Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Gargant

I am introducing the latest behemoth for my nurgle army:

HURGK

It can be pronounced just "herc", but preferably fit in the hard G before the K sound. It might even be better if you can say his name with a little bit of a gag reflex. This model took me a while because I needed the bell from the Putrid Blightkings kit which I wasn't able to get until fairly recently. This model stretched my skill with green stuff. The main body of course is composed of the Aleguzzler Gargant kit, which is what this represent, but the chaos variety of course. The legs and belly are spare parts from the Maggoth Lord kit. I used greenstuff to blend everything together, and create my cultivator fungus all over.

One thing I wanted to experiment with was how the fungus consumes the head of the host and takes over its functions. I got the idea from the video game The Last of Us. Never played it, but I liked the idea of the fungus, which I know is based on a real life version.

It definitely seems like something nurgle would be all for.

Censers & Tocsins - Glutannus & The Cultivator Shrine

I am getting back to my nurgle mortals. This took a while because I needed a few kits and bits. But I got a couple things that I am looking forward to seeing painted with the rest of my army.

I wanted to add a big monster to my army. I love the Maggoth Lords, but since I don't like doing named characters, I wanted to make something with the kit, and just run it counts-as one of the lords (I really wish there was a generic Maggoth Lord warscroll though). So I made Glutannus here.

I had to do some creative cutting and greenstuffing to remove the rider and saddle, as well as repose the left arm to feed a hapless victim (from the Aleguzzler Gargant kit) into his open maw.

I finished everything I needed for my Chaos Warshrine, as seen previously. Differences on the shrine itself is I just added more molds and mushrooms, and my brother gave me a cool 'troggoth vommit' but from the Fellwater Troggoth kit that he got. Then I finished the altar and made my ritualist.

The altar has on it another hapless victim (from the same Gargant kit, so many good bits in that kit) with a fresh bunch of fungus sprouting from his belly. He is held in front of a pit that contains a slurry of mold and waste. The idea is the sacrifice is cut by the ritualist, and the cultivator liquid is poured into the wound and the cultivator fungus sprouts from the fresh wound, then the sacrifice is pulled into the pit by a tentacle to dissolve in it, and that substance is occasionally expelled from the rear of the shrine as it moves to sew the ground. The ritualist I like a lot, and got the idea since I saw the Fungoid Cave Shaman kit. It was to fit perfectly with my fungus themed nurgle stuff. I replaced his hands with the a flask of the cultivator potion, and a broken blade. Upon trying several different heads to use, I settled on one from the Maggoth Lord kit. As I looked at it I realized something, this guy is a dwarf! So I like the idea of a nurgle corrupted duardin ritualist manning the shrine. I will have to think of a name and story for him.

Now you may be thinking what I plan to do with the rest of the Gargant kit. Well that is what is coming next...

Artwork - Rotbringer Sorcerer

A very generous artist made a piece of artwork of my Rotbringer Sorcerer, the Rotpope. I love this piece and compilation. I just wanted to show it off here.

You can reach the artist on his twitter, https://twitter.com/DrRainbowhat. I don't know if he does commissions, so you may want to check with him first if he does.

2017 Year in Review

This was another good hobby-filled year. So here is a summary of 2016 for me.

T'au Empire (Warhammer 40,000)
I took my T'au to the Harvester this year. While my Index army didn't have too much success, it was fun. Let's hope they get a good codex in 2018. At least I have some newly painted battlesuits.

James' Necrons (Warhammer 40,000)
I guess you could call this a commission. Something I did for my brother so he could attend the Harvester of Souls with us. We will see what kind of codex will come out for it in 2018.

Censers & Tocsins (Nurgle Mortals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This is an army I have been trying to keep up on with painting. Compared to last year's summary, I only had some built, and none painted. My goal with this army is if I build something for it, I paint it, before building the next thing. There will definitely be more to come for this AoS force.

Forthammer Clan Throng (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I have had a ton of fun with this army. I took them to the Las Vegas Open, added some cool conversions, and am running them in a campaign, which is still ongoing. I have more on the painting table for these guys, so I am not done with them yet.

The Klad Barag (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This deserves its own entry here because I consider it quite the achievement. Still not 100% sure what I will use him as, but he will be a proxy for any big dude I want to run in friendly games. Perhaps not tournament legal due to being a proxy and all. I do plan on taking some better photos of this guy and sending them to White Dwarf. Let's hope something comes from that.

Forgesworn Eternals (Stormcast Eternals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I haven't really added anything to this army, just got completely caught up on painting. Lately nothing has really stood out for the line to get me to want to add here. At least with being completely painted, if I do add anything, I will be inclined to immediately paint it. Like my plans for my Nurgle dudes.

Tempest's Eye Rangers (Grand Alliance: Order - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I only have a couple things here for the army, for now. They are only really ever intended to be for some Grand Alliance army, rather than a start of Freeguild. I would like to paint them this coming year.

Song of Blades and Heroes Stuff
For my favorite non-Warhammer fantasy skirmish game, I have added a lot of Reaper BONES minis to it here and there. And I made some nifty ruins for it as well. But most of all I am still slowly working on the Song of the Deep Empire campaign supplement for it. More on that in the coming year.

And that sums up the year. Lot's of fun projects, and of course, lot's of plans for 2018. Stay tuned.

Censers & Tocsins - Nurgle Lords

If you haven't noticed, I am in a Nurgle Mortals mood right now. With the Chaos Warshrine project on pause, I got some more painting done.

My Harbinger of Decay, Gagnus the Ratcatcher on Cacodracoth (which I changed the mount name from Gluttdragon to Cacodracoth) was seen WIP here. This is the ultimate master of my Nurgle mortals army.

This is my Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount with mark of nurgle. Dipteras the Flyborn on Gorebeast. As see WIP here. Painting the hammer head like warpstone was a last minute consideration, and I think it turned out pretty cool. I'm always looking for opportunities to portray warpstone on any of my stuff where it can make sense.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Warshrine WIP 2

I have reached a point on this warshrine where I won't be able to continue until after christmas when I can get a few more kits. But here's a progress report on the work so far.

This step was taking care of pretty much all of the greenstuff work. The worm creatures underneath are using their grasping tentacle tongue things to hold up the shrine. So I started with sculpting the tentacles, making it look like they have a pretty firm grasp on the shrine, and holding it aloft as they slither across the battlefield. Also you may notice the 2 tentacles in the front covering the unsightly pins that held the shrine to the creatures below.

Next to cover the area where the tentacles meet the creatures, I sculpted in some mouth parts. Right now they look more like flower petals than mouth pieces, but I am hoping painting will change that. Each creature has its mouth parts open where the tentacles come out.

Finally I ruined the barge a little. Nurgle is the god of decay, so it makes sense that some of it would undergo rust damage. Also I sculpted on the creeping mold and fungus of the Cultivated. Plans for the pit will actually to have some big fungus garden coming out of it, as though this is where the Cultivated fungus primarily spreads or is perfected.

I would like to have something like this to come up out of the pit.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Warshrine WIP

Thinking of other cool things I can add to my Nurgle Mortal army, I like the idea of the Chaos Warshrine. Like with anything from the Slaves to Darkness, I can give it the mark of Nurgle to fit in. But I want to try and turn the Nurgle up to 11 and do something different with it.

Luckily I do not need to buy the entire Chaos Warshrine kit. I found a bits site that sold the bits for the main body here for a fraction of the price. The rest I will make due with what I got, and what will be coming.

I have a few pins holding the front creatures a little straighter. The front of the shrine is higher up than the rear. They will be removed after mounting the shrine on top and sculpting the tentacles.

Rather than being held aloft by some mutant ogres, mine will be carried around by some tentacled creatures native to Sigmar-knows-where in the mortal realms. These are Reaper bones figures that we bought to use their heads for another project. (Here, here, and here) I glued them to the base with some extra strong E6000, and put pins in them to mount the main shrine body.

The pins stick through the floorboard. I will be clipping those off and covering them with something, most likely tentacles.

With the shrine mounted on the creatures, I can see how this thing will take shape. This project is going to use A LOT of greenstuff sculpting. I want to have fungus growing all over it, tentacles rising from the creature holding the shrine up, and I still need to figure out who I am going to use for the ritualist riding it. This is going to be a long term project, as I have plans on stuff to get with some Christmas money for my army here, some of the parts of which will be in use on the shrine.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Marauders of Nurgle Supplement Finished

That last time I played with my AoS Nurgle army, I found the MVP to be my marauders. So I looked into getting some more, so I can fit into that maximum 40 strong with the discount sweet spot. Luckily the starter set bloodreavers are still being sold for cheap on various bits sites. This grants me an additional 20. However, I struggled enough with the first batch to make each unique, so I decided to try something different with them, yet make it so they still fit in with the others.

I came with an idea for a fungus that slowly consumes their identity. This fungus spreads primarily over the head of the host, then consumes it, replacing it for full control of the body. This is the fate awaiting all the marauders. But they of course see it as a blessing, not a curse. A way to submit fully to nurgle's will. They call themselves the Cultivated. As you can see in the image above, I arranged them to show the various stages of the fungal growth (from top left to bottom right).

And here is the horde all together.

Censers & Tocsins - Rotbringer Sorcerer Finished (The Rotpope)

First of the characters is finished. This is the Rotpope, as denoted by his fancy hat. I wanted to go for a sort of 'mouth of Sauron' look with him, his eyes covered by his tall headgear. I also tried a few painting techniques to make his hat's cloth look moldy and rotting. I think it worked out pretty good.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Marauders of Nurgle Finished

Who says in order to be a follower of Nurgle you must be fat and grotesque? Who says you can't be jaundiced and get mad gains? Well pretty much any law of health, but I'm ignoring all that for these guys! The fitter side of Nurgle. They don't get swollen, they just get swole.

Top row, left to right: Marauder, Musician, Champion, Banner Bearer, Icon Bearer

This marks a majority of my Nurgle army finished painting. Now all that's left are the heroes and the catapult.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Warriors of Nurgle Finished

Another chunk of my Nurgle force is completed. Again, these are my chaos warriors with marks of nurgle. I used the starter set blood warriors as base, and as usual, a bunch of extra Putrid Blightking bits.

A couple things you may note, the shield carried by the champion (top middle on second picture) is a Liberator shield. Part of that was because I didn't have enough Blightking shields, but also I figured a little narrative opportunity. Normally when a Stormcast Eternal dies, their body and armor gets taken up back to Azyr. Somehow this warrior had scratched in the 3 circled of Nurgle in the Liberator's shield during their little duel, and when he finally vanquished his foe, the shield remained, as Nurgle's power had claimed it. He took this shield as a trophy and it gave him his status as champion of the unit. You will also notice the shield is painted in the same colors as my Forgesworn Eternals. No coincidence there.

The banner's logo was a conscious choice. I am thinking of proceeding with a piracy theme for these guys, maybe in the skies or high seas, not sure yet. So the rusted cutlass behind the logo of Nurgle will help fit that theme. This will also be reflected in the basing sometime in the future.

Next on my painting table are my Marauders.

Censers & Tocsins - Putrid Blightkings Finished

Completed painting my first unit from my Nurgle force. Again, not much has been done conversion wise to these guys. You will notice the unit leader, the blightlord, is actually the Lord of Plagues kit. I had used one of the blightkings models for my Harbinger of Decay conversion.

One thing that was interesting was experimenting with trying different colors of skin here. I started by basing all of them with Rakarth Flesh, then a layer and highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh. Then I washed over them with some different shades watered down a little. Biel-tan Green, Reikland Fleshshade, and Athonian Camoshade. Each one provided some variety in skin tome which I am enjoying. When I go to the more naked guys, like the Marauders, I think the differences in skin tones will be more apparent.

Censers & Tocsins - Plagueclaw Catapult WIP

As you may have seen before, I have a Plagueclaw kit built up for my nurgle force. It's a pretty decent artillery which has an area damage that doesn't effect nurgle units as much, making it a good range support for me.

I bought the kit mainly for the bits I used with my Verminlord Skrax display board, which used the big warpstone that works as the counterweight for the catapult. So I had to find an alternative counterweight.

It's a hodgepodge of plasticard, 20mm square bases (I gotta use those for something), and greenstuff. The idea is to make it look like slabs of concrete or stone bound by strips of metal.

All the different colors can be distracting and make it hard to see the effect, so this is it after a coat of primer, which I think sells the whole look.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Marauders WIP

For now, this is the final part to add to my Nurgle Mortals list. This brings me a tad over 1000 points. These are Chaos Marauders with mark of Nurgle.

Top row, left to right: Icon Bearer, Banner Bearer, Champion, Musician

In keeping with my cheapskate method, I used the 20 Bloodreavers that come in the AoS Starter Set. Then I added what other bits I had including some Plague Drone bits and Ogor gutplates for the shields. They turned out to be the perfect size. I wanted really rusty metal shields, hence I drilled holes into them, and the rest of the effect will come through in the painting. Again I had to carve off any Khorne Iconography and replace it with rust and rot. Some greenstuff was used for this effect.

Censers & Tocsins - Bits arrived!

Have you ever been in one of those moods where you are in the middle of a project, then it gets put on hold because you need to get more parts, but while waiting you can't find yourself working on anything else because you are so excited about it? That's what's been happening. The parts finally arrived.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount WIP

This is Dipteras the Flyborn on Gorebeast. He is my Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount with Mark of Nurgle. He is a lord on his path to glory to gain Nurgle's favor.

I got the idea for this when I saw the gorebeast bits for sale (just the beast, not the chariot or horses). I knew I could do something with it, particularly giving it a rider. Again made with more putrid blightking bits, and even some spare Stormcast Eternal bits. His hammer is from an Ogors kit.

With the gorebeast I opted to not put on the helmet, because I like the look of the original head, and I removed the big spikes. I hollowed out the spike casings and gave it those 2 tentacles. The tentacles are actually the unused Dracoth tails from my previous 2 Dracoth conversions (I did a tentacle tail on my Harbinger of Decay, and my Lord-Celestant is riding a bear, which doesn't really have a tail). Then I sculpted the suction cups on. When I paint them, they will definitely have a slimy glossy look.

This is all for now of this small Nurgle force. I need to make just one more thing to reach that 1000 points sweet spot, and that will be some Chaos Marauders with Mark of Nurgle. More on that another day when I get the parts.

Censers & Tocsins - Harbinger of Decay WIP

This is Gagnus the Ratcatcher, my Harbinger of Decay. Gagnus was a Nurgle lord who displeased his god in a defeat (to Stormcast Eternals no less), and as punishment his quest it to collect rat (particularly Skaven) corpses for Grandfather Nurgle to use in his garden, to pack around trees for fertilizer. A humiliating punishment for what was once a great Lord of Chaos. 

Some of you may be thinking: "What do you have against Dracoths?"

I just find the model interesting, and an interesting challenge for conversions. This is my Harbinger of Decay, but instead of a plague ridden horse, he rides what I call a Gluttdragon. The story here would be Nurgle was able to corrupt a Dracoth with a disease that causes insatiable hunger. It mutates this child of Dracothion into a mockery of its former self. No better mount for a Lord of Nurgle.

The Gluttdragon's head you may recognize from the Maggoth Lord model, Bloab Rotspawned. I just got the bit from one of my other orders, and it was a decent price. I already had the starter set Lord-Celestant on Dracoth for some other bits. The rider is a Putrid Blightking model. The rest is various other bits from my collection, and lots of green stuff. I really am pushing myself with greenstuff sculpting. The challenge was getting the monster head to blend with the clean Dracoth armor. I wanted to make it look like it was some sort of creeping mold or parasite encroaching the Dracoth. Perhaps if this creature were cured of the malady, its original head would still be underneath that grotesque growth? Also the molds and pus pockets mimicking the logo of Nurgle allover, particularly on the flanks. Tentacles greedily searching around its hosts body. The clean armor parts of course get the common rusting treatment from my dremel tool.

My little Nurgle force is coming together. I have a few more things coming for it before I hit that 1000pts sweet spot. Including this thing.

Censers & Tocsins - Rotbringers Sorcerer WIP

I caught the conversion bug again recently and decided to take a crack at an older project. I started this Nurgle army wanting to branch away from Order. Well back then I had purchase some other spare bits with a few visions in mind for some other nurgle characters, and I still had some useful Putrid Blightkings bits leftover (such a great kit with all the spare bits).

This is my Rotbringers Sorcerer kitbash. The base model is the Khorne Bloodbound Slaughterpriest with Hackblade that came free in an earlier issue of White Dwarf. Then various bits from my blightkings leftovers and other fantasy bits. I know the hat is from the Collegiate Arcane Battlemage kit. A couple interesting things about this model, his pose is a fairly wide stance and he stands kind of tall. Well the original slaughterpriest model is a very tall and imposing figure, and stands on a 40mm base. The original nurgle sorcerer model is shorter (but is tall with his staff) and comes with a 32mm base. So to remedy this I cut off the skull the slaughterpriest stood on, and made a little rock outcropping for him to step on. This allowed him to stand on a smaller base than what he was designed for. Overall I am pretty proud of this model. I am having to improve my sculpting lately to fill in all the gaps from the incompatible bits, like mixing the muscular khorne arms and body with the bloated grotesque belly, head, and arms. What we get is this interesting combination of muscular and fat build. I think it works. Also like the Chaos Warriors I made from the Blood Warriors, I managed to rot up and nurglefy his armor bits using my dremel drill.

Here is my next exhaustive project for this nurgle force I am working on. More on that when I get it done. Some of the parts pictured should be obvious where they came from, but I'll get into the detail next time.

2016 Year in Review

This was an exciting year for me with a lot of completion on a lot of projects. Very productive. So here is a wrap-up for the year, as well as an update on my many projects.

Zone Mortalis Tiles
I spent countless hours casting the bits, gluing them together, and painting these tiles. It's a total of 18 tiles with doodads, and they have gotten some play time. Our local game store had an event where my tiles handled about 4,000 points between 4 players. I am surprised at how well they handled the punishment, and the players were all impressed with the table. They are a little brittle, but that is due to the material used, where I went a little cheap. A lofty goal in the future will be to create a fantasy themed set of tiles, but I may splurge for the good dental plaster if I can find out where to get a hold of some nearby.

The Coven of Verminlord Skrax (Warhammer 40,000 - Dark Eldar Haemonculus Covens)
This was quite a project that yielded a proud achievement for me. A lot of effort when into the modeling and painting and display board, not to mention the wonderful comic illustrated by my brother. It was all paid off when I won Best in Appearance at the 40k GT Harvester of Souls. A trophy which is still proudly displayed in our living room.

Jarom's Orks Commission Here and Here
The undertaking for illustrating my comic was no small feat, so I gladly paid in painting small portion of Jarom's Orks in exchange. Jarom also took Best in Orks at the same tournament.

Gorkamorka
My brother and I haven't really acted on our plans to run a little Gorkamorka campaign yet. Both of us live a distance from each other, and he has been busy with a job enough as it is. So Gogmagog's Questing Knights (Mutiez) and Da 'ard 'eads (Gorkers) will remain unpainted for now. I am looking forward to fielding Da Hukka Trukka on the table sometime in the near future.

Heavy Gear Blitz!
My Heavy Gear plastics kickstarter delivered this year. I now have a lot of plastic sprues of tiny mecha. I have been a very long fan of Heavy Gear's setting, but never got a chance to play it in any form. This game seems pretty solid, and my brother has expressed a desire to give it a shot. I look forward to that sometime next year.

Deadzone
My addiction to small skirmish games continues even still. Deadzone is an example of my enthusiasm that builds in a game in intense bursts. Then it dies out. I am still up for playing games with it though. So I have several small armies built for this game, but the beauty of most small skirmish games I own, a lot of the figures can be used interchangeably. So even when I am not playing Deadzone, I can still use the terrain and minis for something; like Rogue Stars... but that's another post for another day.

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower
The three of us (Jarom, Timo, and I) have been slowly working our way through the trials of the Silver Tower, and watching the story unfold and our characters progress. Jarom is playing an Orruk Warchanter, Timo is playing a Chaos Lord, and I am controlling the Order side with a Cogsmith and Lord-Relictor. What's even sweeter about this is how little money I have invested in this game and we are getting a lot out of it.

Censers and Tocsins (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - Nurgle Rotbringers and Clan Pestilens)
This project will likely be set on the back burner. I love the idea of a Nurgle themed fantasy army, but until I get that burst of inspiration for it going again, I won't be doing much with it for now. I do believe I have some good ideas for the Nurgle Rotbringers at least. The Skaven, however, I can only think to make everything as-is. Which is fine for most, but I become passionate about something when I can think of a unique angle to take with it.

Forgesworn Eternals (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - Stormcast Eternals)
I am proud to say my entire Forgesworn Eternal army is completely painted (barring some basing I still have left to do). Not something I can say much of for my big armies. I really don't plan on adding anything to this. I feel I have gotten all the minis I am interested in. I was considering some Dracoth Cavalry to make more dire bear riders, but the problem is finding variations of suitable bear heads, of which I have only really found the one. But for now I'm good.

Forthammer Clan Throng (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - Dispossessed and Ironweld Arsenal)
Not all of my Warhammer Duardin are among the ranks of the painted, but a good portion of them are. I experimented with a unique paint scheme for dwarfs that I think has paid off to a color that complements my Forgesworn Eternals. All I have left for this LVO army is some basing, and maybe a display board. Carry-on luggage restrictions are becoming an issue.

That sums up this very awesome year. In the new year I will outline my goals for 2017.