On today’s post I share my finished Darkoath Wilderfiend including a painting guide for it. I also muse on the idea of a chaos missing link.

Something that isn’t explored very often are chaos mutations inflicted upon mortals who have failed their deities. We’ve all heard about chaos spawn, a mass of writhing tentacles, sinews and warped flesh created in the perverse vision of their god, but the Wilderfiend takes on a different form, a more bestial form. If a Chieftain breaks their oaths to their Choas God then they are cursed and mutated into a Wilderfiend.

Models were kindly supplied to me by Games Workshop. My thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I feel the Wilderfiend is the missing link between Chaos Spawns and Daemon Princes. This is exciting stuff, it’s been either end of the spectrum for so long it’s great to see something in the middle with reason and explanation for their lore and the Wilderfiend lore is great. I would have been unimaginative if it was just another spawn model. Now we have an ever present watcher from the shadows, following their former tribe and if the sacrifices meet it’s approval it will continue to look out for them, if the tributes aren’t enough then the Wilderfiend will help itself to tribe members.

The Wilderfiend is a pretty big model mounted a 60mm base (check out Stahly’s review of the kit here). It towers over human-sized models. The Wilderfiend is even perched in a crouch position on a (tactical) rock. Based on this size you can see why I think he’s a missing link.

How to Paint the Darkoath Wilderfiend

The Wilderfiend is best painted in a couple of sub-assemblies. Keep the model separate from the base so you can reach its underside more easily. I also left its necklace and head separate to make it easier to paint. The model is littered with details, I found it easier to paint all the skin first and then I could work my way around the model picking out the detail being careful not to get any stray brush strokes on the skin.

I painted the underbelly a light grey but honestly you can barely see it on the model now it’s all assembled. I’m pretty happy with the overall paint scheme, especially the red spines I think they came out pretty nicely.

That’s pretty much it for this post. If you’re wondering to yourself that this model looks familiar then maybe you saw it on Games Workshop’s Warhammer Community post. I was lucky to make the cut and have my Wilderfiend featured. You can check it out here.