It’s an awfully long time since I’ve been around these parts – I’ve kept up to date with regards reading other people’s blogs and stuff, but actually writing anything myself? I’ve honestly just not had the time with work and other things that life seems to have thrown at us recently.
A Break From Green & Brown
I’ve taken a break from painting & building Death Guard to start on some Alpha Legion Cultists. I’ve used House Delaque minis as the basis, with some small alterations as I can’t not tinker with a model when I build it. I’ve kept alterations to a minimum as I like the basic models, but I wanted them to have some clearly chaotic elements.
It’s been nice not to paint endless variations of brown & green, and these are also my first use of both a wet palette and weathering powders – I’ve found the former makes painting a lot easier and I feel like completing projects more as I’m not having to constantly mix paints to try and match colours. The latter I’m impressed at how easy they are to use to get subtle results.
The plan is to have a small secondary Alpha Legion Force to allow for some of the options not available to Death Guard in their Codex in larger games. I’m thinking something Spearhead sized, possibly based around Obliterators (which I’ve a clear idea for a conversion for).
A Legal Army
I’ve had less time this month for painting as work has ramped up in terms of requirements (which is a good thing), but I have been able to complete my second Malignant Plaguecaster which means I can now field a legal (if inefficient) Battalion. The build up is;
Malignant Plaguecaster
Malignant Plaguecaster
Plague Marines
Plague Marines
Cultists
Once again I kitbashed a combination of Chaos Marine and Terminator parts, but this time I made the base a little less prominent so that the other Plaguecaster has the edge in height (to denote it being the Warlord).
Next up is completing the next fourteen Cultists (I’ve restocked on green stuff), and then maybe some more Dreadnoughts, but at that stage I’ll be able to perhaps look at other options as everything will be new on the table. I do need to pick up some more movement trays at some stage, but that’s a bit down the line.
Bringing things up to date
I’ve had a burst of productivity, finishing off a few jobs and bringing everything that was currently on the table up to date. First of all was finishing off the Dreadnought, changing the close-combat arm and re-painting for more texture. I’m happy with the results, I think the arm look a lot better than it used to, and the large areas of flat panel have been broken up. I’m stuck on the matt varnish / gloss elements look now, again I think that it really helps create the right look of dry, rusting bodies with the innards spilling out.
Bring on the bigger stuff…
I’ve taken a few weeks break to work on another project for Sj, but today I decided to start taking a look at a previously “completed” Dreadnought that I had sitting around. Eventually I’d like three of these, but at the moment it’s more about bringing it up to the standard I’ve started to feel the rest of the army now is.
Halfway there
Painting has been completed on what will eventually be a great big blob of twenty-eight Cultists to walk in front of more important stuff, hopefully soaking up incoming fire from all quarters and dying quite easily.
Even more Cultists…
So I’ve finished building the first half of what will be eventually a blob of twenty-eight Cultists to act as a meat / cannon shield and keep the hard hitting stuff shielded as it trundles across the table. I’ve tried to make them as generic Nurgle as possible, so they can double as Pox-Walkers as well by doing things like stowing their weapons across their backs and giving them a dishevelled / plague look through the use of a lot of green-stuff (seriously, I’ve depleted well over two thirds of my store).
Cultists – lots of Cultists…
I’ve started work on putting together a bunch of Cultists to use as meat / cannon fodder ahead of the advancing Plague Marines and to keep with the fluff aspect of the army. I’ve never been drawn to the GW Cultists – they fall a little too much into the muscle bound freak that leans heavier towards Khorne, and the Poxwalkers just seem off, I’m not sure if it’s the studio paint jobs or what, but I decided to look elsewhere.
Plaguebearers
Plaguebearers this time – mainly a Dullcote / gloss as on previous comments rather than some of the more involved work on previous touching up. The only thing that I looked at was adding some texture via a baking soda / paint to the previous tentacles to give them more of the appearance of roots and the like. I’ve also started work on the cultists and hope to post something soon.
Revisiting the Death Guard – Part Four
Brief update – the second squad’s been brought up to date with the Plasma Guns – there was a lot more work involved with these than the previous squad as the previous weapon was more integrated with the rest of the model.
Midland Film Monkey 