Hails to all that read this. I've been tossing a few projects back and forth here lately but this has been my #1 focus behind the scenes. It isn't finished completely but there's enough to it that I wanted to share. Comments welcomes, and suggestions... well, it's done already. But share anyway, I am always looking for that next project idea.

Not posting everything, these are just representations. 22 pics at my gallery.


Overview of my army. I stated it in 1997 and have built on them over time. The Death Guard were part of a larger force comprised of World Eaters, Death Guard, Iron Warriors, and Black Legion. Each aspect of the force has grown over the years and after a recent battle I decided to complete them as an individual force.


Aspiring Champion that I painted just the other day. I know the model is just a regular Plague Marine, but his pose is dynamic so he stands out.


The model in the center was just finished on Friday but the other two are part of the original lot I picked up back in 1995 (I think, 1996 at the latest) and have long been part of my Chaos Space Marines. I'm not sure if I am proud that my painting skills are the same all these years later or if I should be disappointed that I haven't improved. Ha.


Old Imperial Space Marine Dreadnought serving a higher purpose. This was one of the first models I completed for this army.


Daemon-possessed Predator. I had a lot of fun converting this model and it's always received a lot of attention from my friends (usually in the form of lascannons).


Thanks for looking.

I love the Tank
I'm scared of it so i'm sure thats why it gets shot

Thanks for the compliment. I'm looking at a Land Raider and two Rhinos right now to add a bit more firepower and a lot more transport option, and I'm looking forward to corrupting them to the fullest extent.

I know my brother would love this thread. Sickness in all it's old school glory. Awesome models and paint jobs dude.

Can't wait for more pictures!

InventionThirteen wrote:I know my brother would love this thread. Sickness in all it's old school glory. Awesome models and paint jobs dude.

Can't wait for more pictures!

Thanks for the compliments and I hope you get a chance to show this to your brother!

I finished the Terminator squad tonight. Here's where they were a few days ago:



And here's how they finished up:



And one shot with the full squad together for the first time (with paint, anyway):

I like this thread. Makes me miss the models I grew up enjoying.

Wow! Really awesome, dude! It makes me wish I'd have started my chaos army about 15 years earlier!

Subbed!

Very retro. I love them!

Wow, thanks all! I got motivated to finish this because I put up a thread that profiled failed projects, and while it was a fun poke at ourselves it really made me ask just when it was that I last finished something, and it has been a while. I also had just played a game w/ a friend and I had a lot of unpainted miniatures (in this army) on the table. I was already working a few projects so I started to focus on this "in between", meaning I worked on this when I was taking a break from the other projects I was working instead of playing a video game or watching TV with my time.

More is coming. I have some old Death Guard Veterans (aka Havocs in the current ed) that I want to get finished, and I'm looking for a Land Raider and two old Rhinos to provide some more firepower and a lot more mobility to my army.

I'll be updating this again. Thanks for checking it out.

The tank looks very possessed, keep up the good work. Keep us updated!

Showed my brother, thought it was awesome. Likes the use of older models.

I like the wood on the aspiring champions bolter (at least I think it's wood). It adds a stronger sense of corruption and decay.

InventionThirteen wrote:Showed my brother, thought it was awesome. Likes the use of older models.

That's awesome. Thanks for checking this out. More old Chaos stuff coming for sure.

Draglide12 wrote:I like the wood on the aspiring champions bolter (at least I think it's wood). It adds a stronger sense of corruption and decay.

It is wood. There were a series of Plague Marine models that GW did that used wood stocks on the Bolters and also on a Plasma Rifle. I should pick the detail out on it a bit more so it is not as washed out as the rest of it.

Simply love the old models, even the paint job has a retro feel to it... which isnt a bad thing, love it all.

I would however rebase the Dread and terminators. Firstly Square bases have no place in 40k! looks ugly. Secondly terms look far better on the bigger bases.

Apart from that...awesome!

Love the models. This thread is full of win. Your models really catch what's Nurgle. Big up!

Nice to see some more old school chaos minis.

Since the title is "old meets new" here's some of the "new" that is on the way. First and foremost is my first attempt at fielding a Daemon Prince. This was not an idea I thought through. I'm doing this 100% solely based on how absolutely awesome the miniature looks. I'll find a place for him just to have him on the field and part of my list.

Fresh out of the bag!! It came with a base but I have never liked putting miniatures on huge diorama-like bases for wargaming. Do they hop down and drag their rock with them across the entire battlefield? Ha. So no, not using that and already gave it to a friend of mine.


Glued and ready for priming. Those are 2nd ed Chaos Terminators in the background for size comparison. It's a little smaller than I originally expected but considering the role it is going to fulfill in my army it's exactly what I need it to be.



Closeup for more detail.


Not only is this a new miniature for my very old Death Guard, but it's also the inspiration and centerpiece for the next generation of Plague Marines I am going to build (I'm not going to mention APOC here, but my friend just picked it up...). I will be using bodies from the most current CSM sprue, but with different helms / heads. The gas mask is something I already find quite disturbing. It's so much worse than simply a closed-face helm or mask, there's something very unnatural about it, something very wrong. It is frightening to me in a way that I could try to explain but would ramble on and steer this thread into OT land, so I'll move on.

...

So anyway, the gas mask look. Absolutely perfect for Plague Marines. I've been searching online (and asked fellow Dakkalites for assistance on another thread, thank you for your help) for swapper heads that would fit my idea and came up with the following. I have not picked a winner yet, still trying to figure out who I am going to like more. But I'll share here now. Please feel free to comment, I haven't done anything yet and I'd love to steal hear your ideas.


Contestant #1- Pig Iron Productions. With two entries in consideration there's a good chance PIP will be seeing some $$$ from me very soon. I really like the HD.1 Kolony Rebel head sprues and would be a perfect compliment to the HD.3 Kolony Inner guard head sprues

Contestant #2- Maxmini. Fewer heads for more money, I might get one of the Tox Guardsman heads to add variety to whatever else I wind up getting but I'm not expecting that my business will be exclusively w/ Maxmini

Contestant #3- West Wind Productions. Many choices from Secrets of the Third Reich but the US Gas Mask Heads are what caught my eye and looked most likely to fit my needs.

So again, haven't decided which I'm getting yet but admittedly am leaning strongly towards Pig Iron. What do you think? Also, if you have ideas that I didn't show here please post. I did look at and decided against Chapterhouse Studios and Wargames Factory (for no reasons other than they didn't fit what I am looking for right now).

There's my update. Thanks for looking.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

Yeah!
These early plague marines are really sweet and you've done a good job on them.

Still loving the look of the old school chaos models!
I think you should be proud of your painting skills, way better then mine, very detailed and you know how to highlight(more then i can say)

Thanks for the compliments. I try to not bag on my painting skills because I know that I am not terrible, but I have a difficult time saying that I paint well because I don't feel that I do.

Anyway, therapy session over. Here's my latest update. I spent most of my weekend being social around real live people. You can imagine the detrimental effect that had on my modeling time. I was not able to get a lot done, but I was able to very carefully remove all mold lines, models some GS to fill connection seams (also used it to put a bit more "plague" on him) and decided on a Flesh Wash base instead of my regular home-brew Green Ink wash.














I love that last picture the best. There's so much attitude in it, it is a direct challenge. I'm very much looking forward to finishing this model. I'm going to re-wash it in spots again tomorrow because the photos show me places I missed (small ones, but worthy of attention).


On the Gas Mask front, I'm going to go with the PIP and see how that goes. If it doesn't turn out as awesome in real life as I hope I'll be out a few dollars and have an awesome head set for Traitor Guard (which is how they were being used when I first saw them). I'll order them sometime this week likely.

Until then, here's a teaser glimpse of the future- I've started to convert the next generation of my Death Guard Plague Marines. It's a bad photo and it's a mess, but a good idea of where I am starting. This will be an Aspiring Champion when it is done.



I have a 4 day weekend w/ no plans coming up. No doubt I'll be updating this thread a few times. Stay tuned for more contamination and other horrors of the Warp.

Nice model for a Daemon Prince... Can't wait to see him finished!

Definately still has the 'plague' essence!
Keep up the good work, and can't wait to see the rest of that peek of whats to come!

An interesting blog - will be following it with interest

Quick update- was able to spend a bit of time today with this. Colors are all GW except for a homebrew ink wash I made from a couple different sets.

This is a WIP- it is not finished! Yes I see the mistakes. The question is, will they still be there in the next picture?

Just a single shot for now but wanted to show that I'm on this and I am completely motivated.



More coming. A lot more.

That demon prince is super cool! what model is it?

tekk_45 wrote:That demon prince is super cool! what model is it?

I'd also like to know, it look familiar...

The model was originally released by Ultraforge Miniatures but it doesn't look like they are active on their website right now seeing how nothing I can find online about them mentions 2010, just 2009 (including their own website).

There are quite a few places you can find it online and it has appeared in some painting blogs on other sites. I never saw it before seeing a thread here on Dakka but when I looked it up I knew I had to have it and that it was going to be a thematic piece for the next wave of Plague Marines in my army.

More coming soon.

Skalk that old dred brought back memories!! I still have one and it is being soaked in Simple Green as we speak I will paint it soon to show you all after my main army is done.
Great Job on your Nurgle force. I gotta show this link to my buddy he too is a Chaos head!!

nasty! in the best of ways!

Dude!!! That demon prince kicks ass... Its so sick looking. This thread is legend.

I'm home sick today. Between laying on the couch feeling sorry for myself and being actively involved in the illness process I got this done:







I'm experimenting with a couple different new techniques and while I'm not completely happy with them yet I'm really liking where this is going and for the most part it is right on track. More coming, and thanks for following along.

Dang! this guy is sick on two levels.
Lol
Looking good man! Keep it up and get well soon!

And another update... *drumroll*...

-used to have an image of my Pig Iron Productions invoice here to show that I had made the purchase of the items necessary to move to the next steps in the project but it removed with "Image does not make sense out of context".-

Yay! I figured today would be as good as any day to do it, so the heads are on the way. I ordered these and these. I'm going to be doing 2 full squads so it'll be easier to mix up the heads and show some variety.

But heads alone do not make a new squad. Here's what those new heads are going to be going on:



Everything is 100% recycled from my bitz bin or straight from the Shelf of Shame. I'm taking things I already have and turning them into my main army. I have some work to do on modeling but the coolest thing (to me) is that I'm using models I already had laying around and I'm putting them to use. And the coolest thing is there were all someone else's failed projects at one point as they are all from eBay auctions I won over the last year. From oblivion to Death Guard Plague Marines. What old discarded CSM model could want more?

And here's another sneak shot at that Champion I started:



Mutated arm counts as Power Claw, and he'll have a Combi-Bolter w/ Melta or Flamer, haven't decided which yet. Probably Melta.

I'm also thinking about buying some shoulder pads from GW but haven't talked myself into that idea yet.

i would say nice stuff but i dont think nice is appropriate for nurgle!

I love you work and all, but I wont say what the tubing directions imply IMO.

The purplish tone of the guts is just plain ill. That demon prince is going to draw a lot of fire!

Perfect for papa nurgle!

More updates!

Remember this guy?



This is what he turned into:







Admittedly not my best paint job ever, but considering where this model started from I'd say he has a much brighter future ahead of him. From junk box to Aspiring Champion. And if you stand back 3 feet it looks absolutely amazing!

I was going to convert a combi-weapon for him but after spending 30 minutes trying to figure out how I wanted to make that happen I got sick of it and gave up. However, I did give him a very cool RT era Bolter, so I'm not too broke up about not adding the Melta combi. He's flocked, dated, and ready for battle. 19 more to go as soon as the heads get here.

The Daemon Prince is done I think. I'm not completely commited to that idea so I haven't based / flocked it yet, but honestly I'm getting sick of looking at this model because I feel like my painting skills are not doing it justice and the more I work on it the less I am liking it so at the very least I'm going to put some distance between myself and it for a while. This is where it is at right now, and may be where it is at for good, haven't decided yet:








Closeup of the blade:





And the only time anyone will ever see the back side of this Daemon Prince (because he sure isn't ever going to run away)



That's it for now. I have a Death Guard Havoc Squad in the making, and I'm thinking about some Raptors based on an idea stolen directly from agroszkiewicz. Asking for permission if I can show his pic that inspired me to completely rip off the idea and use it for my own purposes. Will post it if he says it is ok. Otherwise I'll post a pic of my stuff once it comes in.

Yes, I know... I can't really see Death Guard swooping down from a wartorn sky either... but it'll look so cool to model them.

I'm throwin down the "lets see who can build the most evil looking gak" glove to yah sir!

Love that DP model....didn't see where you got it from in the thread.

Accepting that challenge. Here's the (edited) photo I mentioned earlier (thanks to agroszkiewicz for letting me post it and for being cool about me blatantly stealing his idea):

Edit- to be absolutely clear, agroszkiewicz built these and the original thread they appeared in is here.


Tyranid Gargoyle wings. Simple and brilliant. Easy score on eBay either "buy it now" or a handful of auctions. I have a buddy that plays 'Nids, going to check w/ him first to see if I can barter. But one way or another these will see their way to my table soon.

The Daemon Prince model was originally released by Ultraforge Miniatures but it doesn't look like they are active on their website right now seeing how nothing I can find online about them mentions 2010, just 2009 (including their own website).

There are quite a few places you can find it online and it has appeared in some painting blogs on other sites. I never saw it before seeing a thread here on Dakka but when I looked it up I knew I had to have it and that it was going to be a thematic piece for the next wave of Plague Marines in my army.

Its flattering that my work inspired you.

Some pics of those Raptor packs in a pose are up in my blog now (link in signature). The packs are super easy to make...just clip the little bulgey things off the side of CSM packs, clip down the 'nid wings, then use slow cure cement. GS the joins smooth with spit and fingers if needed.

If you can get your hands on a couple of full Gargoyle sprues you can literally clip one wing for each side to fit, then stack the wings like pringles and cut them 2 at a time with the clips. After your first pack you can literally make then in about 5 minutes. If you wanted to get crazy and take a drill/file set to the wings it wouldn't be hard to tatter them more and make it look a bit more "nurgle". There is one really nice Mortarion conversion that has sweeping feather wings and uses Dark Angel bitz, so I have faith you can make 'nid bitz look awesome.

I really like the cables running from your junkbox hero's mouth! Recycling the bitz box and shelf of shame into a usable army is great fun and beats the HELL out of buying new kits.

Oh, and a choice piece of Nurgle artwork so's I'm not ruthlessly threadjacking you. FML for trying to post it without resizing from the 5.9 mb dl.

Looking absolutely amazing Skalk.
The tubes on that one guy though...Okay im gonna say it. They look like they are going up his ass. >< Lol sorry I had to say it. Looking amazing
I love the ooze on the blade of the big guy there and the paintjob is coming along amazing!

Wow, the daemon prince looks even better now he's painted. Love the rest as well. Good work.

I do hope what I said before didn't turn you off from this project, sorry if it came off quite rude.

Why be sorry? Chaos Marines probably enjoy having tubes of pukey evil disease shoved into their rectums.

agroszkiewicz wrote:Why be sorry? Chaos Marines probably enjoy having tubes of pukey evil disease shoved into their rectums.

Cause the way I said it might have sounded rude. After I read it thought it was.

Edited to add: Then again that might be due to my retail working ass is tired.

Black Friday sucks bro. I usually spend it hiding from soccer mom's frothing at the mouth for this year's "Tickle Me Elmo".

Granfather Nurgle love your warband! LOL. Awesome job, love the old nurgle marines and pred too

Ok, short update because I've been spending way too much time with people and not enough time at my workbench. Ha.

I'm very impatiently awaiting my PIP heads to arrive, so I figured I'd spend the time waiting on something productive. This is the start of my Death Guard Havoc Squad. Since they cannot be Plague Marines I'm not going to give their helms the same spike, but they are still Death Guard so the color scheme will be the same, and the Aspiring Champion will have the Mark of Nurgle and therefore share that mark with the squad, they just won't be Plague Marines.

After thinking about what I wanted to do with this I decided to completely disregard versatility and be very good at one thing, which is killing troops. 4 Heavy Bolters. Heavy 3 ST 5. The motivation for this is admittedly becasue I'm sick of being swarmed by my friend's 'Nid army. I can kill them, I just can't shoot fast enough. I figure a barrage of withering fire might lean down that 'Guant squad a bit before the close on me next time.

While the weapons are the same type, the models representing them are very diverse. One is from the current set with a minor addition (the chain sling around his neck), one is from the 2nd ed. releases, on the rest are RT era with converted 2nd ed Imperial vehicle Heavy Bolters.

The Aspiring Champion is also an old RT model, and was also designed to carry a Heavy Weapon but I decided to add him in as the Aspiring Champion and give him a Bolter.

Here's the squad. Bear in mind, WIP.

Squad overview:


Check the chain on the left model, and the conversion of the right HB


Check the conversion of the left HB


And the Aspiring Champion:


More coming later, thanks for looking.

agroszkiewicz wrote:Black Friday sucks bro. I usually spend it hiding from soccer mom's frothing at the mouth for this year's "Tickle Me Elmo".

No where for me to hide and keep my job at the same time at my store><
Thankfully I had a decent product that people weren't fighting over(also helps its at a smaller town)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So no more work with the butt breather?

They are looking good.
I tried taking one of the current heavy bolters and converting it for a CSM to hold, but gave up on it since I didn't feel like dealing with trying ot position the hands correctly.

Another quick update. Spent some time working on the Havocs tonight, they are looking a lot more like they belong in my army now:







Wow. That's an awful lot of firepower right there. I'm really looking forward to seeing how all of this turns out. I'll be finishing up this Havoc squad over the next day or so, and by next week some bits I scored from eBay should show up and I'll start working on my 2nd squad... with autocannons.

I've been talking with my friends a lot about the history and background that has been lost in 5th ed. They agree. After some discussion about the merit of background and flavor in the game we agreed that I'm going try building a pure Nurgle Death Guard list with the 4th ed Chaos Space Marine codex. Obviously we'll have to make sure play is still as fair and balanced as possible with the "new" list, but bottom line is that these guys are going to have to opportunity to show up again... as themselves.



The GU1 is from my FLGS back in the day, I didn't like the head on it but still ordered it as soon as I first saw the pre-release teasers from GW in 1997. The Plaguebearers are from the same shop and around the same time but I don't remember which I got first. Anyway, point being is they are old and aren't part of the "new" face lift on my army, they have been around as long as the army itself has been. It's fitting that they should have the opportunity to return.

As always, thanks for reading along. More is coming soon and there's no end in sight. I'm going to stick with this project until something diverts my attention, and at this point it would have to be pretty intense.

I love that older model for the GU1 compared to the one now, but I will agree, the head doesn't exactly fit it.

Skalk man you bring back the old school RT!! I love it!! I wish I had all my models from the 80's. I just have a handfull of them left that was in my box of shame and now soaking in a bath of Simple Green. I can't wait till you finish your guys.

I'm not sure I'll ever "finish", I have a tendency to keep projects going as I decide to add new things to them. With my friends looking more and more at starting a 40K campaign and possibly Apocalypse I want to have a well-painted force to be reckoned with.

Speaking of campaigns, right now I'm supposed to be working on a squad of Word Bearers. Uhm... yeah. Guess how well that is going?

But I got more work done on my Havocs today and I'll post pics once I get home (I can paint during my lunch breaks here at work).




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's tonight's update- Death Guard Havoc Squad! I had a *lot* of fun doing this unit. Because there are less models, I spent a bit more time with each one. Admittedly I could have done more, but I'm happy with what I did.



I really like the Mk VI Beakie Armor. As I was picking out detail it occurred to me that what it really needed was a connection to roots long past... a couple stripes down the front of the helmet later and all of a sudden it was 1990 all over again.



I made a couple mistakes on the skull and after a while decided to cut my losses. It looks awesome from a foot away and the conversion really works on this model. So it has that going for it.



2nd ed Heavy Bolter. Nothing special about it, just giving it a moment in the Dakka spotlight.



I really like the Aspiring Champion. Or whatever he is. Basically he's the mandatory 5th member of the squad. I put some extra time in on this one and I'm pretty happy with the result, the photo is lame compared to the actual model.



Individually each model is pretty cool, but here's the real reason I like them:



12d6 WS 4 ST 5. Dakka dakka, indeed.

That's it for now. I don't have anything else on deck except waiting. I have 40 those gas mask heads coming from PIP and 40 new Plague Marines in the making, so I'll be back soon with new updates as soon as those heads arrive. For now I'm going to build the bodies and get ready, but that's pretty standard stuff and since I'm not going to be going for any sick "over the top" GS conversions or anything (at least not that I know of yet) I'll get that work done behind the scenes.

As always, thanks for following along with me. I'll be back with a LOT more stuff soon, and there are more pics in the gallery if you are interested.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I spent most of the night trying to figure out "what next" and just as I was getting ready to go to bed I glanced at my vehicle display shelf and saw TWO Dark Angel vehicles that I'll never ever use because (1) I hate Dark Angels (2) I hate Dark Angels, and (3) yeah you get the point. I picked up the army from a guy I knew back in the day and over the years have wound up trading bits of it off here and there. I still had the vehicles only because they never got traded, I never had any genuine interest in them. Until now. This is simply perfect. My Plague Marine list is allowed 2 Rhino transports. I have been looking for OOP Rhino's (to stick with the rest of my army theme). I have found what I was looking for and once again it was here the entire time, I just had to "see" it.

Lapdogs of the Imperium! Watch how a resourceful Traitor takes your tools and turns them back against you! Muuawwwhhahhhhahhahaaaaaaa!!!

Here's a "before" pic:



I am going to rage on these things. This is my project until the PIP gas mask heads come.

OOP whirlwind I'm assuming?
I absolutely love the skull head of that one Havoc you have there. Only thing missing is puss or slime spewing from his mouth IMO

zadelistol wrote:OOP whirlwind I'm assuming?
I absolutely love the skull head of that one Havoc you have there. Only thing missing is puss or slime spewing from his mouth IMO

Yes, OOP Whirlwind. I'm thinking of taking the old hardware and (after a good Orky this and' that) putting it on a Looted Wagon as a Rokkit Launcher. And I thought about converting the Skull model but decided to keep it as "stock" as possible for nostalgic reasons. Maybe if I dig out another one I'll make it a bit more diseased.

Quick update tonight. The photo doesn't show all the work I've done but it is a small matter, the point of this update is to show what can happen in a few hours when I'm focused and motivated.



I'm not bothering to take a lot of pics because I'm going to convert a couple things on them (like weapons) and then I'm mixing up some GS. I'm going to unleash the corruption of Nurgle on both Rhinos but only to the extent that they look "touched", not "possessed". They are still just regular Rhinos.

Much more coming. Soon.

No update on my heads from PIP but it's only been a week. But still... no update on the heads.

Ok, off to work on this. I need to crank on this project because I know as soon as those heads get here anything else I'm doing is going to drop like a rock to the bottom of the list. I am *really* looking forward to the next phase of this project.

They look very....normal compared to how they did before, then again, they aren't all Dark Angel'ed up anymore.

I don't think even papa Nurgle has words for how proud he is of that daemon prince..

@ A Black Ram- Thank you, I appreciate the compliment. I saw in another thread that you are working on your own Chaos army. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!

@ zadelistol- I think you'll find they are not quite as plain as they were earlier tonight Hopefully this will make up for the lack of pus vomit on the Havoc.


Yes, time for another update. The Dark Angel Chapter is without question officially short 1 Rhino and 1 Whirlwind now. Wail and despair O' ye servants of the Corpse Throne! That which was once yours now carries the Mark of Nurgle!



This was mad fun. Still getting reacquainted w/ GS but I'm pleased with how this turned out. I could go on about how much this sucked or what I did wrong or how many mistakes I made... but I'm not going to do that. Instead I'm going to be psyched that I remembered as much as I did and celebrate the awesome of the results.



This particular Rhino started as the most annoying and turned into the most fun. Again, it had been quite some time since I genuinely used GS as more than a gap filler (the Daemon Prince a week or so ago doesn't really count) so due to inexperience I made more than I had intended and lost my original idea about 1/2 way through working on this... but then by complete accident I stumbled upon a couple techniques (like the divots) and was stuck squarely in the back of the head by the 2x4 of inspiration. Running with the idea I grabbed my Chaos Spawn bitz box for the spiky bits and my Undead bitz box for the smiling face and hanging guts. Thought about doing both sides w/ spikes and all that but remembered that sometimes less is more. Restraint carried the day and I'm pretty happy with how this is turning out so far.



This one I am really proud of because I started out with an idea and from beginning to end I did not lose focus on it. What you see here is exactly what I meant to do. It was more difficult than I remembered and I know that if I practiced more I'd be able to offer this same idea done more professionally, but I'm actually really happy with this as it is and think it is going to look perfect once it is done. Here is the same bit, only now primed (yes I did a lousy priming job, I'm going to go back over it before I paint the rest of it)



All I did for this other than GS was cut up a Zombie Spear shaft and use it as the stakes that are either supporting or stretching the GS out. The stitches were done with my xacto knife. Simple and effective. Once it is painted it will have the emblem of Nurgle on the banner. I am thinking about making a side "banner" as well but haven't decided if I want to or not yet. My main goal (other than to make these look cool) is to get as much done with them as possible so that if need be I can zip to the finish with them because while they are cool and will serve a purpose in my army this started out as a distraction while I was waiting for the parts for my main project to arrive. As soon as those PIP heads show up this (and every other thing I am working on right now) is dropping to the absolute bottom of the projects list.

But maybe, just maybe... this is cool enough to push those gas mask Plague Marines back another few days to really make this a solid part of the army showpeices. I don't know yet. I'll find out over the next couple of days.

That's it for tonight. Thanks for checking this out. More is coming soon.

HOLY CRAP MAN!!
SKALK!
Those Rhino's well make up for the lack of puss in the havoc!
I love the heads and random tentacles sputting out of the one on the right!

If you where to ever mold this and sell resin kids*Drools* I would buy several!

zadelistol wrote:
If you where to ever mold this and sell resin kids*Drools* I would buy several!

Aye, make your own dude with a bit of practise it's not to hard to pull off. You just need a twisted mind to come up with an idea and then do it!
Also great work Skalk, they look very cool indeed.

Lol was only saying if he did ever decide to make a mold of it, that I would buy it.
I never said I wouldn't make one of my own.
I just haven't played around with god specific rhino's yet*Only have one and that's undivided for the time being.)

Latest update. There's a few fiddly things left but they could be good "as is". That's enough text, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.

Gotta tell you man, every time you post a pic on this thread/explain your next plan, it gets better and better. I would love to face this army!

Rhino look old school greatness!!!

On a bad note I have a massive dislike for your basing of this army.

Models great! bases Bad !

juicy juicy nurgle full of rot and pus! Also I love to see the old traitor marines as they are so randomly shaped and fun

zadelistol wrote:Gotta tell you man, every time you post a pic on this thread/explain your next plan, it gets better and better. I would love to face this army!

Thanks, I appreciate the support. The next phase of this project is going to be huge. 40 new Plague Marines. That's going to tip the main balance of my force from "old" to "new", but that's just fine with me. Over 13 years past and it's still a viable army to paint and play.

Tortured-Robot wrote:Rhino look old school greatness!!!

On a bad note I have a massive dislike for your basing of this army.

Models great! bases Bad !

The flock?

weetyskemian44 wrote:juicy juicy nurgle full of rot and pus! Also I love to see the old traitor marines as they are so randomly shaped and fun

Yeah, I really like the old Plague Marine models. They fit well with the old mythos of Nurgle, and add a flavor to a Plague Marine army that I don't think can be compared with any other Legion or warband. I'm following a couple on ebay right now that would a nice addition to my old stuff.

Very nice indeed, good work!

Quick update because today was lame and I didn't get much done at all. But I made sure to do at least this:



That's 10 out of 40. Notice that they are all missing heads and right shoulder pads. Both are on order. I am really hoping my PIP gas mask heads will be here before the weekend, same for the shoulder pads. In anticipation I'm going to paint these and fit the heads / pads afterward. I'm too impatient to wait any longer.

So really not much of an update. But still a valid one as other posts have shown not much time passes before a basecoated miniature becomes a completed part of my army.

I wish I could be even 1/4 this motivated about my Word Bearers. But I'm not, so whatever.

And a teaser of things to come in the distant future- tonight I scored a total steal on eBay. I'm not going to say what it is because I'm going to do it completely behind the scenes and then present it in a comprehensive "step by step" photo log all at once. The only hint I'll offer is I'm crediting Bigdobbo for the inspiration. This one is going to take a while but once it is done it will be the most amazing piece in my army and possibly the most complicated conversion I'll ever do. Depends on how it goes.

Keep checking back for more updates, because they are coming.

Awe man, Skalk your gonna keep your thread watchers(like me) on edge waiting for whats coming next!
Gah, can't wait to see what it is>< I don't wanna know what inspired it since I'm too lazy to go check the previous posts/other threads to find out what it was.

Good news- The next 20 Plague Marines just showed up today. I'll get to tearing them apart and putting them back together soon.

Bad news- My PIP heads did not arrive today. I am not happy. I'm not upset w/ PIP, I'm just upset at circumstance. I really need those heads to move forward. My shoulder pads didn't come either but I'm not as anxious for those.

So that's my update. A whole bunch of nothing. BUT... I am working on the 10 Plague Marines from the above photo. They aren't white anymore... ha.

Also taking another look at my Daemon Prince. Yeah, remember him? Seems like a couple months past already and it was only a week ago that I set him down to take a break. But time is different when you live in Warpspace. Anyway, pulled him back out again and decided to experiment a bit with ... highlights. I am daunted. But whatever happens it is what it is. So if nothing else I'll have some new pics of that, and this time it'll be for good, I'm going to base him.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:Thanks, I appreciate the support. The next phase of this project is going to be huge. 40 new Plague Marines.

40 Plague Marines... 40 : 7 = 5,7142857142857142857142857142857 and so forth...

How can you play 40 Plague Marines!?!

Let's imagine the scene:

Ol'Father Nurgle : "First shalt thou take out your whole Unholy Army. Then shalt thou count to Seven, no more, no less. Seven shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be Seven. Eight shalt thou not count (bloody -fanatics), neither count thou six (fing sex-addicts), excepting that thou then proceed to Seven. Nine is right out (goddn mock seers) . Once the number seven, being the seventh number, be reached, then formest thou thy first Plague Marine squad. Likewise, thou shall marshall thy remaining troops in squads of Seven, and Seven shall be the number of brothers in each of your squad."

Skalk Bloodaxe : "My beloved brothers of decay, I shall count to Seven, and, in my command, thou shall form up in squads of Seven!"

The Plague Marines : "Praise to the Lord of Decay."

Skalk Bloodaxe : "Right. Squad Smallpox, form up! 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 8."

Sgt. Smallpox : "Seven, sir."

Skalk Bloodaxe : "Seven."

Ol' Father Nurgle : " "




Ok, apart from that somewhat ironic fluff-related cutscene (or gut-scene ), I'm following your thread with great attention, for I love the way you manage to give your minis a real Nurgle feel, even when it was not their first purpose!!!

So congratulations, I want to see more (and I want to see 7-men squads!!!)

Cheers,

Yggdrasil wrote:

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:Thanks, I appreciate the support. The next phase of this project is going to be huge. 40 new Plague Marines.

40 Plague Marines... 40 : 7 = 5,7142857142857142857142857142857 and so forth...

How can you play 40 Plague Marines!?!

Let's imagine the scene:

Ol'Father Nurgle : "First shalt thou take out your whole Unholy Army. Then shalt thou count to Seven, no more, no less. Seven shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be Seven. Eight shalt thou not count (bloody -fanatics), neither count thou six (fing sex-addicts), excepting that thou then proceed to Seven. Nine is right out (goddn mock seers) . Once the number seven, being the seventh number, be reached, then formest thou thy first Plague Marine squad. Likewise, thou shall marshall thy remaining troops in squads of Seven, and Seven shall be the number of brothers in each of your squad."

Skalk Bloodaxe : "My beloved brothers of decay, I shall count to Seven, and, in my command, thou shall form up in squads of Seven!"

The Plague Marines : "Praise to the Lord of Decay."

Skalk Bloodaxe : "Right. Squad Smallpox, form up! 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 8."

Sgt. Smallpox : "Seven, sir."

Skalk Bloodaxe : "Seven."

Ol' Father Nurgle : " "




Ok, apart from that somewhat ironic fluff-related cutscene (or gut-scene ), I'm following your thread with great attention, for I love the way you manage to give your minis a real Nurgle feel, even when it was not their first purpose!!!

So congratulations, I want to see more (and I want to see 7-men squads!!!)

Cheers,

Lol Yggdrasil! Hillarious, gave me a good laught and for that I thank you.


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maybe should'nt have qouted it, takes up a bit of space..

That was the best thing I am going to read all week!

I assure you that I am virulent Space Marine dedicated to Nurgle and that I revere the holy number seven. Long have I sacrificed the pursuit of victory to ensure that I properly roleplayed my army. I am a devote believer that the first 90% of a Codex is description of how and why you should play an army and the list in the back is merely the mechanics of the game.

That being said, I am in the process of painting an army that will eventually wind up on an APOC table and I'm painting new units in large batches. Don't think of my army as being literally 10, 20, 40... think of it as ten squads of 7 models each.

Thanks for following along. I've checked out your stuff quite a few time and I am humbled. You have already inspired me to strive for a higher standard.


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Admittedly I have played squads of 14, but that's just 7 x 2....

Hmm, now I know the numbers of chaos. Seven has always been my lucky and most sought out number my whole life...
Hmm(thinks back to before he was one and had pneumonia seven times)

Nurgle has marked me PRAISE THE LORD OF DECAY AND EVERLASTING LIFE!

Update for the weekend. My PIP heads didn't arrive but my Autocannons did so I decided to fire up this project on top of everything else I'm working on. I started with an old RT Chaos Space Marines w/ the old Heavy Bolter. I did not point this, this is a score from eBay. It looked kind of Tzeentch-like so of course I thought it would be quite funny to convert him into a Death Guard Havoc.

Here's how he started, and where he is so far:



There's some GS in his future.

Last night I played a game with my friend and we decided on 2,350 pts. Here's a pic of my forces. You may notices that there are 7 Marines per squad. And while you can't really see them in this picture, there is a Havoc squad on the other side of the Rhinos, which means I have 7 squads of 7 Death Guard each.


As the battle progressed I learned that I really need to have my Aspiring Champions that are kitted out like Aspiring Champions should be (meaning somerthing other than just the standard isssue. They have slots for extra wargear for a reason). To that end I've been working on these today. Power Fists, Plasma Pistols, and a Combi-weapon for starters. I put a lot of work into these conversions. The astute observer will see multiple kit bashs.







Each one of these Champions are going to be assigned to different squads, but I can also use some of them to create a a unit of Chosen which is very likely to happen as I continue to experiment with the list. I didn't field my Daemon Prince. Which reminds me, I didn't finish him yet. I meant to do that this weekend. Eh. Back in a while.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote: I assure you that I am virulent Space Marine dedicated to Nurgle and that I revere the holy number seven. Long have I sacrificed the pursuit of victory to ensure that I properly roleplayed my army. I am a devote believer that the first 90% of a Codex is description of how and why you should play an army and the list in the back is merely the mechanics of the game.

AMEN to that my friend. Warhammer 40k is a game designed for role playing fun in my opinion!

Hmm...Going back to RT I would have to say i don't really like the chaos marine's design. a little too lanky for my taste. I do however like the 2nd ed. A bit bulkier.


As for the Aspiring Champion. I usually have one in each squad. I haven't given any of mine plasma's but I do have two dedicated to just that. One I call the Jester, and one that has a dual-ended chain staff that counts as a power weapon.
OH! almost forgot about my skull champion, just a power axe. My plague champion that has a power sword. gonna start painting him soon. That and he has a converted sword, I'll prob make a blog about my army or something, and my aspiring sorcerer, but who doesn't have that if they have T-sons?

I like what youve done with that RT chaos marine - It looks good without the bolt pistol arm.

Another update. This one not so much to show what is done, but to give a "behind the scenes" look at the multiple projects I have on the table right now.

First the the Autocannon Havoc. I added some GS to bulk him out a bit. It'll still wind up looking a bit weedier than the rest, but I'm ok with that. Yes I know I messed up the right knee and his elbow joint. I have already fixed it, you'll see the correction in the next pics.



Next is a regular squad of Plague Marines, nothing special except that I have started to clearly mark their packs so I can tell one squad from another when they all pile in or have to share close quarters in my deployment zone. I'll likely model a couple Special Weapons that I can alternate in and out of the squad as needed.



Here's the progress I've made on the Aspiring Champions. It doesn't look like much but I'm moving right along, I expect they will be done by the weekend barring and unforeseen circumstances. And after this pic was taken I had some leftover GS so I "Nurgled" them up a bit more. You'll see the results in the next update.



And finally, the part of the update you've been looking forward to (or at least I'll pretend you were, it makes me feel more important) the completed Daemon Prince:





I was going to use one of the more dynamic bases (like the one I have my World Eaters Dreadnought but I decided that extra couple millimeters might mean the difference between a cover save or not.

Ha.

But in all seriousness I used the plain base was because I was going to flock it with the same stuff I have used for the entire army since the beginning of time and rather than bury a pretty cool and animated base, I kept my army theme together and saved the base for a different model some other time. I reserve the option to change my mind at a later date.

No word on the PIP heads but that's actually a good thing. With the projects I have open right now I'm actually happy that they didn't show up today and I can't get to the post office until Saturday morning. Plenty of time to finish up at least the Aspiring Champion squad.

That's it for this one. As always, thanks for following along and being part of this. What's funny to me is that the intent of this was to display my old army and add a couple things, but I went insane and have nearly doubled it since I started this thread. You know what... I'll be back in a little while with another picture. I'm interested in seeing just exactly how much this has changed.

So yeah, back later tonight. Thanks for reading.


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From this playable army:



to this:



and this is almost everything I have:



I need a Land Raider. I have to stop buying fiddly bitz on eBay and just do it.

Also open to other suggestions. Anything else you don't see that I should have? One of these days I'll write up my army list on what you see here.

It's turning out really good Skalk!
Hmm at first I was going to suggest a dread but you already have one Lol.
LR and Defiler would look nice in that army!
Too bad Blight Drones can't be used outside of Apoc yet.

Nice work. Nugle-y but not OTT. I like the DP. He looks intimidating, but again not over the top eww gross.

zadelistol- I like Chaos Dreadnoughts. They look very cool and when they work correctly they can lay down a barrage that would make a Space Marine Captain duck for cover. Unfortunately my luck with them has invariably been watching them charge headlong across the table into unsupported close combat, or spend a turn ripping up my own troops. A few games ago I had both of my Dreadnoughts side by side in the middle of the table (intimidation factor) and on the first turn they BOTH rolled a 1 for Fire Frenzy. Since for each Dreadnought the other was the closest unit on the battlefield they opened up on each other and when it was all over I had one Dread immobilized and the other was destroyed. On my first turn. My opponents genuinely enjoy when I play Dreadnoughts. Horray for 115 points per model of absolutely nothing worthwhile!

I still may add another couple Dreadnoughts because I like how they look and enjoy modeling them. Can't say I'd look forward to seeing them on the table much though. Maybe I need to play World Eaters w/ a lot of Berzerkers and have Kharne lead my Dreadnoughts. I can't imagine that anything bad would happen!

I really really really need a Land Raider. I think once I get my call pay from work I'm going to bite the bullet and just get one. I would prefer eBay because I would rather take a used LR that was a bit cobbed up by someone else and convert it to my needs because lets face it, a NIB isn't going to make any difference for my army. I don't require the same clean lines that an Ultramarines force would. But of course there's nothing remotely worthwhile on eBay right now. Well ok there's one I am looking at... but it's a surprise. If I get it I think I'll literally dance a short jig. Ha. I doubt it'll go in my reasonable price range. We'll see.

Once the PIP heads are here I'll have a lot of motivation to do more conversions. I'm not going to undo the work I have done already but there are a few models that might have their existing heads popped off just to compare the possibilities. Gas masks are really scary to me. I think they will be absolutely perfect for the next wave I am working on. All total I have no idea how many Plague Marines I'll have, but there's no doubt that (short of any significant armor) I could field an APOC force. That's pretty cool.

That's it for tonight. I'm off to the land where I can feel a boltpistol kicking in my hand and the jarring resistance of a chainsword as it rips from soft flesh to more resilient bone. Ahhh, sweet dreams.

wolfshadow wrote:Nice work. Nugle-y but not OTT. I like the DP. He looks intimidating, but again not over the top eww gross.

Just saw this, had to reply- thank you for checking this out and for the compliment! I am not striving for absolutely disgusting models (I already achieved that w/ my VC Zombies), I'm just going for a diseased and slightly necrotic Chaos Space Marine look. It's good to know that people are getting that same impression back.

Yeah that kinda stuff is the only thing keeping me from getting a dread>< That and keeping it when I do get AOBR and convert the models. The whole fire frenzy just...really puts me off to the warmachine.
Should just give it demonic possession and take away from its BS then do that bs.
I need a LR and termis just about as bad as your army does. I'll probably get NIB when I get them.

Daemon Prince looks nice, he matches the GW Nurgle old style pretty well!

You could get some more rhinos? old school death guard play where plague marines in rhinos where fast attack... good times! I don't really know what you could add more. It depends on what you prefer, though I would say some fast attack, mainly raptors because they are beast. Thoughness 6 nurgle bikes is also pretty good

Yggdrasil wrote:Daemon Prince looks nice, he matches the GW Nurgle old style pretty well!

Thank you. I take that as a genuine compliment because even with new models I want a cohesive feel to my army that ties it with the 2nd Ed stuff I started playing it with, so it is intentional. Granted, I am operating at the apex of my available painting skills... but I'm pretty satisfied with where all of this is at and even if I could dramatically improve I doubt I would apply it to this army because it would look out of place.

Rose_Mountainz wrote:You could get some more rhinos? old school death guard play where plague marines in rhinos where fast attack... good times! I don't really know what you could add more. It depends on what you prefer, though I would say some fast attack, mainly raptors because they are beast. Thoughness 6 nurgle bikes is also pretty good

I've been reading a lot of 4th Ed regarding the Plague Marine list. I'm going to stick with the 2 Rhinos for now (40K) but once APOC starts kicking into gear I'll likely revisit the amount of transport my army has. The more I read up the old lists the less I feel having Fast Attack would be properly roleplaying my army, so even though I'm accepting a tactical disadvantage that the current rules do not specifically impose I feel more honest in my approach to how I am playing my army. If I start feeling like I'm being stomped too often I can always pull out my Black Legion HQ and min / max stats from the 5th ed list for a Crusade force. Of course I'd be compromising my integrity and core principles, but it's a small price to pay for a brief moment of victory. Ha.


Tonights update is a bit rushed, but I decided to call these "done for now" because I have too many projects that are starting to creep up on me and I am feeling overwhelmed. This is how things wind up on my Shelf of Shame. I mentioned a few updates ago that I was going to start a super top-secret OTT conversion that was going to take quite some time to do correctly. Well, the model the conversion is based on arrived today. I have mapped out what needs to be done, what I need to do it, and what I expect to have when I am finished. The good news is that I'm stocked up for this. I bought some more Gray Stuff last week, I have all the parts necessary to build the model, I have a clear image of what I want the end result to be, and I'm motivated to start working on it.

The downer of this is that I have two other huge projects on the back burner that are about to fall right into my lap and demand to be done. I have the "gas mask" squads on deck (speaking of which those heads STILL haven't arrived. I'm not complaining yet. They are coming from England after all, and I ordered them Now 23rd. If they are not here this time next week I'll email the company w/ my order number and see if they have any info on when it might arrive) and after careful tracking on eBay I found a really good deal on a used Land Raider that will be here next week. Either of those projects would be huge on an individual level. Combined, along with Project X... I feel like I'm starting a new army from scratch! Suffice to say I don't see any painting or modeling in my foreseeable future that isn't Death Guard.

But anyway, here are my latest additions to the army. This is not a squad, these are Aspiring Champions created for other preexisting squads. And I still need a few more of them just to cover what I already have, and then I'll need more when the gas mask squads are built, but I'll worry about that later. For now, I present the newest Aspiring Champions in my Death Guard detachment:




These Aspiring Champions came into being after I was completely tabled by my friend's Orks. He was trying a Killa Kan Wall (three units of three Kans each) for the first time and it was devastatingly effective because (in part) I had very little that could fight back against it. I am not saying that this was the entire reason for my loss, but it was certainly a contributing factor. If you haven't played against an Ork player that fields a Kan Wall I suggest you try it sometime. It's awesome!



After my crushing defeat, Father Nurgle sent a vision to me. I was digging through my stuff trying to find something I wanted to upgrade my force with. I found a helm that had something familiar to it but didn't quite belong. A Wonder Saw helped me summon forth the helm that would crown my newest Champion, and soon after the rest of my new Champions fell into place after it.







There's multiple kit bashes and a number of genuine conversions there, as well as a small amount of GS that I didn't know what to do with after it was left over from my Death Guard Havoc w/ Autocannon. The paint job is kind of ehh, and there's things I should have done (like drill the barrels) that I didn't do, but I always can go back if I feel like it. As it is right now these are completely worthy of my tabletop and are a welcome addition to the force. Another benefit is that each Champions frees up a regular Plague Marine model from each squad so in effect I get an extra squad for the effort.

I am really hitting a stride here. I haven't had this much fun modeling and painting in years, it has a direct impact on what I field from game to game, and added together I have a place for every model in my force (i.e. if we played an APOC game).

More is coming. Much, much more. Updates may slow down a bit from this point for a while because I have a lot of stuff to do behind the scenes, but I'll be sure to share the gas mask squads and the Land Raider horror as soon as I have enough work done to share. As always, thanks for following along. It's decent to know that other people are into what I am doing.

Aspiring Champions looks awesome! Whole army is gret, ol' grandpa would be proud.
I too love dreadnoughts! Advice if you're gonna field em: kit them with DCCW, heavy bolter or missile launcher and always field 2 dreads next to each other. Since non of the weapons have high enough Strenght to score a glancing on a Dreads side armor, you wont have to worry about fire frenzy. So I say: Add another dreadnought to your army! (maybe someone like this? http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/162340-Nurgle%20Dread%20WIP.html?m=2)

Yeah, drill the barrels!!!

The champions look nice, I especially like the old power fist / claw on last pic's left-most champion... If it's really the one I think of lol

Limbo wrote:Aspiring Champions looks awesome! Whole army is gret, ol' grandpa would be proud.
I too love dreadnoughts! Advice if you're gonna field em: kit them with DCCW, heavy bolter or missile launcher and always field 2 dreads next to each other. Since non of the weapons have high enough Strenght to score a glancing on a Dreads side armor, you wont have to worry about fire frenzy. So I say: Add another dreadnought to your army! (maybe someone like this? http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/162340-Nurgle%20Dread%20WIP.html?m=2)

Thank you. I checked out your stuff and think it is excellent. I like the scheme you have with your Iron Warriors, classic and true! Your Dreadnought is amazing. Funny you should mention another Dreadnought. Yesterday there was a thread that had this in it and while I don't like this model specifically I think the idea is incredible and it has inspired me to create something similar (meaning the clear sarcophagus but have a WFB Ghoul torso or a non-GW Zombie / undead / corpse thing instead) and corrupt it akin to my Rhino and Predator. However, this is not going to happen for quite some time as I have at least the next month (if not longer) already scheduled for major conversion work. I work a job where I can actually paint during break and lunch so I'll be working on troops straight through, but the larger projects can only be done at home and I don't always have the time I need (and really, even if I were independent wealthy and never needed sleep again I still doubt I'd have enough time... ha). I get the weapon idea (can't destroy each other first turn) but I've usually looked at my Dreads as mobile HW platforms. I suppose I could kit them a bit more Close Combat like my World Eaters Dreadnought (2 CC weapons, Twin Link Bolter, Heavy Flamer)... it'll require a different mindset for my Death Guard as I see them more as a "stand back and shoot" than a "charge headlong into battle" kind of force.

Yggdrasil wrote:Yeah, drill the barrels!!!

The champions look nice, I especially like the old power fist / claw on last pic's left-most champion... If it's really the one I think of lol

You know, after looking at those pics this morning I'm embarrassed that I was so lazy. Just a couple extra minutes to drill the barrels... and really it should have been done during the build / conversion stage, not painting stage when I blew it off. I'm going to do it tonight when I get home. I'm also going to finish the Champion with the back banner. The original idea was to use that standard for the backbanner but then print out small "parchment" strips and attach them to the banner to signify badges either awarded directly to the Champion or ones that he ripped off the backbanners of Champions he had defeated. I'm going to do that tonight as well. The other projects can wait, they aren't going to go anywhere while they wait and rushing through something to call it done when it is falling short of the intended goal just so I can rushn into another project that will get set aside as I go to the next and the next... slooooooowwww dooowwnnn, chill... there's no deadline on this except my pending mortality, and I'm not expecting that anytime soon.

Pics of corrections soon.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

Limbo wrote:Aspiring Champions looks awesome! Whole army is gret, ol' grandpa would be proud.
I too love dreadnoughts! Advice if you're gonna field em: kit them with DCCW, heavy bolter or missile launcher and always field 2 dreads next to each other. Since non of the weapons have high enough Strenght to score a glancing on a Dreads side armor, you wont have to worry about fire frenzy. So I say: Add another dreadnought to your army! (maybe someone like this? http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/162340-Nurgle%20Dread%20WIP.html?m=2)

Thank you. I checked out your stuff and think it is excellent. I like the scheme you have with your Iron Warriors, classic and true! Your Dreadnought is amazing. Funny you should mention another Dreadnought. Yesterday there was a thread that had this in it and while I don't like this model specifically I think the idea is incredible and it has inspired me to create something similar (meaning the clear sarcophagus but have a WFB Ghoul torso or a non-GW Zombie / undead / corpse thing instead) and corrupt it akin to my Rhino and Predator. However, this is not going to happen for quite some time as I have at least the next month (if not longer) already scheduled for major conversion work. I work a job where I can actually paint during break and lunch so I'll be working on troops straight through, but the larger projects can only be done at home and I don't always have the time I need (and really, even if I were independent wealthy and never needed sleep again I still doubt I'd have enough time... ha). I get the weapon idea (can't destroy each other first turn) but I've usually looked at my Dreads as mobile HW platforms. I suppose I could kit them a bit more Close Combat like my World Eaters Dreadnought (2 CC weapons, Twin Link Bolter, Heavy Flamer)... it'll require a different mindset for my Death Guard as I see them more as a "stand back and shoot" than a "charge headlong into battle" kind of force.

Thanks alot, was suprised to see some new models as top rated in my gallery. That dreadnought's sweet, I really hope you'll find the time to put together a rotting corpse bathing in its own pus =) I'm seeing a really old pickle for some reason....
Btw, how sane are your Dreadnoughts?

Statistically speaking I have a 33.333 percent chance of having something unsavory happen at the beginning of each of my turns. To date I have yet to have a game where I have not had something incredibly stupid happen at least twice. I can see why an astute Warlord that had victory on their mind would steer clear of such a machine. Luckily I play for fun so at times it's actually kind of funny to see it running across the field snapping it's clawing and shrieking in it's blood chilling mechanical voice.

Personaly, I consider it a 0.1666 percent chance that something stupid happens, since I tend to deploy my dreads as near the enemy as possible, hence why I hate Dawn of War -.-

Weekend update. Keeping my word, I went back and finished details that should have been done in the first place. I drilled out a lot of barrels, even some on really old models that have been around since my original army. I touched up some bits and detail that was lacking, and overall I feel better about the effort I've been making lately.

I'm not posting pics of something so minor (drilled barrels) but I am posting some work I did on an Aspiring Champion. I had the idea on this one to have a banner covered with awards, certificates, etc that has either been awarded to the champion or ones that he had ripped from defeated enemies. But I rushed it and just left the banner empty. I went back over it a couple times and this is the end result:



I'm mostly happy with it. I know I could have cleaned up another couple things but this time it really is it. I'm done w/ this one. I actually made the backbanner worse today by trying to add some definition between the different awards on it and would up doing a lot of "fix it as best I can" work to bring it to where it is now, which is less than it was before I started I think. It is a small matter. It is a good miniature for wargaming and it meets my standard for an acceptable tabletop paintjob. I wouldn't enter it into a painting contest but I'd enter it into a 1,500 pt army for a night of "roll dice kill stuff".

In other news, I have some work done on my super top secret Project X. I will say that I was very unhappy when I really sat down and started to look at the base model. Previously I had taken a look at it to say "yup. it's what I bid on" and set it aside. I was finally starting to move the concept in my mind onto the miniature and see how much of it would transfer and what changes had to be made, what first steps would I need to take, etc. That's when it it became obvious that before I was going to get any work done on my vision I had to undo almost everything on the model. It had to have been glued by an unsupervised novice with no idea how basic modeling works and was convinced that 1 model = 1 full tube of polystyrene glue. I spend over an hour just cutting the model apart so I could repair and rebuild it to meet my standard and needs for the model I am going to make out of it. I actually got so sick of it that I gave up on everything and burned up a couple hours playing a video game just to readjust my head and not wind up hating this project.

Feh. There's a lot of work to be done on this. But in the end I expect it will be worth it.

In other other news, still no PIP heads. As stated before I won't start getting too twitchy about it until next week, but I was honestly disappointed when I checked the mail yesterday. I have a squad of Plagie Marines pre-painted, just need the heads to finish the model and then a bit of work to wash / tone / etc. Once that is done I'll have instant gratification with a new squad of gas masked Plague Marines. So I guess the good news of that is that as soon as they get here I'll be able to post something up.

And finally, in other other other news I have a Land Raider coming sometime next week and I'm pretty sure as soon as it hit my work table it will become priority #1 until it is finished. I am planning on pushing my sculpting limits on this one, I really want to warp and corrupt this LR as much as possible while still maintaining a cohesive thread with the rest of my army. I have a lot of GS on hand because of the other project I'm working on so there will be no lack of material.

That's it for this one. As always, thanks for following along and much more is on the way.

The banner looks nice, I like it! Looks like he just graduated from a Astartes School or something!!

I like the slightly brighter green than average for a Nurgle army. It sort of 'pops' a bit more than an average Nurgle DG force.

Banner guy looks great! You never considerd putting the mark of nurgle on it? I like this one too thought, love the idea of him stealing seals and such from loyalist space marines.

You've perked my intrest regarding Project X, hope you'll stick to it!

Looking great Skalk, sorry to hear about the PIP heads again.

Please tell me its a classic 2ed LR? Those things look epic IMO.

@ Yggdrasil- Ha! Thanks for that. I'm hoping he gets the opportunity to actually earn some of those certificates and awards soon. Right now he's a convincing poser. Hmm. In retrospect I actually could have not done anything w. the banner and added those things one at a time as he actually earned them (I'll do that on occasion, like with my WoC- I tabled my friends Beastmen army so I made a new BSB for my WoC with a Minotaur Lord's head atop the pole looking rather bloody and drippy. The point was not lost on my friend.

@ wolfshadow- Thanks for the compliment. Other people have noticed that as well, especially on the tabletop. What looks extremely bright in photos actually mellows in "real life" and stands out more distinctly. While it is not always to my benefit that people remember my Havoc squad is on the rooftop because they don't look like the rooftop they are one, I'm really enjoying the uniqueness of my force and because I have found a formula that is an almost exact match to the original ink that I used to use I'll be able to use this same scheme for as long as I want.

@ Limbo- Thank you . I had considered putting the Mark of Nurgle on it but it seemed too "easy", meaning it is something one would expect to see in a Death Guard army. This is more unusual (and unlike some of my ideas, this one I did not 'borrow' from someone else, this came to me in a vision... ha). The original idea was to copy pictures of documents and awards online, downsize them, print them, and done. Result was that downsizing that much obscured the detail on the printer. So believe it or not, each one of those truly is an award or some other document. One of the is the US Constitution, another is the US Bill of Rights. Notice that they are completely indistinguishable from a random piece of paper. There's a metaphor there but I'm not going any further with it. Bottom line is end result I still had to paint outlines and squiggly lines and pretend wax stamps and ribbons... but at least I know what mistakes I made on this so if I do it again (which is highly likely) it will look better.

@ zadelistol- I'm giving PIP a few more days before I send them an email. I submitted my order on Nov 23rd, the 14th will be 3 weeks. If this were being shipped in the US I'd have a different expectation. That's doesn't mean I'm not disappointed; I'm just not upset about it. ---- You make me really want to tell you what Project X is, but at this point I feel that with all the suspense and buildup if you knew what it was without seeing the awesome amazing incredible OTT end result along with it you'd be disappointed because it's not incredibly unique, I've found a number of them on Dakka and would likely find even more online via any search engine. So I can't tip my hand even in a PM, but I'll throw you this scrap at least: as awesome as it would be and as much as I would like to have one again (yes I used to have one, sold it when i was hurting for $$$ and have regretted it ever since) this project is not the original OOP Land Raider. That is not saying that someday I won't have one again, I just haven't bid high enough on the ones that have shown up on eBay.

Thanks again everyone for following along and posting comments! There's something to be said about acknowledgement and validation from your peers.

Today’s update is actually from work I did last night and I’ve already got more work done on them, but here's the project I am working on this week. This squad was thought up a few weeks ago but my most recent game is what motivated me to truly get them going. You’ll recognize the converted RT model if you saw the update a while back. The GS didn’t come out as awesome as I had hoped but admittedly I did not give it the attention I should have so the result is equal to the effort.



Death Guard Havocs with Autocannons. 8d6 of S7 AP4 that can reach out and touch good up to 48". It's good for killing... well, almost anything. Sure, some things will still get a save, and heavier vehicles don't have a lot to worry about, but bottom line is that the AC is a lot of dakka for the points spent.

I also made a new Aspiring Champion for this squad. It won't stay with this squad specifically, but he does fill a necessary slot. From now on whenever I make a new squad of anything I'm going to make an Aspiring Champion at the same time. I'm also going to pay more attention to the WYSIWYG and model them w/ Bolters and a pistol puch that I can call a Plasma if I want, or have it be a standard Bolt Pistol. Reason being is that I'm going to make some "double duty" models that can be Aspiring Champions on their own or Chosen in a group. Each one is so unique that I doubt anyone will have an issue with me using the same models in different roles (at different times of course).

So the Death Guard is still growing and going strong. I'll have this new squad done before the end of the week. More coming soon.

VERY NICE!! The thing that seperates the havoc from the devastator imo. Most people will say "get missile launchers instead", but then you're missing out on some really cool weapons! RT marine turned out great, very freakish. Aspiring Champion fits nice too, kinda like "On my mark *Raises Hand*....DESTROY!".
Did you have trouble putting the Autocannons on? I've only done one so far, and I found it to be a real pain to get it on right, and I didn't even place it right... just look closer at his left shoulder =/ Btw, thanks for voting on him.

Just caught up on this lot. That DP is looking sweet as. Well, you know, sweet in a disgusting, too-sugary type way Like what you did with the old RT guy too, love those old chaos guys, they rock as far as I'm concerned.

8 STR 7 shots is pretty cool. Light vehicles and big creatures beware.

Might just steal this idea and order a box of CSM and some Reaper Autos! I sadly only have the one on my defilier currently, but it works out great when I use it!

lookin good

Awesome work, dude.

I'd love to have my Legionnaires face off against your Death Guard. That'd make for a fun game. : )

@ Limbo- I'm going to make a Havoc squad with every list-legal combination of weapons, including 4 Meltas and 4 Plasma Guns. Yup, I can do that according to the rules. Although Papa Nurgle sometimes punishes me for taking too many Plasma Guns I can't resist the idea of a 7 man squad laying down that much "move and shoot" firepower. - I didn't have any issues with getting the AC to line up when I was modeling them. The one on the RT model had to be converted to fit, but the other three models was just glue and done. There is the slight angle to the AC but that's ok, it looks like it is being swung around to engage a target. And from the positioning / helm I used I can almost hear the Marine screaming "GET SOME!" as he burns up a belt of ammo.

@ monkeytroll- Welcome back! Glad you're liking the Daemon Prince. It is as done as it is going to get. It was turning into one of those projects where if I let it continue I'd never have finished it. There's a LOT going on with that model. If you ever see one in person check it out, the detail on it is madness. - I'm running low on RT CSM models. There was an auction on eBay a while ago that was *all* RT but I missed it. I expect more will be joining but it's not going to be for a while.

@ wolfshadow- ... like a Rhino filled with Space Marines? Light vehicles beware indeed.

@ zadelistol- Glad I am an inspiration! Autocannons are filled with goodness. Multiple shots, decent AP, fair chance on punching a vehicle, only thing I don't like about them is I can't move and shoot. But with a 48" range I'm ok w/ that. Check eBay before spending retail $$$, you might get lucky. I bought my 4 Autocannons and a CSM in a lot for $9 shipping included.

@ weetyskemian44 - thanks and welcome back! I've been reading though your quest for perfection. There's a lot to it for sure. Your painting and photography is excellent. You and I share a LOT of the same miniatures, though I think most of your models look better.

@ Vladsimpaler- Thanks for the compliment, fellow Chaos player! Your stuff is awesome. I have 3 of the 4 models you have in your Frenzied Four. It didn't make me want to paint them in opposing colors or anything. Nope. I'm not working on that behind the scenes at all. And I'm not trying to get that 4th model, either. - It seems like most of the people I've been introduced to on Dakka are from CA. I wonder why that is? But I agree, World Eaters vs. Death Guard. Or better yet... as allies in an APOC game stomping Imperial heads into the mud. But until one of us travels to the other side of the country it'll just be a good idea.

Thanks all for the replies! Tonight's update is completely awesome if I say so myself, which I do therefore it must be. Ahead of schedule but no known corners cut, I present Death Guard Havoc squad- Autocannons:



The photos do not really do any of the models justice, I really put some work into this batch. The Aspiring Champion is really cool. I even did some highlighting on him, starting to experiment more with that technique. The star of this show is the RT model. Again, another look at "before":



...and here he is in all of his Chaos glory now:



I dare say that his current incarnation is a lot cooler.

In other news, still no PIP heads. According to their website I should give it 4 weeks to arrive, it's only been three. I'm glad I looked it up instead of sending off an email. I'll give it another week.

In other other news, MORE Marines on the way, I saw an auction I could not refuse and scored a deal so sick it is almost embarrassing to tell what I got and how little I paid for it. It works out to around 10 cents per Marine.

In other other other news, Land Raider should be here tomorrow or Friday and I have shelved Project X because it started to annoy me. My next "take to work" project is going to be another squad of Terminators. With Reaper Autocannon of course. Pics tomorrow.

Thanks for following along. More coming soon.

10c Per marine is a awsome deal, even if you have to strip them. Good job!

Love the Autocannon marine. He looks pretty awsome, and is indeed significantly cooler in this incarnation.

wolfshadow wrote:
Love the Autocannon marine. He looks pretty awsome, and is indeed significantly cooler in this incarnation.

Definitely agreed. At first I thought "sacrilege!" but it has turned out to be pretty awesome. : )

As for the Frenzied Four, they have been alerted of the presence of their rivals, the Flirtatious Foursome, in a nearby system. The battle is sure to be epic and pretty bloody.

Quick update and then bed. One of these days I really need to just stop all this madness and sleep. Yeah. That'll happen.

Since my last update a while ago I searched through my bitz, built the most ridiculously expensive Chaos Terminator squad I have ever built (6 Chainfist 1 Powerfist 4 Metal combis 2 Flamer combis and a Heavy Flamer) primed white and gave them their first ink base wash. So it's official, my next project really is another squad of Chaos Terminators:



They will look distinctly different next time you see them.

@ wolfshadow- Thanks. eBay is my friend. There's no way I could be doing this if I were buying stuff retail.

@ Vladsimpaler- I'm glad you like the conversion. If it makes you feel any better I have that same miniature in it's pure form, unpainted and likely to stay that way. Confused about the Flirtatious Foursome... is that some Slaaneshi warband?

Those havocs turned out awesome!! I want 4 autocannons aswell >_>
Gah, please tell me you're doing more terminators than those 6? You have to do a couple with Manreapers as power weapons, or atleast a terminator lord with a Manreaper. I've wanted to do that for a while now, but since I play Iron Warriors, I've had no excuse to =/

Arggg! Not knowing what Project X is killing me!

I do like how the RT model turned out, Perosnally I didn't like how scrawny he looked but now he looks much better!

And Limbo, you can have Iron Warriors with a squad and hq from the Death Guard. Might not be to the fluff but it could still work.

True, but I don't really need another lord xP And he wouldn't fit with the fluff I have planed. So I still say, Skalk, Manreapers!!

@ Limbo- I already have a Lord in Terminator armor w/ a Manreaper. You can see him in my lineup here. Look for the big guy with the scythe in the upper left near the trees and hill. Coolest part is that he's actually my Death Guard Lord from 1997 that was converted just before this game, I finished it up later but haven't posted any pics of him yet. I'll take a specific picture when i get home tonight. The Terminator squad I am working on now is simply another squad of Elites but of course he can join them. I will say that the Manreaper is competely useless against Kans though, and that is a problem. I'm thinking I'm not going to use a Manreaper again until I'm playing against squisher targets. But back to the Terminator Veterans. I already have one that I play pretty regularly. The reason I went with Terminators w/ Chain Fists is because (1) My Tyranid friend is working feverishly on his Space Wolves, and (2) another friend of mine just got back for Afghanistan. Between Land Raiders and Leman Russ tanks I'm going to have a lot of opportunity to carve up some heavy armor and the extra D6 on the CF is going to come in handy. The only reason I didn't fit all seven Terminators w/ CF is because I only had 6 left in my bitz box. Ha.

@ zadelistol- I'm thinking it'll be ok to forget all about Project X for a while. I am supremely sick of even looking at it. And as soon as my PIP heads get here that is going to become my #1 priority because I have many bodies already primed and inked just waiting for a head, that is a project that will move along quickly once I have the heads to put on. Plus I'm working on my new Terminator squad, and I have a Land Raider that should arrive in the next few days. I'm sure the spark will return and I'll revisit Project X but right now I'm sick of it and I know better than to "force" this or I'm going to scrap the entire project and go play video games instead. - Glad you like the RT model w/ the conversion and new AC. I never liked that model really. When the one I used showed up in a batch of older models I bought on eBay (the Mk VI Beakie I used in my Heavy Bolter squad was from the same auction) I decided I would use it for something at some point, and this was as good as any purpose. I think it looks a lot more menacing and serious now, it was kind of cartoonish before.

The Autocannon RT mini looks way better now indeed!!!

Also like how the whole squad turned out, they're great!!!

I'm looking forward to that picture =)
Btw, what are you missing from your force? What do you really want to add before you can consider it finished?

@ Yggdrasil- Glad you like them. I slowed down and paid a bit more attention to the fiddly details on this squad. I'm noticing that my painting style is changing a bit, I've been experimenting more with different washes, shading, etc. I won't be making any revolutionary changes because I want to continue the theme that ties my army together, but I think I am creating more detailed models now.

@ Limbo- Interesting questions. I don't know the answer. I could say that nothing is missing and that it was finished in 1998. But then I could say it's missing everything and it won't be finished until I can field minimum 10k pts in an APOC game.

The original Death Guard models I have were simply a contingent of a much larger force. My Lord was absolutely brutal. Always took the marks of Khorne and Nurgle, was kitted for CC to the point that he could stand toe to toe w/ a Bloodthirster until it became wound attrition, the Bloodthirster had way more. I had a squad of Khorne Berzerkers in Terminator armor, they were the hammer that smashed against the anvil that the Death Guard provided. I also had Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, and Black Legion represented on the field depending on what my needs for that specific game were. Bear in mind back in the day point cost were way higher and there were less models on the table. And I almost always brought some Plaguebearers and frequently my GU1. So the miniatures I had made up my army with a decent selection and variety.

Right before I started this blog I played a 10k pt game of 40K (5k per side) and I struggled to fill 5k points of painted miniatures even when I added everything I had and in the end I wound up fielding unpainted stuff, the entire point of the game was to field completed units. Because I roleplay my army even if it is to the detriment of victory my Berzerkers died completely pointless deaths and my Death Guard had the best "point for point" kill ratio on my side of the board. That left a definite impression on me. I started painting the Death Guard models that I had played unpainted. I took a picture of them (i.e. the beginning of this thread) and started to play them to the exclusion of all else, which of course prompted the "need" for more troops, more Champions, more everything. I now have enough to play a 2,500 pt game fully painted and I have some huge projects coming. There's honestly no end in sight. I want to model another Dreadnought (which is partially your fault) and I want at least 3 Land Raiders available and I've been looking at a Baneblade... no end in sight. If I were sane I'd have a nice tidy 2,500 pt army and be happy. But I'm an obsessive collector. I'll keep going on this until another project steals my attention. For what it is worth I did the same thing with my VC army and wound up with over 450 zombies. I'm not going to stop doing this anytime soon.

Since I started about 1,5 year ago, I have no idea what your talking about xP I can guess the models since I'm a whore for lore, but past edition rules and such....way above my head. Berzerkers in terminator armor? MoN and MoK on the same model, that sounds crazy.....and really fun
(Btw, I'm not sorry about the dread)
Personaly, I just want all the cool models in the codex....which is every model, but not noise marines and most characters.

I see your point on the collection. I plan of having around 3-7 K for my Ebon Gauntlets, including, hopefully, a Fellblade Superheavy.


And god help me when the Grey Knight plastics get released.

Ah okay. Well since it's been shelved I can wait and forget about it till you mention it again.

Sadly since I have a few bills that just came up and christmas that has arrived I can't buy anything else till after the start of the year. I have been playing for going on two years now. How you find your mini's so cheap is amazing! I need to start browsing E-bay more often I guess. Doesn't help that I have to help my brother get his Nid army up and running since he can't get a job. So I'm paying for two armies. Speaking of which, I need to get some good idea of what to get him for his army for christmas. I know the dex and HQ but not sure what HQ to get. He has seen the swarmlord and wants it but doesn't do conversions very well so I would have to do it><.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

@ Vladsimpaler- I'm glad you like the conversion. If it makes you feel any better I have that same miniature in it's pure form, unpainted and likely to stay that way. Confused about the Flirtatious Foursome... is that some Slaaneshi warband?

Haha I was referencing your comment that you were going to be painting the same 4 miniatures in opposing colors. : )

It really is too bad that we live on opposite sides of the states, I'd love to play a game or 2 against some like minded people. (Maybe even a couple 2nd edition games, for kicks. )

Hi guys. Thanks for posting, it's really cool to know people are genuinely following this project. I will reply properly tomorrow, just stopping in quick enough to post better pics of my Death Guard Lord as promised. Keep in mind most of this is 1997 or so. I'll detail the different parts / bitz and what I did and all that tomorrow. It's been a long day and I don't have the attention span to do this correctly right now.





3 more pics in gallery.

quick update- I've got a lot done on the new Terminator squad. They will be finished by the middle of next week. WIP pics coming maybe tomorrow or Saturday.

What a great old model! Pose aint very dynamic, but that was the standard back then right (atleast judging from the models I've seen)?

Wow, these certainly take me back. Grandfather Nurgle would be proud indeed, the old plague is back with a some nasty new mutations!

I'm amazed at how you've picked up the drive to take such an old army forward again and managed to keep all your purchases (new & old minis) themed together.

Keep the updates coming thick and fast, can't wait to see how all this pans out

The Lord is cool... My only comment would be is if you were ever to revisit him, to make the Scythe a bit more like a power weapon, or daemonic looking.

Still a pretty cool model nonetheless. And I toally get the attraction to your old HQ models. I have a Wolf Lord that I converted when I first started playing Space Wolves, and he's still one of my favorite models, even if the paint job is horrible... becasue it was the best I could do at the time.

Wow. That's a lot to keep up with!


@ Wolfshadow- That’s the beauty of this -obsession- hobby, we never have to actually “stop”, there’s always another model, another unit, another list to work on. Even if I stayed with my Death Guard exclusively I still have a myriad of options I haven’t even begun to explore. I could work on this army for years to come. And likely will.

@ zadelistol- Experiences on eBay differ for sure. I have a knack for finding good deals. But also know that on occasion what looks like a good deal turns out to be a complete nightmare, like some 2nd ed Terminators I picked up a while ago and just started to clean up, they are so caked w/ enamel paint and shellac that Simple Green hardly touched them. I’m going to try some new stuff this weekend. – I have no advive to offer on the ‘Nids. I hate them and the only thing I really know about them is that they die when I shoot them but it’s a bad idea to get into CC with them.

@ Vladsimpaler- Yeah, I got it. Tried to be funny. Apparently I failed. – I agree that it would be awesome to get a game of old stuff vs. old stuff. I’m not heading out to CA anytime soon. It seems like everyone I talk to on Dakka is from the UK or CA (and oddly the two places are almost the exact same distance from me).

@ Limbo- I know that feeling, I go through all the photos in the Codex or whatever I’m reading and say “want that… want that… ohhh, really want that…” - The Terminator Lord was based solely on the WIGIWYS rule: What I’ve Got Is What You See. I wanted to have a Lord with a Daemon Weapon and Melta Combi-weapon. I didn’t have anything that fit the bill at the time that wasn’t already being used so I built this out of a Space Hulk Terminator, a MK VI Sergeant head, a Chaos sprue sword, chopped up the Storm Bolter and made the Melta Combi out of a Melta Gun and a Chaos Bolter. I used a Chainsword for the sawblade. I changed him over to a Manreaper for the last game I played. It is from the VC-Zombie thread and has some GS on the blade to beef it up a bit. The shoulder pad is also GS.

@ grantosjones- Thanks for the compliment! I’m working on getting the rest of my RT and 2nd ed. miniatures into the Death Guard. My #1 goal above all else is to keep the units cohesive with a common thread. Because of the years separating the original force and now I was concerned about the ink and paint scheme but when I found a mix that worked I’ve been going at top speed since.

Thanks all for posting, no updates today because I have to go be social… feh. But before the weekend is over I’ll have a couple Terminators done and will show you where I’m at in the progress.

If they are Metal Minis... just use actual paint stripper.

That's the sergeant head that came with the original plastic beakies! How cool is that!?

300th Dakka post! Listening to Bolt Thrower, drinking beer, and showing off my latest addition to the Death Guard. Not a bad way to spend the evening.

@ wolfshadow- Yeah but I'm trying to not take that route because it's winter here and I don't want to have to do all this outside.

@ Gitsplitta- Yes it is and it's awesome cool. When i converted that miniature (1997 maybe? I don't remember) you could still find boxes of those things in a lot of shops. Not so much anymore. And now I just had a wonderfully horrid idea. Not going to share it yet, will show people later.

Tonight's update is short due to not having much to share. I have a lot of work done on the Terminator squad but have finished only 1 model completely. I put a bit extra work into this one trying a few new (to me) techniques. Tried genuine highlights instead of my "cheater" drybrushing, used different washes in different places, tried using color tones to create artificial shadows, etc. This is the result:







And of course, the signature photo:



Critical feedback requested. I already know it looks cool. Tell me what sucks about it (except the flock on the base, that isn't ever going to change) and if you show me examples of different techniques I'll certainty check them out. I'm making a conscious effort to improve how I paint. I'm not sure exactly *how* much I'll improve, but I have interest enough to consider trying.

In other updates.... MY LAND RAIDER IS HERE!!!!!!!

Yeah, I',m just a "little" excited about that. It's a Black Templar model, it came painted a darker Nurgle green with a bunch of Chaos spiky bits on it. The very first thing I did to it was break everything off it and then take a carving tool and gouge off all the Imperial symbols, including that stupid 2-headed eagle tank tread (it almost seems kind of Tzeentchy, a two-headed bird... but whatever, emperor be praised and all that... hahahhaa). Next up is covering it with GS and doing horrible things to it. I'll be posting WIP photos as I start getting work done on it. I think that it's pretty funny it is a Black Templar LR instead of a Chaos LR... once again the Death Guard takes from the Imperium and turns their tools against them.

That's it for this one. Thanks all for checking it out and posting, it's motivating to know people are genuinely interested in what I am doing.

My only complaint is that the fingers on the chainfist need to look a little more metalic. Maybe by adding some gun metal silver here and there to show the wear on the armor, not alot. I know drybrushing is an old technique and probably over used, but I think the fingers would look better with a quick drybrush on the edges. Same with the edge of the chain saw cover.

I really like the effect on the fully green shoulderpad. Not sure what you did there but it shows great 'depth' of color.

You might want to invest in some colored artist chalk or weathering pigments to rust up the metal or dull it down a bit to look a bit more nurgle-y. I know Mig and FW make decent weathering pigments. My dad used to use artists earth tone chalks with a old brush. It came out surprisingly life like.

Just noticed but, adding a highlight spot on the 'mouth' guard between the tusks would help out the helmet greatly. Its just too dark, especially at the top where a highlight should be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another note, not sure if your waiting for them to be in battle before doing this(my friend does this all the time.) adding some blood to the combi weapons chain and the chainfist. As well as a bit of a burnt and carbon char on the muzzle of the melta/fllamer nozzle and combi-weapon chain to show the heat from the melta/flamer affecting it.

Epic Army - I mean seriously. Wow!

I love your use of the old models and can't wait for the Land Raider.

This army gets better every time I see it. Where will it stop? Nobody knows!

@ wolfshadow & zadelistol- Noted, and thank you. I did go back and try additional highlights to the chainfist blade to bring it out more. Originally I was going to paint caution stripes on it, but then decided that (1) it would look too much like Iron Warriors and (2) I seriously doubt the Death Guard would care if anyone used caution around their chainfist. I also dabbed some add'l "wear" on the weapon, it looks a bit more used and overheated now. I didn't go the blood route simply because it's overworked and my VC Zombie army used up my "blood on a miniature" allotment for 2010 already.

@ cosmic pixie- Thank you for the compliment. I checked out your gallery and like your work as well. Very solid color schemes. Plus I could not help but notice that an army like mine is what keeps an army like yours employed...

@ InventionThirteen- Welcome back! I have no idea where or when this is going to end. Can you believe this thread is a month old? Depending on how you look at it, it's a month old or it's "only" a month old. I feel amazed it is "only" a month old, I feel like this project has been going on for much longer. All I am sure of is that with everything I have on deck there's no end in sight.

Short update tonight mostly due to not being able to do much this weekend. I worked a bit more on the Terminators but set them aside as I can work on them during the week at lunch. I put more attention into my Land Raider. I brought my Death Guard Lord in to inspect where we are at so far and made sure that all Imperial markings were removed. After that we looked up the wargear section for Land Raiders in the new Codex. This prompted a long conversation about how much we both dislike 5th ed. The wargear decisions were ultimately already made for us, so we accepted the Chaos Vanilla and sprinkled it with a Havoc Launcher. Whatever.



Game mechanics satisfied, I started thinking about what I wanted to accomplish on this. Lots of icky plague-ridden foulness with organic spiky stuff that doesn't look 'Niddy or take too much of a step away from Nurgle. I finally settled on a mix between the two Rhinos I did most recently. This is merely a start and I have already identified a flaw in my application that I am either going to rework on this side or at very least ensure I do not repeat again. What you are seeing currently is a boiled and bloated panel that will have spikes coming from thei individual boils, and hanging skins draped over the Lascannons.





I'll be using those same themes all over this vehicle. It will be a couple weeks to finish it up completely. And like I said, a couple mistakes already identified and will not be repeated. One is I went a little too conservative on my application, it needs to be thicker. Another is if I am going to be filling large areas like a pus-inflamed boil, I can use a different filler instead of create an actual bubble. I'm still getting used to working w/ GS again so I'm bound to make a few mistakes. Each time I get a little better though, so I'm retaining from project to project.

As always, thanks for following along. Knowing that I have people digging my work provides the motivation to put extra effort into this. There have been times where I wanted to shelve all of this and just go rot in front of a TV and play a video game. Pushing through those moments has been rewarding and has helped remind me of how things wind up on my Shelf of Shame to begin with. This is the only project I am doing right now and the only project I have any interest in doing right now. I've got my Terminators to keep me busy during the weekdays, I can get some work done on the Land raider here and there at night, my PIP heads should be arriving soon, and some shoulder pads I ordered should be showing up as well. Plenty to keep me busy. Plus I have 3-day weekends for the next two weeks. I imagine there will be a lot of updates coming soon.



*edit typo*

If you have any extra cash around you might want to seriously take a look at some of Machinator's tracks for your LR. (Check out the Fellblade thread for a link to his Ebay store)

Woud be a quick and easy way to make it stand out on the battlefield.

I liek that you are mounting your lascannons forward. Its something, that for some reason, I hardly ever see on Chaos LRs.

Looking nice so far Skalk! GS on the lascannon looks alittle strange thought, too flat maybe? Still, if this is you getting used to GS, then I'm jealous (check my WIP shots, I'm not happy with my lords Daemon Weapon, any tips?).
And I second wolfshadows suggestion about the LR tracks http://stores.ebay.com/Blood-and-Skulls-Industry

@ wolfshadow & Limbo- I checked out the treads and they are awesome. It's nice to know that there is a place where you can buy alt. treads for your vehicles w/o having to pay $17 U.S. (before shipping) for 16 track pieces from Forge World that that should have been included in the Chaos kits already. That said, the running "joke" of my army is that I keep stealing Imperial vehicles and turning them back against their former owners. So hmm...

Well, looks like you have just slammed the brakes on my Land raider project because I'm not going to keep covering it w/ GS only to rip it apart in two weeks when I decide that I really do want to swap out the treads. I can't decide if I want to, and if I do decide I want to, I still can't decide between the Krusher pattern, the Oppressor pattern, or the Liberator pattern. For obvious "old school" reasons I'm finding myself really drawn to the Liberator pattern, but wow... the Krusher looks so brutal. And the Oppressor... well, what can go wrong with huge blades for tank treads? I'll figure this out and go from there.

@ Limbo- PM'd re: GS.

Working OT tonight so nothing new coming today.

Sorry to slow you down, but I thought that you might like them... I know I want to get a set of the Oppressor Pattern tracks for my GK Landraider Crusader once the GKs come out.

I managed to get a bit of work done today myself.. First work with resin. :-)

I personally want to get oppressor pattern treads for my future tanks. Whats more fun then having blades on a tank? Bloodied up blades on a tank with flesh still onn from its last crushed victim.

Another quick update tonight. I worked OT, got home, did the family thing, everyone went to bed, and I settled in to paint. I took a Terminator and after looking at it a full 5 minutes realized that I was hitting burnout. I am sooooooooo sick of painting right now. I know it is the Terminators. I'm not "feeling it" the same way I did the last time I worked on a squad of them. So, what to do? No sense in painting Plague Marines because I am still waiting on the PIP heads. No sense in working on the Land Raider because I very well may be ripping the Imperial treads off it. No sense in working on Project X unless I want a Project X sized hole in my window. So instead I worked on making sure that when the PIP heads finally do arrive they have a place to go. I dumped a few bitz bins out, took my remaining Chaos Marines that were not slotted for any other army (menaing not Word Bearers of World Eaters) and started making new Plague Marines.

This shot is of all the new squads I have coming. I will make 3 more Champions sooner or later, though I did make two new ones tonight. Nothing is finished, everything here is a WIP. I still need some spikes and other random Nurgle stuff, but this was a lot of work and I am glad to have gotten this much done.



The front three squads need Champions. The "blue" squad is unchanged, just included because it is part of the PIP project. The two squads in the back are complete w/ new Aspiring Champions and because of the models either came with heads trhat cannot be removed or were given converted heads to finish the squad. The right rear squad is my favorite, I put a lot of work into it and each model is uniquely different. I added my first Melta to the Death Guard in this squad.

Here's the new Aspiring Champion I made for the rear left squad:



No spike on his helm, matches the others in the squad. Most of the models in that squad are the 4th ed Nurgle Marines. I picked them up on eBay a while back, they are ok but truth is I don't like them as much as I thought I would. They don't fit well with the other Death Guard models I have so I converted a few other models (such as 2nd ed plastic) to "fit in" with them and complete a squad.

The next Aspiring Champion I like a lot. I've combined Khorne and Nurgle symbols on him (shoulder pads and converted helm). I see him as a World Eater that after time immeasurable spent gathering blood for the Blood God had a moment of lucid clarity and realized that in the end it's not just blood, it is death. All things end in death, making death is the ultimate conqueror. Realizing his current career path wasn't taking him anywhere he joined the winning team and has seen a number of promotions already. And like many in management that defect to a competing firm, he took some of the best and brightest that he worked with him when he was still working for the Blood God (other models in the squad share minor connections to Khorne). The future is looking bright for this one:



Sooner or later I'll get around to painting these. Right now the important thing is that I stayed focused on a task that will help me continue to build my army.

One more thing I want to mention is that when you look at these models you'll notice that almost none of them are pure grey plastic. Everything has been used somewhere with something else before this. Some are from my original bitz box, some are eBay rescues, some are from trading. I'm making the absolute most of everything I have. All will have a place eventually. Father Nurgle cares not about where they come from, just that they come.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading.

Are you going to try and strip them, or will you pay on top of those? Well, I know they are plastic, but I figured maybe you had some kind of magic recipe...

As for the whole, that's a lot of SM to paint!! good luck for all those!

Hmm speaking of stripping...I wont use simple green. I;ve heard that it can weaken plastic and if you are going to strip them I recommend Super clean. Its purple and biodegradable. but wear gloves...will burn the skin.

Perhaps you got some proxy berzerkers now that the Nurgle/Khorne champion has joind you? You've got the fluff for them so.
I'm liking both new champions, and I the urge to paint will return! Personaly, I found it relaxing to paint some rank-and-file marines when I painted my terminators. It was so relaxing to get away from all the decorations and such that terminators sport, perhaps that'll work for you too?

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:300th Dakka post! Listening to Bolt Thrower, drinking beer, and showing off my latest addition to the Death Guard. Not a bad way to spend the evening.

Damn fine way to spend the evening sir!
saw Bolt Thrower back in 06 in bradford - one of the best gigs I've ever been to. Still got a signed/beerstained tshirt from it somewhere.

Onto modelling matters - with regard to the Land Raider, the GS work is looking like it'll fit right in already, but as its a bit of a centrepiece I'd like to see it a LOT more plague-infested - more weird growths/boils/lesions, lots of goo dripping from it, and rust dammit, RUST! Admittedly the rust is more of a painting thing than a GS thing, but my capitalization of the word still stands...

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:There have been times where I wanted to shelve all of this and just go rot in front of a TV and play a video game. Pushing through those moments has been rewarding and has helped remind me of how things wind up on my Shelf of Shame to begin with. This is the only project I am doing right now and the only project I have any interest in doing right now.

TBH, what you're doing has inspired me to get of my backside and get some of my half-finished armies done. You've obviously been doing this a long time and you've lost interest with other projects (as seen in the shelf of shame thread) a good few times, as we all do. As a long time wargamer myself I know all too well what it feels like to lose enthusiasm for a project, but its nice to see how a bit of praise and interest can keep someone on track.

Gonna go dig my Goblins off the dusty shelf now, and get the Bolt Thrower on!

I love everything you have going on here! You said earlier that you were worried about your painting skill not improving since you started? It would appear that you had alot of skill to start out with, and have maintained, I wouldn't worry about it. I myself am scared to death of paitning! I especially like what you did with your old RT marine!

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

I have a similar one, but his up-raised arm is some sort of cyborg axe, and his other hand is just resting in front of him, I guess holding the ranes of the old school juggernaught he was riding. I am really not sure what I am going to do with this guy, but your conversion has given me some ideas! Good luck with the rest of your army! Can't wait to see more!

@ Yggdrasil- If it were any other Legion I'd strip them first, but since it is Death Guard... yes I know that sounds lazy and lame, but the way I see it is the globs glue and bubbled paint can be used as "atmospheric detail enhancers". Obviously if too much detail is obscured I would make the effort to clean it up, but as it is now I do not expect that the rotted bloat of Nurgle will suffer any detrimental effects from my not stripping the models first. An example of that would be almost all the newer models I have displayed (the Havocs come to mind). Understandably they are not going to win any painting awards but are well within my acceptable tabletop standard, and that standard is being raised with my most recent attempts. I still have to maintain a blotchy / mottled green w/ dirty washes look to keep the army theme intact but I think I'm finding enough room to experiment and not lose the original feel.

@ zadelistol- I do not know if SG eats plastic, I've heard a lot to the contrary. I know for a fact Pine-Sol will, however. A long time ago (on the advice of a friend) I used it to "rescue" some poorly painted Mk IV Beakie Marines o... their spirits were consigned to the Warp after only a day of soaking. What a complete waste.

@ everyone who helped- Regarding tank treads, I think I am going to skip them for now but with the understanding that I will be doing this on the next vehicle I start.

More coming tonight, I got some work done today.

The paint job on the termiesis great I like the sickly green.

Someone should do a Deathguard Fellblade :p

Wow, I missed a lot of posts when I was drafting my reply the other day. So backing up a bit:

@ Limbo- The Nurgle / Khorne Lord was from my 2nd Ed army, 5th Ed doesn't allow for multiple marks unless it is part of a "name brand" character profile. I still have a large contingent of World Eaters (8 Terminator Champions, countless Berzerkers, a Rhino, a Predator, and 4 Dreadnoughts) that will very likely support the Death Guard the next time I play a huge game (3,000+ pts or APOC) and it is also highly likely that once I get completely sick of painting green and brass all the time I'll take a break from the Death Guard and go back to painting World Eaters. I've shelved the Death Guard Terminators for now, I'm just not as into it as I had hoped and I don't want to "force" myself or I'll slop through a barely adequate paint job and regret not taking the time later. I started working on some basic Plague Marines that aren't waiting for the PIP heads, so I'm still painting. Just really turned off from the Terminators right now.

@ grantosjones- Bolt Thrower is one of the few bands left on my list of "must see them before they break up or I die" list that I have not seen. Frustratingly difficult to catch them living where I am. I've been a fan of their stuff since I first heard them when Warmaster just came out and since then I have filled out their discography. Glad to know another fan! - The Land Raider is going to be completely corrupted, the little bit of GS it has seen so far is barely a start. It will have the same spiky spine stuff that my Rhino has, but also lots of draped skins, trophys, icons, relics, random junk being stowed on it, it is going to be visually attractive once it is complete. That said, it'll be a while before it is done but I'll update it here as work continues. - Thank you for the comment on the blog being an inspiration. It is a huge motivation for me to have people express genuine interest in what I am doing and to see input and feedback that I could not have provided for myself. And while I have other armies sitting on the sideline as I continue to buy new models to bulk up my current interest, I can say with absolute honesty that I have used a lot of stuff that had taken up residence on my Shelf of Shame (literally or figuratively) so not only am I doing something awesome with one of my most favored armies, I am bringing long forgotten / disregarded models back to the forefront of usefulness and relevance in my collection. And the bonus on top of all that goodness is that apparently I'm inspiring others to do the same. That's a great feeling, to know I have helped out getting someone back into something they already love doing.

@ RSJake- Thank you for the compliment. I'm getting over my whole "painting complex". I'm fairly decent at achieving a tabletop standard with clean lines, complimentary tones, drybrush highlights, etc. I won't be winning any painting contests but I do receive compliments from my contemporaries and honestly that is worth more to me. - The RT Heavy Weapons seem to have a couple different standard molds and from there have different heads or an extra arm but really they are very similar. I have a lot of them and when they are side by side the similarities are obvious. Good luck on your conversion idea and let me know when you're done, I'm always interested in old models coming to to the fore.

@ templeorks- Thanks for the compliment! I found that shade back when GW had the ink line, but since then I've started using another brand where I mix the darker green with a yellow, after some experimentation I found the closest match I could and I've been using it for everything since. Having the right color match was a huge motivation for me when I started this army back up and since I have quite a bit of the inks I won't ever run out again.

@ wolfshadow- ....you're baiting me, aren't you?


No pic updates today because the work I have done isn't enough to share yet. Last night I got home from work, sat on the couch, and fell asleep in about 1 minute. I woke up hours later, boots still on. I checked out Dakka for a few minutes and then went to bed. Looks like it was time to catch up on the sleep I hadn't been getting much of lately.

I'll hopefully post a couple pics tonight because I'm actually pretty excited to share this new addition to the Death Guard. I have a pretty big game on Thursday though and I want to repaint my table (I've been playing on a "one coat" tabletop of flat black, I want to dryroll some Shadow Grey on it to match my scenery) so we'll see what can get done between projects.

As always, thanks for reading and thanks for posting. Your feedback is appreciated!

Good to hear about the land raider, can't wait to see how that ends up looking!

@ grantosjones- Got a bit of work on the LR tonight. Not enough to bother w/ new pics, but enough to say I did something.

Tonight's update a WIP... that means it's not done yet. Just saying that in advance because I want to be clear that I know there's a lot of mistakes and a lot of work yet to be done. I want to share it now because I'm looking for feedback on the concept.

I don't think anyone will be surprised to see this guy again so soon, but I'm hoping the conversion and the direction I'm going with him will be somewhat of a surprise.













The intent of this is to show the slow progression of Nurgle's Rot claiming the Champion physically, and even though he has chosen the path of Nurgle he still has distinct roots to the Blood God.

I've never tried anything like this before and I'm not completely sure I like it yet, but decided to put enough work into it where I know I at least gave it a fair chance if I do not go with the idea.

Other than that, nothing else to share tonight. I did get the table repainted, it is a nice shade of drybrushed Shadow Grey over Flat Black. It's not stunning but at least it matches my terrain and scenery now. The flat black was just lame. Playing a game on it tomorrow night, Death Guard vs. Waaagh! again. This time I'm ready for those Kans. Watch him not even play them. The downside of this blog is my local friends can read it and see what I am up to. No surprises anymore.

So yeah... I think I'll play my Daemon Prince and field my Land Raider. I won't bring any Rhinos and I don't think I need my Dreadnoughts. Of course I'll Deep Strike my Terminators.

Or I could be... lying?

I like it

It shows the transition from khornate Champion to Nurgle infested plaguespreading infestobot in a remarkable fashion. Very nice work.

The marine looks a bit too artificially half and half. I think there aught to be little green vines or tendril lines spreading from the green to the red and some areas on the green side where the infestation is less thick and the red can still be seen.

I second crimsonmicc's idea of an irregular shape between the two "parts"...
Also, depending on whether he's willing to follow Ol'Father Nurgle, you could try and make do as if he tried to remove / cut / damage the Khornate icon on his shoulder pad.

But it's a nice idea!!

Lol I thought Tzeentch was the god of change and deception?

I like the concept behind that piece. Too bad we don't have double marks any more. Would work great in that aspect. However, with it having both it can be changed either way couldn't it?

Definitely like the concept there, as others have said, think it needs to be a bit more irregular, but other than that looks good so far. I'm assuming the guys he brought with him from the 'old company' will get a similar treatment?

Looking great! I recently got some 2nd/3rd editon plague marines in a trade, and I'm absolutely enamored with them! So much character and charm, it's unbelievable.

I also got five OOP chaos Terminators.....They're so much smaller than recent terminators, it's not even funny
My aspiring champion was both wider and taller than the tallest terminator in the group

@ everyone- thanks for the feedback. I agree that changes need to be made. First thing I am going to do is change the backstory for him and make his existence in my current army much more plausible. In the past I frequently ran a Khorne / Nurgle force. Blood for the Blood God ran freely, and the final gift of Father Nurgle was bestowed upon all they faced. The two forces fought side by side for (literally) years.

My idea needs to be fleshed out a bit, but essentially it involves a bit of humor. When the Death Guard and World Eater forces split after their last battle as allies, this particular Champion simply loaded his squad into the wrong Rhino and has yet to notice. Nurgle's Rot has taken away their Furious Charge and slowed down their attacks a little but they are tougher for it. And yes, I'm going to add another model to make it a squad of 8.

The stat lines will play out exactly the same, I'm not making any special rules just because I decided to do an odd bit of converting / painting.

As far as the modeling goes, I'll leave the Khornate icons mostly intact. As far as the painting and converting goes... oh wait you know what? *flash of brilliance* This is going to be squad of Chosen. Gear them up for Close Combat. Well... that changes things. Now I'm going to have to rework them quite a bit. But it will be so absolutely worth it. Great. Another project. I really need to stop doing this and finish some things up. But bottom line is yeah, the blend will be more natural.

@ Samus_aran115- Welcome back! That's very cool that you scored those 2nd / 3rd ed Plague Marines. The 2nd ed are some of my favorite models. I'm running low on them though, might be time for me to start looking to trade. eBay has been pretty dry for RT / 2nd ed Plague Marines lately (or I'm looking in the wrong place).

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:this particular Champion simply loaded his squad into the wrong Rhino and has yet to notice.

That was worth the whole read

I like it!!!

It's all that 'Blood for the Blood God' business see. The poor dears get exhausted with all that shouting and screaming whilst decapitating hundreds of victims. At the end of the fight they can barely stand, let alone make correct judgements on which transport was theirs.
A bit like a bunch of school kids after a day out getting on the wrong coach.
But bloodier.

monkeytroll wrote:
A bit like a bunch of school kids after a day out getting on the wrong coach.
But bloodier.

If I had some space left, I'd sig that...

[edit : well, with a bit of an arrangement, I can do that, actually.]

The concept behind the champion is very cool and the back story is the besgt part about him.

Two face needs to be on the receiving end of a dark lance haha the guy is terrifying. Perfect for nurgle badassery!

this is a great thread, love seeing the old models!

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:
2nd ed Heavy Bolter. Nothing special about it, just giving it a moment in the Dakka spotlight.

This is one of my favourite old Havoc models. He was a standout from a lot of the others. He had a different backpack from the other Havocs, as well as a bandoleer around his chest and another around the backpack. Not to mention the chain support which really reminds us of the "heavy" in Heavy Bolter. I still have one of these in the blister. I guess I should get it out and paint it up.

Thanks for sharing these old models. I'm really enjoying the thread.

Wow. Don't check the thread for a couple of days and see what happens? Ha.

Thanks one and all for the replies. It's a very gratifying feeling to know that people are enjoying this project.

That said, not much of an update for all the time off I've had. Thursday night was fun, had a 4-way game of Orks and Death Guard vs. IG and Space Wolves. I drank many beers and was informed the next day that we had won. Excellent. My contribution to the game apparently consisted in standing in one place and shooting a lot. I'm a bit fuzzy on details, or much else. For example, I have no memory of this but have been advised that I insisted on doing it:





I've seen worse but eh... some of it is a bit bland. I'll fix it.

In other news, I'm starting to put together that lost squad of Berzerkers as Chaos Chosen and kitting them close combat. I have allowed myself a melta gun though. 4 Power Fists, no Plasma. I'm using models I scored in an eBay auction from many months ago. These were slotted for trade / whatever, they were not going to make it into my World Eaters because I do not like paint job on them and I already have enough Berzerkers to fill that army out pretty well. Now they get to see the battlefield even before the World Eaters do. Ha.

Quick shot of the mess I've made working this project:



I'll get back into the swing of all this soon. The holidays have distracted me, I have other things I have to deal with, etc. But I'll be back with some actual progress soon. It would be nice if I actually finished one of these projects. I need that "I'm getting things done" feeling again because right now it feels like "numerous candidates for the Shelf of Shame". The PIP heads will change a lot of things for sure. Nothing like a completely new project to help distract me!

Again, thanks for looking and thanks for posting! More coming soon!

Lol Epic drunk battle!
Hopefully my planned battle stays that way; planned. As long as my friend doesn't change his mind like he nearly always does when he visits from college I will get my battle in against him and stomp his SM. The only things i have to worry about that I don't take out too quick/well are his Ironclad dread, termie squads and his new and improved chapter master. One of the best games I had with him was months ago when I nearly tabled his sorry butt in turn three. Only three models left after heavy fire, then bam....Iron clad AND his termies drop in. Owned me by turn five since I have no termies and he destroyed my defiler in CC with the blasted Ironclad and the only other thing that could have taken it that wasn't busy or in in shooting range had been killed by a round of fire that turn from the remaining three marines he had.

Okay back on topic. The Landraider looks nice, even if you added to it while intoxicated, Can't wait to see it 'fixed'.
Oh and I gotta ask...still no PIP heads?

No PIP heads yet. If they are not here on Tuesday I'll be sending an email.

Quick update tonight. Had some time this afternoon so I got some work done. The most work was on the Chosen squad. The give a new meaning to "lost and the damned". Ha. I put a decent amount of work into them, but not over the top. More of the story with them is that as they survive each battle they sometimes need armor repaired or replaced, and since their regular armorer is unavailable they make due with what they can scrounge. Some are slowing mutating or showing Nurgle's Rot. Others are unchanged for the most part. They all still have the common root, but they are at the same time different from one another.



Today was a GS day as I was working on the Land Raider at the same time. This is my first attempt at an actual sculpt in a long time. The end result is representative of the idea I had but is not exactly what I was looking for. Practice is in order. Also, I need to get a sculpting tool again. Everything here was done with a VC Zombie scythe and a Chaos sword.

You'll notice that the models already have a lot of paint. They are all recycles. The bits (save but a few gray plastic) are from models that have been taken apart, fell apart, or were in parts when I got them. This is another good example of my making due w/ what I have. Of course it helps that the bitz bin I have is huge.





I think I've found an idea here that isn't going to be found in most Chaos armies, and it does seem at least marginally plausible that something like this could happen. I'm pretty happy with the idea and pretty happy with the results so far. All this from a recycled model that had a Skull Champion helmet I couldn't pop off. Ha.

The Land Raider is looking better. I fixed most of what I messed up and also added some new GS. I'm going in steps because I don't like having to fix fingerprints, and I'm also waiting for some bits to come in (spines and other pointy things) before I really step it up. But I'm genuinely happy with where this is going:







And I changed the front ramp. I kept looking at it and kept not liking it. I was trying to decide what I wanted to put on the top part of the hatch, how to get it to match up correctly, blah blah blah... then without really thinking it through grabbed my saw and took the top hatch off. The bottom hatch closed very nicely after I trimmed off the brackets from inside the track housing.



There's a lot of work to be done yet, but I'm still moving forward and making things happen. Once the holidays are over and things get back to normal I'm hoping that I can get back on a schedule when I have things getting done instead of just being worked on. I'm not sure if I'm going to work on anything else tonight.

That's it for this one. Thanks for reading!

That landraider is fantastic I really like the green stuff also the zerkers turned to nurgal is a fun idea.

I personally like your sculpt on the heads. Not to mention I like the idea of the story behind it, recycling and repairing armour.
The LR does look better still wanting to see it finished and its strange seeing one without the top hatch><
I wonder what is taking the PIP heads so long to arrive?

Skalk your Landraider is looking great can't wait to see it completed. The GS looking sick like all nurgle should and thank you for doing the throw back with the RT and early figures they all looking good!!!!

Awesome job brother!! You are truly blessed by Nurgle

How do!
Hope you had a good xmas matey, looks like that Land Raider got a whole lot closer to Ol' Father Nurgle over the last few days.

Looking at that shot from the front ... maybe this is a tad overambitious but it would be quite something if it looked like a big open maw, disgorging Plague Marines or eating up those who stand before it

^Likes that Idea^... Tentacles from the top of the hatch and some slavering teeth on the bottom would be awsome.

And goo inside, horrible goo. So it actually looks like it vomits Death Guard when it opens.....

Get some Carcass on the go for inspiration

I would love to see one of them nurgle superheavies, if you GS as much as you did on the landraider, the version in the apoc books would look tame compared to that.

@ everyone- wow, thanks for the compliments! There's a lot more coming on the Land Raider. It's without a doubt going to be the new centerpiece of my army once it is done. I've been doing a lot of research w/ what other people have done and have been careful to not exactly replicate what has already been done. The "wart" looking things on top of the Heavy Bolter is an example of that. I wanted to add some dimension and that seems to be decent. I won't overuse it but with the way those came out I'll be revisiting that idea here and there.

As for the front door, there's absolutely no way that it's going to remain stock when everything else around it is looking do awesome. There's some serious GS in the near future. And this time I'm actually drawing it out on paper before I just start slapping things together. I was looking at it the other day and remembered a Space Hulk diorama I saw in WD a long time ago. It was Death Wing vs Chaos. I can't find the issue but I have a good idea of what I want this to look like and I'm going to base my next project on the Land Raider from this.

But on to the big news! *drumroll*....... The wait is over, the patience rewarded... the PIP heads are here! Yaaayyyy!!!



Yes!

Man I ripped into those things like a little kid with a birthday present. Finally after a month of anticipation, of planning out new squads, of wondering when they would actually get here... they are here!

With *great* reluctance I built a fire, fed the cats, took out the trash, stripped the linen for wash, and pretended to visit with my wife for a few minutes before finally stealing away to check out my long-awaited PIP gas mask heads! I grabbed one of the coolest looking ones, grabbed a Plague Marine body, and set the head on the armor.





...


Uhm...

Wait a minute...



...

...

Uh oh



...

NNNnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are too small!!!





Humor aside, I'm very disappointed. Not w/ PIP at all, it's a quality product that I can use for Necromunda and Traitor IG conversions. I'm just crushed that I've been looking so forward to this and now it's not going to work at all. I know the pics don't truly show it but trust me, the scale is seriously different. There's no way I am even going to consider using them w/ my Plague Marines. It would look completely ridiculous.

So there you have it. Don't buy this range of PIP heads if you're doing Chaos Space Marine conversions. The look awesome on IG though:



*sigh*

Ok, so now that I have been legged I'm not sure what to do next. I suppose I can finish my Terminators and Chosen squads, and work more on my Land Raider. I did work on the Terminators a bit more today during lunch and I have some progress on the Chosen, but I'll tell you that I am not feeling the love for any of those projects the way I was looking forward to those heads coming in. I would have had a squad done tonight because the bodies are done, I just need the heads. I will likely go back and just put regular heads on them and maybe GS a couple for that "gas mask" look.

But not being one to wallow in self-pity for too very long I'm off to do something productive. I think I'll finish the Terminator Heavy Flamer.

Thanks for reading, I'll be back.

Wow finally here! How long did it take?

Perhaps you could "beef up" the PIP heads with some GS and guitar strings.

They look really cool...shame they turned out to small.

Enjoying your work,definitely looking forward to more.


EDIT...Something along these lines..sorry for the crap renditions...just an overall concept.

@ zadelistol- Almost 5 weeks.

@ FITZZ- That was a good idea and I tried it. I'm nto going to post a pic of the results. Suffice to say that it did not turn out as well as I would have hoped.

But again, not a total loss. Here's the start of a Cult-



The heads look much more in scale on those models. Here's a comparison of a Cultist next to a Plague Marine:




Again, the pics hardly show the true disparity in scale.

And quoting myself from a previous thread: "On the Gas Mask front, I'm going to go with the PIP and see how that goes. If it doesn't turn out as awesome in real life as I hope I'll be out a few dollars and have an awesome head set for Traitor Guard (which is how they were being used when I first saw them). I'll order them sometime this week likely. "

So really, I have no business being surprised. Wishful thinking I suppose since they were on Catachan models and they are huge compared to regular Guard models. But it is a small matter. I'll set some regular heads on the Plague Marines I had on deck and run through them relatively quick. That will get me back on track with actually finishing something to tabbletop standard instead of having a dozen open projects.

Right now I just need to finish a project. Need that "yay I got something done" feeling again to get me back on the fast track. Been bogging down a lot lately.

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
Sorry to hear that they didn't fit dude. Have you tried every design? It looks like some of the more bulkier could fit.

Rose_Mountainz wrote:http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/

^this. A thousand times this. Shame dude. But those cultists look promissing.

Rose_Mountainz wrote:http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
Sorry to hear that they didn't fit dude. Have you tried every design? It looks like some of the more bulkier could fit.

Full of win.

I've got an idea...Get a huge drill bit. Drill into a CSM head. Stick the PIP head inside the CSM head! Now it's the right size

That sucks though. They look really great too. What a shame. You should boycott them until the make them 1.2 times larger. But you're right. They look great on IG. I think that's what they had originally planned for them.

That land raider is secks-C. Loving the ramp. It really just screams 'rage raider'

Kinda sucks that they are too small for the CSM woulda been cool to have them on and all.

You folks are cool. Thank you.

@ Rose_Mountainz- That cracked me up so much I not only bookmarked it, I shared it with coworkers. I heard it at least 20 random times today. I did try all the different heads. My friend Daichallar is coming over tomorrow night to play a game and he's going to give me an opinion in person. He feels since they are all bare heads they would actually be "to scale" and that I'm seeing them as too small because I'm used to huge helms in the same space that the "smaller" head would be in, which in theory stands to reason but I don't agree because I've got headsw/o helms from the CSM sprue and they are much larger. But I'm not going to give up completely just yet. If he's persuasive I'll paint one up and post here for opinions.

@ Scrazza- Welcome back! I'll admit that while not my first choice by far I'm really digging on the Cultist angle. I'm a huge fan of Necromunda and I used to play a Genestealer Cult back in the day (shameless promotion of my other thread, go check it out!) so maybe once I have my Land Raider and my Death Guard Berzerkers and 6 or 7 more Plague Marine squads done I'll give them some serious attention. The possibility for conversion is almost limitless. That will be a cool project. This of course is subject to some change if the heads work out (re: above paragraph) but I'm pretty sure that I'm riding the last thread of hope for them on Plague Marines.

@ Samus_aran115- I actually did that. I took a Skull Champion helm ( I have at least 20 of them, not sure when that happened...) and tried coring it out and fit a gas mask head into it. I'm not posting a pic of the result. Suffice to say it was a genuine fail. I really, really wanted this to work. But all is not lost. I have some awesome Cultists waiting to be made.

@ zadelistol- No doubt. You of all people know how much I was looking forward to those heads coming in. But it is a ... ha... small matter. I have other things I can focus on and there are other companies to try. I just won't be spending as much $$$ on a chance this time.

That said, if anyone knows of a company that has gas mask heads that might fit what I am trying to do, please post here and I'll check them out.


Update for tonight- Getting work done on the "big three" projects I have open right now. First is a bit of progress on my Chosen squad (who have been named "The Lost")




Not even close to being done but a little work here and ther eis helping them get that way. I'm going to be experimenting with blending on these. Right now I'm figuring out the base colors and will start to mess with things from there. Also caught an illegal model. Can you spot which it was from the previous picture? Hint- in 2nd Ed he'd have been a CC monster.

Next is my Terminator squad. Not a lot of progress but I'm plugging away at it as I can. I should be able to finish the Heavy Flamer tomorrow:



Last is the Land Raider. To get the look I am shooting for I decided to cut back on the front hatch even more. You could say that I'm modeling for disadvantage since I'm moving the point of disembarkment further back on the vehicle. Another example of how I'd sooner play a cool looking army than a WAAC army. I'm posting these pics because (1) it was a lot more work than you'd thing it should be to cut all that stuff out, and (2) it'll make for excellent before and after pics once it is done:




I'm not very excited about any of these projects right now, admittedly I'm still a bit wrapped up in pouting over the PIP heads. But I'm doing something and that's what is most important right now. Push through the low spots and keep chugging away. The Shelf of Shame shall not claim another model!

Thanks one and all for your posts, it's always appreciated. Three day weekend coming up but once again I find myself laden with social activities (such as a 2,000 pt battle w/ my friend Daichallar tomorrow night.. he got 6 Kans as a gift recently and has already put them together complete with magnetized weapons! and I'll be watching as my FNP save is negated in CC. Ha. ) so probably no major updates for a few days but I'll be back as soon as I can be with more Death Guard misery to share.

I peed myself when i saw your daemon prince. It is amazing as with you whole army. Keep it up.

Yeah. I was looking forward to them as well. But atleast you have something to help with Apoc.
Hmm. as for what model it is, not sure. I would have to take a MUCH closer look at it. Which, just getting off of work I am too tired to do so. I hate graveyard shifts but I love staying up at night. Lol.

As for the LR:
Should have a door that works, well like a normal door. opening down the middle from top to bottom and a ramp that pulls out from the bottom. I think that would make it look epic, but thats just me.

Glad to hear that enjoyed the link and found something positive about the heads not fiting at least. Ok cool, looking forward to a painted mini with one of the heads then!

I have an idea for that door.Get the two dozer blades from the two chaos sprues. Fit them together so they form the hatches! My friend did this, and it turned out bootiful!

Oh, and you tried that? Wow, I thought I was mad scientist or something They'l look good on the cultists for sure though!

Chin up mate, so the heads are too small. Just give us Nurgley traitor guard to drool over - your army won't mind some lovely cannon fodder I'm sure

Hails to all. The holi-daze is almost over. I've been working on some stuff and will have new updates soon. Very excited about a score I made on eBay, just a bunch of troops but they went for very cheap and while I have no idea how I didn't get sniped at the last second I'm grateful for the good luck on my part. I also rec'd my order from HOB so once I get the ol' motivation fired back up I'll start laying into the GS with a discerning vision and expect to be offering some WIP photos before long.

Next projects on deck (in no particular order)

- finish the Terminator squad

- GS the Land Raider

- finish a couple more squads of Plague Marines

- finish "filler" models of Special Weapons and Aspiring Champions

Lots more coming. Lots. Pics w/ next update. And as always, thanks for reading.

Was wondering what happened to you.
Got worried the warp sucked you away to party with Slaanesh XD

No, although that would be preferable to the truth. I'm just overwhelmed. Project X was a disappointment, my Land Raider seems to be resisting every idea I throw at it, my Terminators are annoying me, the "Lost" are demanding much more attention to detail than I have motivation for, and the horde of Death Guard that were destined for gas mask helms are sitting (literally) inches from my Shelf of Shame.

It's a motivation issue more so than burnout. Just not feeling it.

The up side is that I'm far from inactive, I've made a lot of new terrain and the table is looking great. Played 3 games this weekend. Got stomped in the first two but pulled out a stunning victory in the third.

I'll be back on track soon. I am looking forward to getting things back together and start churning out the diseased brutality that is the Death Guard!

Ah. Don;'t throw the gas mask plagues onto the shelf of shame! they deserve to be fielded before they go there!. hmm. i will look around for something suitable to try to help out. And I'm still wanting to know what project X is.

Keep your chin up. I was uber non-motivated, and then out of the blue, got 6 Marines done this weelkend. (Pics later tonight hopefully).

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:No, although that would be preferable to the truth. I'm just overwhelmed. Project X was a disappointment, my Land Raider seems to be resisting every idea I throw at it, my Terminators are annoying me, the "Lost" are demanding much more attention to detail than I have motivation for, and the horde of Death Guard that were destined for gas mask helms are sitting (literally) inches from my Shelf of Shame.

It's a motivation issue more so than burnout. Just not feeling it.

The up side is that I'm far from inactive, I've made a lot of new terrain and the table is looking great. Played 3 games this weekend. Got stomped in the first two but pulled out a stunning victory in the third.

I'll be back on track soon. I am looking forward to getting things back together and start churning out the diseased brutality that is the Death Guard!

OK Skalk here is a big motivation for you. Go out and treat your self to a new airbrush and compressor! That will get your paint juices flowing again.

GreyDeathOne wrote:

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:No, although that would be preferable to the truth. I'm just overwhelmed. Project X was a disappointment, my Land Raider seems to be resisting every idea I throw at it, my Terminators are annoying me, the "Lost" are demanding much more attention to detail than I have motivation for, and the horde of Death Guard that were destined for gas mask helms are sitting (literally) inches from my Shelf of Shame.

It's a motivation issue more so than burnout. Just not feeling it.

The up side is that I'm far from inactive, I've made a lot of new terrain and the table is looking great. Played 3 games this weekend. Got stomped in the first two but pulled out a stunning victory in the third.

I'll be back on track soon. I am looking forward to getting things back together and start churning out the diseased brutality that is the Death Guard!

OK Skalk here is a big motivation for you. Go out and treat your self to a new airbrush and compressor! That will get your paint juices flowing again.

I second this!
We are all here drooling over this project*or at least I am* Keep it up Skalk

That or take a little break from painting your Death guard, buy a metal blister that is anyting but a marine and paint that just to take a break from the small dissapointment.

Thanks all. I'm over it. Winter sucks but enough is enough.

Short update as nothing is actually *done*, but I finally got back to work.

The Terminator squad is coming along nicely. I expect to have them done in a week or so. Have only been painting them at work on lunch.



Also put some work into another Aspiring Champion. This is a "rescue" job, it came in a batch of eBay models that was pretty messed up. So I'm messing it up even more to match my army scheme. He's carrying a Power Sword, this will be my first one in years. I'll post pics when it's done, I'm going to try something different (but alas no airbrush).





My Land Raider is still annoying me, but I really want to field it. The bits from HOB are here, I have the GS I need, and even bought some modeling tools. Now all I need to do is get some work done. The front hatch is a challenge. I want it to resemble a fleshy gaping maw. I'll figure it out.



I've also put together a few more Traitor Guard but they aren't worthy of a picture. They are on the back burner until I get some real work done.

Thanks for sticking with me during the down side of this project. I'm back on track and genuine updates will follow shortly.

Power swords aren't all that bad Skalk. Glad to see that your back in action

Good stuff to see you back dude - keep at it. Work is a pain in the backside - work and lack of motivation go hand-in-hand I find

The advice of taking a break to paint something else might not be a bad idea, I find with painting my Iyanden Eldar (got yellow!?) I can get very demotivated but have a ton of other more interesting things to paint when yellow-based despair sets in.

Looking forward to seeing the Terminators finished!

Glad to see you've found some motivation Skalk!
Might I suggest changing the colour of the power sword? Just to add some more contrast. Purple or red perhaps?

@ btemple0- Agreed. I've been sorting my bitz bins and finding stuff that will work well with my Traitor Guard. They do not have anything on them that directly ties them to the Death Guard, they paint up like Necromunda Scavvies. A good general "Guard gone wrong" force. I won't be sharing them for a while but they are my "gah I am sick of green and bronze!" backup.

@ zadelistol- Thanks it's good to be back at it. As soon as I finish SOMEthing... ANYthing... I'll feel like I have less bearing down on me and have some focus. Once I decide exactly how I'm going to make the maw of the Land Raider work I'll fly through the rest of it.

@ grantosjones- The green & bronze combo has been getting on my nerves but I'm pushing past it. It's not the painting, it's the "everything else". But I'm still at it. Granted I have spent over an hour just picking away at the dried paint on my table trying to decide if I really want to paint of not... but I'm back to it. Those Terminators are almost done and just because I hate them so much right now I'm going to ensure that they lead the charge in my next game. If they survive then they will have absolved themselves. If they die (especially against Tyranid close combat or Ork withering fire) I will feel some sense of vengeance against them. Either way balance will be restored.


@ Limbo- It's going to be a contrasting color for sure. And between you and tipios I finally did it... a plastic BR Space Marine Dreadnought is on the way to be horrifically mutilated and join the Death Guard. Don't hold your breath on seeing it though, if I frontload it ahead of the Land Raider I have a feeling I'd be lynched.


Just a short text update, no pics to share this time because I've decided to cheat a bit. You know that I surf eBay constantly looking. Recently I scored 2 auctions that I could not resist. Both were Plague Marines units, already painted. One was of 8, another 10. I have whittled them down to the holy number 7 and I will be running them along with the rest of my force. I've done very minor touchups to give them a more connected feel but they do look quite different. One is kitted out to be a perfect Chosen squad, the others are just grunts. The new Aspiring Champion I posted a pic of the other day came in the same eBay auction but I could not stand to look at it so I brought him over to my force with a more similar paintjob. He's also the first Power Weapon in my force. That whole "no armor save" thing has been looking better and better lately because other people have been using it on me... ha.

More coming soon, I have a bunch of things that are close to being done.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, here they are. Squad Excermentum.



I am so sick of looking at Terminators right now I don't care if I never paint another ever again.

On the up side, here's my new Aspiring Champion:



I don't like the Power Sword so I'm not going to do a closeup. I need to practice that sort of painting technique before sharing.

So there we go. Something is done, balance restored, driving ever onward.

I like the whole gasmasked heads idea, looks great.

Love the dude with 3 eyes.

I understand the whole getting frustrated witha paint scheme. Its good to have somethinge else to work on.

Very nice terminators, champion is great too. The metal on his nurgle icon especially catches my eye for some reason.

And screw the land raider! Dreadnought!!

Keep up with the raider. Dread are very much hated in chaos*fluff mostly*
I really don't like the frenzy rule so I haven't gotten one.
I decided my next purchase will be AOBR for the marines to convert and gonna trade the orks here.
I like that champion, and why power fist? Initiative 1>< That's probably why I don't use them. But...that double S looks good.

@ Lord of Death Mountain- It's an idea that is on hold, what I tried didn't work out as well as I had hoped and other projects demand my attention. I may revisit it but for now the gas mask idea is shelved.

@ wolfshadow- Thanks, I'm pretty happy with that once considering what it looked like when I first got it. I wish I had taken a "before and after" set of photos but was so out of practice I forgot until after I'd done a lot of work.

@ Limbo- The metal I use is Ral Partha Bronze w/ a wash of Griffon Sepia and a light dab of Devlin Mud. And about the Dread vs. Land Raider.... well, read on.

@ zadelistol- I think you'll like the update.



























Yeah, put some space in there on purpose for dramatic effect.

It's one thing to say that I'm back. It's another to show it. Today's update is work I did last night. Still a long way to go, but now I really feel that this is something I'm going to finish shortly. WIP- Death Guard Land Raider:


Left Hull TL Lascannon - basically the same thing as the right side, draped in necrotic fleshy stuff. I noticed the thumbprint after I took the pic and fixed it but didn't bother w/ a new pic as these are WIP and are presented with the expectation that they are not necessarily representations of the finished project.




Left Hull Rear Hatch- Not much really, but is a dig on where this Land Raider came from. Look behind the Nurgle icon. Recognize what got ground off that hatch door? Hhahhaha





Right Hull Rear Hatch- I've always thought this head looked great but was completely stupid w/ the model it was intended for use with. I've been wanting to incorporate into the iconography of my Death Guard army for a while now but it never seemed "right" until now. Comments? And the white mixed in w/ the GS is super glue, I was a bit impatient and started to apply GS before the glue has set so in typical Skalk Bloodaxe fashion I just mashed it all together and made it work. At least I think I made it work. I am going to go back over it a bit to enhance that whole "face pushing out of the fleshy ick on the side of the hull but being restrained by sinew and tissue" look but overall I'm happy with this and with exception to cleaning up the mold line (which I am doing no matter what) could go "as is".




Right Hull Front- This is the only part of the project I'm sort of "ehhhh" about. Tentacles. They have their place and can look cool, but I'm not sure about using them here like this. Originally I was going to use organic spiky bits here, but as you'll see in a moment I used those for the maw as teeth and wasn't sure I could sell the idea of the exact same sort of bits side-by-side but in completely different roles. So my question to all who read this is- what do you think? Are the tentacles ok or should I replace them w/ the original spiky bits idea?




Front hatch: "The Maw"- THIS is the part I am most pleased with, it defines the entire vehicle. I've seen other people use this and while I credit them with inspiration, I like this a lot more. That said, it's not completed because there's spots I need to fill in and blend it all together, but this is a fair representation of where I'm going with this and it's only going to get better as I tie everything together:




Death Guard Land Raider overview- In all, I think the idea was solid and the progress I've made is in line with the original plan as much as possible. Setbacks aside, this has been a fun project (once I was able to focus on it again) and I think the end result is going to be impressive.




You'll notice a distinct absence of treads. I decided to take the advice I was given earlier in this thread (thanks to all who pointing me in that direction) and send a little business to Machinator, he is a casting & conversion GOD. Go check out his threads and marvel at the absolute awesomeness he has created. No, really. Go now. I'll wait until you come back.

*time passes*

Welcome back. Wasn't that stuff AMAZING? I bought a set of Oppressor Pattern 0 Tank Treads and as soon as they arrive I'll be fitting them and looking forward to grinding my enemies to paste with them. And it's also another part of making this Land Raider a guaranteed "one of a kind" vehicle. I'm still curious why the GW Chaos Land Raider has the Imperial Aquila on the treads... actually I think I know why, but is it very cynical and I'm not going to hijack my own thread.

So rejoice one and all! Skalk Bloodaxe has returned to the front lines with chainaxe in hand! Death to the xenos scum! Death to the False Emperor!

Not totally sure about the tentacles. TBH, I think they take away from it, and to me they aren't that 'nurgle-y

However...

I freakin' LOVE the loading ramp/maw thingie. That is awsome.

That is a really cool land raider.

Chaos Lord: "Right men into the raider and pray to Nurgle to doesn't chew its food".

wolfshadow wrote:Not totally sure about the tentacles. TBH, I think they take away from it, and to me they aren't that 'nurgle-y

However...

I freakin' LOVE the loading ramp/maw thingie. That is awsome.

That's it. I only had to hear one. I agree. I'm scrapping those right now.


@ Melkhiordarkblade- Thank you for the compliment, and the quote cracked me up. I didn't even think of it from the passenger's perspective. I can imagine you'd want to board thrugh the side hatches...


I'll be back. I have some tentacles to rip out. I knew that was going to happen. If I don't like it why do I just do it anyway? Gah...

It is a small matter. It's Saturday, no one is home but me, I have a Bolt Thrower / Obituary / Cannibal Corpse mix blasting on my stereo, and lots of beer in the fridge. I could be be doing a lot worse things right now.

I'd tone down the tentacles somewhat - but the maw is amazing, very very impressed with that indeed mate

Perhaps just the odd smaller tentacle/growth thing growing from it here and there would be better than a big clump of them in one corner.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:It's Saturday, no one is home but me, I have a Bolt Thrower / Obituary / Cannibal Corpse mix blasting on my stereo, and lots of beer in the fridge. I could be be doing a lot worse things right now.

I'd much rather paint at your place, sounds like a fantastic recipe for getting things done indeed.

I love the landraider. Jaws of death are great, I've seen it before, but the size and layout you have used is much better(what are you using as teeth?). The skin over the lascannon is lovely, I'm gona try that on my nurgle dread when I start it. I don't mind the tentacles myself, maybe they should be coming out os a hatch? Keep going

@ grantosjones- You're welcome to hang out anytime, but I imagine the commute might be prohibitive

@ tipios- Thank you. I've seen this done before as well and because of that had to up the ante to not be a sad copy of someone elses work. I'm using bits I got from an auction. They are all from the GW Chaos Spawn kit. The incisor teeth are (left) part of a claw and (right) a huge mutated horn. I want to replace the right at some point but do not have the bit I need so for now consider this as a temporary filling before I replace the entire tooth at some other date, if I ever actually do that.

No more tentacles. Behold the spiky goodness that replaces it:





The large spike is a filed-down paint brush handle. The spikes work out well with tying it in with my Rhino (old pic of before it was painted):



I have a feeling my other Rhino is going to be revisited very soon. Like... today.

Oh yes, spikes of certain impalement. Looks great, I'll have to order up some of those chaos spawn parts.

Ok. Guess I'm making up for lost time today, eh?

Here's what I got done on the Rhino. Here's a "before":



And here's the "after":





I'll be painting it up the same as my other Rhino.

I was gonna suggest the same thing as Tipios, perhaps tentacles coming out of a hatch would be cool, cause I kinda dig the whole tentacle mess you had. But the spikes look a whole lot better. Maw looks great too.

Simply beautiful. Great work with the green stuff, Skalk!

I like the spikes much better than the tentacles. That maw is truly inspiring. If I ever get back into chaos I might have to borrow that idea.

Skaven tails make great tentacle for Nurgle vehicles. They're a little more subtle then the ones from the chaos spawn and they're segmented, which given them a maggoty look.

Oh, and thanks for the plug

Father Nurgle would be so proud of such disgusting work. True Nurgle / Deathguard excellence. Very, very well done.
I can totally understand your frustrations with the gasmasks idea. Have you thought of maybe using "WW2 Gasmasked type heads" and adding some nurglesk type craziness ? Keeping majority of the head in standard condition but adding a little to it.

Creepily gross. Much more nurgley.

Lookin' good bro. Keep it up.

Great work with the GS.

@ Limbo- Thank you. And I have a feeling that Dreadnought might be coming up in the ranks faster than I thought. I've been busy today.

@ Machinator- I stand in the shadow of a Master, so I will humbly say "thank you" and accept the compliment. I'll keep the Skaven tail idea in mind, I can see the application for sure. Less OTT and has an icky segmented look about it. Eww. I think I need to see if I have any in my bits box now.

@ Lord of Death Mountain- Wow, thank you! I really appreciate the praise. And I have been thinking about looking for 1:35th WWI and WWII gas masks, preferable German but if I can find anything that works I'll be extremely happy.

@ wolfshadow- Thank you. If you liked the work before, you're going to love the rest of this update.


Apparently Father Nurgle was waiting for the holidays to be done with and for me to get over my fit about those PIP heads, because my inspiration and motivation is back as hardcore as it ever was. Mind you this isn't all I've done today, but this is what I've got done on top of everything else. The Rhino is done. Like really done this time. It was playable as it was before and it has some neat GS work on the front, but it was pretty vanilla compared to everything else I have in my army. I think I have taken care of that now:






And a closeup of some detail work. The mouth is GW but the blending and texture is all mine:



But wait, there more!

I have finished the conversion process on the Land Raider. All it needs now is an *extensive* paint job and some really awesome tracks. Right now I have it primed, base ink green, and some light brown flesh wash to show where the fleshy parts will be.









I've also made a removable Havoc Launcher and Twin Link Bolter for the hull so I have those options available if I want to upgrade the vehicle.

It's been a day of Metal, beer, and modeling. I can't think of a better way to... hmm... no, that's not completely true, I can think of a "few" things, but notwithstanding this has been a pretty awesome day. More updates coming later. As always, thanks one and all for checking this out and sticking with me.

That looks.... really gross.

In a good-sort-of nausea inducing way. Papa Nurgle will be proud.

Have you looked @ Machinators tracks? There are 2 patterns that he has that would be pretty much perfect for that beast.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and you might want to look @ 1/32nd scale stuff too. It might fit CSM better... not sure though.

Yes. I posted this earlier but so many replies today has already put it back a page. Cut / paste seems to be in order because it is pertinent to the ongoing project:


You'll notice a distinct absence of treads. I decided to take the advice I was given earlier in this thread (thanks to all who pointing me in that direction) and send a little business to Machinator, he is a casting & conversion GOD. Go check out his threads and marvel at the absolute awesomeness he has created. No, really. Go now. I'll wait until you come back.

*time passes*

Welcome back. Wasn't that stuff AMAZING? I bought a set of Oppressor Pattern 0 Tank Treads and as soon as they arrive I'll be fitting them and looking forward to grinding my enemies to paste with them. And it's also another part of making this Land Raider a guaranteed "one of a kind" vehicle. I'm still curious why the GW Chaos Land Raider has the Imperial Aquila on the treads... actually I think I know why, but is it very cynical and I'm not going to hijack my own thread.

*Steals the landraider for inspection.* LOVE IT!! I LOVE THE ASSAULT RAMP!
Looks amazing. Better then I thought it would.
*gives it back*

o_O

You grabbed Oppressors? AWSOME! That will really take your LR to the next level.

As to why the GW Chaos LR has an aquila? Sheer G*dd*mned laziness.

At the momment your stuff has me almost as excited as my own. :-)n Although the Chappy I did last night had me pretty up in arms....

The Machinators tracks you picked look awsome, can't wait to see them on.

I'm looking forward to them arriving. And I have a feeling the experience will be decidedly different than the PIP heads (unless by some bizarre twist I ordered Rhino tracks instead of Land Raider... ha)

Quick update, and is a portent of things to come in my army overall. Remember those PIP heads? I had a lot of Plague Guard models waiting for them to arrive. I've all but abandoned the "gas mask" idea, so I've gotten to work on bringing everything together and getting it on the table. Here's the next generation of my Death Guard:



7 squads of 1 Aspiring Champion and 6 Plague Marines. I spent a considerable amount of time making the new Aspiring Champions.



Yes I know this pic only has 6. I found the 7th after I took the pic and you know how great I am about retakes. You'll see him during the next stage. I also have new Special Weapons built and coming (these are separate from the squads so I can use them to fill in slots as I want)



I have a lot of work to be done. But it's coming along. I've done more in the last 2 days than I have in the last 2 weeks.

Thanks for looking, I'll be back.

o-O

Thats a whack of plague marines.

I tend to work in spurts as well, so I understand where you are coming from.

OMG That landraider is sooooo sick!! Hate to be in front of that beast!!! The GS work is amazing on that LR and can't wait till you paint it!!! Great job again Skalk keep your nugle ooze flowing!!

There is some deep core ideal to this hobby that transcends time and trend - that exemplifies the spirit of Warhammer 40000 - this project has that and I really thank you for sharing the work!

The oldskool Pred and the newskool LR are my favorites. Nurgle must be pleased.

Skalk, that land raider is tits! Praise Nurgle, Rejoice in his Bile! Looking forward to the rest of those plague marines getting some paint on them. Keep up the good work!

I guess I know how I am going to have my deathwatch game end now, the heroes have their last stand agaisnt a Land Raider with an open maw that slowly eats them all.

Awww shucks. Thanks one and all! No pressure to not screw up the paintjob or anything...

You can bet that once I get to painting the Land Raider it's going to be the only thing I'll be doing for a while. I'm going to wait for the treads to arrive before taking the next step, not so much because they need to be on (they will likely go on toward the end of the project, or at least until all the washes are finished because it's easier to hold) but because I want everything to be "complete". You all know how my last "big project" turned out.

Speaking of that, I've thought about it and have officially scrapped the gas mask idea. I have enough else going on and as you'll see in a moment, I don't think I'll have an available slot for a new project for a while. I've been busy.

Before I post the pics I have to say once again that my proudest achievement in this army is the recycling of unwanted and abused miniatures. Almost everything you are about to see is an eBay score. All of these models were once on someones Shelf of Shame, remnants of a great idea gone wrong. And let me tell you a lot of these should have been doused in gas and set aflame... but yet here they are, ranking up to spread the blessing of Father Nurgle across the galaxy.

Here's the Special Weapons. Again, not a squad, just painting them up first because they will have the most immediate impact on my current army list because they can join any unit (and for a complete cheese list I can designate them as Chosen and have 4 Special Weapons in a squad).



Keeping with my rule of "1 squad, 1 Champion", here's 7 new Aspiring Champions. Yes, all 7 are in this picture. I put a lot of work into these and feel that I was pretty creative with a couple of them. Some are pretty stock but they are all very awesome.



Sometimes things grow slowly. Sometimes they explode overnight. This is the next generation of my Death Guard, an army unto itself. These models range from RT to most recent release and everything in between.



And just because I wanted to, here's everyone all at once:



63 models in all in this pic, plus another 7 on the side that are almost finished and another 14 on the side that I didn't paint up myself but are going to be part of this once I finish the "tie in" finishing touches. Plus the Land Raider is on deck and ready to go. And thanks to SOME people I have *another* Dreadnought on the way. Of course I'm going to need at least 1 more Land Raider and 2 more Rhinos. And I still don't have a Lascannon or Missile Launcher Havoc squad. I haven't finished The Lost (my adopted Khornate Death Guard Chosen), I have Project X... this is it. I have got to stop this. Once this is done that's it. I'm done. No more.

Ok, MAYBE I'll do ONE Super Heavy, but that's IT.

Seriously, I have months of work ahead of me. Even if I finish 1 squad a week I'm looking at 2 months of solid work. This next step will make everything I've done up to this point look like practice. But I am undaunted. I'm proud to have come this far and look forward to putting this entire army on the tabletop. Once of these days I'll figure up the points so far.

Thanks for following along, thanks for the compliments, and keep checking back, a lot of things are going to be happening all at once.

Man, they're about to fall off that shelf!
I am completely blown away by how big of a task your death guard project is, not to mention your other projects on the side, considering you're still "getting back into the hobby" in a sense. Skalk, my man, you're an inspiration. Good luck on all your works. I'm going to try and convince my wife to let me get some painting in, so that I can finish my ONE plague marine.

400th post!!!


I'm a bit blown away by all myself. Way back a long time ago... over 2 whole months in fact... this is what my *entire* army looked like:



... and of that, I had recently painted 12 models before posting the pic.

I'm starting to wonder if this isn't just slightly obsessive. Slightly.

You say that like its a bad thing?

Thats a lot of green mouldy marines!! I also spot one of the old one-pose bolt pistol 'n' combat knife guys in there, excuse me while I regress to my childhood....ahhhh....
Ok, back now.

So have you completely abandoned the gas-mask heads idea? If so I may be interested in 'em...

wolfshadow- So long as my wife doesn't file papers on me it's ok. Ha.

grantosjones- For the Plague Marines, yes. I'll still hammer out some Traitor Guard. A friend of mine used to play Necromunda and I have been nudging him in that direction. That will kickstart my motivation for sure. I have an idea for those heads that involves WFB plastic Zombies and W40k Cadians... but it'll be a while. My plate is a bit full at the moment but I'm never w/o ideas for future projects.

Love the paint job on the demon prince the entire project is just so cool !!

It looks like "the green tide" does not actually refer to orks at all.

@ Davvvid16- Thank you! By far that Daemon Prince is the most favored model I've done so far. I have a feeling it's going to meet its match when the Land Raider is done though.

@ btemple0- all that and ST 5, what could be better?

Tonight's update is short but it is awesome because in just a few days I was able to go from this:



to this:







I'm back on track!

Remember, this is not a squad, it's just all the special weapons I had in the batch of Plague Marines I'm painting and since they had the most immediate application I painted them first. Granted, these models are not going to win any contests but they fit my army perfectly. I'm quite happy with them, and I am looking forward to employing the diverse firepower they offer my force.

I'll be back. Soon. Thanks for looking!

Very nice stuff! Meltaspam go!

I like Plasma Guns. A lot. Meltas not so much but I'm learning their effectiveness. Flamers... whatever. Ever since the rules for Flamers were nerfed and dumbed down they aren't nearly as effective or fun. I miss the old days where enemy models would run around on fire.

Well hopefully next year they will boost up flamers again. i also hate the gets hot rule, even though i never roll it

amazingtanks! and sooooo many marinessss!!!!!!

Quick update, mostly to show that I'm still grinding away.

New squad ready to go. This is one of the squads that wasn't in the picture but was close to being done. The Aspiring Champion for this squad was was done some time ago and has already been mixed into the rest of the army.



And a shot of the Land Raider, just a bit of work but work nonetheless:



Next up is... you guessed it... more Plague Marines! I'm looking at a busy weekend so I'm probably not going to have a lot done but I'm going to chip away at this as I can.

Thanks for checking in, more updates coming soon!

Looking very good. I cant wait untill you get those Machinator tracks. Will give that LR such an awsome final touch.

O.O I'm loving that land raider so much man! Keep up the good work, still wondering if your going to get back to project X soon?

I've had a few beers and I'm already sick of painting Plague Marines. Green green green. Bronze bronze bronze. Repeat repeat repeat. Bah. I'll get back to work on them before long. I'm just burnt.

So I decided to start on my new Dreadnought instead. It started out as a regular AoBR plastic but as with the Land Raider I ripped and cut and filed and cut off everything that reminded me if Imperial markings, trashed it a bit more just because I felt like it, and then got working on corrupting it. Before it is done it is going to get the complete Nurgle treatment. I wish I had taken more WIP photos to show the work, but I think this is not such a bad place to start:

Overview of the pieces:



The CC arm has had the combi-bolter removed and a Heavy Flamer has been added instead. Good for lighting up densely-packed squads like Boyz and Guard. The CC weapon was converted w/ the same style "claws" as I used for "teeth" on the Land Raider. The center of the CC weapon is another "mouth". When it is done it's going to look pretty decent I think. I have to replace the nozzle on the HF though, I notice I got a bit careless w/ the filing and it's a bit flat on one side.





The main weapon will remain a Multimelta. I'm going with this because of the ST 8 AP 1 w/ Melta special rules, plus it is twin-linked so I get a re-roll if I miss. However, I'm going to try magnetizing the weapon so I can swap it out with other stuff if I choose. For now this is going to be mobile tank killer, and it'll ruin the day of more than a few Nobs I imagine. The spikes are the same spikes I have on my Land Raider and Rhinos, the idea is to tie everything together and create a cohesive feeling throughout the army. And yes I'll be drilling out the barrels better than this.



The main body / hull is really why I wanted to do a new Dread in the first place. A couple months ago I saw a thread where someone linked to a Dreadnought that had the sarcophagus with a clear casing so you could see inside it but the model was poorly done and the CSM inside the sarcophagus was still wearing Power Armor. Great idea, terrible execution. I'm hoping to take that idea in the right direction and with any luck inspire someone else that can actually model / paint to do it on a 10/10 level. For now you're stuck with me. Here's where it is so far. The plastic might have to be changed out if it doesn't hold "air tight" because I'm going to fill this with fluid. I'll be trimming it of course.



And a very loosely joined sum of the parts tro give an idea of where all this is going:



I have a lot of work to do on this but I think it'll be worth it. I'm looking forward to something with this much firepower. Just have to keep it far, far away from my Land Raider. Or anything else in my army for that matter.

More coming later.

the dread looks sweet!
HOWEVER!!!! I HAVE A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU!!
You tell me quite abit that i didn't know about chaos, but you refuse to tell me about the fifth long forgotten god? Malal?
I know i probably should have found out for him on my own(and sort of did) but you could have at least told me there used to be a fifth god that was hated by the rest.

Lol sorry for the rant just wish I would have known about him. Still looking for digitals of the first three editions*not interested in fourth*

Spikes are awesome, skeleton in the sarcophagus awesome, mega claw with extra mouth awesome, so all in alll awesome job. The fluid in the sarcophagus interests me, what fluid are you gona use? Maybe you could cut the flamer down, so you just have the two tips of the flamer left, as you have filed them a bit flat on one side stick them flat to the side arm in the same place as the flamer is now, then do greenstuff over it like you've done on the claw.

Yeah, I don't like the flamer. It's going to get changed.

I screwed up the sarcophagus idea because I was too impatient and did something stupid so now it won't work the way I wanted so here it is as is now, I'll likely tweak / tear / etc and change it all around again.



Yeah I really hate that flamer. It's coming off.







I should go to bed and leave this alone until tomorrow.

I love that rotting corpse in the dread. It is sooo gross. How did you do those little bubbles in the corpse juice or was that a fortuitous accident? all those curved spikes are nice too

I love it So glad you went with transperant coffin idea, sounded so great. I also have to ask how you did the fluid, looks like he's slowly melting, very distrurbing =) Maybe could try cutting the heavy flamer in half and putting it under the coffin instead? Or have just one of the nozles come out the center of his DCCW (love it btw).
Rank and file marines look awesome too, nothing better than seeing everything from the lowliest nurgling to Daemon Prince fully coated in slime.
I don't like plasmas, the always Gets Hot! (for me atleast)

the dread looks amazing.
the corpse lying in the liquid looks awesome!

very nice work

Wow, love the sarcophagus looks like he's drowning in goo!

The sarcophagus may have failed to turn out as you thought, but it still looks totally wicked, and nurgle. I need to know what liquid you have used, as I want to fill up my puss feeder with the same stuff.

Once again Skalk another one hit out of the park!!!
That dred is so cool!! I love that intombed marine exposed. That really adds tons of originality to you model. Fasteddiexx1, and my brother inlaw had a paint session last night and took a break and saw your latest creation from the warp and was like holy $#!£ that dred is sick!!!
Keep up the great work.

GreyDeathOne wrote: ... and was like holy $#!£ that dred is sick!!!

That comment is great for two reasons xD

@ weetyskemian44- The bubbles were intentional, I used a syringe to pump in the fluid and gave it another blast of air to create the bubbles. Sadly they did not take, as you'll see in the pics. Oh well.

@ Limbo- I'm actually upset w/ myself for not being more patient. If I had waited for the latex caulk I sealed the interior with to cure it would have worked, but no I had to push it and it made a mess and the only way I could clean it up was go in through the clear cover and rinse everything. Maybe I'll do another Dread in the future. This one is what it is, there's no going back at this point.

@ rubirub & Rose_Mountainz- Thank you, always appreciate feedback from folks.

@ tipios- This is what I used:



@ GreyDeathOne- Thank you. What I can't accomplish with highlights and shading I'll accomplish with piles of GS and gallons of washes.


Short update as I don't have much done to show. These are just base colors being mixed in, blending and detail will come later. This entire weekend has been... lackluster. It is what it is. Moving on. You'll notice the Heavy Flamer is gone. I'm going to put a tank on the arm, run some hoses, and call the center of the DCCW the nozzle for the flamer. The people I play w/ are pretty cool and no one is going to have a fit about it.

The color scheme is the same as the Rhinos, Land Raider, Terminator Lord, etc. Going to keep that theme running.









No more bubbles. Or anything else. I'm going to inject a sealer and let it set a couple days then try refilling it for that "1/2 full of fluid" look.

That's it for now. Next update will likely be another squad of regular Plague Marines. The Dreadnought is a fun distraction but the Plague Marines are what need to be done. I'll be gone all next weekend so I'm going to try to get another update posted this week before then.

Thanks for checking this out, your comments are really motivating.

Nice

I think I'm gonna hurl.

Nice job.