Wargames Gallery: Iron Warriors in the Ruinstorm

Lost deep within the Ruinstorm, without backup, without communications, without much hope. The loyalist Iron Warriors tackle the terror of the daemons of the Ruinstorm with grim resolve and duty. 

Wargames Gallery: Great Unclean One Fallen

The last wound removed from the Great Unclean One, and it is placed lying on its back to show that it will be removed at the end of the combat round (I trust everyone does this kind of thing?). However, its not removed immediately since it was striking simultaneously with its opponent (see - there's method in the madness!). 

[Aside: Very much looking forward to the Horus Heresy daemons rules being released!]

Nurglings Interrupting

We interrupt the regular proceedings with Nurglings. 

This batch of Nurglings have been causing gremlin like problems in the bits box and demanded to be assembled and at least base coated. Who am I to disobey Grandfather Nurgle?

Clearly and self-evidently, this is a works in progress. With that said, I wanted to veer away from the usual approach of having everything in the same colour and try to give each and every one of these daemons their own unique feeling. Therefore, I have opted to use a different base colour for each and every one of them. It has been rather taxing to achieve this without spilling too much of the paint over on to adjacent Nurglings in the stack, but overall, not a bad first attempt at a base coat. Note in particular that some of the daemons have been picked out using contrast paints which has helped immensely with this approach and provided the necessary shading without really trying. 

What is left to do is tidy up the details. Teeth, tongues, horns, mutations, infections, internal organs, pus, gore, and general grubbiness await. 

Master Painted Great Unclean One

I took my time. A hell of a lot of time. And I am pleased. I'm not sure I'm quite finished yet, but this is looking striking, original, and very fitting for a 30k Ruinstorm Daemons army, 40k daemons of chaos, or Age of Sigmar army.

Behold my new Great Unclean One.

Great Unclean One: Daemonic Sword

A painting update today on the Great Unclean One, focussing in on the weapon he's holding. The sculpt of the Great Unclean One in plastic is simply phenomenal, and laden with a slew of details; the daemonic sword that he holds is no exception to this.

Around a rusted outer edge is a core festooned and embedded with skulls. When I saw this, I wondered immediately if I could somehow bring a bit more life in to this core skull area rather than just stick with a rusted tone. Although others have attempted similar, I figured I wanted my version to stand out as noxiously Nurgle, but also unique. Therefore I opted to have the skull area painted in a contrasting, but consistently Nurgle, green toxic tone.

The painting approach here is straight forward. I undercoated the model in Corax White all over to begin with. I then set to work on the inner region of the blade by giving it a base layer of white. A generous coating of hex wraith flame ink was then applied to give it a spooky and toxic like depth. This was highlighted in a lighter green colour around the skulls and raised parts. I might go over the highlighting again later, but overall I'm happy with this part.

The thing that makes it "pop" a bit more than usual is the muted colours around the edge. I used pure black to outline the blade and base coat the rusted portions. Following this, a dappling of golds, silvers, and bronzes followed on top, laying up a very rusted feeling with a random application of these colours and blends along the entire length of the blade.

Overall, the effect is really nice and speaks volumes of a daemonic blade suitable for wielding by a Great Unclean One. I really like this approach and experiment. Onward with the main body that I'm going to try a master work blend approach on. More about that at a later date.

Unclean and most assuredly Great

A "little" ...erm... "treat" following some recent sales that I've made on eBay from my older miniatures: one of the newer, plastic Great Unclean Ones!

This is a kit that I have wanted to get a hold of for a while, but couldn't quite justify the cost to myself without selling some of my older and unused miniatures. And what a kit it is. It is readily apparent how much design work has gone in to the new Great Unclean One and the superior production values compared to years ago when the metal versions were all the rage.

The size of the miniature is immense too. It has a really dominant presence on the battle field from its sheer height and bulk.

Putting together the miniature was straight forward: it is hollow on the inside, hence its a bit like making a "cup" or semi-spherical object using plastic and glue. The parts slot together really well, and the only choices are which arms and head to attach to the miniature, plus the teeth versus the spilling gut on the front.

For this one, I have opted for the teeth (largely because its a classic in my eyes), the sword in the right arm, and the Rotigus arm for the left hand as I really like the tentacles and the pose -- it looks as if a spell is being cast to my eyes. And if not, then it looks like the right hand is about to come down to chop whatever the left hand is going to grasp on to. I was struggling to choose which head though as both have their merits. I did attempt to put the viper tongue on the symmetric horned head, but a dry fit revealed how poor that worked. Hence I went for the symmetric horned head without any special work done. One nurgling on the shoulder and I was done!

I know that this arrangement is not canon for 40k or Age of Sigmar per se. However, I'm not bothered much since I will be using this primarily in 30k for a Ruinstorm army where such implementations will look excellent.

Horus Heresy Review: Cor'bax Utterblight Unbound, Daemon Lord of the Ruinstorm

Background. 

The final named chaos daemon lord is Cor'bax Utterblight. Fateweaver, and all the other named daemons in 40k don't get so much as a mention in this army, which is a pity, but I get the focus on the Ruinstorm and the daemons who played a much more prominent part in it. After all, there is a plethora of them. Utterblight is noted as a daemon prince in the background, and was summoned directly by the Word Bearers. However, there's precious little more than this, as one suspects that few survived the indulgences that this daemon unleashed.

Strengths.

As well as a very powerful stat line (Primarch levels, except for the BS), Utterblight is a Psyker (level 2). 

Thanks to his big mouth, he gains instant death on a to-hit roll of 5 or 6. This is nice, and would not be much to mention except for the lack of eternal warrior in 30k (which Utterblight also has). He also causes d3 hammer of wrath attacks on the charge, and will "explode" upon his death to take some pyrrhic revenge. 

The emanations of horror that he has is nothing too special, but does help once he gets in combat. 

Weaknesses.

The fixed warlord trait, Pestilent Cloud, is not much to write home about. There's a lot better Nurgle powers than this. 

The limitation of choosing the psychic powers from the biomancy discipline is a bit of a restriction. That said, in the hands of Utterblight, it helps him achieve his goals ultimately. 

As with other Nurgle daemons, he is fundamentally slow. He needs to make the best of any combat that he manages to get in and use his psychic powers to maximum effect,

Overall.

With a price tag like a Primarch, Utterblight at first sight seems very attractive. However, he has the same problem that most Nurgle daemons have: he is slow, and lacks significant ranged threat. In close combat: sure, he will be amazing. But overall, any White Scars player will simply run rings around him and diffuse his threat readily. Indeed, I would expect most space marine players to not feel too threatened by him unless they deliberately get in to close combat with him. Its a situation that an enemy can, in many cases, avoid. And therein is the fundamental limitation. He is a close combat specialist without being quick on his feet and lacks ranged threat. Angron does it better if I'm honest. Overall, I'm not really sold. Get a different HQ unless you're aiming for a truly fluffy Nurgle army. 

Nurgly New Year

Hi Folks: We're back after a longer than expected break due to various things happening in real life.

The new year on the hobby front appears to have kicked off with a very solid start with the plethora of new Nurgle models available. The one that caught my eye the most is the new Great Unclean One. And the main reason that it caught my eye was that it seems to harken back to the older Realms of Chaos era.

The image above shows one such example of the Realms of Chaos era Great Unclean One. This is a metal monster, standing a bit taller than a modern space marine (or Primaris marine). There are a number of salient features that this model has and is shared with the newer, larger plastic one. These include the belly tear and the possibility of that tear being turned in to a maw for chomping on nearby Nurglings (or others) that was featured in a different metal model. The snake like tongue is also an interesting feature.

However, the more things stay the same, the more that they change as well.

The biggest change (pun not intended) is the sheer scale of the new plastic Great Unclean One. It is literally huge and towers over the older, metal versions of the model. The model retains the weapons (swords, etc.) that are not seen in the Realms of Chaos version. I think this is a good thing as it gives the threat level a big increase visually over the older metal ones which just seems to be pointing and gesticulating in an unfriendly (or maybe even friendly?) manner across the gaming board.

Also retained are the Nurgling additions. These have almost always been an addition included in many of the sets over the years and can be used to decorate the bases and various critical nodes of the Great Unclean Ones (and more besides).

I wrote a while ago that I was concerned that the Death Guard was increasingly looking more like cartoon villains. This is not the case with the Great Unclean One, but I do worry it seems to be the case with the new Plague Bearer heralds. These seem to be continuing along the line of comical. I will freely admits that Nurgle does have some jovial interpretations. However, there's a difference between a gruesome figure looking jovial, to what should be a gruesome figure appearing a bit too comical in nature. So for me, the Great Unclean On is sheer win and I might even purchase it. But not so much the Plague Bearers that have been released.

More ramblings soon (probably Dorn related!).

Grand Cultivator

Catching up on recent news from the gaming sphere, this chap stumbled across my desk, as I'm sure it did yours as well. Slimed on to my desk might have been a better turn of phrase though. This is Nurgle's Grand Cultivator, Horticulous Slimux. 

He is a plague bearer mounted on top of a monstrous garden snail-like creature in essence. I want to make a couple of observations here. Firstly, this miniature is one that has been featured (probably repeatedly) on the official Warhammer Community rumours mill. Check out the legs of the "snail" (I know -- snails don't have legs, but I haven't got another noun for it just yet) -- these are the ones that have been featured on the rumour site over the past few months. 

The miniature itself interests me from a number of different angles. Firstly is the sheer whimsy and joviality involved in the sculpt. By this, I mean the pose and demeanour of Slimux himself, the "face" of the snail, and the hapless nurgling that has been left dangling in front of the snail. Obviously the nurgling is being used as a kind of bait to lure the snail ever onward. Its a bit like the old cartoons of carrots being used of a lure in front of a donkey to urge it onward. The eyes of the snail are directed right at the little nurgling, who in turn is wrapped in in some kind of vine and is looking grumpy about his situation. 

Slimux himself seems to be rather chilled and laid back. He is chewing on an old bone (freshly plucked from the Garden of Nurgle probably) in much the same way as a cartoonish version of a farmer might have some wheat or crop in his mouth. Or at least I think that is what the vibe they were going for is. Given the short length of the bone, it could be that they were going for a cigar replacement instead as well. 

Striking on the painting side of things is the existence of the eyeballs. Not only on the snail, but also on Slimux. In the older fluff, plague bearers would be depicted as having white eyes (almost in totality) to represent some kind of blindness disease. This guy is just yellowed, as is his mount. Speaking of the older fluff, Nurgle and his minions are often depicted as being rather happy. Since through decay comes rebirth of life and vitality. I think this aspect is communicated very well in the sculpt overall with smiles all around (of one kind or another) and a certain level of levity associated with the vibe of what is being depicted. I've not seen this communicated outside of goblins and orcs (Orks) in a long while and its good so see something like this appear after all these years.

Further interesting aspects of the sculpt include the Venus flytrap looking plant on the rear of the miniature painted in red. I have not seen much like this elsewhere. Being towed behind are ploughing implements to break up the land ready for Nurgle's special cultivation treatments. These little details all add up to a very whimsy miniature that looks more ready for happy gardening (or even a party) than warfare. Then again, that is part of the point. Slimux is really harkening back to some of the earlier materials in a way I've not seen in a while. Its a nice new, slightly risky even, direction and one I'm pleased to see the sculptors take. 

Wargames Gallery: Lost and the Damned

A bit of a blast from the past today. I was flicking through my well-worn and well-loved copy of the old Realms of Chaos: The Lost and The Damned book today, searching for a bit of inspiration. In the full colour art section from 'Eavy Metal, I came across this scene. 

Its a large battle between the forces of Nurgle (with Bubonicus) and Tzeentch. Count the sheer number of greater daemons contained within the image -- its immense! Just the points value alone of this diorama is amazing to think of! What a daemonic battle it is!

And those colours as well! Bright and vivid, even for the more gribbly Nurgle forces -- check out those banners in particular! These days, its a lot more about realism and grim-dark influences. Its occasionally nice to see a genuinely different approach to painting like this -- even if it looks very dated. Plus the old Warhammer Fantasy scratch-build scenery is nice to witness as well.

Warhammer World: Nurgle Diorama

One of the earlier areas inside Warhammer World features a number of dioramas based on Warhammer and Age of Sigmar. The main one that caught my attention was the Nurgle Diorara. Featuring an old, decaying and rusted castle, various armies of Nurgle - both daemonic and mortal - can be seen pouring out of the ageing gates and marching to war. I was very impressed by the gribbly variety of the miniatures and conversions displayed and the sheer scale of the diorama!

Wargames Gallery: Typhus reaping orks

Charging in to a full mob of Orks, Typhus rolls a 6 for his daemon weapon and gains the maximum number of attacks possible. And he also does his stink bomb thing in assault. Plus his psychic powers. The Orks fail to cause a single wound and he slaughters many, resulting in the Orks bouncing off him and fleeing in to the distance. Sadly, he does not withstand the counter-charge by two more mobs of Orks the next turn, but this turn was epic for him! Such is Apocalypse.

Axis of Awesome

The Axis of Awesome is … a band, but with a comedy edge. If you've never heard them before, then check out their Four Chords video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

Now that you're done with that music video, they recently released a video of their visit to Los Angeles, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM4u1UJpNY4

And check out the lead singer's Nurgle / Death Guard army! Awesome!!
(hat tip to Aaron Dembski-Bowden's twitter feed).

Blight Drone model progress

Today, just an action shot of my blight drone's painting progress.

As can be seen, there's plenty yet to be painted, including the forward oculus (eye lens).

The background is simply a cardboard cut out positioned carefully, and I was experimenting a bit with shooting images using it to be honest. I think its turned out well and gives a sense of dynamism to the blight drone model -- particularly given its tilted propulsion fans.

Plaguebearer conversion with four arms

One of the neat aspects of having plastic plaguebearers (as opposed to the old metal ones) is the greater increased potential for conversions.

This conversion is actually a rather straight forward one, but one that also has a high impact: a 4-armed plaguebearer!

Creating this relies on the shoulder areas of the plaguebearer torso. They are roughly the correct shape to take an extra arm (each of which has a concave area where it would ordinarily attach to a torso at the "correct" location). Given the pustules and boils on the surface of the plaguebearer, it is somewhat necessary to smooth over the largest protrusions that are on the shoulders and (potentially) the lower set of arms.

To finish the conversion, note the positioning of the death head. Gravity is doing its usual trick and pulling it downward. This gives some "real world" credibility to the upper, extra arms and gives a grizzly appearance to this grimdark-appropriate conversion. Finally, the pair of plagueswords provides a threatening visage to this one (appropriate for a Herald even). The positioning of the swords is critical: they need to look like the plaguebearer actually knows what its doing with them, hence why I chose two of them that were at significantly different angles: one ready to slice, the other looking like it might have already done so.  Am looking forward to painting this one!

Wargames Gallery: Deepstriking the Bad Way

Deepstriking on to the red cratered forge worlds surface, the Great Unclean One of Nurgle finds himself (through mishap) extremely far away from the centre of the action and eventually gets picked off by the much speedier dark eldar bikes.

(Picture taken last year during our local league).

Herald of Nurgle

The plastic plaguebearer range is terrific for the long time Nurgle affectionados like me. Not only is a plaguebearer troops based army entirely feasible (if a little odd and shambling!), but one can also create HQ choices from them as well. Specifically: Heralds of Nurgle.

The image shows one of my plastic heralds, assembled but unpainted. The ease to create such impressive looking miniatures is incredible. For those of us that have been in this hobby for the long haul, you may recall heralds that look like the ones below (all metal; top is from Marauder and the bottom is the 1990's citadel version).

The difference is sculpts is rather stark. The earlier models, whilst certainly Nurglesque in appearance are distinctly not as detailed. But there are certain characteristics that have carried over from them. Notice the triple horn of the Marauder miniature. And the triple skull motif on the citadel one, replicated from the stomach to the death heads in the plastics. Its pleasing to see such ideas remain constant over the years.

Moreover, the new plastic miniature is slightly larger than the old Marauder one (more "heroic scale" if I can use that term), like the citadel one.  That said, the citadel one is pretty much a solid piece of metal. The new plastics are much easier to carry around and result in a more pleasant play style than having to (sometimes) balance a metal miniature on an uneven terrain feature.

Overall, I'm impressed with the new plastics and remain a Nurgle fanboy. It might take some time to get around to painting this one up (got a few other projects on the go at the moment). Am tempted to move away from the greens that are typically seen on the plaguebearers and try something new (perhaps a pastel / frozen frostbitten blue or necrotic grey). I think thats one of the "beauties" of collecting a Nurgle army: so much choice and variation in possible and viable painting schemes!

Plague Drone of Nurgle: Thoughts on Assembling the Beasts

The plague drone (of codex: chaos daemons, not to be confused with the Forge World unit by the similar but more blighted name but more technological!) is a great sculpt in the plastic.  I bought a batch of drones when they were released alongside the new daemons codex. The picture below shows the first one of them assembled (minus the plaguebearer rider).

Not only does the miniature look totally Nurglesque, but the fetid appearance of the pseudo-fly is excellently executed in the look, feel, vibe and level of detail of the sculpt. The wings along are terrific: modelled so that they can be positions in a number of orientations (with a little work), they add so much dynamism to the miniature - if you've ever faced off against a unit of these flies, you'll know what I mean.  I intend to use mine as a rapid response tarpit unit (as explained in my codex review of the unit).

What I haven't yet done is affixed the rider to the back of the drone. My only complaint about the sculpt is actually the rider. Specifically: the plaguebearer's plaguesword arm (or etherblade arm?) comes in two parts. This is a poor design choice as the the method to attach it is barely more than a step. It really isn't that secure and will break apart at the slightest gust of wind (from experience).  Moreover, pinning it is awkward as the arm is very thin. I might have to experiment with a conversion to make the arm work better.

Apart from that, I think the assembly of the miniature is fine and straight forward enough (following the instructions). But: having been moving house and doing a lot of travel recently, I can assure you that those miniatures with large sticky-out parts (like the drone) are plenty more prone to breakage than the more (errrm...) blocky miniatures (I'm looking at you space marines).  Pack with plenty of wrapping and cushioning!

Chaos Daemons Review: Plague Drones of Nurgle

New for this codex is Nurgle's entry in the fast attack section: plague drones.  Sadly I always get confused with this name and "Blight Drones", but that is about my only criticism.

What are they good for then?  Well, they move fast.  And if you're a long time Nurgle fan, then you will know what a huge boon this is.  Seriously: a Nurgle unit that moves fast breaks the Nurgle rule of being slow and purposeful (literally).  With shrouded and a toughness of 5, these guys are going to be quite mean to take down.

But therein, there's a conundrum.  On their own, they don't have a particularly great role.  The only way that they are going to take enemies down is through their sheer numbers (and sheer number of poisoned attacks).  And as such, the way to play them is either (1) as a tar pit or (2) as a final turn swooper to claim or contest objectives (depending on which of the standard games is being played).  They are simply not geared to take down armour, and not particularly great at taking down terminators and their ilk.  But they might be able to tar pit for long enough that it won't be an issue.  An etherblade or greater etherblade would be a nice way to cause a threat to 2+ save models though and is a serious contender for spending points on.

Death heads give a 12" ranged attack which is also poisoned.  This could actually be good on this unit since they're about the only one that might benefit from it (i.e. being able to position themselves quick and accurately for their use).  Venom sting inflicts instant death and could be a useful idea for character hunting (but is expensive).  Rot Proboscis give a 3+ poisoned rule which is nice, but again: also expensive.  And as with many units, icons and instruments can be added to taste.

Here's a few ideas on builds.

5 Plague drones of Nurgle, Venom Stings, Plaguebringer with Greater Etherblade (260 points)
This is a pricey unit (in comparison to say, thunder hammer terminators), but is fundamentally a character hunter and killer.  Seek out enemy characters and try to instant death them.  You only need to score that one wound and it could be pulled off by this unit effectively (with some good die rolling).

3 Plague drones of Nurgle, Plaguebringer with Greater Etherblade, Icon of Chaos, Instrument of chaos (176 points)
A fairly bland set up, but potentially very useful with the instrument inside it.  Use it as a tar pit to stop pesky fire warriors shooting everything else out the the sky?

3 Plaguedrones of Nurgle, Plaguebringer with Etherblade, Death Heads (156 points)
A slightly cheaper tar pit unit.  If it survive (or if you hide it), use it to swoop on an objective in the late game.

Chaos Daemons Review: Beasts of Nurgle

They are beasts - yes.  But they're also slow and purposeful!  The interaction between these two rules is entertaining and not to be taken lightly.

One of the most interesting aspects of Beasts of Nurgle is their ability to counter charge a successful charge from the enemy on a nearby unit.  Therefore these guys have a tremendous escort role in the new daemons codex.  Several of these scattered throughout a couple of plaguebearer units could be quite a devastating combination.  Particularly since they combine T5, W4, It Will Not Die, and poisoned attacks.  And any unit charging them counts as a disordered charge.

The main drawback is the points cost and the random number of attacks (d6+1).  Hence, I feel a bit on the fence about these guys.  They could be spectacular!  Or they could be a damp squib.  I'm just torn.  Perhaps a few proxy missions are in order.

I think I'd field them in small quantities.  So my preferred combination would be two (104 points) or three (156 points) Beasts of Nurgle in a unit.  Keep them alive and keep them rolling with the plaguebearer mob (or others).