Red's Death Guard- Mortarion and Armies on Parade

[RedInventor]

You are my unbroken blades. You are the Death Guard. By your hand shall justice be delivered, and doom shall stalk a thousand worlds.
-- Primarch Mortarion, upon his unification with the XIV

I chose to the Death Guard mostly do to their amazing color scheme. Painting them should teach me a lot more about weathering and painting in general. Plus Mortarion is one tough bastard and his model looks great. As with most armies I always like to have a setting to imagine while I paint, which then affects basing and weathering. Conveniently when I was choosing to do Death Guard, I was driving through Mississippi and Louisiana. As such I began to see my Death Guard trudging through a city overtaken by a swamp, the roots of trees breaking through cement and rupturing sewer lines. Moss covering all of the old icons of civilization, time and rot overcoming even the greatest of triumphs.

So far I have bought:
-Mortarion
-Calas Typhon
-10 Death Shroud Terminators
-10 Grave Warden Terminators
-A FW Transfer Sheet
-a Betrayal at Calth (BaC) box
-I'm stealing the Contemptor and Cataphractii Terminators from my other BaC box
I also have an Atropos Knight Titan, a Knight Paladin/Erant, 18 Thallax, and 6 Myrmidon Destructors if I want to add a little bit of a Mechanicum allied force.

My plan:
This is the hardest part for me, mix in indecisive with little actual game experience and you don't have a plan. Even better still is I have found a Heresy Tournament/Event nearby on April 29th that I want to go to. The tournament is set at 2500 pts, so that is what I am shooting to build towards. Without a list fully formulated in my mind yet I do still have a few things in mind. I have always wanted to enter into the Armies on Parade competition and so I want to make a 2x2 display board for the army. The tournament apparently also gives points based on the armies appearance so obviously I will be going with the vision I have in my head of a city overtaken by swamp to display them at the event if I can get this all finished in time. This will be my first 40k/30k event ever so I am rather nervous, especially considering I have rarely ever played and it's been well over a year since I have played.
Now on to the good stuff, my first Death Guard models:

This is Praetor Agrim. I really enjoyed painting his face, I haven't ever done pale sickly-esque skin before but it was a blast. Oil washes are amazing, can't believe that I waited so long to try them.

This is just a Cataphractii Terminator with Lightning Claws, still a blast to paint!
Well I hope you enjoyed reading and looking! Let me know what you think!
-Red

[Flint13]

Wow, that super sickly skin tone is spot on, man. Great work!

 

I'm defs looking forward to seeing a whole unit of those gross, rusty terminators too ^_^

[RedInventor]

Thanks Flint! Ask and you shall recieve!

Got the rest of the squad all washed up, on to battle damage!  I am still not sold on the steel claws, but I am trying to achieve a more "realistic" effect.  Maybe I will just throw some blood on them like one of the guys on the DG facebook page recommended.  Any thoughts? Almost done with the Imperial Bunker behind them too!

 

My forgeworld order came in today, woo hoo! 

So Mortarion, Typhon, 10x Death Shroud, 10x Grave Wardens, and a transfer sheet (which is beautiful by the way).  I am so hyped right now, can't wait to paint up Mortarion and Typhon!

 

Well thanks for reading,

Red

[Enigami]

Glad to see you getting a log up and going! They look great so far. Especially, the flesh tone! Keep them a' coming!

[RedInventor]

Thanks Enigami!  I hope my XIVth will look as good as yours!

 

I've got some progress on building some of my FW order, just cleaned up typhon and mortarion and built some Death Shroud.  How do you handle the parts that have some mold slippage?

 

Anyways, I have to go out to sea for a bit so it will be a while before I update again.  Hopefully I will be able to build most of my units while out and about, then I will be able to come back and get some painting knocked out.

 

Thanks to everyone who has looked and commented!

-Red

[Enigami]

Send me a pm with the models that have slipping and I can go through a detailed tutorial on how to fix them. It really comes down to where the slip is located and how bad it is. The lesser ones can be handled with some creative filing and sharp exacto knifing, but the worse ones might need some GS as well.

[RedInventor]

So I'm back from my 3 week underway and I came home to my mondo FW order.  Now this has lead to a serious resin back log that I felt like i had to take a picture!  Practically resin porn for me. 

So that is what my most recent order was comprised of.  Quite a bit of stuff, at least for me it is.  Now granted in the first picture I also have my Atropos, 18 thallax, 3 myrmidon destructors, and a titan tech priest which I am not sure if they will be added to the Legion or not yet.  

In total this gives me: Mortarion, Typhus, 10 Deathshroud Terminators, 10 Grave Warden Terminators, 15 Cataphractii Terminators (BaC), 2 Cataphracti Praetors, a Consul/Lieutenant, 30 Tactical Marines (10 Heavy Flamer ones), 3 Rhinos, 2 Legion Medusas, 2 Graviton Cannons, 2 Quad Mortars,  a Deredeo Dreadnought, 2 BaC Contemptors, and a Spartan.  Most of which are unbuilt and unpainted.  Out of all of that I have to come up with a 2500 point list for the tournament on April 29th.  Mostly I am hoping to do well in the painting category vice actually doing well gameplay wise.  

Anyways back to the pictures:

So I haven't gotten much done since i have gotten back, mostly been trying to hang out with the family.  I have started on my Deathshroud, Typon and one of the Quad Mortars.  Typhon has been a blast to paint.  I have learned one thing about painting Death Guard though and that is they are brutal.  So far I don't really like how they look, but I know that once I throw some washes on them they will look better.  This whole not washing until the end though, it's brutal.

Enigami - Thanks for the advice amigo, I went with the aggressive filing/exacto knifing and it seemed to work pretty well.  Thanks for the advice!

 

Anywho, thanks for reading!

-Red

[RedInventor]

So I managed to pretty much finish Calas Typhon, still have some weathering and mud to add to the base.  Overall though he is pretty much finished, what are your guys thoughts?

 

My 5 Deathshroud and Thudd gun should be finished with their basing tonight as well, so maybe a double update day! Woo progress!

-Red

[RedInventor]

So i have been trying to work on some bases and I kind of have ran into some issues.  I used this tutorial: http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=5

I changed a couple things, mostly I added some heavy "grit" sand and some wood pieces.  Not even that much of either, but I ended up with a lot of trouble trying to do this.  I couldn't get the right consistency very easily.  In the end I feel like the bases look kind of flat and not terribly swampy/muddy like I was shooting for.  Anyone have any advice on what I could do to try and bring some life into them?  I still have to go back with some realistic water to add some puddles and I want to add some moss to the trees, but I still don't think that will fix the problem.  So if you have any ideas please let me know!

Thanks for reading, 

-Red

[RedInventor]

Well while I have been researching ways to fix up my bases, I have came up with the list I am thinking about working towards. Thought I would throw it up here to kind of log my progression and see if anyone had any input.

+++ Reaping Tournament (2502pts) +++

 

++ Legiones Astartes: Crusade Army List (Age of Darkness) (2502pts) ++

 

+ HQ (162pts) +

 

Legion Centurion (162pts) [Cataphractii Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon, Chem-munitions, Combi-Weapon, Deathshroud Power Scythe, Phosphex Bombs, Rad Grenades]

Consul [siege Breaker]

 

+ Troops (370pts) +

 

Legion Tactical Squad (185pts) [Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier, Legion Tactical Sergeant, 9x Legion Tactical Space Marines]

 

Legion Tactical Squad (185pts) [Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier, Legion Tactical Sergeant, 9x Legion Tactical Space Marines]

 

+ Elites (310pts) +

 

Legion Quad Launcher Support Battery (160pts) [2x Legion Rapier, Phosphex Canister Shot]

 

Legion Rapier Weapons Battery (150pts)

Legion Rapier Weapons Battery [Graviton Cannon]

Legion Rapier Weapons Battery [Graviton Cannon]

 

+ Heavy Support (1235pts) +

 

Deredeo Pattern Dreadnought (220pts) [Aiolos Missile Launcher, Chem-munitions, Twin-linked Heavy Flamer]

 

Grave Warden Terminator Squad (705pts) [2x Chainfist, 8x Grave Warden Terminator, Heavy Flamer with Chem-munitions]

Chem-master [Chainfist]

Legion Spartan Assault Tank [Armoured Ceramite, Chem-munitions, Flare Shield, Twin-linked Heavy Flamer]

 

Legion Artillery Tank Squadron (310pts) [Legion Medusa, Legion Medusa]

 

+ Legion +

 

Legion Astartes [Traitor, XIV: Death Guard]

 

+ Lord of War (425pts) +

 

Mortarion the Reaper (425pts) [Primarch]

Master of the Legion [The Reaping]

 

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)

 

Thoughts?

-Red

[RedInventor]

A little progress to report, nothing too crazy:

So I have been busy trying to build a lot of the armored portion of the army, especially since I usually paint the interior's so that takes a some extra time.  There isn't too much left to build yet except for the rhinos, a graviton cannon, a thudd gun, and the two tactical squads.  Hopefully I can get it all done before April 29th!

This is Siege Breaker Drogoth Pyrall Commander of the 5th Siege Company.  He is a conversion of the Steloc Aethon from Betrayal at Calth.  I mostly just rummaged through an old bits bag I had and found what I could to make him look a little different.  I really didn't want to cut his chainfist arm off this time (last time I did for my vlka project and it was a pain), so I gave him an underslung/wrist mounted combi flamer that I thought looked kind of cool.  The box on the back is there to represent the nuncio vox siege breakers have, I feel like a bolted on box made the most sense for it.  Plus the perfectionist in me would want to redo the entire back/powerplant area into a nuncio vox and I don't have time for that with my deadline approaching.  Visually I am not sold 100% yet but overall I like him.  What do you guys think?

I also decided to do a little bit of a test on my layout now that I have a lot more models built and my original plan is going to need scrapped.  There simply won't be room for everything.  So now I am thinking about doing a display similar to the Calth one that FW did in 2015 with a little bit of a swampy twist.  Once I have some concepts drawn up I will make another update about trying to explain what I am thinking.  

Thanks for reading, 

Red

[Chaeron]

I'm a big fan of the subtle conversion on the Praetor there Red - very nice! All shaping up well :)

[Whohitjohn]

Those Death Guard do look good Red, looking forward to your next update

[disease]

love the basing, looking forward to seeing more

[RedInventor]

Well... I am back.  Life has been kind of crazy for me over the past few months.  I got off the aircraft carrier I was stationed on and transferred to shore duty with interim training.  I will be heading to the Northwest US and we are in the process of buying a home up there.  I took a break from painting and tried my hand at making mead, turns out I make some pretty tasty mead.  I also reenlisted which was a nightmare all on it's own.  Yet reenlisting has provided some extra capital to make a big purchase which has really motivated me to get back into the swing of things.  Mostly I have been trying to clear out some of my resin that has been sitting in the box too long.  So here they are:

 This is the major chunk of what I have been working on, my Mechanicum forces.  They have been sitting in their boxes/bags collecting dust for a hot minute.  The Atrapos was an end of deployment gift from my wife.  The rest have just been sitting for a while now.  The warhound I bought second hand and have been meaning to get to for a long time but always got distracted.  

The Atrapos was a dream to build and probably one of my favorite models I have ever painted.  I also think it is the best models I have done.  The pilot was a nice little bonus.  I feel like you should always challenge yourself as a painter and yellow on both of these guys was a big pain for me.  I am no good at it, but I did learn a lot doing it.

Myrmidon Destructors just look cool and they were also fun to paint.  I just wish they didn't come with three different weapon loadouts.

 

As for the warhound I still have to go around, touch up on the metallic trims, and then move forward with an oil wash.  I really wish I could of found the arms in my storage unit so that way I could actually finish him.  Guess I will be able to here in a few months after I move again.  

More in the next post...

[RedInventor]

Such a big update, might be a few posts!  I really wish that I would have been able to get into ETL as all of this probably could of really helped.  Next year I suppose.  Anyways, back to the update!  To finish of my Mechanicum progress I have also started work on all of my Thallax.  

14 of the dudes, 1 with Photon Thruster and 1 with Multi Melta.  I don't really like building Thallax.  I lost some cables for some, broke cables for others, and put arms on the wrong side on a couple.  They'll be painted like the rest of my Mars based Mechanicum.  So their left shoulder will be caution striped and the rest of their armor will be red.  Hopefully they end up looking good...

Once the Thallax are done my Mechanicum forces will be all caught up, well except I have a Knight Paladin to build and paint.  

 

Now as for Death Guard.  I have been a total bum about my dirty tough marines.  I find painting them that they look like crap for quite a while, then you get into the oil wash and weathering and they start to look awesome.  That stretch of looking garbage kills me, hard to stay motivated.  For instance:

This is my loyalist Siege Breaker Drogoth pictured earlier in the log.  He isn't Death Guard ugly yet but soon.  He is ready for an oil wash and some decals.  

The main reason I am getting back into grinding out some of Morty's grumpy kids is because there is a Zone Mortalis tourney coming up and I am going to try and make it.  It's only 850 points and I am part of the way there.  

My list is my siege breaker, 5 Deathshroud, 5 Grave Wardens (2x Chainfists), and 2x 10 man Tactical Squads.  So just have to finish the siege breaker and grave wardens.  Then the fun process of trying to grind out 20 Tactical marines before wednesday.  We will see how it goes.  

I also painted Morty's face today:

And some random WIP army shots so far:

 

And only one more update I promise!

[RedInventor]

Alright final update post!

So the big purchase... well I was finally able to get a Warlord Titan! I'll have to do more in depth posts about this monster, for now I'd like to introduce Ignis Dei of the Legio Ignatum:

Giant Mega Box!

They have sold more of these than I would have thought, Ignis Dei is #341.

My kids, Loken and Alaska, amazed by how many parts there is. They love the warlord. (my son Loken a little too much as he like to touch it while epoxy is drying )

The magos approves, the space wolf isn't quite as happy ha

I love the Lucius head, can't wait for my magnets to get here tomorrow! As for the claw, I have this idea of him holding another titan's reactor core/heart. Maybe with some flickering lights?

He's been a beast of a project so far and there is still a ton left to go. His legs are going to drive me to drink!

Thanks for reading/looking. I will be updating again soon.

-Red

[MordentHex]

wow, just.... wow. your resin crack is awesome.

[RedInventor]

Thanks MordantHex! I'm quite happy with my collection, just wish more of it was painted haha

[MordentHex]

Thanks MordantHex! I'm quite happy with my collection, just wish more of it was painted haha

don't we all...

[RedInventor]

I've finally finished Marshall Drogoth Pyrall, Siege Breaker of the XIVth Legion.  I've also finished my Grave Warden Squad and my Deathshroud Terminator Squad.  I'm interested to see what you guys think!

 

Only 20 Tactical Marines left to grind through for my 850 point Zone Mortalis list.  I hope I can get them done-ish by Wednesday.

 

Thanks for reading, 

Red

[Skinrider]

This is one for me to follow!

 

I enjoy hearing about your journey as a painter/modeler :) It's always nice to see people growing and learning in this odd hobby of ours, cool to hear about your wife getting you the Atropos :D

[disease]

awesome sauce

[Svartmetall]

There is simply no such thing as 'too much Death Guard' :)

[Flint13]

Lovely across the board, Red.

 

But I especially love the super creepy, glowy faceplates on the deathshroud.