Afternoon Dakka,

I've not played 40k since 6th and wasn't planning on getting back into it. Back when I did play, I always wanted to do a conversion-heavy Plague Marine army. I've already got a decent bits box of stuff, but I recently picked up a bunch of really cheap old CSM, Plague Marines and so on at my FLCS so the building can really begin in earnest. I don't have much of a goal. Purely to be creative and have fun, smash some kits together and see what gross little guys I can come out with.


I'm going to see how long I can go before buying new models. I learned from my rescued Sons of Medusa army that I really get a kick out of rescuing old models so I'm going to lean into that as I explore this Nurgle army. First off, I started bashing the old 1994 Plague Marines with some old and new CSM parts I picked up.

The original Plague Marine is iconic to me. So one had to survive onmolested. Cutting off the arms and legs is relatively simple, but there's going to need to be some greenstuff done here and there - droopy bellies, gaps filled etc. I'm waiting on a set of FW shoulder pads which I picked up recently which I'm going to ration out over these guys. My plan is to eventually have two squads of ten with all weapon options. Less for the game, more for the modelling opportunities.

Speaking of, here's my Blight Launcher and Plague Belcher:



I figured the best kind of Nurgley "flamer" was a sort of mutated tentacle arm that spurts gross bile and filth over people. So that's the way I'm going. The Spewer will be a double-barreled tentacle arm and the Foul Blightspawn... well:

This old Space Crusade CSM needed a new lease on life, so I started adding a pitted belly, inspired by the old FW Blight Drone. He then became this little freak:



And then lastly is my Plague Surgeon. Again made out of an old Plague Marine but with some bits out of the bitz box. I don't see him getting mentioned much, I don't know if he gets a lot of utility in the game. But a gross, corrupted Apothecary? Too cool not to model. I tried to go for a sort of Fabius Bile style backpack, along with some wires I spun together. Really pleased with his plague mask!


My plan was to noodle around, make some cool things to paint but as soon as I went into it, I started thinking about building a playable army. My plans for the future will be to finish these gunline marines, bash together some Deathshroud from some FW kits I'm hoping to pick up and scratchbuild my own drones and Blight-haulers.

Hey, those are pretty neat! The classic plague marine look is great, combined with the added dynamism of the more recent bits it'll make a solid force.

The plague surgeon is conceptually great, but the rules have been absolute garbage since their inception in 8th. Which is sad, given how integral the 21st man is to Mortarion's vision of massed all-rounder infantry.

 Sherrypie wrote:
Hey, those are pretty neat! The classic plague marine look is great, combined with the added dynamism of the more recent bits it'll make a solid force.

The plague surgeon is conceptually great, but the rules have been absolute garbage since their inception in 8th. Which is sad, given how integral the 21st man is to Mortarion's vision of massed all-rounder infantry.

Thanks so much. Yours and FeistyRips blogs are super inspirational so it's lovely to see you in the comments here. I really like the slow and ploddy aesthetic of the older models. I kinda feel like the '94 PM was peak for their aesthetic. The newer models feel overdetailed and gribbly, the silhouettes are harder to read so we'll see how many of them I end up getting. Some of the regular gunline dudes are pretty neat so I'm sure a couple will sneak in.

Shame to hear the Surgeon is garbage. I suspected as much because I've not seen him in any lists. Still, he's got great flavour so he's a must-have. I'll probably have a go at modelling every character but really it's the vibes which come first!

great, just as neat as your sons of medusa!

Thanks Maréchal! I won't be painting this lot green. I can't do two green armies!

Oh yeah, those nurgly chaps look awesome! Really loving your conversion and greenstuff work mate, it's stellar! I also looked through your Sons of Medusa thread and really enjoyed it! I wish I had been a more active player during the Badab war era, such a great time and you captured that feeling perfectly.

Also, glad to hear I could provide you with some motivation, though I gotta admit I have no clue how I did it, seeing as I'm just a lazy bum sitting on a pile of grey plastic

I will definitely keep a close eye on this thread, I've got a feeling you might just return the motivational favour!

 FeistyRips wrote:
Oh yeah, those nurgly chaps look awesome! Really loving your conversion and greenstuff work mate, it's stellar! I also looked through your Sons of Medusa thread and really enjoyed it! I wish I had been a more active player during the Badab war era, such a great time and you captured that feeling perfectly.

Also, glad to hear I could provide you with some motivation, though I gotta admit I have no clue how I did it, seeing as I'm just a lazy bum sitting on a pile of grey plastic

I will definitely keep a close eye on this thread, I've got a feeling you might just return the motivational favour!

Thank you mate! I'm working on the green stuff. It's something I've wanted to work on, so there's going to be more GS work in future models. I'll also be adding small amounts of chain, wire, mail and fabric to the guys to really lean into a bit more of a customised aesthetic.

Thanks for the compliment on the Sons thread. That army's still in progress too, so I might update that from time to time.

And lastly, all your blogs are super inspirational! I _loved_ the Soul Drinkers books and have often thought about starting the same army. It's been great catching up with that one. And the Fighting Tigers, too. Iconic work!

 Tek wrote:
Thank you mate! I'm working on the green stuff. It's something I've wanted to work on, so there's going to be more GS work in future models. I'll also be adding small amounts of chain, wire, mail and fabric to the guys to really lean into a bit more of a customised aesthetic.

Thanks for the compliment on the Sons thread. That army's still in progress too, so I might update that from time to time.

And lastly, all your blogs are super inspirational! I _loved_ the Soul Drinkers books and have often thought about starting the same army. It's been great catching up with that one. And the Fighting Tigers, too. Iconic work!

You're doing an absoluetly fantastic job, that's for sure! Also, I find it such a great callback to the classic RT era Nurgle stuff that was very weird and almost Giger-esque in certain ways.

I've also subscribed to the Sons thread, don't wanna miss out on any updates there. Really gotta give you props for using the classic RT Dreadnought as a Centurion proxy, that is so flavourful and the model is simply perfect. I wanted to get one too but I noticed the sculpt was taken down, I'm guessing for copyright issues. Wish I could get one of them as well, but I don't even have a 3D printer

Also, thanks for the compliment, you are too kind! Especially glad to hear you enjoy my Soul Drinkers, will have to update that thread soon with some new pics. Gah, there's just too many cool projects I'm trying to do at the same time Though I'm happy to report you definitely motivated me to get back to painting, so thank you very much for that!

Loving the old models with your added detail,, they look excellent. Always fancied a chaos force but could never decide which one to go for!

Alaricuk wrote:
Loving the old models with your added detail,, they look excellent. Always fancied a chaos force but could never decide which one to go for!

Thanks so much! I've got a decent bits box and love picking up old models for cheap. And I like bashing them all together even more! Speaking of which, I have been looking to add plasma specialists into the PM squads. One I've almost made out of parts, but I thought this guy fits the bill:


Technically this is a regular CSM with plasma gun. But the antlers, the pipes and the _very_ DG looking head make him feel very at home with the Plague Marines. With a couple of added pipes and wires, a little loincloth and a custom backpack, I think he looks the part.

I've gone back over a few of the earlier models and started doubling down on pipes and loincloths, too.


And I've TRIPLED down on the Blightspawn!


He actually has a little cheesecloth loincloth, too. I just forgot to photograph it. Testing out the colour scheme today!

Great work on bashing and updating these guys. The Blightspawn in particular is looking very cool. Good luck with the painting, are you going for the purple-black?

 gobert wrote:
Great work on bashing and updating these guys. The Blightspawn in particular is looking very cool. Good luck with the painting, are you going for the purple-black?

Hi Gobert, thanks for taking the time to reply! I'm going to attempt a purple-black, yes. I've got a few Glooming Lords pics in my inspiration folder, that bright green trim looks so sick. I'm concerned that dark armour won't show up all the filth and decay but I'm going to give it a good try.

Here's my quick sketch, so I can think about how best to tackle this paint job. My thoughts are dark purple armour and bright green trim. Flesh and mutations can be anywhere from green to pink to purple. I'm not sure about eyes yet but I think a bright turquoise would look good (and I'm faintly obsessed with turquoise).

That is funky! The purple and green combo is a classic. The rust you’ve added gives him a dirty look, some dark oily stains might work ok too? Or maybe little Globules of puss?

That is a great test model! Gotta say the purple is not what I expected for Death Guard, but it's a really cool and creative new idea and will surely turn some heads when you put your painted minis on the table! Gotta go check out your inspiration pics, I honestly never heard of the Glooming Lords tbh but that sounds very intriguing!

Also, once again, very cool conversion work with the greenstuff, and the loincloths are a nice touch and will certainly give the models some cool texture! I especially love your Plague Surgeon, with the serrated blade and the medical servo arm!
Keep up the great work, looking forward to more!

gobert wrote:That is funky! The purple and green combo is a classic. The rust you’ve added gives him a dirty look, some dark oily stains might work ok too? Or maybe little Globules of puss?

Thanks Gobert! Yeah I'm just experimenting atm with how to weather black. I've been looking into airplane and railway modelling tutorials. The general consensus is that you need to fade the black up in order to show wear.

I've found some good resources here on Dakka, too. Especially these great minis by voidjord!


Some sponge chipping will help, but I think you're right - some gross pus or slime in a variety of surprising colours will help to sell the Nurgle vibes, rather than just generic weathered marines.

FeistyRips wrote:That is a great test model! Gotta say the purple is not what I expected for Death Guard, but it's a really cool and creative new idea and will surely turn some heads when you put your painted minis on the table! Gotta go check out your inspiration pics, I honestly never heard of the Glooming Lords tbh but that sounds very intriguing!

Also, once again, very cool conversion work with the greenstuff, and the loincloths are a nice touch and will certainly give the models some cool texture! I especially love your Plague Surgeon, with the serrated blade and the medical servo arm!
Keep up the great work, looking forward to more!

A mate of mine told me they're "giving Goosebumps-era horror" which actually I love. I'm telling myself the purple brings a bruised / necrotic element to the Death Guard which I think is pretty rad. I cant upload the entire contents of my inspo folder, but here's three figs which rank really highly for inspiration. You can see which elements I want to take from each paint job, but I'm not trying to recreate either one (not that I could).

Howdy all. No updated on the paint job but I've been working on a Plague Champion. I have a few (really) old metal minis. Some are Fantasy but really fit the vibe. This guy is a Chaos renegade, probably from before Nurgle was even a thing. But he's perfect for a mutated Champ:


It's a great model by itself. But I wanted a plasma gun and Heavy Plague Weapon. Arguably his (possible) power fist would happily count as a HPW, but I want to use power mauls as HPWs. So anyway, step one was to take the razor saw to him and cut off both his arms!


As I mentioned I have some great old Chaos bits and honestly I don't even know what they're from any more. But once I 40k'd up this old mace, it makes a brilliant plaguey bommeyknocker


Plasma gun trimmed down to fit into a left hand (not many Southpaws around it seems)


And here he is, stuck back together. I added some homemade pipes, some cheesecloth, some superglue and bicarb and I stuck him on a big base because he's a real short king!


Really pleased for him to lead my first squad. Future kitbashes will be using the FW DG upgrade sprue and the old 1995 metal DG models. Right, back to that test paint job!

Oh yeah, that old Nurgle Marine is an absolute CLASSIC! So great that you could get your hands on one of them! I'm a bit shocked you chopped him up, but the end result certainly justifies that mild bit of heresy Seriously though, he really looks great with the new weapons. I have the exact same Morning Star mace in my bitz box. It's from the old WHFB Chaos Barbarian set from somewhere in the 90's, and I swear I already had it on the desk, contemplating how I could turn it into a more sci-fi looking Mace of Contagion for some special character. Glad you beat me to it, yours looks absolutely awesome and now I have an idea I can steal
On another note, I'm also very much lookign forward to seeing the FW DG bits incorporated into your minis. Wish I'd had some of those for my force too!

Once again, really really great work. Love your creations and can't wait for more!

 FeistyRips wrote:
Oh yeah, that old Nurgle Marine is an absolute CLASSIC! So great that you could get your hands on one of them! I'm a bit shocked you chopped him up, but the end result certainly justifies that mild bit of heresy Seriously though, he really looks great with the new weapons. I have the exact same Morning Star mace in my bitz box. It's from the old WHFB Chaos Barbarian set from somewhere in the 90's, and I swear I already had it on the desk, contemplating how I could turn it into a more sci-fi looking Mace of Contagion for some special character. Glad you beat me to it, yours looks absolutely awesome and now I have an idea I can steal
On another note, I'm also very much lookign forward to seeing the FW DG bits incorporated into your minis. Wish I'd had some of those for my force too!

Once again, really really great work. Love your creations and can't wait for more!

Thank you, Feisty! Your supportive comments keep me posting, so that's a great thing. I've got quite a few oldhammer metals and I believe there's no sacrilege in cutting them up! Especially as these days there's quite a few affordable recasts around

Haha it's so funny that you have the same bit and were considering the same conversion. I'm sure yours will be neater than mine, but I'm still very pleased with how mine came out. For my initial 1000 point list I want two five-man squads. One flamey and one shooty. I'm almost done with squad flamey - I'm working on the heavy plague spewer today. But last night, I tidied up my sketch model and I'm happy with the scheme now:


I tidied and cleaned up the colour, and brought the base colour up to a much more obvious purple. I was really happy with the model looking clean so I decided to go in on some weathering, too. Adding some bright chipping, rust streaks and added some bright green slime into the recesses. I probably overdid it for this model, but it's a good proof of concept to carry through to the rest of the force.



He's a little shiny, due to washes, inks and splashing some isopropyl alcohol onto the inks to get them to coffee stain and go weird.

Oh my, that mace wielding champion is perfect

 Tek wrote:
Especially as these days there's quite a few affordable recasts around

Hmmm good point! I might have to look into that... Wouldn't mind getting some of those OOP nurgley chaps for myself!

 Tek wrote:
I'm sure yours will be neater than mine

I doubt it, especially since yours is so well done! However, I could also just cheat by covering everything in rust and grime to hide my shoddy work Thanks mate!


Anyway, I really like where the test model is going. The paint scheme is solid and I think it will look great when applied to an entire squad or even army. Quite a unique take on DG I believe. Looking forward to more!

Fun conversions. I used to have some of those old Death Guard, I remember them as being tiny.

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:Oh my, that mace wielding champion is perfect

Thank you! I've got a couple of super old fantasy sorcerors which I'm hoping might make decent plague champions, too.

FeistyRips wrote:

 Tek wrote:
Especially as these days there's quite a few affordable recasts around

Hmmm good point! I might have to look into that... Wouldn't mind getting some of those OOP nurgley chaps for myself!

 Tek wrote:
I'm sure yours will be neater than mine

I doubt it, especially since yours is so well done! However, I could also just cheat by covering everything in rust and grime to hide my shoddy work Thanks mate!
Anyway, I really like where the test model is going. The paint scheme is solid and I think it will look great when applied to an entire squad or even army. Quite a unique take on DG I believe. Looking forward to more!

You're too kind. Thanks for the feedback on the paint scheme. I'm happy with it and definitely agree it's going to look a lot better at scale. I've got a couple of models which are complete but I want to wait until I have a full squad before committing more paint.

Tommygun1918 wrote:Fun conversions. I used to have some of those old Death Guard, I remember them as being tiny.

Oh mate, they're miniscule! It's crazy that people were able to paint them so well. I'm honestly struggling, but I'm having fun

How about some updates?

First off, I've been eying up my plague surgeon. Something wasn't quite right. He wasn't as big or imposing as I wanted him to be. Then when looking through the old books for inspiration, I saw this conversion in the Index: Chaos from the mid-2000s:


The horn on his head! I realised this was the only mini in the force so far which didn't have a pickelhaub or a mutated horn. So I had to remedy that with a little green stuff horn. It's basic and I'll need to add a little detail to it, but he already looks a lot better:


The biggest update (and something I've been really looking forward to, is my Bloat Drones. I don't care for the new model and I can't find the old FW ones for a reasonable price. So I decided very early on that I'd be scratchbuilding my own. Inspired by the opening illustration in one of the Death Guard rules expansions, a little bit of Immortan Joe and a few other sources and I started getting stuff down in my sketchbook:


I really started circling in on a floating skull with a gun coming out of the mouth. I want to keep the dimensions close to the official model. I don't want to model for advantage and I want my opponents to be able to clearly understand what the model counts-as. I have a load of Halloween decorations which I picked up last year at Hobbycraft and was using to make scatter terrain. But some of them felt like the perfect size, and were big enough that I could sculpt and build on them.


After eviling up the eyes, I wanted to have a go at creating a third eye so I cut a hole and added a crevice with Milliput. I love the image of pipes coming out the side of the skull, so I built this area up with some polyester washers and styrene tube. I couldn't figure out _at all_ how I was going to get a flexible hose wide enough to look good. So I ended up making huge springs out of steel wire:


The heavy blight launcher coming out of the mouth was a must. I needed to sculpt new teeth over it and add rivets and details all over. At the last minute I decided to trim a spike off an old Chaos tank dozer so this can also have a head horn. It's a pattern now!


I had a lot of fun building the chimneys for the drone. They came up early in my sketches and I like the idea of this giant floating skull just belching fumes and grossness into the air.


Things to do next: the drone needs lenses in the eyes. I can't think of what to use. Maybe beads, maybe googly eyes. I need to find a way of turning the springs into ribbed cables. I'm thinking fabric / cheese cloth / crepe paper and PVA could be a good shout. Areas where it's particularly obvious can get coated, and areas which look pretty good can stay exposed. The gun needs a second, asymmetric barrel. I don't know what for, but I feel another pipe needs to be sticking out the front. And then I'm going to add a huge carpet of guff hanging out the bottom. Chains, cables, wires, cloth, gore. Just a whole bunch of grossness which will (hopefully) give the impression that the thing is floating and get it up to the right height.

I can't wait to see what you all think!

Quick update after the weekend! Progress has been made on my scratchbuilt Foetid Bloat Drone. I'm calling her done now. Art is never finished, it is merely abandoned! And honestly I could have carried on with this for days. I'm so happy with how she came out:


I was worried that it was a really overcomplex, overdetailed model. But getting a base coat and a zenithal on it. Well, I'm gassed.


It's nothing like the official model. But I love it. And it cost me about a quid in parts, too! I'm painting it tonight so you can expect another update relatively soon

That scratchbuilt drone is fantastic! Came together really well. I gotta applaud your sculpting skills as well as the great use of techy bitz. Together, they create this wonderful nurgly abomination. Well done! Looking forward to seeing it painted, and curious how you will apply your scheme to this unique model.

Thank you, Feisty! It's a horrible little freak and I've had so much fun building it. And now it's painted, I love it all the more:



I originally thought I would do the skull black / purple to fit in with the power armour. But I didn't think that would be the best use of colour, especially when I could paint a huge gross green skull! I went for a more muted green, and then painted the head horn in the same bright green trim I'm using on the armour. I had a LOT of fun with adding layers of rust and filth



I still have to do the base rim, but this turned out exactly how I wanted. I think this is the best thing I've ever done. I'm so proud! And the best part is, I want to run two of these so I get to go and make another

Such a penetrating gaze! You have plenty of reasons to be proud, it looks fantastic (and disgusting!).

Now that's an original mini.you have there sir!

Not gonna lie, that is pretty disturbing. That's what makes it awesome. I can see why you'd be excited to make another. Have fun!

The droe came out absolutely amazing. I'm in awe at your beautiful blending, but also the rust effect on the metal bits. Really stunning work once again, it really does the fantastic sculpting justice!

That skull drone is amazing! Excellent building and a really cool paint job to boot!

muette wrote:Such a penetrating gaze! You have plenty of reasons to be proud, it looks fantastic (and disgusting!).

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:Now that's an original mini.you have there sir!

Nozeminer wrote:Not gonna lie, that is pretty disturbing. That's what makes it awesome. I can see why you'd be excited to make another. Have fun!

FeistyRips wrote:The droe came out absolutely amazing. I'm in awe at your beautiful blending, but also the rust effect on the metal bits. Really stunning work once again, it really does the fantastic sculpting justice!

gobert wrote:That skull drone is amazing! Excellent building and a really cool paint job to boot!

Thank you, everyone! I was surprised to find out that making that bloat drone actually left me feeling quite creatively spent. I really put a lot into that and needed to take a little time off to recharge! I've been working on a Turnip28 force in time for TurnipCon in May, but found some time to paint up another couple of guys for the plague marines.


The plague belcher arm came out really well. I picked up some Pro Acryl neon pink and it's SO bright. I had to tone it down a little with some purple glazes but I honestly love how it came out.

The eye lenses are so small I found it impossible to do. So i painted them white and slopped a load of turquoise in in there and called it a day


Then we have the plasma gunner. I wasn't intending this army to be so bright and colourful. But they just seem to have taken on a life of their own and I'm really enjoying seeing it come together.


I've got a fairly quick and easy recipe for the armour and trim now, so I'm hoping I can start batching the remaining PMs. Here's a little sneak peak of the model I started today. This will be a PM armed with a plague spewer. It'll be bigger than the belcher, with a pipe going to a backpack. I kind of want to see some continuity between the plague squirty weapons, so it'll be a smaller version of the Blightspawn, seen next to him.

Hi Tek, loving the colour scheme on the plague marines, it’s a very striking and bold. I really like the way you have done the flamer, it looks very fleshy.
You have a talent for creativity and green stuff and some of those mods look great.

That Skull drone is fantastic!! you have skills brother... disturbing skills! I envy you.

Loving the neon primary colours! Really adds to the retro feel. Hopefully the creative motivation burnout doesn’t last too long

JordySteve wrote:Hi Tek, loving the colour scheme on the plague marines, it’s a very striking and bold. I really like the way you have done the flamer, it looks very fleshy.
You have a talent for creativity and green stuff and some of those mods look great.

Thank you! The creative side of this hobby is my favourite part. I don't consider myself to be amazing, but I have fun and that's what's important to me

Styrofoam04 wrote:That Skull drone is fantastic!! you have skills brother... disturbing skills! I envy you.

Thanks mate, that thing was a monster to build! I have started on the companion drone, so hopefully I can update the blog with a sister drone in the near future.

gobert wrote:Loving the neon primary colours! Really adds to the retro feel. Hopefully the creative motivation burnout doesn’t last too long

Thanks, Gobert! The colours are getting brighter and brighter. This wasn't my intention but I agree, it really works with the old models and the overall feel of my force. Good news, the burnout hasn't lasted and I in fact speed painted a unit of plaguebearers yesterday!









These were all done with your classic drybrushed, tinted with washes technique. Each model had a slightly different colour recipe, but a very simple approach. Drybrush a mid tone on the top 2/3, a light tone on the top half and a bright tone on the top 1/3. Then filter the whole thing with a wash. I made two different washes, one a turquoisey brown, one a purply brown. This meant the unit can look chaotic, but there's still some colour theory tying them together. The lime green horns ties them back into the rest of the army. And the neon pink faces just kind of happened!

I think I mentioned I bought some Pro Acryl neon pink. It's really thin, and that means it was really easy to glaze a few layers onto the faces and hands of this lot and again, bring them all together. I did the whole unit in a day today. Really pleased with how they all turned out!

Man what a delight! Kudos

Flipping awesome Plague bearers! Some of those old sculpts look a bit one eyed gobbo, but are fantastic nonetheless. That neon pink on their faces was a great unifying colour choice

Those Plaguebearers look sweet! Althouth I would not put them in my mouth...

Those Plaguebearers are great! Lovely, very artistic. I disagree with the guy above me, they look very tasty, don't bring them to a public game or a small child might confuse them for sweets haha. Great colour scheme

Hey Tek! Amazing work, both on the Plague Marines and the Plaguebearers! The vibrancy and high contrast of your chosen paint scheme very striking which makes the units really pop. The lime green and deep purple complement eachother perfectly. I'm also in awe at what you manage to achieve with a 'speed paint' in one day! A paintjob of that caliber would probably take me weeks, if I could pull it off at all! Mad props mate and sorry for my late response btw!

Thank you so much, everyone! I can't tell you how much your positive words help to keep me motivated to keep working on this force.
@gobert, I love these goofy old sculpts. I narrowly missed out on a bunch of the even older plaguebearer sculpts. If I ever want a big blob of 20 of them, I'll be getting even more of these janky old sods!
@feisty - I am SURE you could smash this paint scheme. It was loads of fun - I even got my girlfriend in on the action. She had a blast doing some drybrushing and washing!

I don't have much in the way of updates, but I have finished modelling two squads of Plague Marines! You can see the variety of kits which make up these guys too. Which I think is pretty rad.


I'm calling the first squad "shooty squad". There's two bolters, a plasma gun and a blight launcher. The champion has a plasma gun (and heavy plague weapon) and they're accompanied by the plague surgeon. In my mind, they dig into cover and become a stubborn nuisance. I don't know if that's the practical reality, but that's how I see them!


The second squad I'm calling "squirty squad". Two bolters, a plague belcher and plague spewer. Champion has the same loadout (plasma and HPW feels like the best loadout really) and the squad has the attached blightspawn. I see this lot throwing a lot of torrent fire out and they all have tentacle arms instead of actual flamer-style weapons. Which has caused the Mrs to call them the "penis patrol".


Here's a closeup of the second plague champion. His body is (I think) one of the possessed from the Dark Vengeance box(?), but with arms from very old plastic WFB Chaos models. The left arm holding the plasma is an old Knight arm, with a modern plasma gun slightly modified to fit. The mace is a counts-as heavy plague weapon. And the backpack is an old Khorne bezerker backpack! I covered the Khorne logo and I'll paint a tiny Nurgle logo on it. How about that for rivalry?


Lastly, a detail shot of the plague spewer. I need to do a little more greebling on the backpack but I'm happy with the green stuff work. I feel like my skills are getting better. I bought a green stuff cable maker, too. Can't wait to start using that across the army.


Now I'd better get some paint on these suckers!

Damn! Those squads look so nice already! I love the variety of old and new minis, your mixing and matching of parts and that you even managed to incorporate some of the classic pewter sculpts. These just ooze so much character IMO. Also, I'm stunned by the inclusion of the delicate veins you managed to sculpt onto the fleshy bits, that is INSANE!

Your force is really shaping up nicely! It's super cool to see how the purple basecoat ties all the parts together and gives us a first impression of the finished product.
Also, very cool that you managed to recruit your girlfriend to help you with the hobby, so great that you can share this!

Looking forward to more cool stuff mate!!

Keep it up!

Wow, these are fantastic conversions. I love them all.

That plague spewer is certainly a veiny member of the penis patrol sorry I saw it and couldn’t help myself! Serious though, the sculpting and kit bashing is first rate. Can’t wait to see how they develop

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:Keep it up!

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Wow, these are fantastic conversions. I love them all.

Thanks so much! I don't see too much converting and kitbashing in the hobby nowadays. I guess GW having a model for everything removes the need to make your own models. But I'm old school, and I _love_ converting and making a mess

gobert wrote:That plague spewer is certainly a veiny member of the penis patrol sorry I saw it and couldn’t help myself! Serious though, the sculpting and kit bashing is first rate. Can’t wait to see how they develop

lol the veins really set off the penis patrol vibes Thanks so much for the kind words. I do have some updates!

I've been out of the Death Guard game for a few weeks, as I was preparing for TurnipCon Bristol, a Turnip28 tournament near me. I managed to bash out a decent cultless force (and got absolutely battered on the day lol)


Back to the plague marines. I've painted up the special characters who will be running with the two squads of Plague Marines. Namely the Plague Surgeon and Foul Blightspawn:


I've been told by the wonderful Sherrypie that the Plague Surgeon is actually a pants unit. But I love the idea of a corrupted apothecary too much. I think I'll make a Tallyman at some point, but I couldn't neglect the conversion work on him


I feel like the bright pink pipe that's going into his gob looks like some gross intestine. It connects to the weird contraption on his back, so there's two possible scenarios I can see here. Either it's a straw that sucks the guts out of folks and he drinks it, or it's a hypodermic which takes bile out of his stomach and injects into folks? Both are gross, which is just wonderful.

The Foul Blightspawn came out fairly well I think.


The angry penis arm is so OTT! I can't get the white balance right on my pics, so I've adjusted the balance slightly so you can get a better idea of the purple tone. It's not 100%, but I'm just taking photos using the window in my office for light. Once they're all complete I'll attempt some better photography.

Not photographed, but 100% of the Battleline units are now painted. I'm going to have a massive basing session today. So potentially by the end of the day I'll be uploading a pic of the completed army so far! And one final sneak peek. Every army needs a leader. And who else would I be using but this classic OOP legend:


As you can see, there's been a fair bit of embiggening to try to get him to stand up next to the new model. MASSIVE base, green stuff brothel creeper platform shoes, a new scythe and an extension to the Destroyer Hive, courtesy of some bits from a Deathshroud terminator and a fair bit of green stuff. Also some cool giant flies from Frostgrave, I want to say. Oh yeah and a head from an old metal chaos termie. I've got a couple of those in my bitz box. They're TINY compared to modern terminators, but that head is just too cool not to utilise. I'll probably use Typhus's head on a Lord of Contagion or something.

Thank you all for the support so far! The army keeps trucking and your support really helps to keep me inspired.

Great project, very inventive. Inspiring to see what you can achieve with a few old models and some bits. Keep up the good work; i'll be following to the end

 PaddyMick wrote:
Great project, very inventive. Inspiring to see what you can achieve with a few old models and some bits. Keep up the good work; i'll be following to the end

Thank you so much, PaddyMick. You make a good point. You can do a lot with a few old models and a bit of wild abandon.

As mentioned above, I've been on a basing mission. I now have a technically-playable 450 point force. I doubt this would be very competetive, but it's cool to have a legal, playable force completely painted and based. It's been a while since I could say that. And here they are!



Got to admit, seeing them all lined up like that makes me proud. We've got the two squads of Plague Marines. One with torrent weapons, the other with more punchy, anti-armour weapons. It looks like HPWs have been pulled (according to the app), to those maces will now count-as power fists.



Then we've got the Poxwalkers. These will go with Typhus when he's finished


The two characters completed and based:


And then finally, the Bloat-Drone. Which is currently the centrepiece for the force. There's one more to come, but according to the app, Heavy Blight Launchers have been dropped so I think I need to think about how to load these out.


Super happy to have all of these done. The plan for the next phase is a second Drone, Typhus, six Deathshroud Terminators and a Lord of Contagion. That _should_ put me in the vicinity of 1000 points. Onto the Phase 2!

OMG! I'm amazed by the progress on your force! I LOVE the way the Plague Surgeon, Cyclops Champ and Blightspawn came out! Really great to see the force come together! Also, really love how the heavy Bolter dude turned out now that he has shoulder pads and a paintjob. The bases look fantastic as well, and the shots of all the minis lined up are mighty impressive!

Once again, I can only praise your inspiring work! Looking forward to more from you mate!

Man that's so neat, both armies

Thanks Feisty, thanks Merechel. I'm glad you're enjoying the army. I've made some progress on the Deathshroud which I think you'll love. Potentially pics tomorrow!

These are awesome! Unique colour choices, great kitbashing and green-stuff trickery, and some very creative ideas. 'Angry penis arm' is not a phrase I ever expected to read but I guess you learn something new every day...

 bullisariuscowl wrote:
These are awesome! Unique colour choices, great kitbashing and green-stuff trickery, and some very creative ideas. 'Angry penis arm' is not a phrase I ever expected to read but I guess you learn something new every day...

Thank you so much. Creativity is the only real aim here. If I play, I'm certainly not looking to win. I'm just looking to have fun making a cool-looking army that reflects me. My green stuff work is getting better. I feel I have a log way to go but I'm enjoying learning and (hopefully) improving. And yeah haha "angry penis arm" might be a new sentence

I've got new updates! Spurred on by the completed "Phase 1", I spent this weekend building my Deathshroud. The new Deathshroud are super expensive, and I'm not in love with the new aesthetic. So mine are made by bashing the Forge World Heresy-era Deathshroud, bashed together with the old Forge World DG Terminator upgrade kit. Here's my test model:


Where the kits don't fit together (it wasn't as easy to get them to play nicely as I was hoping), I've done some GS "rot", some cheese cloth and some jewelry chain. The combination of textures and additional details really helps to hide the seams between the kits. Spraying him one colour really helps to visualise it, too. And with him done, I pushed for the whole five-man squad.

In order to bring the two kits together, I "rotted" up the Heresy-era armour, as it was very clean-looking. I used a couple of the Heresy bodies with some newer Deathshroud heads (I have one model on sprue which I'm stretching out as far as I can!) and then the old cloth and chain trick.



I'm really happy that they have a ploddy, slow and menacing vibe.
The _problem_ with the Heresy kit is you get five. And I needed a Champion. So the champ became a real kitbashing exercise!

The body is from the FW DG Terminator upgrade kit. The legs are from the Lord in Terminator Armour kit, the shoulders and scythe-end are from that one Deathshroud model I have. Both arms are from 80s/90s Chaos cavalry models. The spear arm has been in my bitz box forever and this was a perfect opportunity:


I am absolutely gassed with this unit. They're an absolute death star. At 300 points, they're the most expensive unit by far and will likely form more of a centrepiece than any of the scratchbuilds. I've added some texture paste to them and will start the painting this week.

Once they're done, I'm looking to build a Lord of Contagion to go with them (I've got some good ideas for this), another Bloat Drone and a couple of Myphitic Blight-Haulers. That should round out the force at 1250 points. Taking it to 1500 should really only be a case of more Plague Marines, a couple of Rhinos and a Tallyman.

Love the Army pics, they’re really coming together Asa good looking force now! I like how the Deathshroud were too expensive so you converted some Forge World kits . They look awesome though

those terminators lok really death guardish!

Mad green stuff skill and impressive work !

gobert wrote:Love the Army pics, they’re really coming together Asa good looking force now! I like how the Deathshroud were too expensive so you converted some Forge World kits . They look awesome though

Haha yeah point well taken. If I had paid retail for these, I think this Deathshroud would be a £250 unit! I got a great deal on these resin models. I actually just picked up a second squad of FW DG Terminators which I'd like to use as Blightlords for £17. The deals are out there

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:those terminators lok really death guardish!

Thank you mate, so glad to see you regularly backing me up <3

SarpedonofSotha wrote:Mad green stuff skill and impressive work !

Thank you so much. I'm learning all the time with the green stuff. It's a challenge but I enjoy it. I've been painting the Deathshroud this weekend but I also found time to finish building the second Blight Drone. She's running with the dual plaguespitters. I feel like I _have_ to take the squirty tentacle option whenever it presents itself now! Anyway, here she is:

Those Terminators turned out amazing, waaay better than the stock version IMHO. Great job on the conversion and kitbashing! And the second blight drone is SICK! Looking forward to more

Thank you so much. I'm learning all the time with the green stuff. It's a challenge but I enjoy it. I've been painting the Deathshroud this weekend but I also found time to finish building the second Blight Drone. She's running with the dual plaguespitters. I feel like I _have_ to take the squirty tentacle option whenever it presents itself now! Anyway, here she is:

You definitely have found a winning formula ! Impressive work overall anyway, very inspirational, keep up the good work !

There's a nice feel of joy seeing someone develop such a great army and make tremendous progress!

I am loving the creativity behind your Death Guard. Nurgle has so much scope for conversion and their gribbliness makes it easier to convert and kitbash effectively too! Yours is a nice paintscheme and it's really nice to see some old metals in there. Blight Drones looking awesome too!

I really like your Turnip28 force- please share more pics of them.

FeistyRips wrote:Those Terminators turned out amazing, waaay better than the stock version IMHO. Great job on the conversion and kitbashing! And the second blight drone is SICK! Looking forward to more

Thank you! I MUCH prefer them to the stock models. They're a little more squat, and I think that works in their favour. I can't wait to get painting the second drone!

SarpedonofSotha wrote:You definitely have found a winning formula ! Impressive work overall anyway, very inspirational, keep up the good work !

Thanks so much, mate. I'm getting a real kick out of this army and your feedback keeps my enthusiasm up. So thanks again!

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:There's a nice feel of joy seeing someone develop such a great army and make tremendous progress!

Thank you, you legend. I'm feeling real joy at the community here. It's great to put something weird out into the world and to meet folks who go "This iIS weird, and we LOVE it"

I got a little bit of painting progress for you all. The Deathshroud are done, with the exception of the Champion (who I'm doing separate to concentrate a bit more on him). As you you can see, I've decided to invert the colour scheme on them. I love the look of the black / purple army, but I thought it would be cool to have this one unit standing out as an elite choice. Similar to the Deathwing, in that respect. Plus it's nice to have a change from so much black / purple power armour!




Really enjoying the colour. The rust, the pink mutations and the green slime are just so silly now, and I think it works! When the app updated last week, I thought the champion had his twin gauntlets option removed. But it's there in the codex, so I needed to make sure that was modelled on. Whilst this is a heavily converted army, I do still want consistency and a degree WYSIWYG:


I've got a game on the 7th June. It will be my first game with this force. So I'm pushing to have 850 points painted by then. At this point, finishing the Deathshroud and Typhus will actually be a full 850 point force. For the curious, my roster looks like this:

Typhus
10x Poxwalkers
Foul Blightspawn
5x Plague Marines (Champ w/ Plasma & PF, 2x bolters, 1x Belcher, 1x Spewer, Icon)
Plague Surgeon
5x Plague Marines (Champ w/ Plasma & PF, 2x bolters, 1x Plasma, 1x Blight Launcher, Icon)
6x Deathshroud Terminators (Champ w/ dual gauntlets, Icon)
1x Foetid Bloat-Drone w/ Heavy Blight Launcher

Oooh! The Deathshroud look great in the green, they’ll certainly stand out on the table top! I’ve got to say that I’m pretty jealous of you scooping forgeworld resin so cheap! Was that an eBay bargain!?

 gobert wrote:
Oooh! The Deathshroud look great in the green, they’ll certainly stand out on the table top! I’ve got to say that I’m pretty jealous of you scooping forgeworld resin so cheap! Was that an eBay bargain!?

A combination! I picked some up on Vinted, some from a mate. I'm always checking FB Marketplace, local charity shops and second hand shops, eBay, Craigslist, local buy and sell groups. I picked up a bag of 20 RT beakies for £10 in a comics shop near me earlier this year for my Sons of Medusa army. Honestly a big part of this hobby is rooting around looking for bargains!

Quick reply with some more updates! First off, I finished the Deathshroud champion. He's darker than the rest, but he's gonna look great leading the unit.


And finally, I've pained my Typhus. Love how he came out. I achieved the dark / black / purple effect exactly as I saw it in my head. I'm really happy with this. Lots more effort on this model, as he's my Warlord.


I really enjoyed all the fine details on the tusks and the fly bodies. The massive Destroyer Hive came out great, too. I think he's going to make a decent HQ for the army


Now, just to base them all and that's 850 points finished!

 Tek wrote:

SarpedonofSotha wrote:You definitely have found a winning formula ! Impressive work overall anyway, very inspirational, keep up the good work !

Thanks so much, mate. I'm getting a real kick out of this army and your feedback keeps my enthusiasm up. So thanks again!

No worries mate, that's how I roll as well, I'm happy with how my minis turn out but even more hyped up when someone enjoy them as well !

Besides, it shows that you're having a blast your models are amazing and the paint is just as amazing as the sculpts !

Love the vibrant colours especially on those deathshroud terminators. Radically different from what we might be used to see for a death guard army but it does work wonderfully conveying a grotesque and disturbing look while retaining their pus ridden form !

Keep enjoying making them, we'll keep enjoying seeing them !

Deathshroud continue to look great in there bright green! Certainly tells your opponent to stay clear!
I think I need to up my 2nd hand game. since eBay changed its fee structure for private sellers it seems to have gone down hill. I’ve never had much luck in charity shops, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen Warhammer in one!
Loving the colours on Typhus, especially the pink horns, super vibrant colour you’ve achieved

 gobert wrote:
Deathshroud continue to look great in there bright green! Certainly tells your opponent to stay clear! I think I need to up my 2nd hand game. since eBay changed its fee structure for private sellers it seems to have gone down hill. I’ve never had much luck in charity shops, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen Warhammer in one!
Loving the colours on Typhus, especially the pink horns, super vibrant colour you’ve achieved

eBay is _okay_, but it requires a lot of patience if you want to get things for a reasonable price. I've just picked up my second lot of Forge World terminators from Vinted. I've got about 15 of these now! I have a great local shop that sells baggies of preowned Warhammer and you can find some real bargains in there.

There's not a lot of blog updates. I've been busy playing Xbox, doing some other artwork, making a YouTube video. So there's not too much to update you all with. I have completed all the models seen in the blog so far, and I put together an 850 point list for my first ever games of 10th! I played a couple of my mates, one of whom was bringing Emperor's Children with BIG ROBOT support, one of whom brought low-model count Orks. I took a few pics of both games, I was gassed to have a fully painted army on the table. Even more gassed, I won both games

My highlights from game one were taking apart a Ruinator with massed terminators, and the Plague Marines actually holding their own against a charge from Infractors!





Highlights from game two was the Bloat Drone absolutely bodying these Squighog Boyz with its opening salvo. I was surprised how effective that Heavy Blight Launcher is.



And a picture of Typhus because he looks so cool

This isn't strictly related to the blog, but my girlfriend asked me to paint her a "mermaid themed" Dreadnought for her birthday. So I accepted the challenge and present to you Sister Ursula of The Emperor's Sirens.





I've got designs for the next stage of the blog. More PMs, a big unit of Blightlord Terminators and more characters. I've got a good idea for some scratchbuilt Myphitic Blight-Haulers and I've got a great idea for a Defiler. So watch this space as I'm getting back to it.

Thank you all again!

The deathshroud look great, and fit in nicely with your army, which is looking awesome. I’m kind of jealous of the deals you are managing to blag, but my plastic pile of shame doesn’t really need adding to so probably a good thing!

That Dreadnought is giving me serious Ramjet vibes

JordySteve wrote:The deathshroud look great, and fit in nicely with your army, which is looking awesome. I’m kind of jealous of the deals you are managing to blag, but my plastic pile of shame doesn’t really need adding to so probably a good thing!

Thanks, JordySteve! The deals come after a lot of browsing, and more often than not require a far amount of stripping and repair! But thanks, I am really proud to have so much Forge World stuff without breaking the bank, TBH. I would loooovvee to find some of those Siege of Vraks Plague Ogryns, but they've eluded by grasp so far

ShadowsAndDust wrote:That Dreadnought is giving me serious Ramjet vibes

Mate, purple and teal Decepticons make up about 2/3 of my own personal aesthetic lol G2 Ramjet is absolutely iconic. So pleased to meet another Transfan out in the wild.

I had a great kitbashing session recently. I poured out my box of PM parts. We've got 90s plastics, 90s metals, some 3D prints a mate of mine gave me, FW stuff, generic CSM stuff. Apologies for the blurry pic, you can imagine it's because of tears in your eyes viewing such beauty


Utterly mad the scale difference between the oldest and newest models in this pile. It's going to make bashing pretty chaotic!


Anyway here we go!


Four more PMs with bolters and plague knives, and my favourite PM so far, Hook Hand!


I don't have anywhere near as many right hands as I would like, so I'm having to get creative! Then we've got two more tentacle-arm boys; a plague belcher and a spewer. Green stuff is still very WIP but I hope to tidy them this week.


Lastly, something I just finished playing with about 10 minutes ago. Here's my first pass at my Myphitic Blight-Hauler



I like the idea of a little gribbler running about the battlefield on robot legs. I like the start, but I'm not in love with it yet. I think more greebling and detailing will help bring out the character. If anyone has any suggestions to give this an insane, sprinty, vehicle-eating monster vibe, please let me know!

UPDATES!

It's Terminator week in the Bake Off tent But before we get there, I had a ton of PM parts left kicking around after completing a second squad and I thought I'd bash together a Tallyman. I had a vision of a guy with a big vox setup, without all the silly reams of paper that the official model has. I started with one of the new (BIG) PM push-fit models a friend of mine donated, and I dug out some AdMech and CSM tank parts which might make a fun speaker system:

Here's the first pass, and I gotta say I already like the character! I re-used the power fist from that RT-era Plague Champion and it makes me laugh that he's a guy who's job is counting, and so far he's got to 1


Here's his finalised "vox-caster" backpack. He also has a little Palm Pilot on his right forearm for taking down all his numbers. The bizarre and faintly baroque plasma pistol is practically hidden under that chain, but I thought it looked pretty cool when I made it.

Next up, the Blightlords! As before, I've got a ton of bits. Some resin, some metal, some 3D prints, some plastic. All of it pretty old.

The outcome so far is these three Combi-bolter and Bubotic Blade Terminators. Everything is a Bubotic Blade now, which makes things both easier and harder as a scratchbuilder. I toyed with the idea of them all having the same weapon, but ultimately decided they'd have what they have. So these three have axes. I LOVE the old metal CSM Termies. The rigid pose, the head tucked into the torso. So janky, so iconic. I've actually scored a couple of RT-era metal termies this week and they'll be joining this unit too in future.

Next are these two with Blight Launchers. As I've kitbashed the other BLs in this army, I wanted something which matched the look. My PMs are holding converted Psycannons with big chonky barrels. I spotted these resin Assault Cannons and thought with a new barrel and the ammo box glued onto the side, they'd looked perfect as a scaled-up, handheld version for a terminator. They came out great I think!


Lastly, I'm feeling my way towards a Lord of Contagion. I'm liking the direction. I much prefer the old model with the honking big axe, but I'm not sure scratchbuilding one is working. I think I might have gone a little too far with the size but I like the direction he's heading in. He's an absolute CC monster, so I want him to look like one. If he's running with a squad of Deathshroud, I want my opponent to be quaking!


As a bonus, here's the PMs along with some quickly scratchbuilt contagion markers getting ready for their basecoats! When building gets too much, I can switch over into some painting to keep the momentum up

Wow! I haven't checked back here in quite a while, and I'm amazed at all the stuff you've been showing off! I really like all the variety of bits you collected to create a wonderful mix of old and new model parts that come together as a whole, cohesive and absolutely beautiful army! Can't wait to see the Tallyman, Blightlords and LoC painted! Also, I really love the contagion markers you made, such a cool idea to represent them with the flies and the decaying bodies!

Oh and the mermaid dreadnought is fantastic, very funny and cute idea for a gift!

Feisty! Good to see you, mate. Thank you for the compliments, as always. Unfortunately, the second set of Forge World terminators I found on Vinted never turned up :( So I've picked up a couple of 2E era metal chaos terminators. I've got some RT-era renegade terminators and an old metal Abaddon in the bits box. And I've got a couple of HH Praetors too. I don't think all of them will make it into the army, but it's proving to be a challenge to have all of those eras of terminator armour play nicely together!

I've made some great progress on the Haulers. Pics in the morning as it's too dark now!

Really cool conversions and paint scheme! And I love the mermaid dred, it’s absolutely fantastic.

Thanks Tom! I'm so glad folks are enjoying the mermaid Dread haha

As promised, some more updates on the Myphitic Blight-Haulers. I thought we'd start with a before and after of the cheap plastic skulls I'm using as a base, and then what they look like with the cutting, kitbashing and sculpting. It's quite a difference!


I wanted the profile of the skull to be different, so they looked different enough from my Blight Drones. Here's the first finished one:



I was struggling to find a "smart" way to mount the weapons on the head. After some tinkering, it felt best to just cut holes in the skull and sculpt some generic _flesh_ into the gaps. It's chaos, so that was a really great shortcut TBH. And I found that stacking up the green stuff cables really hides a multitude of sins and I'm really pleased with the results.


Some tentacles coming out the mouth and they're reasonably WYSIWYG, so I'm happy.

A few updates to the terminators. I've got a body of an RT-era renegade terminator. He's very short, but with a sculpted base and some (slightly) newer arms he'll fit right in place alongside his brothers.


A full squad of 10 Blightlords will get two Reaper Autocannons. I have the correct models for this:

But I also have these really cool RT renegade assault cannons. They look more like big grenade launchers than miniguns. But they look SO COOL I think I have to use them and keep the Reaper autocannons for another project. What do you think, Dakka?


Also I've added some new Plague Champions. Since the new codex changes, I have really wanted two champs with power fists. I can use the ones with maces which I made earlier as bubotic weapons. So now I have some proper WYSIWYG plasma gun and power fist champions


Finally, one last update for tonight. Tonight's build project is the first step into what I hope will be a very unique Nurgle Defiler!


I might have to do some enbiggenning, but I'm sure you can see the vision here. Like a gross, slimy Lord of Skulls. But for Papa N!

Quick update from last night. I've quickly assembled the Guntank kit and taken a few notes regarding sizing. I didn't bother with the head because I know I'm not going to use it. The kit is definitely too small to count as a Defiler right out of the box. I'm a casual player and my group are very laid back so it's not necessarily a concern when it comes to fair play. But I want it to have something close to the presence of the Defiler kit. The big crab walker is an iconic model, so I'd like mine to feel similar in size and stature.

When we compare it to my other big models, I'm fairly happy with the general scale of the thing. It's definitely bigger than a dreadnought, and bigger than my Blight Haulers so it's already in the right ballpark.


I believe the official designation for the Defiler is a 160mm base, but I've seen plenty of room to spare on a 160mm. I have seen them snugly fit onto a 130mm base so aiming for a roughly 130mm / 5" square footprint for this thing.

Out of the box, the Guntank is about 100mm long and 80mm wide. The length I can solve with a big dozer blade, so I don't think that's too much of an issue. But I am going to have to widen the base section significantly. If the track section gets too wide, it will start looking too silly so I am thinking of adding _something_ on the side. I just don't know what that is yet

I'll have to increase the height too, but that's okay. Lastly, the aesthetics are _very_ Gundam-y. The torse is going to want boxing out. The caliber of the guns is WAY too narrow and it's going to want a proper daemonic head. But I think this is going to work!

The updates train keeps rolling! Okay this week I've been putting some time into figuring out how to turn a Gunpla Guncannon into a Defiler. I had no real plan going into this, except that I picked up a preowned Guncannon for a tenner and wanted to see how I could get it to work. The scale isn't far off a Warhammer tank, as we see compared to my Sons of Medusa RT Rhino. It's not _far_ off.


I knew I wanted to widen the tracks and give the torso some more height. So I started playing around with getting the silhouette right and boxing out the torso to look more like a 40k tank than a Gundam robot. Cutting down and kitbashing the Guncannon cannons into something more 40k battle cannon-like came out well.



A part-complete Defiler sprue came up on eBay for a bargain so I nabbed that for parts to mix in. It had a complete turret, so I assembled that to compare my scratchbuilt scale. I don't mind being a little bigger. And I'll probably use this Defiler turret on a Predator or something mad like that


I took advantage of some of those sweet Defiler parts to help sell the idea that this was a Defiler. The iconic cannon end and this head in particular are great. It's a shame that my cannon is slightly too girthy to fit the Defiler kit's cannon shield, that would have been sweet. I will be modifying that head, but it's already taking shape. And with a little coaxial combi-bolter, I want my scratchbuilds to be relatively WYSIWYG where possible.


I have recast some (very) old PuppetsWar Dreadnought shoulder pads for the arms. I tried to reach out to PW to see if they still sell these, but they're long OOP so I don't feel too bad making my own janky Milliput casts! Next up are the Lascannon and Havoc Launcher arms.


And here's the thing slowly coming together:


Onto the tracks! I widened the base and added some trim to disguise the cuts and also to add more Chaos aesthetic. I wanted Defiler Claws, and was wracking my brain to think of something. Then I remembered I had four of those Ramshackle robot legs from my Blight-Haulers. So I wanted to give that a go as some mad, spidery kind of thing at the front.


Right, here's the whole terrible mess coming together! The arms are blu-tacced on, this isn't final. It's just a little preview of where my brain is going. I had no plan going into this, so it's very much an exercise in sketching, experimenting, cutting and sticking and redoing and exploring. It's a very fun process! Hope you enjoy what I'm coming up with.

Brutal!! Amazing work, I can imagine the patience to do all that rim and rivets.

Love these builds, keep them coming!

I'm in awe of how " clean " this is. Entirely different process from what I do but it just amazes me !

It keeps looking better and better keep up the great work mate, that defiler is amazing.

 Tek wrote:

This isn't strictly related to the blog, but my girlfriend asked me to paint her a "mermaid themed" Dreadnought for her birthday. So I accepted the challenge and present to you Sister Ursula of The Emperor's Sirens.

As somewhat of a mermaid appreciator this looks awesome, great colours, nice freehanding, pretty creative theme, great work! Hope the missus loved it.


And that DEFILER, goddamn that looks great. Very creative using the guntank as a base for the model.

Some really amazing kitbashes Tek. The defiler and blight-hauler are coming together really well, lots of cool little details. The mixed plague marine generations all seem to work together pretty well, but I have to know where you got the Plasma Gun for that metal champion, it’s sick!

muette wrote:Brutal!! Amazing work, I can imagine the patience to do all that rim and rivets.

Nilfisken wrote:Love these builds, keep them coming!

Thank you so much I'm having a lot of fun with them, and there's plenty more on the way! It really doesn't feel like work when you're enjoying yourself.

SarpedonofSotha wrote:I'm in awe of how " clean " this is. Entirely different process from what I do but it just amazes me!
It keeps looking better and better keep up the great work mate, that defiler is amazing.

This is a good point, I keep forgetting to dirty them up and make them grotty! Something to keep in mind perhaps. Thank you for your continued support, it's really easy to keep up momentum when you see friendly comments

bullisariuscowl wrote:As somewhat of a mermaid appreciator this looks awesome, great colours, nice freehanding, pretty creative theme, great work! Hope the missus loved it.
And that DEFILER, goddamn that looks great. Very creative using the guntank as a base for the model.

Thank you - the Mrs absolutely loves her. She gets shown off any time someone comes round lmao

gobert wrote:Some really amazing kitbashes Tek. The defiler and blight-hauler are coming together really well, lots of cool little details. The mixed plague marine generations all seem to work together pretty well, but I have to know where you got the Plasma Gun for that metal champion, it’s sick!

Firstly, I don't know exactly where the PG came from. I want to say the normal plastic CSM kit. Is it called the Legionnaires? Possibly it's from the Havocs kit? Honestly it's just from rooting around in my bitz box. So sorry I can't be more specific!

Secondly, thanks for the kind words. The Blight-Haulers are finished! I committed to a game with my mate Chris which gave me exactly the impetus I needed to get the Haulers done. I wanted these ones to follow the colour scheme of the army, so black/purple with bright green trim. Getting the layers down:

Once I got a feel for it, I started on the second one so I keep them in step. As one was drying, I could work on the other.

And here they are! With shiny, sloppy mouthparts

I added blood effects which was something new, and isn't really something shared across the army. But I think it looks cool and who doesn't like blood splatters on their Warhammers?! Looking at them now, I feel like I could have gone in for more weathering, more rust, more grime and slime etc. Maybe something for a future improvement. But they're done now, so we keep moving. Painting is an agile process
And here they are before the game. New Plague Marines sadly unfinished:


I took some pics from the game I played too. It was 1100 points, DG vs Sisters. Narrative game with thematically-chosen, permanent secondaries. Unfortunately I lost (not by much), but it was a great game and I learned a few what-to-do and what-not-to-do strategies. First of all, I underestimated the withering number of wounds the unit of Dominions (near that plasma-looking piece of scenery) were capable of kicking out. Charging that objective and getting overwatched was a death sentence. One squad of Plague Marines down!


The highlight of my game was Typhus's unit getting battered by a unit of Retributors (they're the ones by that Rhino), and then absolutely EATING with his psychic attack. Wiping the unit and re-stocking his Poxwalkers

I shifted those Dominions on Turn 2 with deep striking Deathshroud. Not sure that's a good return on their unit cost, but it secured a very expensive secondary objective so was worth it in game terms. At the same time, the second unit of PM were wiped by Paragon Warsuits.


I'd secured a lot of points with objective control, but the big ticket item was the final objective, which was worth something like 13 VP. That was going to swing the game. It came down to Deathshroud versus Grey Knight terminators (and a Predator). Once the Deathshroud lost a couple of lads, their OC was washed and it was game Sisters! I conceded with one model left on the table. It was a really fun game, and has definitely taught me a few things.


Oh and lastly. I finished my Affliction markers! So no cardboard tokens or random D6s on the table to indicate Affliction from now on!

Looking amazing once again !
Glad you had a blast playing them ! Those rad-flies are awesome, love the subtle OSL. The faint pestilent glow emanating from them really sell the contagion / affliction marker!

Really cool stuff, I love the blight drones. Thankfully nurgle is pretty forgiving when it comes to neatness and smoothness in sculpting.

SarpedonofSotha wrote:Looking amazing once again !
Glad you had a blast playing them ! Those rad-flies are awesome, love the subtle OSL. The faint pestilent glow emanating from them really sell the contagion / affliction marker!

Thanks so much, mate. I was originally going to paint them as regular flies, but I realised with them being markers it gave me more opportunity to be creative. And what better way to indicate that a unit is Afflicted than a glowing green fly!

Convert wrote:Really cool stuff, I love the blight drones. Thankfully nurgle is pretty forgiving when it comes to neatness and smoothness in sculpting.

LOL you mean I can hide all my dodgy sculpting behind all the filth and rust?! You are right Working on finishing the PMs today, before my new KR Multicase turns up to keep them all in!

New year, new updates! I, like so many others, have been hit with the big wave of January Enthusiasm. Nothing more painted, but I've been cracking out more scratchbuilding work on my Nurgle Defiler.


The "Lascannon" as I'm running it is a Deredeo autocannon, cut down with some recast heads from the Chaos vehicle sprue. And the "Havoc Launcher" on the other arm is made from the Guntank's own arm, modified with some GW ML bits and a load of styrene. I'm kind of seeing it as a rotating barrel thing. Like a semi-auto grenade launcher, kind of thing?


Going absolutely MAD adding details. Including what I think is the chest piece from a Knight? I don't know, it was in the bits box and it looks pretty cool on there. Plenty of cables, rivets and greebles.


I was struggling to figure out how to connect the top and bottom half. The Defiler needs to come apart in the centre for storage etc. But I wanted the seam between the two halves to be pretty. At first I tried a load of GS cables, but it looked kind of messy:


In the end I built some armour plates out of styrene, added some more subtle cables and chains, and then did a pass of cheese cloth and texture paste. I am so happy with how this monster is shaping up.


The final piece will be the "Defiler Claws". I abandoned those big clunky robot legs. But I have half a dozen Maulerfiend tentacles. So I'm going to jam those in the front and I think that'll finish this off nicely. Happy new year, Dakka! Hope you all had a good one.

Back with a bang there Tek! Great looking defiler using all of the gubbins. Love the affliction markers you’ve done, a great little touch and visual reference for you games. I might need to base up some individual nurglings I have laying about.

That's one hell of a modified Guntank.

gobert wrote:Back with a bang there Tek! Great looking defiler using all of the gubbins. Love the affliction markers you’ve done, a great little touch and visual reference for you games. I might need to base up some individual nurglings I have laying about.

Thanks mate! It's a really busy kitbash, I really couldn't stop gluing stuff on lol. The good news is that a paint job really calms the busyness down. Great idea, converting Nurglings to affliction markers. I'd love to see that.

ShadowsAndDust wrote:That's one hell of a modified Guntank.

Thank you I didn't think it would end up _this_ modified. But I'm super proud of it.

I had a game this week with a friend who's not played any games of Tenth. He brought his Necrons and absolutely _bodied_ me. Wild stuff.


Those teleporting Skorpekhs are something else. Alpha striking straight into my Haulers which were hiding behind a building, ready to chase up the flank. Pretty much wiped in a turn.


Then they consolidated into a unit of PMs, behind my screening wall of Poxwalkers. Almost wiped them in a turn, too.


I managed to stall them with a turn 3 deep striking Deathshroud unit, but the damage was done. His tarpit of Warriors took up far too much of my attention. It wasn't a total wash, but damn those 'Crons hit HARD.


Note to self: more Poxwalkers. I feel like some cheap sheets of bodies are necessary for this list as it's pretty low model count. It was a blast to play, and my mate's list was fun to lose against which is pretty important.

ANYWAY, updates! Firstly, after that game, I decided I wanted to revisit my Blight Haulers. I didn't love the tentacles coming out of the mouth, the colour scheme was a bit too bright and they didn't look angry enough. So I started by yanking the tentacles out and sculpting some new "angry" eyebrows onto them.


Tearing out the tentacles also tore up the sculpted teeth (I did it with a pair of mole grips, it was not a dainty process), but I really like how they look all haggard and broken. With a new, darker colour scheme, better use of gnarly rusted metal and some new blind eyes crying rusty tears, they're done.


I want them to have something which represents their CC ability. I'm toying with an old Sentinel chainsaw coming out of the mouth or something equally gnarly. But I'm happy with the results.

I've been struggling to get something on the Defiler to represent Defiler Claws. I tried the resin spider tank legs. And then I tried Maulerfiend tentacles. I couldn't decide of there should be two, or four. If they should be on the front, or on the side. If there should be a dozer blade as well or not. I even tried cutting them up and respositioning them.



I couldn't find something I liked, so I ended up going the simpler route, and just stuck with a dozer blade. I added some razor wire and a gnarly little daemon dude. I have no idea what that bit is. If you recognise it, let me know! Last night I got some undercoats down. Oh yeah I built some Chaos Spawn, too! They were added to the to-paint pile this week





Some progress on the Defiler and we're done. Cheers all!

I'm on a roll this week, Dakka! I've got another game tomorrow night so I used this as inspiration to get a couple of bits finished. First up, the Defiler is FINISHED!


This was actually so much fun to paint. And keeping the scheme simple in some parts has helped to done down what was quite a busy build! I took some detail shots of the weapons, head etc so you can see more of the paint job. Also my first attempt at OSL, which came out surprisingly well!



I don't know what came over me, but I also beasted out another Blight Drone tonight. She came together extremely quickly. I have yet to build the Heavy Blight Launcher - I've got more styrene tubes on the way as I ran out the right gauge. There will be three of these eventually, but they take ages to make so it might be a while before the trinity is complete

Checking in here for the first time in a while and there's some really great stuff. Love the defiler and blight haulers. Keep up the good work!

Happy new year Tek, seems like you have started with a bang and been very busy.

That defiler is a sweet concoction a very chaos machine, kind of reminds me of a very messed up Jonny Five (from the short circuit movies). I think it works well without the tentacles! And that blight drone is my favourite one to date (although they are all really good). I’m impressed at your building skills and your vision for how you want them to turn out - very cool!

Loving the battle pics, there’s not much better in this hobby than 2 fully painted armies facing off (also, love the pink on your mates Necrons, great choice and nicely painted). From my experience Poxies can be pretty useful, particularly against tanks, they gum up the tracks and slow their progress pretty nicely whilst also dishing out contagion. I look forward to some body horror Poxwalkers from you
Great job on the defiler, he looks suitably tortured and chaosy. The angry haulers and drones look great as well. The removed tentacles should make it easier for them to spit their bile as well

PaddyMick wrote:Checking in here for the first time in a while and there's some really great stuff. Love the defiler and blight haulers. Keep up the good work!

Thanks so much mate. January has been an incredibly motivating month. I've got a 2000 point list in sight and I think that is the end goal.

JordySteve wrote:Happy new year Tek, seems like you have started with a bang and been very busy.

That defiler is a sweet concoction a very chaos machine, kind of reminds me of a very messed up Jonny Five (from the short circuit movies). I think it works well without the tentacles! And that blight drone is my favourite one to date (although they are all really good). I’m impressed at your building skills and your vision for how you want them to turn out - very cool!

OMG yes I see Johnny Five! Haha, that's great. There's now a third Bloat Drone on the way. See below...

gobert wrote:Loving the battle pics, there’s not much better in this hobby than 2 fully painted armies facing off (also, love the pink on your mates Necrons, great choice and nicely painted). From my experience Poxies can be pretty useful, particularly against tanks, they gum up the tracks and slow their progress pretty nicely whilst also dishing out contagion. I look forward to some body horror Poxwalkers from you
Great job on the defiler, he looks suitably tortured and chaosy. The angry haulers and drones look great as well. The removed tentacles should make it easier for them to spit their bile as well

You're absolutely right, playing a game with two fully painted armies feels so great. His pink 'Crons are even brighter in person. He recently picked up this incredible fluoro pink which is really striking. And speaking of Poxwalkers, I have some updates!

Two Drones have been really effective at setting up firing lines and killboxes. So I hope that a third one will create a little unholy trinity of grimy death! I'm not massively into optimising my list for competitive play, but for 120 points these things tend to punch above their weight.

I wanted to create a different shape for the third Drone. The same design language (floating skull, pipes wrapping around the head, chimneys sticking out the top, chains and tentacles and rotten cloth), but make this one look different. Perhaps it's a prototype, maybe a champion or some kind of Command / Comms model? Or maybe these gross warpsmiths are just sticking together whatever works?
Here it is modeled out. I had a lot of fun with this, hopefully going to get her painted this week.


The first Lord of Virulence is now completed. He's now primed and also waiting for paint.


And now lastly, onto my Poxwalkers. Originally, I was using my old metal Plaguebearers. But the last two games I've played have really taught me the value of Poxwalkers, so I'd like more. Thing is, picking up more 90s metals is becoming more expensive, and I don't think I really want to invest _serious_ money in a screening unit whose job is to get wrecked

I was in my local comics / second hand Warhammer shop recently. This place has provided nearly all the models for this army (and my Sons of Medusa army). I was looking for something like some cheap plastic zombies, but what I found was bag upon bag of AoS Chainrasp Hordes.


I saw the vision; floating skulls, torn rags. If I added some tentacles, some wires, these would lend themselves to the aesthetic of my drones and other daemon engines. So I grabbed 30 of them and got to work! A friend of mine gave me a load of SoB bits, so I did some head and weapon swaps to get me started.


Then I kinda went wild on 20 of them. I've swapped heads for helmeted skulls from the Battlefield Trophies kit. Added pipes, wires, cloth and a generous smattering of texture paste. Once these are painted I think these will qualify quite nicely for what Gobert referred to as _body horror poxwalkers_

Oh my god you've been prolific ! I loved the tentacles on that defiler but as long as you're happy with the results it's all good ! those count as poxwalkers are amazing ! wonderful job, as always, keep up the great work !

Thank you Sarp! I'm really pleased with the Defiler. And I started painting the Poxwalkers today so hopefully I'll have another update soon

Here they are! Pretty quick and dirty, but when you're painting a horde you can't get hung up on painting every tooth, can you?

I used a lot of sponging on the cloth, to maximise the visual texture. A few shades of gradually lightening brown / beige, it was then all washed with brown and green washes, before doing some very quick edge highlighting on the heads and top edges. The green was very simple, too. With some bright lime highlights on only the most impactful elements. And a good old rust wash on all the metal.

Simple, but I like them!

Efficient and Amazing! They look great! Excellent job Tek

Man, those proxy Poxies are fantastic, they’ve really embraced the grimy side of Nurgle. I like how their green faces match with your giant floating head vehicles as well good use of bits for their weapons and trophies

SarpedonofSotha wrote:Efficient and Amazing! They look great! Excellent job Tek

gobert wrote:Man, those proxy Poxies are fantastic, they’ve really embraced the grimy side of Nurgle. I like how their green faces match with your giant floating head vehicles as well good use of bits for their weapons and trophies

Thank you both! Nice and efficient, like you said. I thought the rotten cloth and green skull faces would tie well into the army theme without too much work, and they came out really well. If and when I want to do another ten, it shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

I won a marginal victory against EC in my most recent game. Well, I actually lost a game and then won one. But I learned a lot about using poxwalkers to screen, setting up killboxes and stacking bonuses. It was a grind, but I was satisfied that the army is working as a whole. Also, this Plague Marine sergeant managed to dodge about 14 attacks from two Chaos Spawn, and then he punched one of them out with his power fist. So he got a bit more love on his paint job and a dead Spawn head on his base. I'm calling him The Despawner.


Painted the Lord of Virulence!


And I painted the third Bloat Drone. I wanted to do some freehand on that big metal bonce. My first attempt at this sort of stuff and I like how it came out. I'm not sure what possessed me to go for pink, though.


I didn't like it, so I went over it with green and then weathered it. And I really like how it came out.


The rust looks absolutely sick on this. I like how it settled into all the nicks and imperfections of the Milliput sculpt job.

Nice tale for how the despawner got his little trophy. hat’s probably my favourite bit of playing 40K, random hero moments. The LoV and drone both turned out well. As you say, the runs on the big plate turned out particularly well