Blessings of the Plaguefather - Heralds of Nurgle and Plaguebearers

Some more off the to do list.

Forge World Herald of Nurgle and the Spoilpox Scrivener:

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Plaguebearers 9 & Plague Drones 2

I picked up earlier in the year some more reinforcements for the Nurgle Daemons, namely another unit of Plaguebearers and another unit of Plague Drones.

This week I finally got round to building them.

For the Plaguebearers you may notice above that I am putting together three champions.

Originally when I build the first two units I had I used the Champion bits for one unit and as I didn't want duplicates I didn't use them on the second one, instead made him stand out in other ways. However now that I will be fielding 40 of the buggers I really need to have the unit champions stand out more, and what I did for the second (and later third) champion just isn't good enough when you have loads of 'bearers all bunched up. Hence now making three new champions using the raised sword so that the will all stand out nicely. For when I field larger units, e.g. two 20 man units or one 30 man with a 10 man unit the two champions standing on rocks will be the unit champions, the other two relegated to the ranks.

As with the other icon bearers I did previously I used the same standard but made a few changes so each one looks a bit different, in this case I kept it simple and just used a spare Blight Kings bit.

Plague Drones 2

I do hate building these things. Gaps everywhere and the wings are a nightmare to fit.

You may remember (but probably not) that I am using these without the riders. I've just never liked the look. When I had only three it was quite simple to tell who was who with the champion being the one without an icon or an instrument. Now I've added three more I needed the champion to be obvious as there will now be four drones without icon or instrument.

Obvious way to make one stand out is to add a Nurgling, who is obviously the brains of the operation.

Drones now come with 60mm bases rather than flying stands. So I have made three new bases for the existing drones, however I need to redo two of the bases to raise two of the drones up - even using the tallest stand the one drone scuplt is too low and they hit the base,

And about Nurgle...

I am sure everyone has seen what is coming out in the next few weeks.

I will be picking up both the new Daemon Codex and AoS Nurgle battletome.

I am sure this will result in some changes to both my 40k and AoS forces. The main thing is I will be adding some Beasts, I just don't know how many - though at £25 a pop it won't be a huge amount.

Taking everything into account, including now using the force for both 40k and AoS and adding the Mortal elements I have updated the State of Play chart...

The right hand column are all of the Mortal elements for Age of Sigmar. Kazyk and the Lord listed used to be down as Heralds. Likewise five of the Blight Kings were originally down as Heralds. As you can no longer take as many Heralds easily I won't be fielding any more than the three I already have...though depending on the new books I may add the new characters.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Plaguebearers 8

I wanted to get these three finished yesterday but due to A. a headache and B. IA13 arriving I didn't touch them at all.

Today I was therefore determined today to get them done.

'Them' are of course the last three Plaguebearers I have.

Last minute I decided to redo the banner poles white. The brown they originally were just looked very flat and boring. I decided to redo them white so they nicely tie in with the tree on the Blight Drone base.

I think the white looks far better than the old brown was.

Now the hands on the one banner pole I will return to at some point. I'm not happy with them but I am undecided what to do instead. I will wait until after I do the tree terrain I have as the one tree is covered in hands...




Others could have done them better but frankly they are good enough for me. I now have three full 10 man squads finished. This is surprisingly considering my past record with painting armies (i.e. I don't).

The core of the army - Plaguebearers and Beasts are now finished...

...or they would be if I hadn't just bought another Toad off ebay. The thought of a 7 beast squad was so right I had to.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Bearers & Beasts...continued

So while I do sketches and small mock ups of the Junka to discuss the design with the customer I have continued with the Daemons. Only once I start the actual build will I begin to do updates on RD.


Plaguebearers 7

Another three are done! Only got the standard bearers to do now. They were the three out of the PIP ones I had I was the least happy with when it came to the paint jobs, the standards just seemed lacking. But anyway here are the three musicians...

Beast of Nurgle 5

Along with the 'bearers I carried on with the Beasts and got the last two done...

So the whole unit together...

I would actually like a seventh to round off the unit in a very Nurgley way.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Bearers & Beasts

In the week I have had back at home after my holiday the most I had managed to do before today was starting to de-sprue bits for the Orky build. Alas work has taken up much of my time.

But now it's the weekend so I got back to playing with toys again.

Today I have mainly been painting Daemons...

Plaguesbearers 6

As I stated in the last post I want to get some of the PIP models finally finished off, so with that I started on the Plaguebearers I ave had in a PIP state for ages.

The first four are now done.

I still have the three standards and three musicians to do.

Beasts of Nurgle 4

As well as finishing off those 'bearers I decided to bring some variety in and I tackled the first of the new batch of toads.

One down, two more to go - which are now in the very early stages of PIP.

Giant Spined Beast 4

I also got the base done for this fellow.

So overall not a bad day, it turned out surprisingly productive.

With that in mind here is the updated State of Play.

A bit more green and best of all a bit more blue.



Tomorrow will be mainly an Orky day...

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Head Herald 1

About time I did a post showing some work on an actual model.

With the next Meet Up approaching with the Heresy Weekender I want to get some reinforcements built for the Nurgle Daemons. If I have time I may even get some paint on them (or perhaps finish some already started...).

First up the new Herald.

This guy will be the leader of the Heralds, the first among equals as it were. He will count as a Herald on Palanquin, I will also try out using the Epidemius rules for him at some point. Can't stand the GW model.

The plan was to build him pretty much as stock, though leaving off his halberd/axe which is normally hanging off the rear of his mount.

In the end I removed his left arm completely and replaced it with a Plaguebearer one and replace his boring looking sword with a Plaguebearer leaders sword, which turned out a bit more tricky than I expected.

He still needs a bit of clean up round the sword joint (see below). His original left hand was a large mutated thing holding what I imagine is the 'reins' for the beast. I had to carve it away without breaking the pieces off.

Once I do the small clean up he'll be done. Not sure I want to add anything else to him.

Next up is the Decimator which I have already started cleaning up and Nurglifying.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Plaguebearers 5 & Nurglings 2

Progress has been slow, but has been made.

I am trying to get these done for the meetup this weekend, however the last day to work on them will be tomorrow evening. It won't happen but I am pushing to get as much done as possible.

Plaguebearers - A lot to do on the bases as well as other details/touchups. Also need to add rust to the swords and metal parts of the icons. Not happy with some things, like the hanging heads but it'll do for now.

Leader and regular grunts.

Musicians

 

Icon Bearers.

Nurglings - Lots and lots to do. Basic colours and washes done only.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Plaguebearers 4b

Just a small update to the previous post regarding the Plaguebearers.

By now I had planned to be painting these, not to mention to have got another evening on the Looted Wagon done. But alas I haven't been feeling great so motivation to play around with glues and sprays hasn't been great.

Hence just a small update.

I have now finished (i think) the three icon bearers.



Bearer #1 - As before except I removed the hanging heads and
added a fleshy banner from the Flagellants set.



Bearer #2 - added some hands and some bells,
again taken from the Flagellant set.



Bearer #3 - no change from the last post,
just included for completeness sake.

The hand additions on the one icon were inspired by a bit of terrain I did some time ago. I added some 'characterful' additions to some GW trees...

Really should get back to the trees and get them painted.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Plaguebearers 4

So the Plague Drone has been put on hold as I need some more Plaguebearers and Nurglings for my meet up gaming weekend in a few weeks.

First off we have the Plaguebearers.

My Daemon force can be fielded in three forms, as a Zone Mortalis force, an Allied force and a small regular 40k army.

In the ZM force I have two units of 14 each with a champ, musician and icon bearer, the allied force has a single 20 man unit with champ, musician and icon bearer while the small 40k army has three units of 10, again each with a champ, musician and icon bearer.

You may (but probably don't) remember that my first two units of 'bearers had no musicians or icon bearers. With the new codex I now want these in, so my new box set of 'bearers are being built to not only bulk out the numbers but also supply the missing people in the first two units.

So we have a champion, three standard 'bearers, three musicians and three icon bearers.

To keep the champion looking different to the other champions I used a different head, the one with the big curly horns.

Now naturally I didn't look at the instructions so I didn't realise that head was meant for the musician.

So I had to improvise slightly. I used two of the heads for musicians after modifying the horns so the all didn't look the same, while for the third musician I used the bell from the Plague Drone set.

For the three icon bearers I made some small changes to the icon itself. Still need to do a bit to the middle one.

Out tomorrow at a gig, Friday though I should get last bits done and these undercoated. After doing a bit on the Wagon i'll then get them painted.

Blessings of the Plaguefather - Painting Guide

Here is a basic rundown of how I went about painting the Plaguebearers (as well as the Nurglings). It should be noted that the paints I have aren't part of the all new shiney range. As such you won't be able to follow it exactly if you only have new GW paints, however it is only a guide, people should modify it to suit.

Stage One - Base coats.

 

a. Over a black undercoat the Plaguebearer was given a rough coat of Rotting Flesh, While I ensured raised areas were covered I wasn’t fussed about getting into every nook and cranny.

b. Ogre Flesh wash was thin liberally applied.

c. This was followed with Rotting Flesh which was heavily drybrushed on. I took care to give extra attention to any areas I wanted to stand out more, such as the belly

 

Still part of the 'stage 1' Leviathan Purple and Baal Red washes were used on the ‘stumpy’ legs.

Stage Two - Early Details & Further Washes to Add Depth.

 

a. Any recessed areas (such as the guts) which I wanted a different colour were blocked in. For example the guts were painted.

b. This was followed by a Devlan Mud wash over the skin and the purple/red legs.

c. Rotting Flesh was then drybrushed on and/or used to highlight areas. Painting the recessed areas before the wash allows you to tidy up anything that needs doing at this stage.

Stage Three - All the Details and many Washes.

 

The guts got a Baal Red wash followed with some Leviathan Purple, before being gloss varnished. The eyes were picked out with red, washed with Devlan before highlighted red.

The horns were drybrushed white so that the horns started flesh coloured and progressively becoming more white along the length.

At that point the pictures stop, the fact is the rest of it doesn’t have a ‘recipe’ as such. I simply added more washes to tint the skin in different areas.

Reds, blues, greens and so on followed with the occasional Devlan to add more depth in certain areas.

I used more Rotting Flesh to highlight before picking out the teeth and claws with white/Devlan.

For the swords I base coated then in Boltgun Metal before covering them completely in a mix of different Mig rusts.

 

The boils/pustules were painted Goblin Green and were highlighted with Goblin Green after a Devlan wash. They were later given a gloss varnish finish.

 

After all that it was just a case of doing the base and the figure was finished.

Finished figure used in the pictures above looked like this:

 

Hopefully people found that interesting and possibly useful...