Plague Marines

I decided last week that I fancied painting something a bit different to the normal humans and fantasy figures I've been on with recently - here's what I pulled out of the "undercoated/painting in progress" drawers...

The 3 sons of Nurgle that I finished - lots of rust, verdigris and grime, my favourite things to paint!

More to go!

These Plague Marines were undercoated with Halfords grey primer, but I decided that I wanted to start them from black. I then gave everything a heavy drybrush of Tin Bitz, followed by a drybrush of Boltgun Metal in a few areas (blades, guns, emblems, shoulder pad trims etc.) and followed that up with a verdigris wash over everything. I then selected 3 to try out my planned scheme, using VMC Hull Red for their armour plates, a pinky/brown mix for the boils and other nastiness, then drybrushing, and finally rust, muck, all that good stuff! I have a good few more to go and I need to build a leader for them from the Blightkings boxed set (a wonderful set - another Christmas present!).

Forgeworld Chaos Dwarfs

I picked up these Chaos Dwarf Infernal Guard last year in a trade from a friend - decided to add them to my Warriors of Chaos force as normal Warriors (hence the 25mm bases).  The warriors I already have for the army have verdigris-heavy armour, so it was an easy enough choice for these.  To be honest, these seem to have taken ages to complete - I'm very glad that they're done! As I was trying to rank them up to take some pictures I realised that they would have been a nightmare to rank on 20mm bases - they were cramped on 25mm!

Thoughts most welcome!

2013 Round-Up (just 19 days late...)

Hi guys - I've been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks now but I have only just gotten around to it! A quick recap of what I got upto in 2013 and my next post will cover my current projects and my plans going forward...

The most important part of 2013 (with regards to my blog) is that GAMES ARE BEING PLAYED! It's difficult to underestimate how good this is - I've been "back in the hobby" for 5 or so years now, but even before my break in wargaming, I rarely played (once or less a year, despite having multiple armies!). In the latter half of 2013 I played multiple games of Flying Lead and Songs of Blades and Heroes - I've been planning out games and settings for years and it was a great feeling to see my painted miniatures and terrain on the table! I even got a couple of my non-wargaming friends to start playing (my housemate and another of my best friends) and, most importantly, they kept asking for more battles!

I've actually gotten a really decent amount of figures completed this year for various different projects and I got stuck into my zomb-apoc stuff during October with Zomtober 2013 - here are a few examples of things completed this year:

Michonne and her two "camoflage" zombies - I'm very fond of her paintjob - she was a gift to myself when I'd finished half of my Studio Miniatures plastic zombie horde! Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

Chosen Space Marines of The Desolation - In The Emperor's Name

Goblins from The Hobbit - this was a lovely plastic kit! Lots of variety too. They're to be used as devolved humans in Necromunda/Space Hulk/post-apoc

Some Private Military Contractors from Empress Miniatures (sold as SAS, mine have a couple of headswaps) - these are for zomb-apoc

Wasteland Sniper - this guy is intended as a scout/herald for a new (Caesar's Legion-inspired) faction in my post-apoc. Warmachine/Hordes

Misc Studio Miniatures plastic zombies - I did enjoy painting the ones in the prison jumpsuits and the Drive-inspired one in the front! Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

A biker survivor (em4 Miniatures) and misc feral ghouls (Mantic Games plastic zombies). Painted as part of Zomtober 2013

Missing from the round-up are various different figures, an orc and goblin warband (Celtos miniatures, for my fantasy skirmish setting), 19 pirate scum (40k Chaos Cultists), 30 or so plaguebearers (plastics and kitbashes!), more zombies... A good painting year in general!

Fabius Bile

I know that I've been skimping on the painting updates recently - I've posted lots of work-in-progress conversions and the like - today is exactly the same! I'd planned on getting a few more hours of painting in but ended up cleaning up bits and pieces and putting together this guy...

Fabius Bile will be familiar to most Warhammer 40000 fans - he was the Chief Apothecary of the Emperors Children Legionne Astartes, who eventually betrayed the Emperor and swapped their allegiance to Slaanesh, the god of excess. Fabius is your general mad scientist-type character, attempting to unlock the secrets that the Emperor used in the creation of not only the Space Marines, but the Primarchs too. I've had the miniature, minus the Rod of Torment and one of the Chirurgeon (his medical-helper backpack) arms. I recently found the Rod of Torment cheap on eBay and replaced both arms with plastic parts from the Dark Eldar Talos kit. I love the way he's turned out - reminds me of an arachnid...

Fabius basically works as a freelancer in 40k, offering his skills to the highest bidder, getting paid in slavestock and geneseed. He'll fit nicely alongside my Chaos Renegades.

Horde of Nurgle

Finally, the last of my Plaguebearer horde is assembled and green-stuffed! They're based up and just awaiting paint - as mentioned on an earlier post, my plan is to get some of the Necrotic Flesh undercoat from Army Painter in the next few weeks. Considering I have this lot, plus 80-odd zombies, it seems to make sense...

All Praise to Grandfather Nurgle

I had a day off work yesterday and decided to get some work done on my long-planned kitbash plaguebearers - the above imagine shows the three plague-ridden daemons that I managed to finish building...

I have another 11 that are fully assembled and awaiting more greenstuff detailing - it's actually turned out to be quite time consuming! I'm using some Gors, Ungors and Kroot as the basic bodies, heads from Heresy Miniatures blights and a few leftovers from the plastic Plaguebearer kit with arms from all over the place. These, plus the 10 new plastics, plus 10 of the last-edition metals leaves me with a lovely 34 Plaguebearers for my daemon force - is it a coincidence that Army Painter is re-releasing the Necrotic Flesh spray undercoat in a week or so? I think not.

Dark Vengeance

Bloody brilliant! Dark Vengeance pictures have been online for a week or two now, and I have some favourites...

I'm gona need about 60 of the Chaos Cultists - I have a million and one ideas for their use buzzing about in my head...

1. Frateris Militia - I have some gasmask heads with turbans from Ramshackle Games that would suit these figures well - I'd lop off their heads, replace them, remove any chaotic icons, add prayer script/purity seals/personal Imperial icons. They're basically cultists for the Imperial Church, so these fit well.
2. Redemptionists - similar conversion, with various different masked heads instead. 
3. Ash Waste/Desert Nomads - probably the least converting required - maybe more shawls and water bottles, everyone gets a gas mask/rebreather.
4. Imperial Workers Militia/Scratch Company - like the ones from Necropolis. Formed from loyalist Imperial civilians who have banded together to resist invasion from . I'd swap in some bare heads, maybes some Lasguns on a few of them.
5. Genestealer cultists - again, head swaps, new icons, pretty much done!
6. ...and so on! Anyone have other suggestions?

This guy may be my favourite of the lot. The gloves and tabard really make it. I'd love to see him with the masked head removed and a hairy flagellant head (with sculpted mask) added!

I absolutely love the Chaos side of this set - on the plus side for Dark Angels players, it's going to be amazingly easy to start up a new force - I can see eBay being flooded with that side of the box. It kind of sucks that today is payday and the pre-orders have gone online on every webstore! Must. Not. Purchase!

Realms of Chaos: The Lost and The Damned

I have a sudden urge to build traitors. Courtesy of this artwork. That's probably why I just ordered the new Plaguebearer plastic set. Bugger.


At least this isn't a new project out of the blue - I have various Chaotic forces for 40k, with a big batch of work-in-progress Plaguebearer conversions (kroot, gor and ungor bodies with skeleton, zombie and beastmen arms, various weapons and heads from the Heresy Miniatures not-Plaguebearers) - these plastics will mix in perfectly!


Oh, and the scan comes from the Gothic Punk tumblr. Lovely Blanchian goodness!

Chaos Sorcerer - Work In Progress

I converted this Chaos Sorcerer when I first started buying bits and pieces from eBay for my Chaos Warriors - this was the first miniature put together for the force. 

The idea was for a sorcerer who had made a number of mistakes in his service to the Dark Gods - betrayed the patronage of God X for the patronage of God Y etc. and suffered the consequences. His form is distorted, one arm replaced with a hideous claw, his skull stripped of it's flesh and permanently aflame...

Sometime in the past few months, the conversion has lost his head... the flaming skull from the Empire Wizard kit. Thankfully, I've managed to find a generous fellow on one of the many forums I frequent, who has posted a spare on it's way to me! Phew...all of the bits sites were bereft of this lovely piece!

Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch - Command

Edit - better picture of the warriors uploaded...

I've been off work ill for a couple of days this week - the dreaded cold/lurg-y. As such, I've had a bit of time to block out the colours on the front rank of the Chaos Warriors. This is a terrible picture I realise, but I am too shattered to consider going back and taking it again at the moment... 

I also worked on the banner for the unit - previously I was just using the icon (from the Marauder Horsemen), but it was a little plain. I added the prayer streamers from the Ravenwing sprues, pinned to the bottom of the hanging skulls. Works rather well I think!


I have also been pondering unit fillers for these and for the Marauder unit I have WIP - I'm thinking trolls or ogres, mobile shrines etc. - not entirely sure!

Warriors of Apoc

My friend linked me to this preview image of Avatars of War's new not-Chaos Warriors, the Warriors of Apoc. I'm very impressed with these, especially after being underwhelmed by the Slayers they put out (which, to me, were a little static for homicidal mohican-clad dwarves). I may just end up buying some of these. The resin/plastic mix "Warcast" sounds rather interesting too.


Hrm, probably about time to work on some Tzeenchian Warriors of Chaos...

Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch: Next four done!

Next four Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch complete! Another bunch of minis that have been sat on the desk for what feels like ages - four more to complete and this regiment is done!

Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch - further progress

Just thought I'd update with the next four Chaos Warriors - they look rather different whilst work in progress, yes? I do enjoy painting them on the long base - seems to work out a lot easier to batch paint them this way.

Return to Mordheim

Finally managed to finish off this lovely classic miniature over the weekend - he's a rather old Games Workshop Chaos Warrior wearing a beastman skin. I love the armour and hammer!

I've had about three different shields on this gentleman before settling on an Orc plastic shield with one of the plastic building detailing parts from the original Mordheim box. I've always loved them and yet never really found a place to use any of them. I decided that it added a lovely slice of weird to an already quite strange miniature! 

Another of my projects from over the weekend - assembling Lord Carver, BMMD, Esq. from the Hordes Thornfall Alliance - I can't decide between Thornfall Alliance (a force of boar-men - think beastmen but from wild boars...) and the Blindwater Congregation (crocodile/alligator-men with a US Deep South/swampdwelling yokel-theme, plus frogs and giant turtles - being a massive fan of reptiles and amphibians, I really like these guys...). Thoughts? This was one of the many miniatures I decided was a must-have when I first saw it - there's just so many different things to love, utter badass!

This chunky little fellow is a Mordheim Halfling Thief - a miniature I've liked for quite a while, yet never got around to picking up. I finally found him unpainted and cheap on eBay - £2.49, amongst a bunch of other auctions I couldn't refuse. So I got him, a great retro Chaos Sorcerer and 80% of a Chaos Knights plastic regiment for under £10. Fairly good!

Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch - first four painted!

I finally managed to slap some paint on the first of the Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch last weekend, finishing a couple of bits and pieces on them over the last few evenings - as always, click the images for bigger pictures:

Very happy with the way these have turned out - I have a rather free weekend so I should be able to paint another third of the starting unit. I've also picked up a few more lovely cheap eBay buys to expand these guys and I also have some donations from a friend that should be arriving in the post soon...

Comments would be most welcome!

Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch

I recently had a big tidy out of my lead mountain - with the start for my new job finally confirmed I decided to go through my various storage boxes around my flat, sort through my miscellaneous bits boxes and organise my next few projects in an attempt to stop needing to dig through numerous boxes to find particular miniatures!

Whilst doing this sorting I decided to keep all of the fantasy Chaos miniatures I'd stockpiled over the years to one side, to start putting together a force to learn how to play the game with. This was further influenced by the recent release of Storm of Magic, which left me yearning to build and paint the fantasy force I'd had planned for years...

Here's the start of my Warriors of Chaos army - 12 Chaos Warriors with the Mark of Tzeentch and a full command section. As always, click the photos for bigger pictures!

This is the standard bearer, Champion and musician. The Champ was one of those conversions that flowed together rather perfectly - blindfolded head from the old mutation sprue and a sword and shield from the plastic Chaos Knights. The sword is a bit different to the ones the rest of the unit use and the shield works perfectly with the blindfolded head!

Detail of the sword and head.

The rest of the Warrior unit - I've converted a number of weapons to make them look a bit more varied (including transplanting weapons from left hands onto right), removed any horns on their helmets and added them to the pelts at the top of their cloaks and added pieces of parchment nailed to their shields.

This unit seems to have taken quite a long time to get to this stage - once I go back over them all for missed moldlines and the like, plus add sand to bases where needed, I'll get them undercoated and ready for painting!

Bit of news...

Nothing particularly special about this post, other than having a date to start my new job! Hurrah, huzzah and other such exclamations of happiness! I start Monday coming, working 9-5 for the next 6 weeks and then similar hours following that. I am overjoyed! 


In other news, I'm currently having a big spring (summer, even) clean - I wanted to get my miniature horde in some semblance of order before starting the new job - wargames miniatures had taken over my wardrobe and I could never find the stuff I wanted! In doing so, I've kept all of my Warriors of Chaos stuff to one side - I'll be assembling these over the next few weeks, as Storm of Magic has rather intrigued me!

What I'm Upto...

So, I've done a little bit of painting...

This is the tester for my Dark Eldar. To say I'm unhappy with it would be an understatement - it's turned out much darker than I planned. If you mind the pun. She looks a bit too Chaotic - I'd wanted to do something a bit different than the dirty, dusty, mucky stuff I normally paint, so this lady has just had a nice bath in Fairy Power Spray alongside the other four Wyches I've been on with. The plan now is to go for a colder scheme, pale purple with silver armoured pieces instead of brass and plenty of blood splatters.

Classic Chaos Warrior - this guy is a hired sword for Mordheim. He's also a tester for my Chaos army - the armour is supposed to be a sort of flesh-tone, they're going to be undivided but vaguely Nurglesque. I do love that he's wearing a beastman skin...

I've decided that I want to do something as a bit of a change, and the Space Hulk box was staring me in the eye - it's probably the wargame that'll get the most usage. Best get these sorted out...

The Hounds of Chaos are callin'...

Couldn't really help myself with that blog title...


These are the last of the Chaos Hounds I had in the paint queue - this takes me up to around 15 that I have done now for my Warriors of Chaos. This army has been very slow burn - these have literally been basecoated for about a year! So far I have the hounds and some Marauder Horsemen finished, with a load of Warriors, a big unit of Marauders on foot, a couple of Spawns and a scattering of heroes that are awaiting further construction and paint.


I may end up using the Spawn in 40k instead, as I can't ever imagine getting to play with the Warriors of Chaos that much...


Not that I manage to play much as it stands! My flatmate's younger brother and stepfather both play Fantasy, a fact I learned rather recently - that certainly spurred me on to finish off these and move onto something interesting. I have a few characters in the pipeline - some of the "Red Period" Sorcerers (so-called as it was the time when GW had to have everything painted in red) and a Chaos Lord on foot.

The Spoils of Wargaming

Bit of a new "feature" this, in the same way as the new "Conversion Corners" I've posted over the past couple days.


In these posts I'll be basically showing off my latest purchases. Which won't be a great amount at the moment, but here's the first - a bunch of ork bits from eBay. I'd been looking for the kan and dread weapons, but the spares from the nobz boxed set and the arms from the plastic stormboyz were going rather cheap - I liked a lot of the cool bits and pieces from the nobz set and the other arms will either be used with various conversions or donated to a friend.

The dread/kan arms, on the other hand, will be used for some kitbashed/scratchbuilt chaos engines - they'll be used as dreadnoughts in my renegade army - for which I've picked up numerous bits and pieces for over the last few months...