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Hello, I'm starting a WIP Night Lords blog to track my hobbying. Here is my first completed batch of 6 cultists (I'm saving my higher points units for the ETL). I learned how to paint the chaos sigil on the cultist's back from Insane Pschopath's excellent Iron Warriors' 5th Company blog. Here is my WIP next batch of cultists: I used my cultists for the first time this week. They managed to tie up a space wolves dreadnought and a unit of Thunder wolves for 2 turns (and even killed one thunder wolf). Here are some photos of my cultists in the game. Here's are some shots of a couple of chaos rhinos I finished up this winter I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Hello and thank you for looking. I wanted to start a thread to document the building of my Death Guard Legion set during the Horus Heresy. I have been a huge fan of the setting since reading about it in the 40k 2nd edition Chaos Codex. The harrowing tale of the once noble & stalwart Death Guard marines succumbing to the sick & twisted pestilence of Nurgle just captivated me and I have been a fan of them ever since. Some of these first images are from my heresy30k invisionzone thread which I will recreate here. I welcome any comments or crits you might have.

Forces for Battle. Vanilla CSM need not apply.

Loyalist wearing clean Mark VI armor. I’ve been lurking a long time and figured I would finally post something. In Betrayal, the Death Guard armor is described as an ivory grey. So that’s what I went for.

I guess you're wondering how I'll have managed to put off the oil paints for another day, huh? Well, the answer is easy: I told myself I'd better get the texture on the bases ready, as well as doing some more detail work on the trim and weapons, before moving on. Finally, when I couldn't think of anything else, I realised I hadn't primed the heads (I almost never paint the heads separately, as I generally finds it's more hassle than it's worth, but this time I thought it might make sense at least for the bare heads, if I was going to experiment with oils and so on). So, just to kick it up a notch (bam!), I decided I might as well prime the bare heads and the helmeted ones separately, so I primed the helmeted heads with the Leather Brown/Bone White rattlecans and primed the bare heads with a purple primer that I mixed from a redbrown and blue primer + a drop of purple ink and then I gave it a zenithal with a "Skeleton Bone" airbrush primer. It's going to be interesting how much difference this actually makes, but my idea was that if I just painted the bare heads with a regular pale skin and brownish shadows, there'd be very little contrast from the armour, so I think I'll try to give them really unhealthy, almost zombieish skin and theoretically, purple shadows should work well with greenish skin. Annoyingly, my airbrush had a bit of trouble spraying the skeleton bone primer smoothly, so there is a bit of "dustiness" to it, although not as bad as the picture makes it look (mental note: don't get freaked out by how bad things look when zooming so much that the objects appear bigger than they actually are - based on this picture I thought there was a huge mould line on one head and there... really wasn't, no matter how much I looked ). Once I paint on top of it I think it should be fine...

So, I got slightly sidetracked today by a Civilization Halloween scenario involving zombies (who can say no to that kind of thing?). On top of that, the Queen of the Blackened Moon has been struck down by Grandfather Nurgle's blessing, so a lot of yesterday and today went with bringing her tea, preparing food and making "aww!" noises. Still, it's not all bad as I've managed to remember my old "heavy rust" recipe, which I decided I'd better apply at least the first couple of steps of before bringing in the oils (I just keep putting it off ). I figured some of you might be interested in the recipe, as it's both easy, simple, quite effective and doesn't involve any strange products, other than an old brush and some acrylics you probably already have lying around. It's great for batch painting too, so I really think it's worth having in your toolbox, if you do Death Guard, ruined terrain or other projects including heavily rusted parts. As a final bonus, I just find it very satisfying for some reason, so maybe you will too The recipe basically has 4 easy steps, but you can probably leave one out if you really want to speed things up (I do find that it works best with all of them though). It might seem kinda counterintuitive that you're not covering the metal colour with rust, but doing it the other way around, but I think this works better, Step 1: Give the entire part that's supposed to be rusted metal a Rhinox Hide basecoat (don't bother painting it metal first; this is a recipe for very rusty stuff) Step 2: Stipple or sponge the part heavily with Doombull Brown (or, if you can find it, the old "Vermin Fur" which was even better as it was slightly more reddish, but I find Doombull Brown does the trick just fine and it's what I use these days, as my Vermin Fur has run dry). The trick here is that you shouldn't be afraid to overdo it - you basically can't. The only real trick here is that the splotches of paint you sponge/stipple on leaves the illusion of texture, which actually (imho) looks more real than most rust products do at this scale. Step 3: Stipple the part slightly less heavily with Ryza Rust or Jokaero Orange (I prefer Ryza Rust; it looks like it'll be way to bright and OTT, but it dries to a considerably less garish colour). Once again, you can't really overdo it, as it's just personal taste how orangey you like your rust. Step 4: Give the part a much less heavy handed drybrush/stippling highlight (you might benefit from not using an old brush here, depending on your preferences). The trick here is to focus on areas that would probably be scraped and worn free of rust, which coincides nicely with the edges and details that are easiest to catch with a brush This is the only part where I think you need to be slightly wary of overdoing it, as the metal can "overwrite" the rust texture if you're not careful. But again, it's a matter of personal taste how much you want the metal to show "through". I actually think I might have overdone it a little with the metal in this example. I've reached the picture limit, so I'll upload my terminator guy to the comments, so you can see another example on his weapon and how it very much "reads" as metal, even at a distance. I've almost finished this step on the entire kill team by now, so there's very little left I can convince myself that I need to do before I "have" to get to grips with the oil washes

I was actually thinking this might be the time when I'd really buckle down and figure oil paints out, but I was not quite certain where to start and if it'd be a good idea to have more stuff done before I started washing. So, I chickened out and kept going on some other stuff to postpone my decision, mainly the leather straps, wood and brass trim/details and here's where we ended up: Which is... Pretty ok, I guess? they suffer a bit from being at the stage where nothing really looks very good, so it's a slightly dangerous place to leave them, as it's going to take a bit of effort to pick'em up again. But I feel pretty confident that I'll get around to doing some more work on them either tomorrow or the day after. I've basically just smeared contrast paint on them at this point (apart from the trim which is Balthasar Gold mixed with Wyldwood contrast, just to make it flow a bit more), I wasn't quite sure about the green, as otoh, I felt a bit of vibrancy would be nice, but otoh, it might end up too cartoony if I'm not careful - especially when I start doing all the little tentacles and nurglings and so on. But I'm not too bothered, as I can always tone it down again, should the need arise. "Not being too bothered" is absolutely the best piece of hobby advice I can give anyone, btw. All my work today, except for possibly the metal trim, has been of the "I'm not bothered with being super neat" variety and I just always find it works out best that way. Whenever I try to paint too neat, I just end up making mistakes and being unhappy with my work and I've never actually made any mistakes due to sloppiness that couldn't be fixed at a later stage. If I get out of the habit of painting, however, I tend to build an unreasonable level of ambition while my skill degrades, so the best thing to do is always just to crack on, which I really need to remember this fall. Apart from the final result, there's a few other things I did today that might be interesting to anyone doing Heresyish colour scheme DG: I'm sort of using the Terminator dude as a canvas for weird experiments, because: a) he looks different than the others anyway, so any variations won't be super noticeable and b) the good thing about this sort of minis is that any weird colour variations can easily be disguised as weathering/random grossness What you see on his leg is just a light coating of Reikland Fleshshade, which I actually yhink works quite well for giving it that worn, slightly warm tone. If I hadn't promised myself I'd do some oil stuff, I'd be tempted to just pour that all over them all and I think the armour'd be pretty fine, to be honest. But I do wanna get around to actually making oil paints work, so... I also tried an experiment were I just diluted the Snakebite Leather contrast I was using with some water and smeared it all over the power armour on one of the power armour marines (I'll post a pic in a comment, as I can't attach more to this post or I'll be over the limit...), on the off chance that it might save me the oil work, but it didn't really work as the contrast got weirdly glossy, so I just quickly went back over him with Pale Sand, which, again is sort of the genius of this type of paintjob.

First off, welcome to the first part of my fall project, which by popular demand has turned out to be a Death Guard kill team (whether it will actually be used for kill team is anyone's guess, but I have a lot of DG laying around and I wanted to paint at least some of them up). The general idea is that I'll be using this blog to keep me motivated through a, historically speaking, difficult time of year where motivation can often ebb. So any comments or suggestions you may want to leave are highly appreciated! I'm going to do this as part hobby log and part painting "guide" and assorted ramblings. The "guide" part is in quotation marks because, while I have done Death Guard before, I didn't really feel I did them justice the first time around and I really wanted to both up my game a little and also start experimenting with some new techniques and ideas. So while I'm reasonably certain that what I'm doing will work, I'm also learning as I go along. At the same time, I also want to keep things relatively simple and easy as I actually want to finish the project and not get discouraged halfway through, so I'm focusing on techniques and methods that will give me a lot of "bang for the buck", so to speak. The very first step was creating a poll to see what faction I should start with (with the help of our friendly moderators @Grotsmasha and @Dr_Ruminahui - thanks so much, guys!), but the first step hobby-wise was to do a zenithal prime with two Vallejo rattle cans, "Leather Brown" and "Bone White", which I felt would give me a nice foundation for the off-white armour that I personally prefer for Death Guard. Something I don't usually do is leave the heads off, but this time I did, partly because I wanted the opportunity to give any bare heads a different skin tone, partly because I just wasn't quite sure what heads would look best on what models. Strangely enough, they looked super greenish in the light of dawn, which is actually a look I'm trying to avoid. I mean, green will obviously show up, but the overall tone I'm going for is a warmish off-white for the armour. My next step was to give them a heavy overbrush/drybrush/stippling/general mess-around, using quite a big brush loaded with "Pale Sand" (although any warm, mostly white off-white will do), then mostly dried off before being applied to the minis: I don't worry about being neat at this stage or getting smooth coverage, but I do worry about obscuring too much of the recess colours. as I want them to be quite grimy and battle-worn in the end. If I wanted them "cleaner", I'd probably follow the same procedure but give them more passes with the brush (and perhaps let more paint remain on the brush). As it is now, I just give the areas I want to read as whiter (or that I know I want to paint a transparent colour over later) a second pass with the brush, but like I said, I don't worry too much about coverage as washes and further painting will smoothen out the gradients quite a bit. That said, the amount of texture on the ridged, corroded, pitted and damaged power armour of the Death Guard is almost ideal for this method and I do think it looks pretty good already. In fact, if I stopped now and painted in all the details, I think the armour itself would work quite well - but I will of course be doing a lot more as we move along, so stay tuned

Random games pics from my game on Sunday, May 21. Played against The Plague Brothers and got tabled. Three objectives to seize in no-man's land. I'll spare a full battle report and let you just look at the pics.

Let's see how the whole blog thing goes. In my last WIP update, I had done some GS work. I've done more. I used a template for chainmail to get the pattern and placed it over the stripped down leather strips. Once dry, any excess was removed. The inner shoulder pads were dry-fitted and glued into place. This gave me all I needed to assemble the bodies (Mk6 included for scale). I'm a bit annoyed at myself for the one on the far left. I didn't realize that one arm went straight out like that or I would have positioned the head differently. Here are two close ups: The angle of viewing means one can't see a bit of an overhang where the torso rests on the GS ball. It is noticeable on the back, but I'm going to cover that with a tank for the flamers.

CRUSADE GAME 5 - TAU VS DEATH GUARD A frank exchange of views. The third game day in our Crusade began with a more interesting set-up, at least! Outflank against @Agnostic Doggo's Death Guard, with me on the defence. Seems fine, right? Tau gunline, plenty of cover, but this was a rough, but enjoyable one. Lost, in the end, but a fine scuffle. Fully surrounded? Not with so many Scout/Infiltrate units! Bit cramped, innit? Shi-ur Monat, my hammerhead, did some damage, but didn't quite manage any kills. The same can be said for my Sunforges, locked in close combat with some plaguemarines for most of the game. We're still playing at a low points cost, which can muddle things, at 750 points it's easy to not really have a good matchup for every model. So it goes. Got some good kills in, though, with the bodyguard of a certain not-quite-a-demon-prince-but-soon getting wiped off the map alongside a number of plague marines and lighter vehicles. Vroom! Yes, the army is largely 30K marines, which is always fun. Less trim to worry about. Not a huge amount to say, really. Didn't get the rolls I needed, but didn't get cleared off the board on turn one, either, so I'm happy.

Good day Looking to get feedback on this as a sort of evergreen general army that I can pick up and play. ++ Crusade Force Organisation Chart (LA - XIV: Death Guard) [2,986Pts] ++ + Expanded Army Lists + Expanded Army List Profiles:: Exemplary Units On, Legacy Units On + Allegiance: + XIV: Death Guard Allegiance: Traitor + Rite of War: + Rite of War: The Reaping (DG) + HQ: + Praetor, Cataphractii [770Pts]: The Blood of Barbarus, Warlord . Deathshroud Terminator Squad: Deathshroud, Deathshroud, Deathshroud, Deathshroud, Deathshroud, 3x Meltabombs . . Land Raider Proteus Carrier: Twin-linked Lascannon . Legion Cataphractii Praetor: Cataphractii Terminator Armour, Grenade Harness, Rad Grenades, Thunder Hammer . . Minor Combi-Weapon: Minor Combi-Weapon - Alchem Flamer + Elites: + Apothecarion Detachment [90Pts] . Apothecary: Bolt Pistol, Power Armour . . Chainsword: Chainsword . Apothecary: Bolt Pistol, Power Armour . . Chainsword: Chainsword + Troops: + Heavy Support Squad [255Pts]: Volkite Culverin . Legion Support Sergeant: Artificer Armour, Bolt Pistol, Rad Grenades . 8x Legionaries (collective): 8x Bolt Pistol . Legionary w/ Options: Augury Scanner, Bolt Pistol Heavy Support Squad [305Pts]: Lascannon . Legion Support Sergeant: Artificer Armour, Bolt Pistol, Rad Grenades . 8x Legionaries (collective): 8x Bolt Pistol . Legionary w/ Options: Augury Scanner, Bolt Pistol Tactical Squad [132Pts] . Legion Tactical Sergeant: Alchem Pistol, Artificer Armour, Bolter, Rad Grenades . . Power Weapon: Power Scythe . 9x Legionaries (collective): 9x Bolt Pistol, 9x Bolter Tactical Squad [132Pts] . Legion Tactical Sergeant: Alchem Pistol, Artificer Armour, Bolter, Rad Grenades . . Power Weapon: Power Sword . 9x Legionaries (collective): 9x Bolt Pistol, 9x Bolter Tactical Squad [132Pts] . Legion Tactical Sergeant: Alchem Pistol, Artificer Armour, Bolter, Rad Grenades . . Power Weapon: Power Scythe . 9x Legionaries (collective): 9x Bolt Pistol, 9x Bolter + Fast Attack: + Xiphon Interceptor [105Pts] + Heavy Support: + Grave Warden Terminator Squad [485Pts] . Chem-master: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist, Rad Grenades . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist . Grave Wardens: Assault Grenade Launcher, Power Fist Leviathan Dreadnought Talon [310Pts] . Leviathan: Leviathan Siege Claw, Leviathan Siege Drill, Phosphex Discharger . . 2x Twin-linked Volkite Calivers Vindicator Squadron [270Pts] . Vindicator: Centreline Mounted magna laser destroyer, Searchlights . Vindicator: Centreline Mounted magna laser destroyer ++ Total: [2,986Pts] ++

Looking to run this list but wanted to get some thoughts/criticism before trying it out Reaping_hh_HTML1.PDF

No Rite of War, with an eye towards being the foundation for a few different types of lists. Thousand points on the nose. HQ Herald-Consul x1 [105] - Lightning claw - Standard Elite Contemptor Dreadnought x1 [195] - Gravis chainfist - Heavy alchem flamer -Multimelta Troops Tactical Squad x10 [124] - 6 chain-bayonets - 3 bayonets - Sergeant with power weapon Tactical Squad x10 [110] - Vexilla - Sergeant Heavy Support Grave Wardens x5 [250] The idea is the vexilla tactical squad sits on any home objectives, the Herald-Consul makes the Grave Wardens Line, and then they and the dreadnought head to the hardest looking thing the enemy has, with the bayonet tactical squad to back them up. Questions: Is there enough AP2? Is there enough anti-high Toughness/anti-tank? What sort of power weapon should the melee squad's sergeant have?

Lord Pavarottus and his Aria of Filth First of the Legion of the Ashen Choir, splinter vectorum of the Death Guard He is still WIP, but I've got a big enough chunk of him completed to share. Still more to do, and I still havent gotten a 50mm base for him yet.

So a long time ago I had a Work In Progress thread about my Heresy Death Guard; http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/316199-ganders-pre-heresy-death-guard/ That topic was nuked due to the whole photobucket fiasco, but I thought I'd like some record on here of my work, and as the army is pretty much done for the foreseeable, I thought I should post in here with better pics. First of all just a small sample of the many many WiP pictures I posted; I'll start posting the finished army soon...

Lepers of Barbarus Origins This individual tentatively identified as Haron Kaend As the unity and enlightenment of the Great Crusade was torn down by the rebellion of Horus every member of the Legiones Astartes had to decide where his loyalty lay. The 4th Battalion, 3rd Great Company, XIV Legion, known as the Mortals’ Shield, was bitterly divided. More than half their number were betrayed on the death-ridden soil of Isstvan III. Those who followed their Primarch were viewed with suspicion and scorn by their brothers. The 4th Battalion had long been set apart. Their early actions had seen them fight long campaigns away from the rest of the legion, with only the mortal men of the Imperial Army as support. They did not develop the contempt for mortals that many of their brothers held. The commanders of the 4th specifically requested assignments out on the fringes where they were free to operate as they saw fit. During the Heresy the remainder of the 4th fought alongside traitor Army regiments on a series of backwater supply worlds along the southern galactic rim. It was only when Mortarion gathered the XIV for the voyage to Terra that the 4th rejoined their legion. They fell to the Destroyer Plague like the rest of the Death Guard. Even after that the 4th shunned and were shunned by their brothers. During the Siege of Terra they were assigned to the XVII Legion, acting as the anvil on which the Chapter of the Radiant Star sought to drive the White Scars during the battles outside Lion’s Gate spaceport. During the chaos after Horus’ death the 4th fled with the rest of the traitors. The Long War Begins As the traitor legions alternately licked their wounds and settled grudges with their former allies the astartes of the 4th chose Sarendis Kranh, an unusually charismatic figure, as their new Commander. Kranh delved into the mysteries of Chaos and discovered the true nature of the Plague God, that of a creator of life and father to all. This brought great comfort to the men of the 4th, who had never been close to their father Mortarion and regarded his abandonment of them following his ascension to daemonhood with little more than resigned acceptance. Despite having no allies amongst the traitor legions the 4th gathered a large complement of mortal soldiers; survivors of the Heresy, cultists from the Eye and more recent turncloaks from the resurgent Imperium. Kranh taught them all of the majesty of Nurgle and they in turn saw him as a great prophet, calling him Kranh the Blessed. During the first of Abaddon’s black crusades Kranh the Blessed led his forces to the fortress world of Harjinn. With the blessing of Nurgle Kranh’s magic and daemonic allies were unstoppable. The world was on the verge of collapse when the Imperial forces suddenly rallied behind a mere mortal woman, Captain Agathe of the 5th Harjinn Mamelukes. The favour of Nurgle was inexplicably withdrawn, throwing Kranh and his forces into turmoil. Kranh ignored the pleas of his senior officers to withdraw, deluding himself into thinking Nurgle’s blessing would soon return. This fantasy lasted until his dying moments, engulfed in flames by a vengeful Captain Agathe. For the surviving astartes of the 4th Battalion this was a seminal moment. Abandoned by first one father and then a second, friendless and alone. They left their mortal allies to die and fled into blackness of space. They were the 4th, the Mortals’ Shield, no longer. Now they were truly outcasts, worthless plague victims marked with despair and ill fortune. Now they were the Lepers of Barbarus. Penitence The Lepers of Barbarus believed they had failed their father Nurgle and sought to earn his forgiveness. With their prophet Kranh the Blessed dead the Lepers were leaderless. With no guidance they went wherever the warp would take them, blindly washing up on the shores of Imperial worlds every century or so, as time is measured in the realm of mortals. For the Lepers their voyages lasted anything from a day to a decade. On arrival in system the Lepers would attack lonely outposts and rural hamlets, inflicting minimal casualties but utterly destroying any buildings, infrastructure, livestock or crops. Within days of their attacks vast numbers of refugees would flee from the countryside to the cities, carrying with them plague and fear. By the time a planet’s military might could be gathered or offworld reinforcements could arrive it would already be too late. The disease-ridden cities would be plague houses, any survivors doomed to a slow death from starvation with the food supplies infected or destroyed. The Lepers would return to their ships and set sail into the unknown. Death The Lepers of Barbarus met their end on the world of Narayan in 290.M36. They had been planetside for less than a day when a strike force of the Sanctors of Terror was spat from the fickle tides of the warp, months before it had even set sail. The ships of the Lepers turned to meet the Imperial fleet but were too slow. The battle was short, vicious, and ended with the Lepers’ flagship crash landing into the planets largest mountain range, obliterating an entire nation. The Sanctors made landfall soon after. The Lepers were scattered across the surface of Narayan, attacking a score of defenceless targets. They resisted with the tenacity and fearlessness that characterises all sons of the XIV legion. Their death was prolonged and exacted a high price, but it was inevitable. And so the Lepers of Barbarus died as they had lived: despised, outcast and fatherless.

Hello! As you can see, the Death Guard and Thousand Sons have gotten their own little places on the forum now. :) This has happened for a multitude of reasons. They will have their own Codexes separate from the CSM codex, they have gotten new and updated models and rules and the buzz around them is high...and other things... Now why haven't Slaanesh and Khorne gotten their own little homes yet, you ask? Well, there just isn't enough posts going around about them yet. I'm betting that GW will eventually get around to making them too, and we'll add them then... So that's the news! Now post away and fill them up! :P

Our second unique terminator squad. Armed with both a man reaper and plague gauntlets they can reap a heavy tally, if they can get close enough Other rules are: Plague chimes (can't remember if that's the name but it's what they look like) which do something to the contagion range iirc Bodyguard they can take the hit for a character instead. What do we love about these guys?

Are the Datacards worth getting? Are they going to be an evergreen product? Do I need to worry about them going away at some point? I'm not going to be able to afford them for a while unless the few ebay sales I have going actually sell...

Hi guys On to the next part of the Unit of the Week (possibly fortnight). Lord of Contagion. There are 2 models out there. The original from the Dark Imperium and Lord Felthius Let's have your thoughts on what weapons it would be best to equip and how you would best use this glorious leader

Greetings all. Like a lot of members here, I couldn't wait to get started with the contents of Dark Imperium, and as well as building an Ultramarine Primaris army from it, I thought I would use the opportunity to recreate an old Nurgle army of mine, named The Pestilent Scourge. Without further delay, allow me to share my progress... Balantisis the Wretched, Lord of Contagion He is finished for now, until I get my hands on some clear resin to add water to his base and perhaps some more technical paint effects. The army so far... And I've started working on my Poxwalkers... I've started removing the horns and such for a few reasons; it'll make them easier to convert duplicate miniatures in the army while allowing me to buy more split set contents online to bulk out the army cheaply, I like the idea of humans touched by Nurgle and mutated to the look and feel of the base models provided, and ultimately because I feel that all the horns just look stupid and a touch too much like Age of Sigmar esque miniatures for my taste. This isn't likely to be the fastest blog in the world, but I'll update as and when I have progress. C&C welcome and appreciated!