Pandemic

[Stelio]

Pandemic is the name of my combined Nurgle army for Warhammer 40,000. It consists of three separate detachments, using the "Nurgle" faction keyword in common for all units (so that it's Battle-Forged and Matched Play legal):

• Warband Vromikos is a large Death Guard force, with various units from across the range
• Haemorrhage is a non-Death Guard collection of Nurgle-aligned Chaos Space Marine units; things that are no longer legal for Death Guard
• The Family is a happy set of Nurgle Daemons

I've been collecting the models since the early 2000s, originally using the wonderfully flexible 2002 Codex: Chaos Space Marines for 3rd edition. The models go back all the way through the historical releases (the oldest model is the Plague Elemental which pre-dates the first publication mentioning Nurgle) and includes some Forge World sculpts as well.

Collecting is all well and good, but why post about it in the Workshop of Wonders? Well, the last time I played a game of Warhammer 40,000, the current rules set was Rogue Trader. But some (semi-)local friends of mine have got into WH40k and want to play some games. Looks like I need to get some models out of the boxes, stuck together, and (eventually) painted. The painting is a lower priority, but I'll get to it in time.

It's a diverse set of foes: Adeptus Mechanicus, Necrons, Chaos, Sisters of Battle, Black Templars, Space Wolves, and T'au. Should be fun!

Current priority: Work out which models I should put together first. A bit of HQ and Troops would be best. But which HQ of many? And Death Guard troops or Daemon troops? Thinking hat engaged.

[Dai]

Daemons get my vote. Having a GUO lead the way looks so cool!

[Stelio]

Daemons would be an easy choice to begin with. I've got a 1st release GUO assembled (I want to convert it, but it's fine for now) and a 2nd release mostly assembled (but I want to start painting the second one before attaching the head, so that I can get inside the mouth easily). I also have a Poxbringer ready to go. (Other HQ waiting for full assembly are Epidemius, a Sloppity Bilepiper, and I'm going to convert the Plague Elemental into a Spoilpox Scrivener.)

Troops are mostly straightforward as I have a pile of Plaguebearers, most of which are single casting metal and so just need bases. The Nurglings, I want to take more time over to base them in interesting ways (I want to fit seven to a base, and field seven bases of them).

There's one assembled Plague Drone, two to go. I've got four different releases of Beasts, all in components at the moment. I intend to model Furies with giant flies, but haven't sourced enough models yet.

Then there's the Plague Hulk. It's a gorgeous sculpt, but a bitch to assemble. The resin and plastic parts shrink in different proportions so the Forge World upper body is noticeably too small for the plastic Defiler / Soul Grinder base. Ugh. Not something I'll be completing any time soon.

Oh! And a Daemon Prince, Brother Vromikos the Pustulent. While he's intended to lead the Death Guard warband, there's no problem using him with Nurgle Daemons as well. I like his model, based on Witch Hunter Tyrus from Inquisitor. I want to finish him.

I'll post some photos too, because "pics or it didn't happen".

[Stelio]

Tonight's progress: I've been cleaning resin bases to remove any releasing agent. I'm prioritising the 25mm bases for Plaguebearers (and also Poxwalkers later on). There's a mix in there of bases from Black Cat, Nexus Games, Evil Mushroom Games, and Secret Weapon.

I realised that I can't complete the Daemon Prince yet, as there are parts that need painting before final assembly. (Must get myself some Death Guard Green spray...)

I've also got a date for our first game: Sunday 4 March. So that's exactly a month to go before I need to have a 1500 point army ready. Yay!

[minamoto]

Pandemic is the name of my combined Nurgle army for Warhammer 40,000. It consists of three separate detachments, using the "Nurgle" faction keyword in common for all units (so that it's Battle-Forged and Matched Play legal):

I've tried that to with my DG, it's difficult depending on your army's Powerlevel/point-size. And don't expect your Opponent to do.

On the other hand what I learned so far strategems and CP can ruin ones day. real example from saturday, Oblits shooting twice per shooting-phase plus rerolls on failed hit/wound rolls, two times per game
= dead Defiler (14 W gone in a single shooting) + dead Typhus two turns later.

So gaining CP from battle-forged detachements are kinda important.

With Death Guard the codex strategems aren't that great, imo. Pricy Plague Marines gain a lot of benefits, but so far I experienced it, Dreadnoughts, Bloat Drones and Blight-Haulers do a lot more work for you. PM are great at 12" but until then you gonna take losses. Well at least I did, 5+ FNP is not a fail-safe thing.

For Demons, things need to be tested out...

[*]Warband Vromikos is a large Death Guard force, with various units from across the range
[*]Haemorrhage is a non-Death Guard collection of Nurgle-aligned Chaos Space Marine units; things that are no longer legal for Death Guard
[*]The Family is a happy set of Nurgle Daemons
[/list]

The painting is a lower priority, but I'll get to it in time.

Current priority: Work out which models I should put together first. A bit of HQ and Troops would be best. But which HQ of many? And Death Guard troops or Daemon troops? Thinking hat engaged.

From my point of view, today, I'd say get your battalion-detachement (should work for Death Guard and Demons alike), with cheap HQs and Troops (Poxies, Plague Bearers, Sorcerrer, heralds) harvest Command Points and then get the fun rolling.

Casters are great, smite is a good and solid psychic power, plus the powers of the contagion list. Some are great fun like, Plague Wind or that Miasma of whatsoever rotting

Typhus paired with a mob of Poxwalkers is also fun, they soak up shots while they alltogether wander to the enemey with solid 4" Movement
I like the standard Caster-Dude (Sorcerer) they can help out in all kind of situations, Demon Prince with malefic Talons also is good, but not Sure what goodies you else got in your Demon Codex. There should be some more fun units.

For me I still like the standard PM, might not be the best performing unit, but it's solid aaaand 3 Plasmaguns in a single 7 dude unit are cool. Mental note do not overcharge I get them always killed by myself from first shooting phase on - there's always snake eyes...

1500 point army ready. Yay!

Never Mind Forgeworld casts, so disappointed with the 30k Mortarion mini I am paiting at the moment. Good Thing about Nurgle Demons is, due to their organic appereance, you can easily cover/fix things with GS easy. But's that's still a lot of work to do.

"pics or it didn't happen"

Damn right!

Really looking forward to this project, because I want to do some demons next as well, mainly Plague Bearers.

[Dai]

Painting es muy importante!

Playing against/with grey plastic is ugly and a dis-service to one's opponent and the gawds of painted minis in general.

Sounds like a large lump of cool stuff incoming though mate!

[Stelio]

Army list thoughts posted here.

Tonight's progress...



I cracked open the Plague Elemental (a.k.a. Mabrothrax). If you've not handled one of these before, it's a very flat model as should be expected given its age. It's also very difficult to repose in any significant way because the right upper arm is inseparable from the head, and the left arm is inseparable from the left leg.



Having cleaned the mould lines now, I plan to do some mild conversion work: add some horns (from the C'tan Deceiver), put a hanging parchment from the right hand, add a larger jaw (using as a base an Ork jaw from the Skulls box), and some sword in the left hand. Since the left hand is at ground level, that sword can rest on the ground. Likely I'll add more decoration to the base as well, which I've drilled this evening to fit the tabs.



I also did a bit of gluing. Here's the Poxbringer with the final base decoration stuck on (constructed from an old Warhammer skeletons sprue):



And here'the Daemon Prince so far, along with some of the remaining bits to be attached:

• So that's a base model of Witchhunter Tyrus from the Inquisitor range.
• I've carefully removed all Imperial iconography - lots off the back of the right hand for example, and the shin pads took a long time to get clean.
• The left hand has been replaced with a Daemon Prince hand holding an axe.
• The back banner pole has been modified to fit a Death Guard icon of Nurgle.
• I carefully removed a skull from the previous back banner (an Inquisition symbol) and attached it to the left knee. Together with the skull pads on the right knee and groin, they form a Death Guard skull triangle.
• The head is from Quovandius (another Inquisitor-scale model) with horns, one set from the Deceiver, and I forget where the single horn came from.
• Although the main model comes in many components, it's fairly fixed in its pose if you want cables to line up, and the groin skull to fit. Oh well.
• The Lord of Change head is to decorate the base. Initially this model was intended for the 2002 codex CSM which included a daemon-slaying daemon weapon called a Dread Axe (which at the time I didn't know was a reference to Kaleb Daark, follower of Malal).

[Dai]

Good to see a start on your army and with some lovely golden oldies!

[minamoto]

ohhh shiny
Although Mabs might be old, it's still a Beauty
Great start on your DP.

[Stelio]

Tonight has been an evening of filing and gluing.

I started work on a couple of the Beasts of Nurgle...



This is the second release Beast. It's a surprisingly wonderful design! The key design feature is the mass of tentacles, the genius of which is that they are intended to be bent into shape. So they can be cast flat but, knowing that the metal is soft enough to bend they can then be reformed into a more pleasing arrangement. That's very clever indeed, and off the top if my head I can't think of another model that uses this trick.

But that's not all...

• The tentacles have two different textures: ribbed on the front and spotted on the back. And they are cast in such a way that the mould lines if any go exactly along the line where these two meet, so in practice you don't need to worry about awkward mould lines at all!
• The three tentacle sections are labelled in the panels that will be hidden within the head: "Front Row - Bend Tentacles Forward", "Middle Row - Bend Tentacles Forward", "Back Row". So you can get the order or the facing mixed up.
• Similarly, the feet are labelled A for left and B for right, with the letters repeated on the body sections. Again, you can't go wrong.

The one design flaw is that the line where the two body halves meet is very visible, and hard to hide given how textured the body is. That's a feature of the age of the model, pre-dating the use of CAD to create perfect fits like the current plastic ranges. So some Green Stuff may be necessary.



The third release Beast is just a crazy jumble of parts. It doesn't make sense until you work out how to piece it together, and that forces it into a single pose. However it is a very dynamic pose, so that's forgivable.

Less forgivable is the casting. Lots of little spikes to be cut off or files are easy to deal with, and the mould lines are trivial and for the most part easily accessible. The problematic bit for me is some large lumps of metal where the vent was, and these are chunky. That's going to take me a long while to clean up sufficiently (without damaging the model) for the head to attach to the neck.



An "in progress" shot of gluing. I use a two-part epoxy adhesive for the metal models. It's stronger than superglue for metal, and also fills gaps which is very handy. I use a quick drying mix. That means I'll typically only be able to fit one or two pieces before needing to mix a new batch of glue, so it's lots of small batches instead. And while one model sets hard, I move onto another; hence four on the go at once in this photo.

Aside from the two Beasts (one looking very much like a bondage slug), there's Epidemius on the left, and my Daemon Prince at the bottom.

Here's a mock-up of how the Daemon Prince should look when complete:



The shoulder pads, head, and Lord of Change head are not glued on yet because I want to paint them separately (to be able to get into the various crevices) but it gives you a good idea of the end result. I think I need to add more detail to the back as well in the form of a cloak or furs or something; no firm plans for that yet, partially due to not knowing what I can use that will be large enough to cover the area (short of sculpting something myself with Green Stuff).

No update tomorrow: Wednesday night is RPG night for me!