Relics of a fallen Imperium part 3

Word Bearers marine with lightning claws

I might have mentioned at some point in the past couple of months that the Chosen from the Dark Vengeance box were simply screaming "WORD BEARERS" at me from the very moment I got my hands on the sprues.

My thoughts about including these in my Death Guard army are thus: I don't see any realistic reason why they shouldn't go off campaigning with the Death Guard. They are both original traitor legions, so I'd like to think that there ought to be some kind of commonality of purpose on many different levels. If you choose to disagree, then it's like The Dude says in The Big Lebowski: "That's just, like, your opinion, maaaan."  And like I say: "It's not as if your opinion even counts."

The Dude abides.

Anyways, I've obviously been doing my Death Guard in pre-Heresy colours, so I then had the choice to make. Do I do the Word Bearers in pre-Heresy or post-Heresy colours? Well, the pre-Heresy colours for these guys struck me as being a bit lacklustre, being all plain granite grey and all.  Plus, the models are pretty chaosy, and don't lend themselves too well to a pre-Heresy scheme.

And the post-Heresy colours didn't really sit quite right for me either, being blood red and silver.  I just didn't think the contrast was quite right.

So I searched back through what I'd read about them, in particular, about their Primarch, Lorgar. Variously know as Aurellian or The Urizen.  For now, I must digress...

So, to summarise Imperial history (and no doubt bastardise the 40k cannon in the process) Lorgar and the Word Bearers were the first to realise the Imperial truth, as it were, and notice the divine might of the Emperor.  They were the first to preach this word to worlds brought back to compliance in the Great Crusade.  Obviously, the Emperor was in denial of his own divinity, and his Great Crusade was aimed toward reuniting the lost colonies of mankind, and freeing these colonies from the oppressive yoke of the  ignorance of all religion.  So it comes as no surprise that  he'd be ticked off at Lorgar's zealotry. Lorgar gets a sound telling off, and feels hurt and betrayed by his father. Time passes, blah blah blah, Lorgar is led astray by some of his lieutenants who have been secretly worshipping the chaos pantheon, blah blah blah, visit the Eye of Terror, blah blah, visions of the future, blah blah blah, and eventually show their true colours as puritanical daemon-worshipping zealots.

Digression over. Suffice to say that the Word Bearers worship the very ground on which The Urizen walks, and would therefore seek to imitate him where possible.  Seems the guy liked to paint his face with gold leaf, and panda out his eyes with kohl, much like Gothy Simon from the 6th form (apart from the gold leaf part at least). Anyway, an idea was beginning to form.

I decided that I would use the idea of the Urizen's golden visage to be the influence on the trim of the armour.  For the colour of the plate, I would take the post-Heresy blood red and darken it to a rich burgundy colour (influence taken from Oxblood leather sofas), the better to contrast with the gold trim (and to more solidly differentiate between the red and brass of Angron's boring World Eaters).

Anyway, here is what happened, in like pictures and that:

Yes, I realise he doesn't have lightning claws.  I forgot to take pics of this step.
Basically, I started out by giving anything on the miniature that was metallic,
or what I considered to be part of the armour trim a dry brush of Tin Bitz to
make it stand out.

Same as the front.

At this stage, I'd used Formula P3 Sanguine Base to block in the burgundy
on the armour plates. The trim has been roughly picked out in Brazen Brass
and the silver looking parts are done in Formula P3 Pig Iron. Which is a
really great dull / matt metallic colour. Quite chaosy.  Then the whole lot got
a wash with Devlan Mud.

Same as front.

Here, I've added another layer of Sanguine Base to the plate. A layer of
Formula P3 Blighted Gold has been roughly applied over the Brazen Brass.
The eye lenses have been picked out in a mix of Ceramite White and Necron
Abyss, which I thought made a reasonably nice contrast to the warmer
colours on the rest of the model.

Same as front. Do you see a pattern emerging?

These two shots are to illustrate how dazzling the gold
colour can be when lit up with a flash.  This was quite
fortunate, considering my idea of the Urizen's golden
visage.  His eyes seem to glow quite strongly here, too.

Don't make me say it...

Same deal only unflashed. If that's even a word.  However, this time I'd also
added a wash with the old GW Chestnut ink to the shoulder area. This adds
an almost reflective sheen from the burgundy plates.

To finish, I re-picked out the raised areas with more Blighted Gold. I high-
lighted the burgundy areas with a mix of Sanguine base and GW Go Fasta
Red (remember this one?). I also picked out the eye in the shoulder guard,
as well as the tongue, which got a coat of Tallarn Flesh, followed by a
highlight of Elf Flesh. And that, as they say, is that.

Accident, death & rebirth...

People that have been following this for a while may remember that Tom converted up a Chaos Lord for my birthday a couple of months back.

Here is how he originally looked: http://miasma-of-pestilence.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/chaos-lord-of-nurgle-birthday-present.html

Unfortunately I had him out of the cabinet to look at the other day, and, fate being fickle as ever, I dropped him.  This is after he'd already survived the tender mercies of Royal Mail and everything.  Luckily he didn't break into several tiny bits!

I'm sorry, Tom!

 I then needed to try and find a way to reattach him to the base, But couldn't think of an appropriate way to do so.  I thought that instead, I would put (pin) him onto a heavier resin base of 25mm size. This also means that he can legally come out campaigning, and I'm hoping that he will prove to be the scourge of Barnsley in a few weeks time...

Initial re-homing completed.

After that, it just took a quick lick o'paint to finish him off.  Coming soon to a table top near you. You will learn to fear his combi-melta and power fist. I tell thee.

I pray to papa Nurgle that this re-homing shall be
fortuitous indeed.

Continued military action on Avignon Primaris part 2

++++++++messageincoming+++++++++Further images captured via servo skull indicate Imperial intervention has started.  Local populace have been massacred, or turned to the worship of Dark Gods. Despite further evidence of Daemonic incursions note that Designation Exterminatus temporarily suspended.  Reports suggest that shrine city of St Asaph largely intact. Relics to be extracted if possible. The Emperor protects. ++++++++messageends+++++++++

A couple of games of 40K 6th edition with SLGG

Over the past couple of weekends, I've had a couple of initial games of 6th edition with a couple of dudes from SLGG (the newly formed South London Gaming Group). We refer to ourselves as sluggers and insist on wearing fake snail horns while we play ( I wish this were true).

This has basically been a bit of fun to try and get used to the new rules system.

I've been using my Death Guard (once with Nurgle Daemon allies), Chris has been using his Snake Bite orks, and Lee used Genestealer Cult which he has based around the Imperial Guard codex.

I took a few photos of these games, which are typically not of the best quality, but I'll include some of them here...

The Pig Mek and his horde of Boar Bikerz bear down on Epidemius and 

and some of his Plague Bearer chums

Chris' Boar Bikerz are some pretty cool Orky constructs, and look very 

intimidating as they careen across the tabletop towards you...

...particularly when  seen from an angle like this

This little scrum of Death Guard possessed and Ork Nobs has proven to have
become something of a grudge match type face off for myself and Chris in the
last three games...

The Death Guard rhino attempts (and fails) to ram the Snake Bites Boar
Trukk, as two Daemon Princes casually stroll by to engage some Ork Boyz

Ooh, bloody 'ell! Lee's (partially built) Valkyrie intimidates some Death Guard
Havoks in the ruins of a building.  I'd never realised those things were so
damned big. Note to self: must get flyer of some kind...

The Boar Trukk hurtles down the Old Kent Road

Waaaargh!!!!

The Fly Blown (Thrice Blessed by Nurgle) and the Pig
Mek thunder towards each other, eager for an epic brawl

Polaroid courtesy of bystanding Nurgling in a side street

Gratuitous black and white shot of the same face off from a Grot using
an Orkstamatic camera

Get 'im, Boss!! Battle is joined between The Fly Blown and the
Pig Mek, whilst the Boyz offer suggestions and hurl dung from
the sidelines.  As it turns out, the aforementioned suggestions did
not prove to be viable, and the Pig Mek dragged himself off to find a
Pain Boy... "Doc, me 'ead urtz!"

Hastily improvised crater made from a roll of masking tape.  This was the
result of the Fly Blown smashing through the side of the Boar Trukk, which
subsequently went hurtling off out of control and exploded, annihilating 2 of
my Possessed, but handily delivering it's payload of Ork Nobz to continue their
grudge match...

Continued military action on Avignon Primaris

++++++++messageincoming+++++++++Approx. 14 days ago by standard Imperial reckoning the following images were captured via servo skull in the Perditus Grand Plaza area of Gaskell hive, Avignon Primaris++++++++++messagepause++++++++++++remote up-link intermittent++++++++++messagepause++++++++++++Military action continues between green-skins of Snake Bite clan and Adeptus Astartes of the Death Guard designated Excomunicatus Traitoris Extremis++++++++++messagepause++++++++++++remote up-link intermittent++++++++++messagepause++++++++++++Appearance of warp creatures on planetary surface.  Suggest immediate interdiction of Avignon system and subsequent viral bombardment. Designation Exterminatus++++++++++++messageends++++++++++++

Images from the Nurgle Grotesquerie part 4

DIY gaming board on a budget

At the back end of November, Tony is coming back up Norf for a weekend of beer, food and 40K.  This is a good thing.

I had a think about where we can set up and fight, unfortunately Barnsley isn't overly populated with gamers, therefore gaming clubs are a bit thin on the ground.  I didn't really want to go back to when we were kids and use the living room carpet and use breakfast cereal boxes as hills, so I set out to make a board.

First things first, I had to come up with a plan. Living in a small terraced house means space is limited so a solid 6'x4' board with its own place was a no no. The board had to be modular, lightweight, durable and cheap. The GW modular board is most awesome, but at £170-odd quid it was out of my price bracket apparently as "the kids need food, Tom" my other half said.

I picked up six 2'x2' styrofoam boards from Antenocitis Workshop for £21.

Boards, on the table, that's it really.

I gave them a base coat of Polycell Basecoat that I had lying around in the cellar. The basecoat took about 7 hours to dry, so I took this opportunity to watch a load of Game of Thrones.

Basecoated, drying in the garden, one or two of the boards now smell like Lemon Thyme.

When they finally dried I covered them in PVA glue scattered a mix of medium ballast and bird cage sand over and left to dry again giving me the opportunity to finish off season one of Game of Thrones. When that was all dry and stuff I gave it a couple of coats of black spray, nowt fancy just wilko's own black crap, works well on things like this but I wouldn't even let it near a miniature. When the spray coat was dry I over-brushed them with various browns, reds and oranges and then 2 coats of clear mat varnish to stop the sand from rubbing off. As a final touch I lobbed some green scatter on. The bird cage sand is brilliant, a 1kg bag for a quid did all six tiles and has a great range of grain sizes.

Quick and cheap. Job done.

The overall result isn't going to blow anyone's minds, but for about 12hrs work (including drying times) and about £40 I ain't complaining. I've got a full sized board I can store in my cellar, weighs nothing, can be set up anywhere in less than 20 seconds and it can fit in the boot of a car.

Now, terrain....

Today I'll leave you with this:

The ridiculous Captain Cortez sculpt receives the truly awful paint job it deserves from my 7 year old. Honestly this figure makes me weep. What were GW thinking when they okay'd this sculpt!?