn’t tried to update this? Sure the old kit is pretty unique in that it has a plethora of weird parts to cobble together a soul tortured by Chaos. The gifts it gave you when converting things was pretty neat by in the early 2010’s but right now it just feels very dated. I would think something cool, unique, and matching some of the Accursed cultist vibe would be amazing to have come out. A pile of limbs, angry mouths, and daemonic appendages would be pretty cool to have.
Have you seen how the previous metal one looks insanely “heavy metal”? A giant mound of pewter flesh, angry teeth, and no hope of a true face to see? Why couldn’t we have something mixing all of these together to create something I don’t need to convert? Heck almost no one even remember the original 1997 metal “5-heads-3-tails” Chaos Spawn (below). I think on the Emperor’s Children front we are currently feeling some of the Hedonists of Slaanesh beast men looking things and while that is cool it doesn’t really feel “40k” enough. I would think some kind of crystal monster would be awesome for Tzeentch and a multi armed goat like thing would be cool as heck for Khorne.
What do you think? It always irks me that a cool unit is latched onto weird models that desperately need an update. I think it is cool it is in plastic but something new and unique would be cool to see come out.
It’s time for the Ruinous Powers to finally grant us all a new update and modern Chaos Spawn Kit!
