Tag: Dragon Rampant

Warhammer 40,000 – Something Nurgle This Way Comes

Some purchases are made because you plan and prep for an idea and build with a purpose.  Some purchases are just made because they are there and make you think ‘maybe that will be useful at some point’.

This purchase was made because it was just so cheap I could not refuse.  Luckily it has a Nurgle-esque look about it so should be usable in the Dragon Rampant force if I cannot make it fit into my Death Guard force.  Its originally a Warmachine or Hordes figure but for the life of me I cant remember what its called.

I am thinking about using it as a proxy for a Heldrake (although, that said, Heldrakes are not actually in the Death Guard Codex…)

It came with a female fantasy rider but a Plague Marine rider shouldn’t be too hard to build.  Should it???

My bits box has recently been stripped of many of the chaos parts I would have usually used, so this first attempt is the legs of a Marine biker, a jump trooper torso and some Chaos Marine shoulders.  Hands and weapons will follow in time but this first build has him almost ready.

Base coats done, I wonder how long this one will sit in the pending queue.

Dragon Rampant – Nurgle Vs Stunties

My Nurgle forces got an outing recently as a Dragon Rampant army against Coronasan’s freshly finished Dwarves of Tir-Na-Bor (They are all stunties to me).

A wing of Flying Light Riders fills one side of the table.

Bellicose Nurglings and a Greater War Beast form the strike force while Offensive Heavy Foot (Snails) and Offensive Light Foot (Worms) complete the force.

My Nurglings took a pounding from a mounted chariot cannon while everything else advanced.

Trying to use cover worked to a slight degree but Dragon Rampant makes you stay 3 inches away from other units so it makes you think more about unit positions and spreads you out for a lot of the game.

The Flies managed to evade and strike a few times before being caught in a retreat and wiped out to a man (or fly).

Worst played unit goes to the Nurglings who were useless when they got caught out in the open by a charge, but who also managed to recover and rout Coronasan’s elite armoured dwarf foot.

I fun game and a great excuse to get a few lesser fielded units on the table.

Warhammer 40,000 – Nurgle Fly Boys

I have been trying to keep my painting on track by letting myself do units for each side of the Nurgle force as evenly as I can.  This unit will get done in time and will fill three slots in the end.  It will be in both chaos 40K armies and also fits nicely in the old insect (snails and worms) Dragon Rampant army.

I started with a pack of 3 of these plague drones and undercoated their bodies weeks ago.  Only when I picked up a further 3 figures, to flesh out the unit size, did I realise just how many fly wings that would leave me to paint.

That said, it should be a good looking unit when its finished. The stats in the Index don’t leave me to enthusiastic about their effectiveness in a game though.  We’ll see in time I guess…

Lessons Learned

My recent experiences with Reaper Bones figures is still fresh in my mind. So when I decided to add a couple of new ‘Bones’ figures to my Nurgle force, I knew that I would have to paint the base colour by hand.

These two are Reapers Faceless Horrors.  All teeth and eyes.  Great as chaos spawn, or to add as fillers to the reaper bones worms unit that I have in my Dragon Rampant army

Hugely detailed, and surprisingly well cast, with minimal mould lines for such an uneven surface.

Each one originally comes in 2 parts which fit together using small plugs, well placed alongside or under detailing, that serves to hide the joins very well.  If only other manufacturers would take note…

Being so detailed, the painting of the base colour takes much longer than you would expect.  Thinned paint would normally help to get into that detailing. However, as the bones material tends not to take thinned paint as well as it might, this was not an option.

An old brush is a must as it takes a fair bit of punishment to get the job done.  I am not as patient as I used to be, especially when it comes to jobs like undercoating. I suspect I am more heavy handed than I think too…

Great figures, but now I have painted the base coat I can see that it will take hours of work to get all those details painted.  There has to be at least 20 eyes and 200 teeth on each these two…

Warhammer 40,000 – Nurglings, Testing A Colour Scheme

Like a lot of people I suppose, I appreciate when I can get more than I expected for my money.  My girls just call me tight fisted but I like to think I am just being economical with my money.  I suspect I am not alone in making a box of Nurglings go that little bit further by putting less on each base.

I managed to get a box of Nurglings that were supposed to fill three bases (by adding any spare Nurglings from the sprues of other sets I had etc) to fill six bases.

Chuffed was me…

It does mean I have twice as many to paint up now so not all a big win.  The first base I painted up was done as a one off.  This was to see if I can get a quick and easy method together that I can then use on the remainder of the army.

It needs to be simple, quick and be a close match the Dragon Rampant army that makes up the other half of this force.  I spent too much time on extra washes and base colour variation when I painted that army.  I know I can get the same, or a similar effect, with 2 or 3 less parts to the process.

Nurglings done, and in half the time it took to do the older process.  Not a bad match and a slightly cleaner finish too (not that a Nurgle army wants to be clean…)

Now to replicate that 5 more times for the bases of Nurglings.  Only then will I have to start on the huge pile of Nurgle that seems to be building up at the back of the shed…

Warhammer 40,000 – Real Daemons Of Nurgle

My Dragon Rampant force is a good solid start to my Nurgle force but you knew I would not hold out long before buying more stuff for it.  In this instance I found a good cheap deal on a Start Collecting box and just thought that it must be fate.

Plague Bearers and Nurglings are always useful, if only to truly set the theme of the army.  This set of Plague Bearers I have made up with the command group any others I pick up along the way I will likely make up as a filler for the unit, so just to boost them up to 20 or 30 models.

I suspect a couple of Heralds of Nurgle will be guaranteed picks in the finished force, as Chaos Characters can summon my other Daemons onto the battlefield, meaning they don’t have to walk through a bullet storm to get to the enemy…

The box also contains a unit of Plague Drones, again I made these with full command, as I have a second set already, that I plan to use to bring the unit up to 6 miniatures.  I have no idea if these are any good or worth the points.

Finally, I now own two Foetid Bloat Drones. The first is made, and now undercoated, the second awaits my attention.  Slightly ‘off theme’ as its Nurgle but can be found in the Chaos Space Marine list of my Index not the Daemon section.  With both the Nurgle and Daemon keywords I am hoping some of the Daemon linked abilities may give these guys a boost.  If not, they are still likely to get used, as they will be one of the very few shooting units I can field.

Now, I must get some painting done…

Warhammer 40,000 – Dragon Rampant Army Gains The Mark Of Nurgle

I have a small army sat in the shed at the moment that happens to fit two genres at the moment.  It was planned as a Dragon Rampant 30 point army that was themed on worms and snails (with a bit of creative thinking).

Today though it is a Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Daemon army which has the Mark Of Nurgle.  I just happen to have 30 smaller figures, mainly worms and snails but including 6 infected men. That’s a unit or two of Plague Bearers.  A few larger snails, they can be Heralds of Nurgle.  A huge worm, obviously a Greater Daemon.  I have added onto the Dragon Rampant force by including a large plague figure from Mantic Games as a Daemon Prince. Finally, a large unit of 20 Pox walkers (currently the only unit that is represented by the correct models) rounds off the force.

Its currently coming in at about 50-60 power and very unlikely to be well balanced or effective in this format.  It does however, let me get into playing more games, and that in itself will help me better understand the specific rules that our recent Space Marine Vs Space Marine games have missed out.

Dragon Rampant – Finished Army

So, I’m back from a couple of weeks of holiday.  My lasting memory is of a lovely set of sunburned knees. Nice…

When I left the shed I had failed to get the remaining small snails and small worms done for the Dragon Rampant Facebook Painting Challenge.

So, first things first, Small Snails – DONE

These are nice figures to paint with good clear details and little that isn’t well defined and easily picked out.

Next up, Small Worms – DONE

Four of these six were spray painted Reaper Bones…  They remained sticky all through my holiday and were likely never to set.  The remaining two I chose to base coat by hand.  Once painted over they all appear the same but I will see in a couple of weeks if that remains the same.

Simple to paint and with the white on the mandibles they stand out nicely when mixed in with the other small worms I have used.

  • Mother Of Worms – Greater Warbeast – Burrowing – Reduced unit – 8pts
  • Large Worms – Heavy Riders – Burrowing – Reduced unit – 6pts
  • Large Snails – Heavy Riders – Reduced unit – 4pts
  • Small Snails – Heavy Foot – Offensive – Full unit – 6pts
  • Plague Zombies – Elite Foot – Full Unit – 6pts
  • Small Worms – Bellicose Foot – Burrowing – Full unit – 6pts
  • TOTAL – 36pts

Dragon Rampant- Painting Challenge Week Three

So, the week started badly, but as I am British I decided to carry on regardless.  The plan was to just paint over the soft basecoat.  Not what everyone would choose to do I suspect, but my decision was based on the outcome of the Reaper Bones Worms that I had done the week before.

They were base coated in the same way, but I had not noticed the uncured paint as they were smaller.  Painting over that softer basecoat was ok and appears to still give a stable paint job.  I am unsure what varnishing will do, so may leave that off these models.  So, painting started this week and has been completed in time for the start of week three.

I followed the normal process for thispiece, as I had for the other units in the army.  A simple paint job, basecoats and washes.  Colours picked out and teeth whitened.

The model is a burrowing worm so lots of rocks and loose earth are to be found on its back.  I kept things simple as I was unsure of the stability of the undercoat.  The more layers I applied the less sticky it got.  I do think it will suffer if handled too much in the future though…

A heavy application of paint used to cover the weak undercoat and it looks ok.  I didn’t spend as much time on it as it deserved, as every time I picked it up it complained, and I was worried that paint was rubbing off or shifting.  After drying it appears to be ok so I guess in time I will find out if it was the right decision.

It matches the army theme, so it will do for now.  Sadly I had hopes that this would be a good centre piece for the army.  That hasn’t happened quite as planned but a basic paint job will suffice for now.

Only some small Reaper Bones Worms (Chthon) and some Scibor Evil Snails are left but I doubt, with all the trouble I have had lately, that I will get them done before I go away.  I shall try though.  So much for getting the army finished by the end of the month…

Dragon Rampant – Painting Challenge Week Two – Day Two

So, making a start on the big lady herself.  Under coated on day one and day two starts with me picking her up to find she is very sticky…

You can see from these photos that she remains VERY shiny.  When I hold her the primer feels soft and I am leaving fingerprints on her.  It would seem that my base coat of Army painter spray has not cured and dried.

I’ve never had this happen before.  The other bones miniatures that I have undercoated this way are all slightly sticky too.  However, as they are smaller and not coated so widely this is not an obvious issue.  This larger model however is causing me to feel nervous.

Off I trot to the Reaper website to see if this is a known issue.  It would seem I should have visited here first.  The bones material is a softer polymer and gives off a chemical that can cause some paints (sprays especially) to fail to cure.  Although, the website states that the Army painter range does NOT have this problem…

Oh Yes It Does!

I don’t think leaving this lady longer to dry is going to change anything, so I have to find a way of correcting this. Stripping her back and starting again is not an option I look forward to trying.