Tag: Death Guard

Warhammer 40,000 – Big Weekend Game

Last weekend Coronasan and I finally managed to get together for a ‘proper’ game of toy soldiers.

Coronasan has been working hard to get a 6’x4′ gaming table together that is constructed from all of the MDF kits he has designed.

Pringle towers, Pringleless towers, Square towers and base boards, along with a whole heap of scatter terrain and even a dice tower.  Add in the large transporter, that he finished earlier this year, and you have a remarkable and hugely enjoyable table.

Even his Forgeworld Flyer came down off the shelf for this game.

When it’s all laid out this way, it’s enough to make a real impact.

It wasn’t too long though, before he took my mind off the scenery, by deploying a large unit of Grey Knight Terminators. My focus was quickly back on the game as, although my Death Guard are quite resilient, those guys throw out a lot of damage…

My proxy Plague Hulk had to climb its way across most of the table, ever hopeful that an enemy would come into its sights, and into range of its great iron claw.

My right was well protected by these three guys. Between them, they actually managed to clear away all of the first deployment of enemy units, before taking fire from Coronasan’s reinforcements.

The bulk of my basic troopers, along with their support units, had a long, slow trudge across the table though. They don’t run awfully fast with rotten limbs and blubber lolling all over the place.

One cinematic moment was Coronasan’s veteran jump troopers slowly rolling up my centre before being probed to death by my Greater Blight Drone.

In the end it was down to victory points, and I came out on top, although I had lost plenty of my own forces by that time.  My new Death Guard Terminators finally showed up near the end of the game, and managed to push back at the enemy, clearing away most of the final Imperial Resistance.

Final thought for the game… Coronasan and I still, even after this many games, fail to remember the myriad of special rules for each of our armies. Dementia or a boyish excitement that leaves us forgetting everything in our rush to enjoy the moment?

Warhammer 40,000 – Death Guard Terminators

Enough with the distractions.  I need to buckle down and get the last of these GREEN Space Marines painted…

With the planned ‘Big Game’ looming it was time to get these done, so I just ploughed ahead and took my usual, care free, painting attitude to these last 5 figures…

They were fairly easy to complete in the end.  I have an aversion to the GW smoke effects, but this flail was the only bit on this set that was cast that way. In the end I used some of the new GW grey contrast paint over the original green undercoat.  That, along with a good dose of a green/brown wash over the whole figure, left it looking ok to me.  All I ever hope to achieve is a table top gaming standard (whatever that is).

Late at night the lighting in the shed works better for photos it would seem…

Exposed organs and horns galore.

Plenty of dark metals.

Brass trim here and there.

Browns for any hard surfaces like carapace. (Snakebite Leather is fast becoming my favourite contrast paint).

A flash of red for details and cloth.

 

Sorted…

Warhammer 40,000 – Finishing Touches

It seems an age since I set up a playing surface in the shed and, while I was out there doing just that for an hour or two last week, I decided that I should really try to finish a small job that had been bugging me for a a little while now.

My last GREEN miniature has a glass sided tank on his back.  I have seen some very nicely painted tanks, throughout the Internet, and all glazed with gloss varnish to give that glass like finish.

Mine is not the most realistic of fluid filled efforts but a gloss coat over the top can’t make it worse…  Can it…

Not to bad…

Catches the light nicely and distracts the eye away from some of the terrible painting on the remainder of the model.  So, please remember…  Just keep looking at the shiny bit…

Warhammer 40,000 – The Death Guard Characters

While I am making a habit of taking useless photographs I thought I should supply you with a useless group shot of the completed characters that will be making their stand in the ‘big game’ we have planned.

These add up to three HQ choices and two Elite choices if you understand the Warhammer 40K system.

My three HQs, the Daemon prince with wings (big bony chap) and the two Plague Casters, provide some much needed punch and can, between them, cast a respectable number of psychic attacks in a turn.

The Foul Blightspawn and the Noxious Blightbringer both have a fairly respectable combat ability but also add a couple of decent buffs to the regular Plague Marines in the force.

Next up Terminators… (when I can build up the desire to paint green Space Marines again)

Warhammer 40,000 – Foul Blightspawn

Some models don’t want to get painted.  I suspect this one was happy in green plastic.  Maybe it thought to itself…  ‘I know, when I grow up, I want to be one of those army men’.

I painted this over two nights with very little enthusiasm and I think it shows in this photo taken mid paint job.

Colours randomly splattered over the original green base coat, with no effort made to ‘colour inside the lines’.  Some details left unpainted because… well hell, the ink wash will bring them out…

I dropped this figure about 20 times during its time on the paint table.

It should be a great figure to paint.  The option for a glass fronted, fluid filled tank. Lots of well defined details and the chance to add a range of colours from outside of the regular Death Guard colour scheme.

I can’t say why it caused me so much trouble.  Maybe it’s time for a night or two off painting green Space Marines. I don’t want to get side tracked by something else so, if it’s a night off, it’s a proper night off.  No shed tonight, let’s just update the blog (and moan about green Space Marines.)

Don’t get me started on the fact that it was slightly late when I finished and even outside, in the fading evening light, I couldn’t get a good clear photo…

Annoyingly, tonight seems just as bad, as the sun is behind me and either casts my shadow on the BBQ or leaves a looooong shadow on the miniature.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again…

Then give up and pour yourself a stiff Vodka and Tonic.  Strong enough for the words to be lubricated enough to flow from your fingers (just like the shadows flow in my photos…)

Warhammer 40,000 – Plague Caster Pete II (Maybe I Need To Think Of Another Name)

Today it’s a story of success, failure and success.

My first success was actually finishing off the next of the miniatures that I wanted to complete. It’s another step closer to completing the force destined to be used in out next ‘big’ game.  It is a second plague caster that, in this case, I decided not to convert. I cannot say that I am a big fan of the modelled smoke effects that GW have started doing in the last few releases.  Last time I chopped it off without a second thought. This time though, instead of hacking it off and replacing it, I decided to see if I could paint it to look almost alright.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I had just noticed that, on the original Plague Caster Pete, I had added a Bolt Pistol to his hand when he already had one, sat in its holster, on his hip. (Maybe I should start calling him Two-Guns Pete).

The failure came when I tried to photograph the new model next to the old.  It was just before 10pm and usually the twin bulbs that make up the lighting in the shed can give a good photographic environment for me to use.  The shadow cast by a late setting sun, combined with slightly aged light bulbs, that definitely need changing as they are getting noticeably dusty, left me with less than perfect photos.

Using a flash was no better for getting a good photo. In fact I think they were even worse, so I decided to wait for the next day, and more light, to get better ones…

My final success was these slightly clearer photographs.  Plague Caster Pete and his brother sorcerer Plague Caster… Paul. (Wasn’t there a nursery rhyme with a Peter and a Paul?  I remember something about birds…?)

The smoke effect here has plague flies scattered throughout it and I picked them out in white as the smoke was so dark.  Not a bad effect in the end.  Not completely sold on it but its good enough for a Nurgle Psyker.

That leaves me just five Blight Lord Terminators and one final character model, a Foul Blightspawn, to complete.

Warhammer 40,000 – So Far So Good, Vehicles All Done

As I had all the vehicles for my upcoming game of Warhammer 40K out of the display case I thought you might want to see them.  Don’t expect too much of this photo as I haven’t had a table set up for a few weeks now.  The background is therefore plain old MDF (try to imagine them as majestically arrayed over a grand, golden, sand dune; or not…)

The real reason for posting this photo is in hopes of worrying Coronasan into taking lots of Antitank units. Hopefully at the cost of some of his assault troopers.  That way my poor bloody infantry might get a chance to survive past the first two turns.

The other thing that might help those infantry to survive is by having a few bigger brothers on their side.  The remaining figures, that still haven’t seen any love or paint yet, are five terminators, a specialist with a nasty watering can stuck on his back and my second Plague Caster.  I’m hoping to get cracking on these in the next day or so…

Warhammer 40,000 – Helbrute

After my Soulgrinder (or, in my case, my Plague Hulk proxy) was finished, I decided to keep up the emphasis on larger models and pushed on with the painting to get the Helbrute done next.

This model was first seen on the blog back in November of 2017.  Such is the time warp within the shed.  So many good intentioned builds, even ones I spend a huge amount of time mounting magnets on.  So often lost in the mists of time – only to resurface when their star starts to rise again, a few years later.

So, you are going to get all the photos, of every variant I have for this model, so if that’s not your thing, scroll on a few times until you see some paint pots (go on, I won’t notice…)

First up, full firepower.  Autocannon and Missile Launcher – for when you want to wait for the enemy to come to you…

Full combat mode. One extra attack from the twin weapon combo and flamers mounted in each fist as you don’t always get to charge first.  It’s good to have a set of weapons that hit automatically when shooting at a charging foe.

The middle ground.  An Autocannon for longer range fire and a Power Scourge to get in a few extra attacks if you do have to close with the enemy.

As you saw just now, the model is almost complete, but I have to weather (liberally coat with a shade or ink) the thing before I get its base done.  I keep a fully stocked ink range, so I can supposedly fine tune my shade to match a range of base colours when needed.

In this case I need him to match the existing infantry, so a darker brown or black ink will be required, rather than the dark green or more subtle browns that might have been a better match to his base colours.

Just an aside, does anyone else find themselves thinking they need to find themselves a more reliable, regular drying rack.  One day I will make a magnetic, or tacky, shelf edge so I can stop having to do this…

If it looks odd, thats ok, as long as it works.  It does in this case…

Thats all the vehicles done towards my planned force for our next big game of Warhammer 40K.  Next up the remaining seven infantry figures (Grandfather Nurgle’s lucky number).  At this rate I might just get them done on time.

Warhammer 40,000 – Death Guard Get New Units

Well, we have another, slightly larger, game planned.  This time its a game of Warhammer 40K so Coronasan can try out some larger pieces of his industrial scenery.  It’s not happening for a few weeks yet, but I had best start planning for it.  I will need to dig out come of those neglected models I have, so that I can again get something new onto the table.

A bit of brute force (I don’t often play with pure close combat dreadnoughts) might be useful in such a close quarters battle.  A second chaos sorcerer will be useful too as I suspect I will be up against an army that is at least part Grey Knights.

I have been meaning to get some terminators on the table for some time now so I guess this my chance to get them painted.

First up though a Soul Grinder…

WIP in this shot but already the base colours are getting close to my Death Guard scheme.

In fact his base colours are so close to the Death Guard theme that his scraps of old armour are almost invisible against his skin…

A few armour plates and a bit of rust and I should be able to call him finished.

In fact, here he is in his finished form.  Varnish and all.

I will more than likely be playing him as a Plague Hulk (from the Forgeworld Index Book) rather than as a Soul Grinder.  That way he will fit in with the other Death Guard forces better.

Azazel’s April Challenge Part Two (Or Part One, Actually)

Part one of Azazel’s April challenge was Armoured April. Paint some Armour. Simple really. As my Death Guard were on the table recently for a game, and also out for some much neglected painting, it seemed appropriate that I get another unit done in line with this challenge.

My last unit completed, a Plaguecaster, is acting as a colour scheme reminder. That said, the scheme is basically just green, silver and grime…

The grime is often a random application of inks and washes.

Along with plenty of rust.

My opponent shouldn’t get this view of him often but it helps to show how much fleshy purple and green body is actually on show under that armoured carapace.

Part machine, part daemon slug…

All Death Guard Tank Killer (I hope…)

As he sits there at the back, waiting for my opponent to arrive, he could be mistaken for the crawling cousin to my flying Bloat Drones.  A simple army for a simple 75 power game today.