Accolades for the Children

And, finally, here are some awards won at the three indy GTs I attended this season. First up, was The Midwest Rampage 4 in Bloomington, IL, in May, where I took the Player's Choice award. Unfortunately, my wife called me on Saturday AM to let me know that she had only had 1 hour of sleep the night before because our two young children had taken sick, and I needed to come home early. So, I left after the first three games, didn't receive a paint score, and took dead last in the tournament (grumble, grumble). Next up was The Quake City Rumble in San Francisco in June, where I took Best Painted Single Miniature for my DP. I also got 2nd Best Painted army (behind Ed Phillips beautiful VC) and 2nd Player's Choice (behind John Lentz' hilariously themed and converted "Squigtonnians"), finishing up 24th overall out of 103 players. Lastly, The Battle on Beale in Memphis in July, where I took Best Appearance (this time edging out Ed Phillips), and 2nd Player's Choice (where he edged out me;), finishing up 7th overall out of 93 players, which was my best GT finish ever. All in all, 6 awards in one season, an unprecedented number for me. This is going to be something quite difficult to repeat, I have a feeling, anytime in the near future, but rest assured, I'll be looking to surpass it one of these days.

The Monstrous Brethren of the Children

This gnarly thing is a conversion I made to represent a DOW Ogre Maneater. At the Midwest Rampage, during one game, you get an additional 250 points of DOW troops to use in a single unit, so I decided to run 2 Maneaters with heavy armor and great weapons. Not the most tactical option, but I already had my old Exalted Daemon model on a 40mm base that wasn't being used for anything else, and, let's face it, you can never have too many monsters in this list;) The main body is mostly sculpted green stuff over the torso of a Lichtor. To this I added yet more Tyranid bitz (his claws, spines, and tail maul). The head and tail were entirely sculpted, as were the muscles overlaying the Tyranid claw arms. After having seen Primeval, I was very much taken with the giant crocodile, Gustav, portrayed in the film. There is a scene where the beast rises out of the muck and reeds to confront Orlando Jones with his mouth wide open, and there are all these flies buzzing about in the air, and the words "Gustav, Greatcroc of Nurgle" swept unbidden into my mind. This conversion was mostly spawned by that movie image. I was going for sort of a mutated, devolved crocodile, and I think it turned out pretty good.

The Slimedogs of the Children

Well, here are the beasts. I was really pleased with the changes to these guys from the SoC list. The points cost went up, but they were just simply too good before. They lost 1A, a pip of WS, 2Ld, and the Cloud of Flies, and now have I1, which, combined with a 20 point increase in cost seems pretty steep. However, they gained regeneration, slime trail, and +1W (!!!) which is more than a fair trade in my opinion. Beasts are now a little less hitty, and easier to hit in shooting/hth, but they are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay tougher to beat up, which, as I've said previously here, is really how I always thought nurgle stuff should be.

These guys were some of my favorites in the army, and were great fun to make. 3 of them have parts of a chopped up Dhole mini from RAFM's Call of Cthulhu line. For the woefully uneducated, the Dhole is basically a great big, gnarly worm. I made parts of the lower bodies of the brown, green and multicolored "bruised" beasts with bits of Dhole, but the lions share of each of them is sculpted from GS. The yellow beast is entirely sculpted (with the exception of some Tyrannid legs and the maw from the OK BSB standard top) of GS and Apoxie Sculpt. He was partially based on an illustration of a Shoggoth from the classic CoC module The Thing at the Threshold.

With these 4 guys finished, I've officially got a full 2250 points painted, and what an enjoyable time it has been. There will be more updates, though, as I finish other projects for this army. I'm currently making up a nasty, diseased-crocodile thing on a 40mm base to go along with my long-since-posted Exalted Daemon (since there's no such option anymore...hisssssssss!!!) as a pair of DoW Maneaters. Should be done with that dude inside of a month. Then it's just some movement trays and the display board, and the Children of the Glades will be ready for action! I've also got an idea for a large creature that I'll probably run as an entire unit of 20 Plaguebearers. Stay tuned....

The Swarms of the Glades

This time around, we have the recently finished unit of 5 furies I made. I had a couple interesting ideas for conversions, and decided I'd go ahead and bite the bullet and make a single, minimally-sized non Nurgle unit, although I'm still not sure if I'm going to run them in a tournament setting. The bodies are made from a variety of Tyranid claws, legs, armor plating and sundry other bitz, lots of GS, an old Beast of Nurgle I chopped up, and parts of an old, metal Mage Knight Crypt Worm (one of the most "Nurgly" things ever, and great for conversions...if you have a line on some, I highly suggest getting them if you are contemplating doing any Nurgle work). The wings are "Shrinky Dink" made, an idea I got from Mike Butcher's

http://www.chaosbutcher.com/main.php

excellent and extensive conversion career. The wings were a little frustrating to make, and I had to do several runs to get enough usable ones to complete the set, but I think the end result is pretty good. Overall, I'm pleased with the way most of them came out. I'm particularly fond of the fellow on the far left of the picture of 3, and if I ever decided to make more of them, I think I'd just do variations on this theme.

The Lumbering Host

Here are a couple of the larger models I've painted up and based on 50mm to be unit fillers. These should break up the evenness of the ranked troops and give a more chaotic appearance to their respective units. I especially like the idea of big, lumbering beasts in the Nurgle DL army...very reminiscent of the cover art for The Lost and the Damned. The dude on the left is an ooooooooold GUO that I've jazzed up with some repositioning of limbs, horns on the head and a sword made from plasticard. The...thing...on the right is a Reaper model called a Faceless Horror. Nothing added on here save a couple Tyranid claws to make grasping mandibles. I really like how the mottled appearance of this thing's flesh turned out. It was a laborious process, but the results are worth it.

The Shepherd of the Children

This brutal looking fellow is Ulugoi the Gatherer, who wanders the world claiming the souls of those who (for whatever ill-conceived reason) have endeavored to make a pact with Nurgle that they later tried to back out of once their marker has been called in. When not engaged in his capacity as Nurgle's debt-collector, however, he is affectionately minding his flock of lesser daemons who frolic happily in the sweet green putrescence of the Glades, thus earning the honorific "Shepherd of the Glades". This is the second of my Daemonic Heralds for the army, and one of my favorites. The main body is a chopped and repositioned Eshin Rat Ogre from the Mordheim line (the tail of which comprises the purple tongue;), onto which I've sculpted a belly, flapping intestines and various tendrils and boils. The flail heads come from a variety of plastic sprues with a couple metal chains thrown in for good measure. I sculpted the handle over a section of paper clip. His head is from the Albion Fen Beast, onto which I sculpted this massive, jagged maw. The horns are clipped from the tail ends of two 5th edition Beasts of Nurgle. I despise the model as a whole, but I always thought the tail spike was great, and I finally found a place to use them where they looked just right. Although these pics don't show it very well, I really like the little glowing dots of his eyes in the recessed blackness of the sockets.

The Footmen of the Children

Well, once again I've been slacking on posting anything new. Been painting sporadically since the Hillbilly was over (or Big Waaagh, if you're not a purist, as I am), and here are just a few of the Plaguebearers I've finished. The first photo is just some random PBs to show color variations. The second photo shows a couple of the converted Plaguebearers I've made by cutting off and repositioning arms and weapons. The rest of the photos detail two of the command groups I've created. The unit champions are made from old Rat Ogres and various heads and GS. Both standards are scratch built and meant to evoke the symbiotic nature of chaos in the Glades of Nurgle. Standard tops are either "living" creatures (or as close to "living" as daemons get;), or a mix of living and dead parts, just like the standard the BSB carries. These were great fun to make. Likewise, the musicians have similarly living/dead scratch built instruments to ensure that the Talleymen keep slogging forward, sonorous voices eternally counting as they go. I'm using exclusively the 4th edition and earlier PBs, as I think the PB figs GW produced for 6th edition chaos look like somebody was trying to get out of the studio quickly for a hot date on Friday night, and just slopped some crap together. They really are abominable compared to the much more characterful earlier PBs. These guys will be run in units of 19 or 20, depending on whether a Herald will be in the unit. I *LOVE* the new regeneration ability the Herald passes on to his troops. Much more fluffy, I think, than the Cloud of Flies they had in SoC. It totally fits in more with my idea of Nurgle daemons...slow, plodding, inexorable. I generally give 1 unit the Standard of Seeping Decay to make them a little more efficacious in combat, but I frown on repeating the same standards/gifts combos on multiple units. One of the things that makes the DoC list so open to abuse by power mongers.