The Mouth and Philtrum of a Death Guard Rhino

The philtrum is the the name for the small indent in your skin that sits between the bottom of your nose and the top of your lips. And today's post, whilst potentially learning new anatomically related words, is about a Death Guard rhino conversion. I wish I'd have started this blog much earlier so that I could have shown how this rhino conversion had been accomplished stage by stage -- its an older model in my collection. None the less, I wanted to walk you through the thought and construction process that I undertook to build this rhino's mouth.

Why bother telling you about philtrums? Well, the answer is one of observation. Whenever you take a look at another human being's face, you inevitably (yet perhaps unconsciously) take in their philtrum as well. Without it, the face would lack some definition. It wouldn't communicate as well. Hence, when I was originally considering how to construct a maw at the front of a rhino, I examined a number of photographs of lips - both human and animal. In the end, I thought human lips would look more chaotic somehow. Also, they don't tend to protrude forward as much from the other parts of the face (eyes, forehead, etc.) as, for instance, a dog's mouth does. This meant that I could keep the approximate profile of the rhino intact. Significantly (and the deciding factor to use human-styled lips) was the observation of the philtrum. It was a feature that I felt I could pull off well, given a liberal amount of greenstuff. Moreover, it is also the feature that I think sets this rhino apart from others. It looks like it could have once been human, or is perhaps emulating a human mouth. Hence, I could also use this rhino as a possessed vehicle without stretching anybodies imagination (although I never have!).
Construction.
The first step was to cut out most of the lower half of the frontal armour of the rhino with a sharp hobby knife. I also dug in to the lower "floor" of the rhino where it connected to the frontal armour to create a more oval-shaped hole at the front. This formed the basis for the mouth's opening.

I then assembled the "teeth" of the maw. These were cut from the swords of some rather ancient warhammer fantasy battle skeleton sprues that I had discovered decaying in the nether regions of my bits box. A total of nine were used in the end. I did wonder whether to use scythes (thereby creating warped teeth), but I figured some pointy straight teeth would be better when combined with a decayed paint scheme. (An alternative would be to take apart a plastic hair comb and use the comb's teeth as proper teeth?). The teeth were then glued in to position - alternating between downward and upward pointing ones. They were also orientated such that they were pointing slightly outward from the body - the remains of the frontal armour helped with this as its angle is almost spot on already.

Then, I made up a whole load of greenstuff / milliput. It was pushed in an oval shape around the hole created in the front armour and such that it didn't connect with the pointed end of the teeth. Next, this shape was slowly pushed, with finger and thumbs, in to a more mouth looking shape. This, of course, included creating a convincing looking philtrum and lip regions. The lips were scored with some straight lines to give the impression of a different texture compared to the upper lip / moustache area. The result looks a bit like a snarl!

Painting.
The lips were painted in a purple basecoat, followed up with some inking in purple and black and drybrushing to lighter colours. The lips are ever so slightly a different shade against the other skin region, again to differentiate them from the upper lip / moustache region. The teeth were done in creams, yellows, and some browns to create the look of someone who could do with a swift visit to the dentist.

Evaluation.
A little bit of observation of the real world can contribute immensely to conversions like this. I really like this rhino and try to use it in games as often as possible as a result.

Death Guard Plague Champion: Cariosus

To create Cariosus, a plague champion from a Death Guard squad / warband, I selected a number of components from various sources.

The legs are from loyalist marines, but made suitably Nurglesque by adding in cleft hooves for shoes. I left in the oath-of-the-moment parchment - Cariosus has some dark promises to carry out for Nurgle. The lower parts near to the base have some grit glued on to them to create a dirty appearance.

The body is that of a standard chaos space marine champion with the chainmail draping at the front. The backpack is the special (one per boxed set that is) backpack from the standard chaos space marine boxed set, as is one of the shoulder pads. The second shoulder pad comes from the Death Guard upgrade shoulder pads from Games Workshop direct. The power fist is a standard chaos space marine one. The other arm comes from the warhammer fantasy battle zombie sprue and is holding a standard bolter that is roughed up with some grit glued on to it.

The "blight grenades" (death heads) are also sourced from the zombie sprue and glued at the tip of the gathered hair to the champion's waist, alongside a bolt pistol holster. Finally, the head comes from a spare head off the chaos spawn set.

Overall, I like the miniature! The head is a little disproportionate compared to the rest of the body, but that's okay - its chaos. The paint job follows my standard approach to Death Guard marines - greens and rusted brown colours accentuated with bleached bone for the raised parts of the armour.

Great Unclean One of Nurgle - Realms of Chaos Era

A Realms of Chaos era Great Unclean One. To be used in both a daemons army and chaos space marines / Death Guard (either as a generic greater daemon or an atypical daemon prince with the mark of Nurgle).

Model.
This miniature was another one that I bought when I was much, much younger in the 1980's. It has been repeatedly stripped down, re-painted, torn asunder and re-built over the years. Most of the model needed to be pinned together (especially the snaps at the wrists) with both superglue and milliput (greenstuff).

Painting.
Nurgle is the chaos power that I most enjoy painting. It really isn't too hard to get a good result from lots of green grossness with blood red seeping gore and pus yellow highlights. The model's sculpt has already done most of the hard work for you. For this particular miniature, a black undercoat was used followed by a goblin green base coat. The basecoat was inked dark green (green mixed with black) and then slowly highlighted brighter, but unevenly. The red in the open wounds was base coated in pink for the most part and inked dark red (red mixed with a tiny amount of black and brown). The innards were then slowly highlighted lighter - up to about pink once more. The areas around the open wounds on the skin were picked out in a more necrotic feeling shade of green and yellow to help the reds of the sores stand out. The maggots were then picked out in bleached bone.

The base of the miniature had milliput applied to make it look like the (dragging) footsteps of the Great Unclean One had torn up all the grass along the way. A vintage nurgling was also added at the front of the base. Finally, the entire model was coated in glossy varnish to finish off the slimy icky look.

Evaluation.
Positives: Definitely Nurgle. Icky. Yucky. Green. Pustules. Open wounds. Visible innards. Yep - unmistakably Nurgle from my personal check list.
Negatives: If I hadn't have been so keen on applying the gloss varnish all over, I might have paused and only applied it to the slimy bits - the visible innards and leaking bits.

What constitutes "obvious concessions" in army lists?

In Australia, there is a long tradition in Games Workshop run tournaments to give a generous number of tournament points to so-called "soft" areas that are not related to battle outcomes; perhaps up to one third or even a higher fraction of all tournament points given out. That means things like painting, force composition and sportsmanship can directly contribute to determining the winner of a tournament. This system results in an environment that is both good fun & friendly, but remains competitive for those players that want it.

Take the example of the force composition category in GT2008. For maximum points in this category, players were encouraged to field miniatures that looked good or were well painted, rather than being game-beating. Additionally, players were encouraged to give "obvious concessions" in their force compositions. Clearly, those players taking three land raiders missed out on the majority of the points here.

But curiosity asks the question: what would readers consider to be "obvious concessions"? Here's some knee-jerk reactionary (and not very thought-through) thoughts that I had about the two kinds of army that I regularly field.

(a) Chaos Space Marines.
Chaos Spawn. They can look very cool, but: have no saving throw, have a random number of attacks, and are a slow & purposeful, mindless fast attack choice. They're fun to watch on the field, but they don't last very long!
Maybe Possessed Chaos Marines? They also look great but the random special ability that they get at the start of the game can be poorly timed.

(b) Daemons.
Furies of chaos. They're jump infantry that aren't as good as assault marines or raptors despite the comparable cost.
A pure Nurgle army lacking Epidemius.

What about other armies? I'd like to hear what other readers think constitutes "obvious concessions" in force compositions.

Death Guard Plasma Gunner

Usually plasma guns can be a potentially dangerous piece of kit: not least of all to the user! Blowing up your own trooper with a plasma gun can give away vital members of a squad. On the other hand, they've got a bolter-matching range (unlike melta-guns) and decent armour piercing.

A squad of infiltrating chosen chaos space marines all kitted out with plasma guns can be a bit of a shock to the enemy at the start of the game. Especially if supported with an icon that's primed to summon lesser daemons, terminators and obliterators. But rapid firing those plasma guns at close range increases the odds of a terrible plasma backfire.

Death Guard plague marines, conversely, are not as bothered by a little bit of plasma singeing a hole through their thigh. Although they cost more points-wise than standard chaos marines (meaning that the loss of one is more significant), they are also much more resilient to little plasma mishaps thanks to a lack of properly wired nervous systems (a.k.a. feel no pain). But rather than using them as chosen marines, I like to field a squad of 7 with two plasma guns and sit them near an objective (preferably in cover). I then don't move them for virtually the whole game. They're more than capable of taking care of themselves and are able to cause a headache to many opponents.

This particular miniature comes as part of the plague marines boxed set and is painted in a typical Death Guard fashion: greens, browns (etc.) with bleached bone trimmings, leaking joints, red sores and fleshy bits, a hand-painted "decay" on the shoulder pad, and blue plasma.

At first, I didn't know what colour the plasma gun should be: I've seen greens, reds, blues and many other shades. I decided on blue in the end as it provides a nice contrast to the greens and browns on the majority of the miniature. Red would have clashed a little but with the sores and green wouldn't stand out. Yellow might have worked, but I'm glad I selected blue.

Promethean Hammer - Chaos Vindicator

My entry to GT2008 earlier this year featured two vindicators. This is the first of the two, with the enigmatic name of "Promethean Hammer".

Aims and Model.
The vindicator is a standard model, with chaotic spikey bits added on for effect to distinguish it from its loyalist counterparts. There were two overall broad aims for the model. Firstly, it must blend in with a Death Guard force (i.e. the GT2008 army). Secondly, it shouldn't be so Nurglesque as to be un-usable in an undivided chaos marine army.

At first glace, I thought that those two aims were in some serious amount of tension with one another. A Nurgle vindicator, but not too Nurgly!?!? How can that be achieved? Then I got thinking about the sorts of adjectives that described Nurgle: decaying, decrepit, sore-covered, fungi-covered, ugly, nurgling-infested, rusted.... (etc.). Out of them, the word rusted appealed a lot! Nurgle need not be an over-the-top paint job of grossness. It can be as simple as making a model appear rusted, in a poor state of repair, and old.

Then I got thinking about the consequences of that. What if some part of the vehicle rusted away completely, what would a traitor techmarine do? Why, replace it of course. I hit upon this idea: the vindicator would be a patchwork of old rusted bits of metal alongside newer, pristine metallic sheets that represent recent replacements (ready to rust over!).

Painting.
After undercoating in black, the vindicator was basecoated in a dabbed on layer of dull (graveyard) brown colour. A layer of mixed brown and black ink was then applied unevenly all over the surface of the tank. This inked layer took a fair amount of time to dry thoroughly.

Next, I started selecting out single sheets of "metal" on the tank. Some were coated in pure silver - to represent newly replaced parts. Others were given a variety of dull brown, black and dark green colours to politely suggest different rates of decay arising from the piecemeal manner in which the tank has been repaired by patchwork over the centuries. However, the bulk of the colour of the tank remained dull brown.

A number of areas of the tank were drybrushed in a slightly lighter tone of brown and worked up toward bleached bone. Other, thinner parts of metal on the tank were coated in pure bleached bone to suggest recent work to keep the tank together and whole.

The fine details included applying the name of the tank to the scroll on the side; rust features on the front, black horizontal marks from scratches on the front dozer blade, highlighting of external wiring and fans, and highlighting of various nuts and bolts.

Evaluation.
Positives: It does fit in with both Death Guard and undivided chaos marine armies, but at the cost of looking slightly at odds with both.
Negatives: These are probably the same as the positives. I could have probably made the tank armour more piecemeal looking. Having most of the tank in the same colour suggests a young tank: not all the panels have required replacement yet.

Count the VII: A Plague Marine Squad

As you're aware by now, I'm fond of fielding chaos space marine armies, amongst others. Sometimes they're chaos undivided, other times Death Guard. Even within undivided armies, I find myself fielding plague marine squads. So, in response to FtW's Round Table for November 15th, my go-to squad of choice are plague marines of Nurgle.

Why this choice? Well, firstly there is the plague marine survivability factor. These marines just don't want to leave the battlefield with their feel no pain special rule. This makes them a wonderful troops choice for capturing strategic objectives in various scenarios. In 5th edition, this got even better since every single one of them must be removed in order to eliminate their scoring unit status; unlike in 4th edition when they had to be reduced to under half strength. For a unit of 7 as pictured here, it'll take a statistical mean of 189 standard bolter shots fired by BS4 troops to get rid of them. Let me repeat that: 189 bolter rounds are needed to eliminate these troops! You only need a mean of 63 standard shots for 7 ordinary marines. Significantly, even for 7 terminators you'd only need a mean of 126 standard shots!

Given that, they're not exactly bothered by the prospect of being rapid fired at with bolters. They're also fearless. They do, however, lose out to weapons that deny them their save (ordnance, power fists and the like), so they have to be carefully managed. They're not really designed to take on terminators unless massed in large numbers. Further, they're expensive as well at 23 points per miniature. But I strongly believe that these points are well invested.

Pictured, I've kitted this squad out with a power fist on the plague champion, a melta gun, a flamer and an icon. This makes the squad a dangerous and flexible one. Each model is also a conversion to a greater or lesser extent, which is another prime reason that I like to field them. Lastly, I sometimes mount them in a rhino equipped with a havoc launcher (also pictured) to improve their maneuverability and add some more shooting power. I'll post about this particular rhino at a later date since it is an interesting conversion. The total points value of the pictured squad comes out at 271 -- yes, they're rather expensive. Other configurations that I favour include simply going for two plasma guns in a squad of seven; a kind of static pseudo-havoc squad.

In GT2008, these troops were worth their points value in gold. There was hardly a single game where they were eliminated to a man. It's a rare battle that I leave home without including them in a chaos space marine army. The only reason for doing so is to have more bodies (and therefore more shooting models) in an army. But more bodies doesn't necessarily improve survivability.

Nurglesque Rhino Number One

Here is the first of two rhinos that went to GT2008 with me.

Aims and Model.
The idea with this model was simply to make it look more nurgly than a standard rhino. The conversion work was not major: it mainly consisted of subtle additions of milliput to the surfaces to create some fungoid-looking growths and pustules.

In addition, bits and parts from the plastic Warhammer zombie boxed set were added in a couple of places around the model including the gunner, and even an entire zombie was inserted inside the starboard side door, leering outward. The only game-affecting upgrade to be modelled was the havoc launcher.

Painting.
For the paint scheme, I followed the overall trend started with the dreadnought: a rusty and old feeling, using a mottled undercoat. For the obviously rusted areas (frontal area), I used a bleached bone coat followed by an application of chestnut ink to create the streaked, water damaged look.

The green fungi was basecoated in goblin green and inked dark green. Drybrushing progressively lighter greens gives it the decaying appearance. Other milliput pieces were basecoated in read and worked up from red, through orange to a yellow to be reminiscent of pustules bursting (or about to be bursting).
Evaluation.
Positives: The model got a good reception, at least as good as its other rhino counterpart that was modelled to have an open maw at the front (yet to be posted). The zombie parts really helped accentuate the Nurglesque appearance.
Negatives: some of the inking work meant that this model was very hard to photograph well! Indeed, the bottom photo looks very reflective on the front.

Summoning: A Death Guard Icon Bearer

A lone Death Guard icon bearer summons forth plaguebearers from the Warp to reinforce his position.

Model & Conversion work.
The basis for the icon bearer is the plastic chaos space marine icon bearer (2007). The model's right shoulder pad is a metal Death Guard bitz available through Games Workshop direct. The head and part of the chest & lower abdomen are from the plastic zombie (Warhammer Fantasy) range. The aim was to come up with a simple and effective Death Guard miniature that didn't require too much work given the rapid approach of GT2008.
This model was assembled rather quickly using superglue and milliput (green stuff equivalent). All the major component plastic chaos space marine parts were assembled & glued in place first, followed by the zombie head. The only tricky part here was to make certain that there is enough room left over for zombie abdomen to slot in to place.

A good blob of milliput was pressed in to the body cavity at the front -- entirely in the place of a normal chaos marine front armour segment. With a dab of glue on the back, the zombie abdomen was pressed in to the (still pliable) milliput. Using a metal-tipped shaping tool (regularly dipped in a handy pot of water; a paperclip would do in a pinch instead of a specialized tool), the excess milliput around the abdomen was scraped away. The left over milliput was then sculpted in to place to resemble guts pouring forth from inside the model and blended with the zombie part.

The final additions to be glued into place were the mechanicum iron circlet on the top of the backpack, the metal shoulder pad and the bolter (attached to the left leg). I'll post an article on my full Death Guard squads at a later date (I'm currently out of town...).

Evaluation.
Positives: Zombies in power armour! Hardly original, but Death Guard can be very simple to model and offer a wealth of conversion opportunities. This piece is not a clever conversion in the slightest, but it is effective enough when combined together with the paint scheme to make this Death Guard appear as little more than a futuristic zombie. When placed side-by-side with other (metal) Death Guard, or with the plaguebearers that have been summoned to the icon bearer in the picture shown above, the model looks perfectly in place.
Negatives: More working of the power armour (scratches, fungus growth and the like) would have improved this piece. The paint work aimed for a rusted feeling (along with the rest of my GT2008 entry; see the previous article on the dreadnought) and it somewhat makes up for the lack of scuffing whilst simultaneously serving to highlight the red innards.

And Finally.
I have a question for the FtW group on a potential "house rule" they might be using in friendly games: How do you reconcile the different icons available to the forces in Codex: Dameons and Codex: Chaos Space Marines, if & when you mix forces from those two codices together (e.g. in an apocalypse game)? Can daemons be summoned equally to both types of icon? Do daemons summoned to only CSM icons effectively gain "fleet"?; if so, do you alter the points values of any icons? Thanks in advance for your answers to this one: I hope to use them for an upcoming idea I've got for a minidex/sourcebook...

GT2008 list

This was my entry in the 2008 Grand Tournament (Australia). I was pleased (and a little shocked) to finished in the top ten overall. The points value was 1500 and 6 battles were fought over a long weekend. Additional tournament points were available for army construction, sportsmanship and painting above the usual points obtained from battles. My entry was a mechanized Death Guard list, in slight preference to daemons which, to be fair, had only just become available at the time.

Considerations.

All army lists were judged by GW staffers on a scale of 0 to 5. To get a high score here, it was necessary to offer "concessions". So don't be too surprised by the chaos spawn or the lack of wings on the Daemon Prince. It is intentionally a sub-optimal list. I heard during the tournament that any army fielding a land raider was severely punished on this scale.

Army List.

HQ: Daemon prince of Nurgle with Doombolt.

Elites: Chaos Dreadnought with plasma cannon and close combat weapon.

Troops: 2 indentical units worth of: 1 plague champion with power fist alongside 6 other plague marines kitted out with 1 melta gun, 1 flamer and an icon. These squads were each mounted in a rhino affixed with a havoc launcher.

The third plague marine squad featured a plague champion with combi-plasma & melta bombs alongside 6 other plague marines kitted out with 2 plasma guns and an icon.

Finally for troops, there were 2 squads of 6 lesser daemons (plaguebearer models).

Fast Attack: 1 chaos spawn.

Heavy Support: 2 vindicators each with daemonic possession.

Evaluation and thoughts.

Positives: (1) The need for big artillery and weapons with a blast template is a must in pure Death Guard armies -- they're never going to pump out as many shots as Orks are capable of. (2) The chaos spawn was lots of fun to play with! (3) The army faired middling-to-well against most other armies. (4) I got 4 nominations for best painted army (out of the 6 opponents I played against).

Negatives: (1) Orks completely destroyed this list! (2) Tyranids featured heavily amongst the entries. (3) The daemon prince seriously needed wings. (4) The close combat weapon on the dreadnought would have been better off as a missile launcher.

Postings on individual components and tactics of this army list have been and will be made seperately. As a cohesive whole, the army was highly functional and didn't really lack in any department significantly; despite struggling against some other armies. Images of the army will be posted at a later date once all the miniatures involved gather back together in the same place once more.

The Duplicitous Demographers: Plaguebearer Pack and Tactics

The Duplicitous Demographers is the name that I regularly give to a small squad of plaguebearers that I field. What's in the name? Well, plaguebearers in the source materials (e.g. The Lost and the Damned) are well-noted for counting diseases, pestilences, virii, each other and nurglings amongst other things. I see this as a little bit like a census. One name given to a person whose job it is to study the statistics of people and a census is a demographer. The word duplicitous is both an alliteration conjoined with demographer, as well as indicating the fickle (evil?) nature of warp beings & daemons.

The models pictured here are a complete mixture of old Rogue Trader era plaguebearers, 1990's miniatures and the present day plaguebearers; all metal models. They blend remarkably well despite being removed from their molds over a time span of up to 20 years!

Gaming & Tactics.

On the tabletop, I use small squads of plaguebearers like the Duplicitous Demographers to hold objectives. This is their primary, and perhaps sole, duty to fulfil. As such, I don't bother with any upgrades such as noxious touch, or even a musical instrument. i.e. The model with the red plaguesword is simply a normal trooper as pictured here.

Given their purpose, the plan is simple. Run towards the nearest objective and go to ground! Since they're plaguebearers, they are remarkably resilient to incoming fire and will usually stick around for a good long while, hopefully the entire course of the game. If charged directly, they can usually hold their own until reinforcements arrive.

Typically, we can evaluate the worth a unit by comparing the points cost of the unit to the points cost of enemy units they take out of action. This pragmatic approach to evaluate worth is not the right mindset to use when thinking about objective holders. If the purpose of a unit is to hold objectives, then I argue that it is binary evaluation: either they succeed or they don't. In choosing an objective holding squad, plaguebearers are possibly the cheapest per model and most effective at this battlefield role in the game. Death Guard are slightly better due to their power armour, but they lack an invulnerable save and cost more points per model. Death Guard are more mobile and flexible as well and should have other primary roles, but they can certainly take up this role with excellent effect. Hence, I strongly believe that plaguebearers are the best troops choice in the game for the singular role of objective holding.

That really only leaves the question of how many to take in the squad for their objective holding task. It is fluffy to take 7 given that that is Nurgle's associated number. Seven is perhaps just a little bit on the low side though to hang on for the entire game in the face of strong incoming fire barrages (e.g. Tau), and hence by my previous argument is mildly likely to be uneconomic; especially given their hardiness is not that of a marines. I'd favour about 10. If going up to 14 (a multiple of 7 and still fluffy!), I think that I'd want a slightly modified battlefield role for the unit (first wave icon bearer?). In a pure Epidemius list, both smaller & larger units are beneficial and can take up, indeed must take up, mixed roles. I'll finish by noting that their mileage and role in earlier editions varied slightly, but I intend to leave that undiscussed presently.

Deathguard Dreadnought

The price of this Forge World sculpt may well put off many, but it is an outstanding miniature and one that is bound to get noticed during play. This fact, in my view, makes the cost more than worthwhile. This particular piece formed part of my Grand Tournament (Australia, 2008) Death Guard army (I might post that list in a future posting -- I was very pleased to come 8th overall in that tournament).

Gaming & Tactics.
In almost every game (Grand Tournament and other), it is a fire-magnet and typically the first piece that gets heavily target ted & destroyed! It is rare that the dreadnought makes back its points value in kills, but when it does, it works spectacularly well, especially against elites (e.g. terminators) and medium to lightly armoured vehicles (e.g. troop transports; vindicators). Due to the crazed special rule, I'd council deploying the dreadnought on a flank and reasonably isolated from other components of your army (which goes to explain why it gets blown up rather often without support). The plasma cannon set-up is very flexible: it is excellent against pesky troops with a good armour save (terminators; space marines & equivalents) and the previously mentioned medium-to-lightly armoured tanks -- thus it can be a real threat if ignored for too long. Moreover, the plasma cannon enables multiple kills that a las-cannon set-up will not (i.e. the las-cannon set-up must be treated as a pure tank-hunter dreadnought). This helps in a pure death guard army where there are very few shooters compared to other armies.

Aims & Model.

For such an expensive piece, I wanted to spend a significant amount of time getting it right and themeing it. My Grand Tournament 2008 army list was a Death Guard list. With typical Death Guard painting, it is not uncommon to see oozing, pus, greens, browns and so on. However, for vehicles, we are left with a number of choices such variously described with adjectives like old, decrepit, decaying, rusting and so forth. My aim here was for the latter: rusting.

That raised the first problem: the plasma cannon is not what we have come to expect for Death Guard armies -- it is far too pristine. I did several different conversions on it. Firstly (and most simply), I made a few incisions with a modelling knife to make it look more decrepit and battle-worn. Secondly, I used milliput / green-stuff to create more of a Nurglesque feeling on the surface of the armour to match the other parts. Finally and most significantly, I added a hook (from chaos tanks) to the front of the cannon and two protruding horns to the upper part of the shoulder. For the horns, I drilled small, but deep holes in to the shoulder and glued a plastic horn in to them. Around the edge of the hole, I then used millitput to create a "bursting through" appearance to match other parts of the model where forge world has already sculpted horns bursting through the plated surface of the dreadnought.

Painting.

As usual, I undercoated this model black. (NB: make certain you've washed your forge world model prior to painting! -- it really helps). Then, I dry-brush the metallic parts in silver. Once you've used metallic paints, you should always ditch your water pot so as not to contaminate your other colours. This is not always true for Nurglesque vehicles however as a little bit of contamination sometimes looks reasonable.

The base coat was an intentional mottled mixture of brown and dark greens. By this, I mean take a large brush and charge it up with brown and dab randomly over the model. Then clean the brush and repeat with dark green. Then, repeat with other colours that complement those! I discovered this technique almost by accident, but I think it really makes all Nurglesque vehicles look great and highly thematic. On top of this, a deep chestnut (with some added black) ink wash was added.

From there, I decided to tackle the sculpted recessed areas (the eyeballs on the right front poking through the armour and the holes / pitted areas at various locations on the armour where fungi(?) can be seen growing. These were given a mid-green coat followed by a deep green wash, then finalized with green highlighting and drybrushing.

The main armour parts were mostly drybrushed progressively lighter to good effect. I paid particular attention to the parts where the horns protruded and the armour appears cracked open -- the rim of these bits were highlighted in cream / off-white to accentuate the appearance.

The final stages took me a long time to complete, but they're really worth while. Firstly, the horns were painted in natural off-white colours. The boils & pus were highlighted in a yellow-orange blend. The Nurgle symbol on the front was painted in a cream colour and highlighted white. The plasma in the plasma cannon was made blue (fitting in with other plasma troops in the army) and highlighted progressively lighter blue and with a small line of white. Finally the eyes were painted yellow and a thin brush used to paint the black slit down the middle of them. Various other minutiae can be seen in the photographs ranging from a red blood-like substance leaking from the plasma cannon arm. Paying particular attention to these small bits and pieces makes the final job look above the norm.

Evaluation.

Positives: The additions of the horns bursting through the armour made the plasma cannon arm feel much more chaotic and at home with the rest of the forge world sculpt. I wouldn't have wanted to field this miniature without such modification, especially in the Grand Tournament. The mottled base coat helps at all stages to make the paint job especially Nurglesque. Paying attention to the details is a must for such an exquisitely sculpted miniature and really helps it to shine.
Negatives: If you're going to use a dreadnought in a similar fashion to myself, don't get upset when it becomes the first casualty of the game (despite the hours you've put in to it!). It really is a complement that other gamers see it both as a gorgeous model (i.e. it gets noticed) and a gaming threat (i.e. it gets doubly noticed). I wasn't too happy with some of the Nurglesque additions on the plasma cannon arm (the random green stuff additions rather than the protuding horns).