Tuesday 26 March 2013

Lord of Nurgle's retinue finished

It may seem like a while since I've done very much on the Death Guard front. Although that's probably because I've not been posting much recently. Y'know, due to the pressures of my non-existent social life and all that shite.

Anyways, I've actually managed to finish off the retinue for my Death Guard lord. I'm aware that some few people do read the spurious nonsense that I belch forth (although I can't think why). In all likelihood, those worthies amongst you probably didn't mentally retain any related information, as you doubtless have better things to think about. I will therefore also link to the unit champion, Aquinius.

To cut a long story short, the idea with this unit was to have a unit of 6 to accompany the lord (making the holy 7 of Nurgle and that) all painted up in armour that roughly matched the lord.  The colour scheme is basically a direct inversion of the basic scheme for the majority of my Death Guard. If you're interested in seeing them (the project is ongoing), please feel free to look up some of my older posts.

The conversion pieces (heads and back pieces) are from Maxmini.eu, in Poland. They do a fair range of decent bits of kit, so please check 'em out. The legs come from Anvil Industry.

















Recent happenings at Castle Pestilence & Avignon Primaris

I realise that it has been a while since I've posted (asides from the couple of posts from earlier on this evening...), so I thought I'd give a bit of an update.

On Friday night I popped over to my friend Tim's place for a small 500 point game of 40k on a 2x2 ft Zone Mortalis board that he's been working on.  The Imperial Guard were mercilessly put to the sword and burned to a crisp etc.  We also rolled up some characters for a forthcoming Dark Heresy campaign (which I'm very excited about).

I can heartily recommend giving the Zone Mortalis rules a go, it was great fun...


















Here are a couple of shots of my very messy worktable. There's a few irons in the old fire, so to speak...


Ork Kill Team mini-update

This is a great miniature from Kromlech. It's basically an Ork dressed as commissar. He'd probably fit in really well in a Blood Axe army.

When I spotted him on eBay, I knew I had to have him in the Kill Team.  As yet, I need to decide on a name and a role for him, so watch this space...

Images from the Nurgle Grotesquerie #5








Tuesday 12 March 2013

Ork Kill Team #2 - Silent

This morning I finished the second member of the Ork Kill Team, a hulking mass of green, fungoid muscle named Silent.

Silent is actually the Boss Snikrot model produced by Games Workshop.  This particular version is in Finecast.  Pleased to say there were no visible faults that I could detect, so 2 thumbs up to GW.








Here's a bit of a background on Silent. He can be regarded as something of a lone wolf, although he started out his military career as one of the Snakebite Klan's boyz, then named as Zagdrob.  The real pivotal moment for him came during military action on the jungle death world of Namaste IV, against combined forces of the Imperial Guard Cadian, Mordian and Catachan jungle fighters...


The greenskins had been having riotous time of it until the Cadian 36th infantry and Mordian 9th mechanised took to the field and swiftly compartmentalised and practically annihilated them.  The rag-tag ork survivors withdrew to the depths of the jungle in a desperate attempt to make their way back to friendly lines.

Their ranks were thinned out further still whilst in the depths of the jungle, with many falling foul of the mysterious shadows that haunted the dense foliage, and others poisoned through ill-advised foraging of the native flora and fauna.  Meanwhile the main ork front line was being pushed steadily back, leaving the Snakebite survivors evermore cut off from the relative safety that strength in numbers could potentially offer.

The ammo had run out long ago, the orks now limited to choppas and make-shift weaponry.  Still the orks forged their way on through the steaming jungles of Namaste IV, their natural belligerence having given way to fear, and fear to full blown panic.  Their numbers further reduced by the shadowy creatures that stalked them, the orks were finally forced to make a stand on the bank of a sluggish, stinking river thick with algae. Here, the leafy canopy let through much more light than the deep jungle, and as their stalking enemies began to slink from the undergrowth, they were able to see them clearly for the first time.

Humans. Large for humans, definitely, but they were humans nevertheless. Their skins painted with stripes and blotches of green and black and brown.  Their bared blades darkened with mud and soot. Their movements cautious, yet aggressive, and eerily quiet.

No living ork fears humans, but the psychological damage of being hounded through the jungle was already done. Guttural but unenthusiastic war cries escaped ork throats, and battle was joined, fist, knife and boot.
Physical and mental exhaustion had taken its toll on the orks, and the weight of the human numbers soon pushed them backward into the river shallows.

A glancing blow from a half-seen knife pommel to the brow ridge put Zagdrob down, and he lost consciousness in the river shallows.

Sometime later, Zagdrob regained consciousness and one eye opened a crack.  All was relatively quiet for the jungle, but the humans still remained by the river's edge, checking and cleaning weapons, burning their dead.  Cautiously turning his head, Zagdrob could see that no other ork was left alive at the side of the river, although it seemed that some had made it to the far bank, judging by the smashed undergrowth.

Eventually, the humans stowed equipment, and seemingly communicated through hand signals and rapid chopping gestures.  Quietly they began to wade across to the far bank, seemingly making not a splash and leaving only surface eddies in their wake. They seemingly melted into the undergrowth close to the trampled trails left by the surviving orks.  However, Zagdrob knew that in the same direction lay the ork lines, so follow them he must.  And so he did, after salvaging what weapons he could.

He moved carefully, which was no mean feat for an ork, aware that attracting attention would mean his death, and yet also fascinated by the strange human tactics. So onwards he followed, and soon became aware that some of these humans must be injured, as he noticed the odd smear or dribble of blood here and there.
***
Eventually, Zagdrob caught up as a further skirmish was underway. He wormed his way closer, on his belly and slowly clambered back to his feet behind an injured human, who was hanging back from the fighting. Zagdrob reached out, clamping one hand tight about the human’s face, and the other around the back of his head and twisted. He pulled the corpse back into the undergrowth and dropped it behind a tree.  Once again he snuck toward the fighting to look for another victim.
***
This clear-up mission was clearly proving to be a worrying experience for the guardsmen of the Catachan 26th Covert Ops team. When people start to go unexpectedly missing, even hardened killers can get nervous. Whilst they were stalking the greenskins, something was now stalking them.
***
Zagdrob soon began to realise that making the enemy nervous would play to his advantage.  It wasn’t long before he had the bloodthirsty idea of scalping his enemies, and hanging them from trees by their ankles, with their abdomens slit open, entrails coiling out like bloodied grey-blue serpents.
The effects of this were undoubtedly upsetting for the Catachans, finding their comrades mutilated in such a way. Over the coming days, nervousness gave way to fear, and fear to terror, as they were picked off one by one.
***
One night several weeks later, Zagdrob mysteriously appeared in the ork camp, covered in dried gore and bedecked with grisly trophies.
Several nights later as several orks joined Zagdrob at a campfire drinking session, he tried to explain his new found way of waging war. Largely, the reaction was that it didn’t seem an orkish way of fighting and killing. Another ork named Spagbol made the mistake of betting Zagdrob that he wasn’t “for real”.  It was at this point that Zagdrob reached into his mouth and cut out his own tongue, before pinning it to Spagbol’s chest with his knife and beating the poor fellow unconscious.

To this day, no ork has questioned his methods (within the range of his hearing at least) since.

Thursday 7 March 2013

The dokta will see you now... an Ork Kill Team update

Well, it's been a few days since I last posted, and I've not managed to get too much done in the way of painting, but I have managed to knock together another couple of ladz for the Kill Team project... Including an awesome resin pain boy model I picked up from Kromlech EU. Handily enough, their website seems to be down at the moment, so I won't link it at this stage.

Anyways, you can find their stuff on Ebay. They do a fine selection of bits and pieces as well as some complete "character" models for orks. It has an alternate WWII kinda feel to it.  They have a web store on Ebay.com (but not ebay.co.uk for some reason?) in case folks are interested in looking.
Unkle Krakka likes to shoot stuff full of big holes and
chuck stikk bombs about with wild abandon.

Da Dokta, A.K.A Croaker has a penchant for fixin' folks
up whether they needz fixin' or not.

Saturday 2 March 2013

Ork Kill Team #1, the inglorious second bit

So the other day I posted up pictures of the first member of my ork kill team, Gnasha.

Now, the model used to portray Gnasha is from the GW Ork Kommando set.  I wasn't really up for paying the £25+ price tag that GW have put on the Finecast versions of these, so luckily, I was able to snag a painted set of metal ones on Ebay for under £8 including postage, which I then chucked in Dettol to strip down.

In terms of game purposes, he will be played as one of the regular boyz. Reason being, there is no real point paying 10 points for a dude with no armour, and with special rules (infiltrate and move through cover) that would essentially be useless, as he's part of a mixed unit.  For the same points cost, I could effectively make him into an 'ard boy, with a 4+ armour save.

The important thing is, he looks like a member of a crack unit of military specialists. So what is his story?

*****
"As far back as dis ork can rememba, me dar wuz always tellin' us dat da only one ya could propa depend on iz ya self. An' ya know what? Me dar were right, weren't he? Itz one o'dem sure thingz wot a ork 'az ta learn from da get-go: look out fer numba one. Elsewayz some cunt'll be waitin' to crap on ya' bed roll an' rob  ya' blind fer all ya teef, ya shooterz, ya daggerz  n' wot eva else it iz wot ya 'oldz  dear.
So dat iz exactly wot I done. Looked out fer numba one. Coz I don't like bein' around lotza deez uvver ladz, I 'az ta admit it.  Too bleedin' noisy, too bleedin' careless, dem lot. Getz ya killed quick-smart.  Datz wot made me join da Kommandos.  Dem 'umies av' got a word fer it, dat fing wot iz da first fing wot ya learn in da Kommandos - in-dee-pen-dance - or sumpink like dat.
Da second fing wot ya learnz iz about bein' all quiet, like. An' ya know wot? Learned from da best wot there is, me. From a ork callz 'isself "Silent". Taught us all dat ya could need ta know about livin' in da jungle,  an' movin' quiet-like....
A'course da uvver fing wotz good about da Kommandos iz dat we getz in loadza proper tidy scrapz wiv dem  Imp'rial 'umies wot also likes ta stalk inna jungle.  Dey iz a bit 'arder than dem typical 'umies wot ya normally come across. Dey even az some skillz an' dat.
Wotz dat? Wud dis one eva leave da Kommandos?  Not bleedin' likely, pal. Dis iz a way a' life, ya getz me?"
****

Now is probably a good time to post up a few sketches I stumbled across whilst first thinking about using a small force of orks...  All credit to the artist concerned, whoever ye may be.  These were the product of a Google Image search, and have been quite inspirational.

He looks like he's prepared for any of a range of situations. Spare ammo,
grenades and mines strapped to his green-ass self.

For some reason,  I am not too sure of, not only is the
stick of dynamite the grot is about to lob lit, but also the bundle attached
to this kommando's rucksack is about to go off too.,. 

A decent bit of foliage never did anybody any harm,
did it? Not sure if this can be classed as stealth, or just
typical orky low cunning!!

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