++ Hexfleet Virules ++ (Nurgle CSM, Daemons, and R&H)

[Lagrath]

Thanks! Quite a compliment.

[Lagrath]

Pushing through the final set of models before my huge Chaos army is ready for commission painting! Now all that's left to build are a GUO, Ahriman, and 18 Flamers of Tzeentch. All that's left to finish sculpting are my part of my Fire Raptor and part of the base of my Knight. All that's left to gap fill are 9 Plague Drones and 60 Plague Bearers. So close!

 

 

Herald on foot with modular Disc option:

 

 

Bilepiper, Slimux, Scrivener:

 

 

Death Guard Terminator Sorcerer with 3 Blightlord Terminators:

 

 

Gnarlmaw:

 

[Draakur]

Don't think Ive ever actually commented in here, but basically: you rock, and this whole thread rocks, and yeh. Keep rocking. Truly inspirational.

[Lagrath]

Don't think Ive ever actually commented in here, but basically: you rock, and this whole thread rocks, and yeh. Keep rocking. Truly inspirational.

 

Thanks!! Wasn't sure anyone was still even reading it haha.

 

Can't wait until the last 6 years or so worth of building, converting, and sculpting pay off when it all gets pro painted!

[Pearson73]

Looking good as ever, I too am eager to see your collection get painted up; make sure to post plenty of shots after the comission!

[Draakur]

 

Don't think Ive ever actually commented in here, but basically: you rock, and this whole thread rocks, and yeh. Keep rocking. Truly inspirational.

 

 

Thanks!! Wasn't sure anyone was still even reading it haha.

 

Can't wait until the last 6 years or so worth of building, converting, and sculpting pay off when it all gets pro painted!

You're welcome! :)

 

You've got oodles and oodles of great work in here, but I think my favourite piece is probably Wittlerot (and the Knight... and some of the individual Plague Marine kit bashes are absolutely ace...).

 

When will we see the King of Rags? :)

[Lagrath]

After years of planning and waiting for all the models to be released, I've finally finished my Pestilent Triumvirate for my Nurgle collection! Took a lot of work to get them just right but super pumped about the results. Can't wait to see them painted. Original models all designed by Jeremy of Creature Caster (though the smaller model is available from Ultraforge).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lagrath]

I had posted some blurrier, earlier WIP pictures, but now I'm done: After years of planning and months of converting, sculpting, and magnetizing, I've finally finished my most ambitious model to date: Gulgoth the Bloated, Knight of Nurgle. Scratch-built all the arms! So glad to see the final product after having the vision in my head for years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pearson73]

Insanity sir, brilliant insanity.

[Sagentus]

Amazing work ... just noticed on the back of the legs you have the gaps/mold lines, are you keeping thme? 

[Lagrath]

Amazing work ... just noticed on the back of the legs you have the gaps/mold lines, are you keeping thme? 

 

I'm super picky about gaps and mold lines, but I think those particular gaps even I am fine with.

[Lagrath]

Updates! First, I finished sculpting and magnetizing my Great Unclean One / Rotigus! The magnetizing work was a lot harder for me than other people made it sound, but now I have a buddy for the custom GUO I made a few months ago!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, I went and got myself 3 Plagueburst Crawlers so that now I have all models in the Death Guard range!  I made some small tweaks so that they wouldn't all look the same.  My favorite is the Nurgling stuck in one of the mortars!

 

 

 

[Gederas]

Dude. The base on your Great Unclean One/Rotigus....

 

I'm gonna wretch. That's a good reaction for Nurgle.

 

Also, I can't look at it and not get itchy :lol:

[Lagrath]

Got myself a second Poxbringer and didn't want him to look identical to the first model, so I did a few conversions.

 

 

[Lagrath]

Converted my own Lord of Change using parts from Creature Caster and the GW kit, including a magnetized baleful sword option. Love how the pose and mixed bits turned out!

 

[Lagrath]

After 3 years of on-and-off work, I'm proud to present my masterpiece "the Beast" aka my Nurgle Fire Raptor! Fully magnetized stand and weapon options.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fhanados]

You make me want to buy a fire raptor now... that is incredible!

[Lagrath]

Ok boys, here we go...

 

[Sagentus]

Dam that raptor is crazy. The modeling it self is epic then the GS work ontop is just amazing ... wonder whats in the boxes 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

What are the sacks near the tail fins from?  They in particular look great.

[Lagrath]

Dam that raptor is crazy. The modeling it self is epic then the GS work ontop is just amazing ... wonder whats in the boxes 

 

Sending everything off to GMM Studios to get painted!

 

What are the sacks near the tail fins from?  They in particular look great.

 

Terivgons.

[Sagentus]

I very much look forward to seeing how they all turn out, i really like gmms style. Which level did you go for?

[Lagrath]

GMM doesn't offer "levels." He just paints everything to be amazing.

[Lagrath]

GMM received my model today! So hyped. It's going to kill me to wait for him to finish his current commission and then it's going to kill me again to wait a month or two as the whole huge thing gets painted!

[Lagrath]

I've written my first new Hexfleet Virules short story in several years ("Know They Enemy") to kick off my first time participating in a narrative campaign. We have 13 Imperial vs 13 Chaos players and I'm pumped! Perfect timing with my Chaos collection getting beautifully painted by GMM Studios right now!

 

Kronis campaign: https://thekroniscrusade.wordpress.com/players-armies/

 

“Know Thy Enemy”

A Hexfleet Virules Short Story

 

 

+++ Incoming Transmission . . . +++

+++ Signal Clear +++

+++ Data Source: Unknown +++

+++ Encryption Level Gamma . . . +++

+++ Transmission Received. Decrypting . . . +++

 

My Lord Inquisitor Olberus,

 

I shall forego our customary exchanges, as your time is valuable and the nature of the threat is dire and imminent. Sufficed to say that our ancient House continues to enjoy the blessings of prosperity even in these dark times, a blessing which is surely due only thanks to the ever-present grace of our immortal Emperor. Our family remains singularly committed as always to the mission of the Ordo, deploying our resources and soliciting information as directed. We remain your loyal servants in the eternal struggle against the Great Enemy, and it is with this mandate in mind that I bear most urgent news, tidings which I fear will bring ill bearings for your current mission in the systems surrounding Kronis.

 

Following our last correspondence, I accordingly directed all intelligence efforts (and no small portion of royal resources) towards uncovering the nature behind the Heretic Astartes warlord we now know as Virules the Plaguelich (pronounced “Vir-u-lez”), also known by various other equally colorful monikers such as “the Hexwizard” and “the Virulent Iscariot.” As you well know, revealing the full truth behind those Astartes who would turn their backs upon the Throne is ever an impossible affair – not only do such villainous figures inherently operate in the shadows of secrecy and deception, but the very existence of such traitors must remain closely guarded for fear of undermining the sacred propaganda which keeps the average citizen duly loyal and unquestioning of the Imperial order and its defenders.

 

As such, information typically arrives only in small scraps and tantalizing hints, sewn together like an illicit tapestry of secondary and tertiary sources, damaged vidpics, extracted confessions, forensic investigation, and all other means of discovery. Oftentimes the information we obtain is maddeningly incomplete, inconsistent, or even outright contradictory. We must therefore use our judgment to piece together the most likely narrative based on both must stalwart facts as well as the costly experience our House has developed in our millennia-long struggle with the Enemy.

 

I regret to inform your Lordship that the truth behind the so-called Plaguelich is far worse than what we had imagined. Though other rumors abound, we believe there is credible reason to believe the traitor is indeed a single individual who hails from a remote agri-world whose name has now been lost to the ages. While it is well known among agents of the Ordo that Virules is a sorcerer of unfortunately dramatic prowess, we believe that these very powers were the initial cause of a betrayal so malignant and foul it is almost without precedent.

 

Though we do not know his original name, we believe that Virules experienced a full bloom of his psychic potential early on in his life, almost certainly during childhood. Given what we think to have been a remote location and rural nature of the planet, the ruling authorities (to whatever extent they were present) failed to direct the child towards a properly pious path for his gift, such as a sanctioned Imperial psyker in the services of the Astra Militarum. As a result, Virules was a prime target when, by happenstance, a Black Ship made an extremely rare foray to the system to harvest assets from precisely such remote worlds. We do not yet know how exactly a young Virules managed to evade the skilled agents aboard such vessels, but we have reason to believe that when the Black Ship again departed the system, Virules remained undetected upon his homeworld as his brother and parents lost their lives in connection with the visit. While all the accounts are apocryphal, it is widely thought that it was this experience which first planted a deep-seated hatred of the Imperium within the young psyker.

 

Whether by coincidence or by the foul manipulations of the Enemy, within one or two standard Terran years of the Black Ship’s visit, a little-known Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes expanded to include Virules’ world within its recruitment orbit. Finding Virules to be not only a psychically gifted but also physically impressive and courageous youth, this Chapter unsurprisingly chose to take him and deliver him back to the Chapter Monastery for the customary inspections and trials.

 

As with all Chapters, aspirants for these Astartes were naturally investigated for both spiritual and psychic corruption. Such an inspection should surely have detected the deep malevolence and ill intent harbored by the young Virules. However, our sources indicate that around the same time when Virules first arrived at the Chapter, their long-serving Chief Librarian passed way under unknown circumstances. We are again left to speculate whether such an incident was a mere coincidence or in fact the product of a darker agenda, and whether this change played a role in allowing Virules admission into the Chapter. It is my suspicion that the chaos created by this change indeed created an opening for Virules, as this particular Chapter had a long practice – despite customary warnings and traditions amongst the Astartes to the contrary – of placing a primacy on its most psychically-gifted members. Such a primacy, in fact, that the most gifted and senior of its Librarians – including, in this case, the one who experienced an ultimately death near the time of Virules’ arrival – typically served as in a dual capacity as Chapter Master. It is not difficult to imagine that under such circumstances, a Chapter which had just lost both its Chief Librarian and Chapter Master might not have duly exercised its full diligence in closely examining what appeared to the fortuitous arrival of a once-in-a-generation applicant. Upon admission to the Chapter, the youth lost his birth name and become known as Brother Virelion.

 

Few details are available for the following years. However, multiple sources corroborate the same sordid ending to the story. After an unknown period of centuries, Virelion eventually rose to the position of Chapter Master and Chief Librarian. After a relatively short numbers of years leading his Chapter, Virelion appears to have recalled every last battle brother to the Chapter Monastery – purportedly for the whole Chapter to simultaneously and collectively renew its sacred oaths to the Emperor and the Imperium. Whether out of fear or reverence, even the traitors we have managed to capture and vigorously question have thus far refused to divulge exactly what happened next.

 

As far as we can tell, Virelion lured his whole Chapter into the Chapter Reclusiam, at which point he trapped and sacrificed wholesale the unexpecting entirety of his sworn brotherhood – geneseed and all – in an unimaginably profane and potent sacrifice to the Ruinous Powers. There appear to have been no survivors. In the long records of our House, I have been unable to locate records of any similar rituals or any other betrayals of one’s own Chapter on such a scale. I am sure that your Lordship now appreciates why I was forced to delay for a secure line of communication before forwarding a report of such heresy.  

 

Following his immense betrayal, Virelion took the name Virules in recognition of his dark transformation. It was at the same time that Virules appears to have sold his soul to the service of that putrid and abominable deity known as Nurgle’leth, though it is unknown whether this pact was made prior or subsequent to the sacrifice of his Chapter. In recognition of this dark pact, Virules also appears to have received a scythe of prodigious power from his new patron. Based on our own reports with battlefield survivors and psychic forensic analysis, we believe that this scythe is in fact a daemon weapon containing the bound essence of an unknown Great Unclean One, and that the weapon primarily serves to further amplify the Plaguelich’s already amble psychic might.

 

The next several centuries are again murky, but we believe that Virules, left alone following the sacrifice of all his brothers, became a traveling sorcerer selling his gifts to the highest bidder among various competing Chaos and Xenos warlords. At some point Virules came into contact with the warfleet of Nurgle’s most notorious mortal servant, Typhus the Wanderer (cross-ref: Calas Typhon). We speculate that during this time the two collaborated on the concoction of various psychic diseases, namely various strains of the so-called “zombie plague” which has been commonly reported in battle zones featuring either sorcerer. Tensions between the two rival psykers appear to have been high, and after an indeterminate amount of time, Virules again betrayed his peers when he led a large number of plague ships, Death Guard and Nurgle warbands, cultists, and Dark Mechanicus to abruptly abandon Typhus’ plague fleet. We think the two rivals have since engaged in open conflict multiple times throughout the centuries.

 

This event marked the beginning of the so-called “Hexfleet” in which Virules became a roaming Chaos warlord in his own right, with an ever-growing armada of ships and traitors drawn to the psyker’s banner over the course of many centuries. Though previously unrecorded in our own records (and in the records of the Ordo which I was able to access), it is my belief that Virules and his Hexfleet were in fact present in a clandestine role for a lengthy period of time during the Siege of Vraks. Specifically, Virules and a notable contingent of his most loyal plaguecasters are believed to have been present along the Eastern Front. You will recall that it was in this theater of the war in which the Imperium lost millions of Death Corps of Krieg in direct conflict with a Nurgle Warbrand known as the Tainted, which employed such horrific and diseased chemical weapons that even the hardened soldiers of Krieg were unable to withstand the onslaught despite their own potent chemical warfare equipment.

 

Though it may seem unfathomable given the long and loyal record of the Death Corps, we have direct evidence indicating that a substantial portion of the casualties reported along the Eastern Front were in fact due to not to deaths and injuries but rather desertion. It is well known that the soldiers of Krieg make such good soldiers precisely because they expect to die and thus do not fear death, accepting as they should that their fate is one of noble sacrifice in the Emperor’s name.

 

However, such a defense, stalwart as it is, does not bolster the courage of common men against the possibility of a fate worse than death. What we have uncovered suggests that Virules consorted with Necrosius, a champion of the Tainted and a fellow sorcerer of Nurgle, to experiment with a new, potent form of the Zombie Plague by the name of the Hex Plague. We believe that those men of Krieg who remained loyal to the Emperor not only faced the risk of death by bomb or bullet, by also that they might become afflicted with an incurable disease that damned them forever to the most horrific unlife of excoriating pain and loss of free will. Faced with the possibility of becoming prisoners within their own rotting flesh, it seems that no small number of ordinary soldiers (and even some higher-ranking officers) chose instead to cure themselves (and gain access to an unnatural longevity) by selling their souls to Nurgle and pledging their military service to the Hexfleet. Blasphemous as it may seem, such a theory would explain the numerous battlefield recordings secured by our agents…recordings which often feature Chaos soldiers who at first appear to be cultists, but upon closer examination wear heavy coats and masks with a striking (if ragged) similarity to the heraldry worn by the Krieg detachments which fought at Vraks.

 

As important as such intelligence may be, it is neither the background of the Hexfleet nor its mortal auxiliaries which present the greatest threat to the Emperor’s work on Kronis and beyond. It is well-known that among the ranks of the heretic, there are many who are gifted in the foul ways of the Warp or who enjoy access to traitorous regiments and armor.

 

What concerns us the most regarding this elusive wizard are his specific patterns of engagements and alliances dating back for at least the last several centuries. Those of us who serve the Emperor know that faith is our shield, and that we are bound together by a unity of service which cannot be matched by the fractious, divisive warlords and factions which comprise any Chaos force of notable scale. Even the Ruinous Powers themselves compete ever eternally in their perverse Great Game. We have thus come to see over the millennia that the diverse forces of Chaos, though presenting a numerous and multi-faceted threat, only ever cooperate as allies of convenience at best, with eventual betrayal an inevitable epilogue. One would assume this to be doubly true for Virules given his record.

 

Alas, we have conclusively determined that since forming his own fleet, Virules has unwaveringly treated his alliances with heretics and aliens with an ironclad integrity at total odds with his earlier betrayal of the Imperium and his Chapter. Loyalty and cooperation amongst the mortal and daemonic servants of the Plague God are known to be atypically common in comparison to those affiliated with others of that blasphemous pantheon. Thus it would be of little surprise for Virules to conduct joint operations alongside reinforcements from the Neverborn of Nurgle.

 

To our great misfortune, however, Virules has also repeatedly entered into, and deepened pacts with, warbands and daemons also affiliated with Khorne, Slaanesh, and even Tzeentch. The sorcerer seems to treat such relationships as crucial transactions, and as such places a high priority on demonstrating his own reliability and value as an ally. Coupled with his own knowledge of the Warp, Virules has thus consistently succeeded in opening realspace rifts permitting passage by not only by Nurgle’s daemons but also by infernal legions representing the rest of the pantheon. Worse, his repetitive bargains with various champions of all four Ruinious Powers appear to progressively ease his difficulty in cajoling and summoning such beings and their armies in successive campaigns.

 

As our intelligence indicates that Virules and his Hexfleet have already been detected near Kronis, I fear that his presence bolsters the potential military strength of the Chaos forces to an unknown degree. The Plaguelich’s ability to call upon a wide variety of daemonic allies creates a wildcard which the Imperial defenders may be poorly positioned to counter. Our House has bent considerable effort to inferring the sorcerer’s next gambit, engaging in all manner of psychic scrying and constant attempts at divining the Emperor’s Tarot.

 

Finally, an almost fatal breakthrough by one of our most powerful psykers strongly suggested that Virules has been attempting to aggressively secure entry for a daemonic being of staggering power and violence. After combining our more esoteric discoveries with logi-engine analysis of prior Hexfleet campaigns, we hypothesize that Virules is preparing for an all-out assault on Kronis by breaching the planet’s defenses with a vanguard of Khorne daemons led by An'ggrath the Unbound (cross-ref: Siege of Vraks). Such an alliance would be all the more plausible if indeed Virules had been present on the Chaos side during the grinding war for Vraks.

 

If Khorne’s legions can establish a beachhead on Kronis, it is highly likely that Virules will flood such a foothold with even larger battalions of Nurgle daemons and Deathguard reinforcements, at which point it may become almost impossible to dislodge the Plaguelich before he can accomplish his unknown objectives. You and I know all too well the cost of storming a front defended by entrenched Death Guard infantry and the mutated swamps of Nurgle’s Garden leaking into realspace. I therefore pray that you are able to prevent planetary entry by the Hexfleet before the sorcerer and his armies can turn the tide against us in the fight for Kronis.

 

We will continue to watch and support from the shadows, as our covenant has long demanded. The Emperor protects.

 

Ever your loyal servant,

King Andritius VIII

 

ATTACHMENT 1/1

NAME: VIDPIC STILL #044651

SOURCE: CLASSIFIED

ACCESS: MAXIMUM RESTRICTION / GENECODE ONLY

Edited July 26, 2018 by Lagrath