40K Death Guard: Baby Gnarlmaw terrain.

Ok, so this isn’t really an addition to the army in the same sense as the rest, but I did want to get some Nurgle appropriate scenics to help place the minis more with the sort of background I have come up with for my lot.

Since my Death Guard are “The Sentinels of His Garden”, I wanted to lean heavy on how they would seed each world they invade, slowly turning it into a version of Nurgle’s Garden, with them acting as the guardians and indeed, it’s gardeners. I was always going to include a Feculent Gnarlmaw too, albeit a scratch built one, as it’d be easily made (plus I am not keen on buying one, I’m far too cheap for that!) So, I really wanted to make some trees that had been set in the process of Nurglification. Also, I thought it would be nice to have some simply for display.

This first one, was made from some thorne bush trimmings I found while out and about. It had a really twisted and unnatural shape with bits of burl on them, so was a perfect shape to create such a mutated plant. The Bells were made from some small pieces of chain I had in my bits, and the actual bells were from some bits of broken toys my kids had discarded, so were chopped up and reworked into them. I then went on to sculpt in a load of appropriate Nurgle bits, like the pods, mouth and base, adding some mushrooms and bits to complete the model. I like this one best, and when I get round to making more, I’ll try and keep this model in mind to match the aesthetic for the rest.

This one, is a little more experimental, again using real twigs I found, but trying to go in a different route, as if the tree had been infested with some kind of spores and was being slowly taken over. I added some bells using the same method, sculpted on the pods, some mould/fungus and slimy tentacles that were spreading from the infected parts. I also added a few withered leaves, as if to say that the tree was dying off, plus the usual mushrooms and ground debris.

You will notice one of my Grinning Skull Miniatures Klorzid plant creatures, which is VERY Nurgle, with it’s three smiling faces! It has the sense of fun I enjoy, and was perfect for this model. I have more klorzid minis on standby to use in more builds like these, so expect to see more of them in the future! You can get these miniatures here at https://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/grinning-skull-miniatures/products/grnp09-klorzid-plants-pack-and-singles if you want to get any of them yourself!

I will probably make 3-4 more of these trees just because they were easy and quite a fun project, although the mood will have to take me. Also I’m going to have to make a Gnarlmaw proper, something quite imposing and a whole lot messed up, much more than the GW one. (Although, if I ever get chance to get one on the cheap, I will, just I think I could do justice to making my own instead!)

Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pics, I will be back with more in the next post. Next up will be more cultists for the plague god. See you then!

40K Death Guard Army: Brother Fingaz enters the fray.

Back with more from my horde of Nurgle’s finest. This time I’m going to show you one of my personalities in the army, someone who I’m calling “Brother Fingaz”.

Brother Fingaz is a big and tall fellow (80mm from bottom of the base) and some of you miniature connoisseurs will recognise the model from CMON’s boardgame “7 Sins” Apocalypse expansion, which I acquired at a bargain price for my chaos boys. Here’s a comparison pic to show size.

I named this guy Brother Fingaz as I thought he had a striking resemblance to a popular YouTube cartoon character you may or may not know about, Salad Fingers (a creation of famous fellow Doncaster creator, David Firth.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeE-J-GjAyQ to take a look at an episode.

Ok, he’s not exactly like good old Salad fingers, but I did think the aesthetic was a good match. I was planning on adding a little Hubert Cumberdale flesh boy familiar on the base, but decided against it.

Originally I was thinking as using him as a proxy for a Daemon Prince, but may end up making him my plague surgeon, as I think he might fit better, although he’s a little big for one (not that I care, the aesthetic is what matters to me more) but he could fit the bill as my Lord, or plague caster too, if I want to. I do have a plague caster in the wings (2 if I think about it), and a Lord, and a Prince. Whatever I use him as, He’s going to be a bad ass to help bring the blessings of Papa Nurgle!

Like I’ve said before, I have a LOT of other stuff to add to the horde, which I’m thinking of calling “The Sentinels of his Garden” or something smilar, since my thinking is that once these lot hit planetfall, they begin seeding it with their corruption, introducing diseased spores, plants and all sorts to recreate Nurgle’s garden. This gives me an option to add a bit of scratch built scenery additions like these:

These little Gnarlmaws I will show you in the next post. See you then!

40K Death Guard: You can never have enough Chaos Spawn…

So, if you recall, I had a big stack of Chaos Spawn proxies already done with a load of chaos snails and some horrors from the 7 sins game, but since I have a love for weird and creepy shit, every time I saw something that would make great spawn proxies, I just had to get them to add to my army. So, some of you will recognise these figures, and these are as nature intended (no changes, just paint jobs to match the others) apart from the giant maggot that’s rearing up, he wasn’t 100% complete when I got him in some parts from Ebay, so he needed a new head sculpting.

This one is the reaper bones “faceless horror” that many of you will have in your collections. I thought it was a perfectly disgusting addition to the spawn, and my thinking was what would happen to my poxwalkers when mutation had totally taken over, just like this shoggoth thing that is in my flesh-bag poxwalker unit.

Next I have another Reaper Bones classic, the purple worm, painted up to look like it’s part of the creepy crawly spawn. I’d have loads of these if I could, proxy them for beasts of nurgle, but it’ll do as spawn. There is a subtle beauty in it’s disgustingness I think, the sculpting that is, a very well done figure.

These two giant maggots are from Zinge Industries, and I got them in a bag of bits on Ebay. I did have to create a new head for the one rearing up, but you’d be hard pressed to tell as it looks perfect. These fit right in with the snails, horrors, worms and other nurgle themed monstrosities in the group. Zinge Industries have a few nice Nurgly themed things I’d like to get my hands on, but I have loads of stuff left to paint and add to the army, maybe too much! I’d like to make a different army at some point (Thousand Sons being a prime example) so I have to draw the line somewhere.

All in all, I have just two chaos snails left to do and I’m done for my Nurgle spawn. That is, unless I don’t come across any other suitable models that catch my eye.

I’ll take a big group shot of them all at some point (and the entire army so far, which is growing well over 2000 points I’d imagine!) but next time I will show you the first of my personalities in the army.

40k Plague Marines, Death Guard Army progress…

Its been a while since I posted anything on my Deathguard Army for 40K, and realised I hadn’t shown off my plague marines. I have taken the same direction with all the models in the army, with very few actual GW unmodified minis. Sure there are a few, but I decided that from the start that I was going to have as unique a force as possible.

I took a few Primaris that I had knocking about and converted them to the cause, and a few old 2nd edition monopose old skool ones as well, and went to town on messing them up. There’s a couple of Ramshackle games minis there too, very nurgle to begin with, but I added a few bits here and there to make them different.

These 3 here are the converted primaris, Painted up and converted, they fit right in to the army. Plus, it saved me cash on buying more plague bois!!

These were the results of converting the old 2nd edition marines, although they required a lot more work and bits, I kinda like them, although I think the icon bearer is my fave out of the two.

These next lot are the standard GW plague marines, which everyone has, another reason to mix in as many conversions as possible. Don’t get me wrong, they look great, I just didn’t want carbon copies of them populating my squads.

Like I said, nothing special, with passable paintjob to match, I’ve given up the need for outstanding painting these days, unless I want to give a model some extra special treatment, I don’t bother too much, I just want to get them painted to an OK standard, and that’ll do for me (they are only rank and file after all…)

These are Ramshackle games figures (forgive me when I say I have forgot the actual model names) but I added hardly anything bar a smoke stack on one as the actual one had broken in “cat” accident while undercoating!! Bolters were added to make them fit.

They fit in very well just painted up as all the other plague marines rank and file.

As for these WIPs, the astute of you might notice they are “Space Rangers” converts. This line is ages old and I wanted to bolster my units cheaply, so these guys are just that. More of them when they are done, as I have a fair few of them to get finished.

Another WIP is this guy. Heavily converted from all sorts of bits and pieces. I like this guy, although he may end up as a personality for the Purge contingent I have planned.

Overall, I like the way these guys are coming along. Yeah, a few are rough around the edges, but its Nurgle, so doesn’t matter too much when ranked up together.

I’ll show you more next time, possibly spawn or some other bits…

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/326918/Worlds-of-Sound-The-Baneful-Shroud-of-the-Everdark?src=hottest_filtered

8th Edition 40k Army: Completed Big Custom Hellbrute!

Finally I’ll show the Big Custom Hellbrute in it’s mostly finished form. (I say mostly as since taking these shots, I have added a bit more detail to the base and some more gore…) As you can see from the primaris sized plague marine conversion at it’s side, he is indeed very big boy!

Last off, when I posted a WIP for this beast, I only had a dark green base coat and a few shades of lighter greens drybrushed on it, so since then it has a lot more going off.

I think it turned out OK, loving the face, as it completely changes the model from it’s original Scotia/Grendel Leviathan War Golem form to something unique. Not that there was anything wrong with the original model, but I needed to create a face that gives that Nurgle Chaos vibe rather than the stock face it had. I also had to reposition the arms to give it some level of dynamism that the original lacked (IMHO, no offense!) as the standard pose was very static, and I wanted to give some sense of it lumbering across the battlefield, not just stood there, arms tight at it’s sides.

Like I said, the face carries it for me. It has a definite Great Unclean one style that locks it in as being Nurgloid in nature, plus is totally unique (since I sculpted it on) I did have to add a lot of sculpted bits to make it seem like it was fused between the hard metal and organic, but the various pipes and tubes that were present in the original helped as well, so adding extra pipes and tubes, or at least the impression of them, was an easy way to help blend the sculpted additions to the stuff already there.

The second set of clawed arms were added from some Tyranid spares I had, exposed guts bursting out blended well, merging easily into the aforementioned pre-existing tubes already there. The large mass of tentacles were added to insinuate much more mutations inside the machine, reaching out of the spaces at it’s side and under the arm. These also provided some support to the arm that I re-positioned.

The back flat armor areas were kept as intact as I could (Obviously I had plenty of places where the mutations were bursting from) but I wanted enough parts left on the model to paint in the same Death Guard scheme I have for my overall army. Battle damage was carved into the resin here and there to Nurglify? it a bit more, as this thing would draw a lot of fire on the table, so I imagine a monstrosity like this would be torn up a bit! It goes well with the Ceros and Rhino as heavy back up, it certainly starts to make my army a force to be reckoned with!

Overall I like this model, and would recommend anyone to give these little gems a go if you want to add a big lumbering mech type hellbrute/dred to your chaos bois. You can do a lot with these if you use your imagination, swap out the arms, add new heads and features, mutations and more.

Not sure what I’ll run it as, but I have a few things in mind, regardless though, I will be supplementing my troops with him, drawing fire as he slowly makes his way into battle. I do have another Hellbrute on the way, heavily converted from a Reaper Bones Graveyard Golem, but I’m not finished with him yet. Here’s a quick preview.

This one is more normal sized for a Hellbrute, but I’d say much more converted. I may make one from scratch to complete my trinity, as I have an idea, but I need more suitable parts before I start as I don’t want to just make a start, only then to stop because I am missing bits to finish it!

Hope you liked the pics, I’ll be back next time with more finished pieces and pics of the rest of my lads. Suggestions, comments and so on are welcomed, let me know what you think!