I had played Nurgle CSM/Deathguard armies since 3rd Edition. Originally it was a Rhino rush army that then was adjusted for all the different versions of 40k and the different codexes. So now it was time again to update the army again for the latest Edition of the game - or rather a complete overhaul since I was going to use completely new models for most of the army.

The army was planned for 2000 points. Three units of 10 Plague Marines mounted in Rhinos were to be the core of the army. A Vindicator and 10 Terminators with a Nurgle Banner were added for some heavy hitting power. A Lascannon Predator and a Lascannon armed Dreadnought provided anti-tank capability. The army was the rounded off by a Chaos Lord with the Mark of Nurgle in Terminator armor.

Overall I wanted to stay away from the decayed/diseased/bloated look that most modelers and painters go for. I also didn’t want to use the official Plague Marine models since they were too “static” and didn’t allow for enough customization. The same was true for the vehicles. I didn’t want the vehicles to be too decayed and instead opted for a more “patched up” look.

The squad markings were the Nurgle symbols from the lost and the damned/slaves to darkness books. These books added special symbols for all Chaos gifts and demons and I decided to use those to mark individuals and Squads.

The Chaos Lord was equipped with the Mark of Nurgle, Terminator armor and a Demon Weapon (Plaguebringer). The miniature was based largely on the currently available plastic kit. The arms were repositioned. The weapon was converted using the Force Weapon staff and the handle of the Poweraxe. The scythe blade was from a WHFB Zombie. I then added the head from the WHFB Nurgle Lord (that I had leftover from a previous project). Greenstuff was then used to fix the right hand, the personal symbol/mark on the shoulder pad (the symbol stood for the old “Gift of Immensity”), encrust the the blade and close some gaps. The base of the model is from the WHFB Hero basing kit with a OOP Scorpion added (it was one of two that were available as the previous version of the Tomb King Tomb Swarm).

The Terminators were “leftover” from a previous version of this army. I had try to sculpt and cast an entire army but had problems with the casting material/process (it seems I couldn’t get resin to work properly). The Terminators turned out mostly ok, so I kept them. The original model was based on the older Space Marine plastic Terminator. I just gave them a bigger gut and added Chaos trim and cabling. The Helmet was sculpted to look more “nurglesque” by adding a gas mask and a WWII German style helmet. The twin linked bolter was originally a CSM Terminator Combi-Bolter/Flamer. The Power weapon arm simply had the Chaos star removed and replaced with the Squad logo - the symbol for the Beast of Nurgle. The Squad itself was made up of 10 Terminators (to allow 2 Reaper cannons and to make the Banner more economical). The Reaper cannons and the Powerfists on the two models were simply added from (the previous version of the) regular CSM Terminators. I just added the Squad symbol. The Champion had a WHFB Ungor head added and the twin lightning claws from the new Terminator Lord. The banner had to be converted and I figured as an Chosen Champion of Nurgle the Terminator Champion would not carry it himself and have a Plaguewitch carry it instead. The model is from Bronze Age (seems I cannot finish a project without one of those models these days). The banner staff is brass rod, the banner top was made from mostly Chaos vehicle accessory sprue parts and the banner itself is from Greenstuff. Some of the squad’s bases had pieces added from the various Citadel miniature basing kits.

I managed to get the Rogue Trader era Dreadnought a couple of years ago. And even though the model according to the army list was armed with a Lascannon I decided to not change anything on the model and to leave the old Powerclaw and Plasmacannon combo (it seemed almost blasphemous to me to even contemplate a conversion). I based him on a 40 mm base and tried to paint him in the same style as the rest of the army (which was a bit tricky since the style of the miniatures had changed quite a bit since the model had been released).

I had to find a way to distinguish the three squads of Plaguemarines other than the squad badges. I found the problem with most marine armies is that the models looks very similar and when the massive pile-up in the middle of the board occurs it is very hard to tell the squads apart. So I decided to use different types of heads and helmets for the different squads.

The first squad was built heads with gas/filter masks. The badge was the “Nurgle Fly”. The special weapons for this squad were plasma guns and the Aspiring Champion was equipped with a personal icon. Since this squad will be the one calling in the Terminators, the fly symbol is repeated on the back of the Terminators’ armor. The Nurgle Fly was also added to the attached Rhino. The symbol was cut out of plasticard and glued to the top hatch. The patched up look on the Rhino was achieved by adding bits of textured plasticard.

The second squad was built with bare/plain helmets. The squad icon was the symbol of the Great Unclean One. The squad’s special weapons were two Meltaguns. The Aspiring Champion was converted to carry the head of a Champion of Tzeentch (the first ever game I played with this army was a Tzeentch player and he had used this head for his Lord. I managed an instant kill with the Vindicator, so I thought it was only fitting to add this trophy somewhere in the army). The squad’s logo was also duplicated on the Rhino.

The third squad was assembled with horned helmets. The squad emblem was the glyph of the Plaguebearer. Two flamers were added as the special weapons. I converted the Champion to have two horns on his helmet (the original has only one), since I figured it would look better if all models have two horns. And the squad badge was repeated on the Rhino again.

The conversion work on the Predator was kept fairly minimal. I only added four rows of spikes to the front to make it look different from the Rhinos (since it has a much higher armor value on the front than the APCs) and I also used the textured plasticard like on all the tanks for the patched up look. The Tank commander’s head is a Iron Warrior’s head.

The Vindicator was originally meant to have the demonic possession upgrade. So I started converting it and gave it the sphincter (inspired by the Saarlac) in the top hatch. In the latest version of the army list it actually does not have the upgrade but I decided to keep the hatch anyway.

There are more things planned to be added to this army in the future. I want to convert a Sorcerer so I have a choice of leaders. I have a couple of ideas about objective markers. I am thinking about adding an allied demon force (about 1000 points to bring the whole list up to 3000 points for bigger battles) since I have two packs of Plaguebearers from previous versions of the army. And I also want to add a Plaguereaper and a Plaguetower for Apocalypse games.

-Lamenter

Filed under: Death Guard, Galleries - Mini Showcase by Lamenter
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Ever since I played Blood Bowl I have played strength teams. So finally I thought that it was time to play an agility team. So I looked into the different flavors of Elf available (Dark Elf,High Elf, Pro Elf and Wood Elf) and finally settled on Dark Elf - the Elf team that plays like a strength team - no need to get too experimental.

As always I did not like the officially available Dark Elf models. The team currently available was originally sculpted for the 3rd edition of the game. And I think they were some of the worst looking models that GW ever produced. So I had to make my own team again. The new WHFB Dark Elf plastics looked very good, so i decided to make a team based on the plastic Corsairs and Cold One Knights with the odd metal model thrown in. As usual all models were based on Heresy Flagstone bases.

 The picture shows the assembled team. For the main team color I had chosen Warlock Purple, shaded with a wash of black. To give it a nice contrast I chose bone and black stripes as the secondary color. This was also done to cover up the rather bland pants of the Corsairs. Since the back of the original models was meant to be covered by the sea dragon cloaks the pants were mostly feature-less and the striped pattern would help to cover that. The team name had to be suitably “Dark Elvish” enough, so I named them the “Hellbound Heart”.

The Blitzers were made from Knight torsos and arms and corsair legs. The heads/masks were converted with green stuff. They all had the Knight crests added or two or three horns sculpted/added from the existing helmets. They were also painted with all the metal parts in gold color to show their specialist status (or the fact that they would be of noble origin).

The Linemen were also made with Knight torsos, to show that they also had AV8. Only in their case I used arms from the Corsair sprue instead of the Knights sprue. I also gave all of them the classical Dark Elf helmets with the single spike/crest on the front, so that they could be the “rank and file”. For the same reason all their metallic bits were painted in silver color.

The Witchelves were metal WHFB models taken straight out of the blister. The only thing I had to do was clip the weapons off. I particularly liked the taunting witch - and I liked her with the dagger behind her back, so I left it in place. The color scheme was slightly reversed on them, since their clothing was different from the rest of the team.

The runners were made with Corsair parts alone, to show their low AV7. However I though that having a model with a cloak on the field would not look right (that is not an Assassin). So I made the back of the armor/model with green stuff. I also sculpted the single shoulder pad on each model. I also used the heads without helmets on them, again to show their low armor value.

The assassins were metal WHFB models - this time without any modification. The assassin with the running pose was pretty much a perfect fit for use in Blood Bowl. Again, the slightly different equipment and clothing required a slight change in the way they were painted, but in general I stuck to the overall colors and paint scheme.

The team also had coaching staff added. I did not get around to actually painting the assistant coaches, so only the cheerleaders were added. The models were 2nd Edition Dark Elf Cheerleaders, as available from GW. No change or conversion was necessary. In their case I changed the striping a little bit, to accommodate the different sculpt.

Our league allowed 1,000,000 gc as the starting team value. So for my initial line up I decided to go for four Blitzers, seven Linemen and two rerolls with 10,000 left in the treasury. The initial purchases were to be the Witchelves and the Apothecary followed by the third reroll. And then - depending on the opponents in the league - I would purchase the Runners and/or Assassins.

Until next time - Lamenter

Filed under: Galleries - Mini Showcase, Hellbound Heart by Lamenter
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The new season of Blood Bowl was about to start in our local league and so it was time again to start a new team. After a lot of debating with myself I decided to try a Nurgle team. These teams are a weird mix of strength (Nurgle Warriors and Pestigors) and cannon fodder (Rotters) with a strange big guy (Nurgle Beast) thrown into the mix as well which makes for unique tactics and game plans.

Unfortunately the Rotters team that is currently available from GW is not compatible with the current LRB5 version of the rules. So I had to make my own again. (EDIT: since the December 2008 revamp of the GW online catalogue there is a compatible team available. But too late now…)

This picture shows the team as a whole including the coaching staff. There are more than 16 players. I had made extra Rotters (to be used as Journeymen) and an additional Beastman with the extra arms mutation. The team was made (mostly) from metal WHFB Nurgle Champions, plastic Beastmen and Zombies and an OOP Citadel Nurgle Beast.

The name of the team was to include “Carnival”. The Carnival theme lends itself easily to Chaos and particularly Nurgle teams. Nurgle is sometimes described to be the Chaos God with a sense of humor and the wandering aspect of the circus allows him to spread disease more easily and hide the taint of chaos. Since I prefer trashy B-movie type names, the team ended up as the “Carnival of Filth”

For the color scheme I chose purple quartered with a green/grey harlequin pattern (to go with the Carnival/Circus theme). The miniatures were painted mostly with Citadel colors (”Space Wolf Grey” and “Dark Angel Green” for the diamond pattern) with the exception of the purple – this was “Dioxazine Purple” from Golden Fluid Acrylics. I chose this purple because my favorite GW Purple “Imperial Purple” is no longer available. This project was also the first one that I used the new Citadel Washes on. And I have to say I really liked the outcome.

The Nurgle warriors were converted from the WHFB Nurgle Champion. Actually the whole idea of the team started with this model, because I thought that this model would be great as a BB player. All that was done was to remove the weapon and basic head swaps. The bare horned head was taken from the plastic Beastmen box (one of the Ungor heads) the helmeted heads were converted from Bretonnian Knights’ helmets (which I got from a buddy).

The Pestigors were (more heavily) converted from the WHFB plastic Beastmen Regiment box. The weapons were clipped off the hands and the existing manes trimmed off. Then clothing, hair and shoulder pads were added with green stuff. The open outstretched hand of the Pestigor with the extra arms mutation was taken from the plastic Zombie box.

The Rotters were the part of the team where the Jesters/Carnival aspect of the team was to be expressed the most. They were converted from WHFB plastic Zombies. Each one of them had a Jester’s cap modeled with greenstuff. Each one of them also had two shoulder pads added (to show their AV8). And on some of them extra clothing was added (as the original Zombies were a little bit too torn up for me). The bells on the Jester’s caps were little beads that were glued to the end of each point of their caps.

The Beast was an unmodified Beast of Nurgle that is now sadly out of production. I had managed to order one from GW mail order several years ago for a different project (that never took off). So all I had to do was put it on a flagstone base and add a pennant to paint the number on.

Coaching staff was added in the form of three cheerleaders and three assistant coaches. The cheerleaders were second edition Chaos Cheerleaders. These models were unconverted.

The assistant coaches were converted to reinforce the Sideshow/Circus theme of the team. These were a “Strong Man”, a “Lion Tamer” and a “Tattooed Lady”. The strong man was based on a WHFB plastic Chaos Marauder, the Lion Tamer on a plastic Empire Militia model. The Tattooed Lady started out as a generic 28 mm female from Bronze Age. Each one of them had clothing added or modified with greenstuff and they were also painted in team colors, albeit with the team colors not as dominant as on the player models.

Our league uses 1,000,000 gc for starting teams. So my line-up in the beginning consisted of 3 Warriors, 2 Pestigors, the Beast and 5 Rotters. I also bought 2 rerolls. The first purchases were to be the remaining Beastmen followed by the last Warrior and then rerolls. This would allow me to fire the extra Rotters once they decay too much and hopefully get the odd free one.

In my case no project is ever fully done, they are merely put on hold for a while. Depending on how the season/team develops I might add some more players. I have a spare Nurgle Champion, in case I need to add a Mutation (the ever-so-tasty claw and mighty blow combo for example). There is a chance I add more mutated Beastmen (in case I need another one with an extra arm) and some non-human Rotters (if I manage to infect someone).

Until next time

Lamenter

Filed under: Carnival of Filth, Galleries - Mini Showcase by Lamenter
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Every now and then I want to play a basic all-round human team instead of all the teams that have special rules and tactics. The article below shows my recently finished human team, the Trollberg Raiders.

I was never really a fan of the basic plastics that came out with the 3^rd Edition box and I also never really liked the metal teams that were/are available from GW (other than the old 2nd Ed metals). I really like the Landsknecht look of the Empire state troops. So the team is based on them.

The color scheme is maroon and yellow. I imagine that the team is made up of a bunch of Empire state troops that didn’t get paid for a while because they were fighting for a poorer Prince of the Ostermark. And so they decided to seek their fortune playing Blood Bowl instead, keeping their old colors and trading in some of the Pikes and Halberds for some shoulder pads. The models were painted with GW Citadel colors. The Maroon was painted with “Terracotta” as base color, the Yellow was “Golden Yellow”.

Most of the team was assembled using models out of two boxes of Empire state troops. I added the odd piece from the Empire Militia box as well. The Ogre was from the Ogre Kingdom Bulls box (which I got from a friend). The (Catcher) girls are from Bronze Age and the cheerleader is a 2nd Ed. BB human cheerleader.

I started by removing all the short swords, daggers and Katzbalgers the models had tucked into their belts. I also removed some of the skulls, bones and hourglasses. Even though I liked these as signs of death and fleeting time, I figured they would remove them before they would go onto a Blood Bowl pitch. I also wanted to stay as close as possible to the landsknecht look. So I tried to keep shoulder pads (made from green stuff) on the small side and tried to give them a medieval look (as opposed to a more exaggerated Blood Bowl look).

The problem with using the state troop models was to find a way to tell the different playing positions apart. In most of the official Blood Bowl models different body postures indicate a different player type - throwers are shown in a throwing motion with a ball, Blitzers tend to be running or charging and so on. The models from the Empire State Troops are posed for sword and pike fighting and are meant to line up tightly in rank and file as per Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules. So they are all modeled with similar stances and arm positions. That means I had to find another way to display player positions.

The throwers were done without helmets or hats. And I tried to give them a vaguely pointing or throwing stance, like they are team leaders directing the team’s offense. They have some parts (arms on one, head on the other) from the Militia sprue.

The Linemen were pretty much straight out of the box. There wasn’t much to do to individualize the models since they were the grunts of the team and they already came with many different heads and arm positions. I did a few extra in case I needed to add journeymen to the team at some stage.

The Blitzers were next on the list. I wanted to keep the overall look of the team mostly uniform, so I decided that to tell the Blitzers apart from the Linemen I would just paint their feathers slightly differently - I settled on a black and yellow pattern. Also to make the models look at least a little bit different I used some arms and a head from the Militia sprue. Two of the models came without feathers (or a different looking feather), so I used the spare ones from the Statetroops sprue.

I needed to be able to tell the Catchers apart from the rest of the team. They are the fastest, weakest and most lightly armored of the whole team. So I figured using girls would be a good way to tell them apart. Unfortunately GW doesn’t produce good looking females models suitable for what I wanted to do. So I decided to get generic 28mm females from Bronze Age instead. All I had to do was put on some clothes (well not too much), hair and padding. I also have to mention here that it is always a pleasure to order from Bronze Age. They are always helpful and usually answer very quickly to requests. My last order from them had a bit of a problem on the delivery (due to me not paying attention) and they were very fast in sorting it out and getting the order replaced.

The last miniature to be added to the team was the Ogre (seems that all human teams eventually get one). I didn’t like the armor plate he had in front of the belly, so that was replaced by a greenstuff belt. I cleaned up his face a bit and also added a shoulder pad (complete with dragon ornament) and straps to hold it in place.

I did not assemble any coaching staff other than the single cheerleader (which I had spare from an earlier project). Once league play will commence again, I might do some assistant coaches and an Apothecary. I might also do some more Catchers, just because they are fun to make.

When it comes to the starting line up for League play (1,000,000 gc) with LRB5 I prefer to go with 4 Blitzers, 4 Linemen, 1 Thrower and two Catchers (I rarely ever use more than two of them). That usually leaves enough for an Apothecary (to protect my skill players from the worst accidents) and three rerolls. I then start filling in more Linemen and after a couple of games the Ogre.

Until next time. Lamenter

Filed under: Galleries - Mini Showcase, Trollberg Raiders by Lamenter
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With the 2007 Blood Bowl rules review Chaos Pact teams became legal again. So it is time again for me to update my minis and start a Chaos Pact again. Since I will keep the name and colors I can also keep some of my old team members.

I have always been fascinated with Chaos Pacts. They offer a unique combination of strength and skill. In the beginning all the strength and skill lie with the added races and the regular guys are pretty much just cannon fodder to throw at the opponent. The key to success with this kind of team is to develop the regular guys so that you can depend more and more on them if the skill (or strength) races get injured.

The picture shows the team as a whole. There are obviously more than 16 players in the picture. This is because some of the players are mutants. I always like to convert a couple of mutants at the beginning when first building a team like this. So that I can exchange them for an actual mutant model once the players develop (the good old “what you see is what you get). This helps my opponent, but it is mostly for my own benefit. I get easily confused about who has what skill or mutation otherwise.

The Marauders are the “rank and file” of the team with the current version of the rules. As a result I have a lot of them. The models are plastic WHFB Chaos Marauders with added green stuff shoulder pads. I don’t like the shoulder pads that come with the box. Some of the models have a darker skin tone than the others. I had painted these models a couple of years ago and used a black base coat. When I painted the new guys I had forgotten that I had used a black undercoat and used a white one instead.

The Marauders were also the models I am concentrating on for visible mutations. The mutations were fairly straight forward conversions. The guys with the extra arms had extra Marauder arms added and some of the fists replaced with the open hands from the plastic WHFB Zombies. The dark skinned Marauder got a head swap with an Ungor and the hands of a 40k Genestealer. The crab like claw came from an older style Daemonette. The rest of the spikes on the guy were made with green stuff.

The strength section of the team is formed by the three “big guys”. These are a Minotaur, an Ogre and a Troll. The Minotaur is an old WHFB Minotaur Lord called Doombull with the weapon removed. Unfortunately he is now out of production. The Ogre is an old WHFB Ogre Gladiator and also out of production. The Troll is from the current version of WHFB. It is the model with the two-handed weapon, so instead of using the weapon arms I sculpted two arms on it, added an extra spiked shoulder pad and removed the skull it had hanging on a ring through the lip.

These models are the skill section of the team. The Goblin is an official Blood Bowl Goblin. The Skaven is an old metal WHFB Skaven slave, with the weapon removed and padding and Jersey added. The Dark Elf is a current WHFB Dark Elf Beastmaster. The left hand held a claw-like weapon on the original model. This hand is replaced with a pointing hand from green stuff. The entire right arm and right shoulder pad were also made from green stuff.

At this point in time the team is supported by three cheerleaders and an apothecary. The cheerleaders are old style High Elf cheerleaders, because I still had them lying around from the last BB project.

The Apothecary is a current WHFB Gnoblar. To show his status as an apothecary he has a Caduceus painted on his back.

There are still some things left to do for this team. I still need some assistant coaches and maybe a mutated Skaven. I had models for the assistant coaches and a different apothecary. Unfortunately they were not GW models. Our current league is playing in a GW store, so I cannot use these models. I need to convert something at some point.

Until next time

Lamenter

Filed under: Galleries - Mini Showcase, Grendel's Cannibals by Lamenter
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