Chaos Space Marine, Death Guard: Army Showcase

The organisation work carries on and I’m slowly taking stock of what I have, what I still have to paint, and I’m steadily getting paint on the bare lead/metal.

Today I dug out my Warhammer 40,000 (40k) Death Guard Chaos Space Marines and thought I’d do a bit of a showcase. I’ve been collecting these since the beginning of the 8th edition of 40k, and since way back in the mists of time with 40k 3rd Edition I've played for games with this army than any other.

To be honest I hadn't intended to buy a new faction, but the 8th Edition starter box (Dark Imperium) included these chaps so I acquired them incidentally.  Looking at them I really liked the sculpts, and I've always had a soft spot for Grandfather Nurgle, so I painted them up and was hooked! As it turned out, the Death Guard were also a pretty good army in 8th, and I had a fair bit of success using them.

Anyway, here’s the army on parade.

The Vectorum in all its glory.

A mob of allied (or summoned?) Plaguebearer daemons. These are a mix of modern plastic miniatures and order metal Plaguebearers. They're both nice sculpts, but maybe its the Old Grognard in me, but those venerable metal miniatures just have a bit more charm for me. 

The Cadre of Blightlord Terminators. Grade A troops for the Death Guard, they are hard hitting and really tough to shift. Being able to teleport also makes them useful for getting into the opponent's rear zones.

Nurglings. Jolly little daemons and point-for-point (for a time at least) some of the best troops in any army list in the game.

Possessed Death Guard marines. I painted these up as they are older models I'd acquired, but I've never used them in anger in a list.

The core of the army are these chaps. These Plague Marines are excellent basic troops, able to hold their own even against tougher opponents.

The Council of commanders and leaders. To be honest, I've only really made much use of the Malignant Plaguecaster, who is an auto-include in any list for me. Other than that, the Foul Blightspawn has ssen use.

Clearly the blessed foetid fumes were getting to my camera, hence the blurry image...

This is Lord Felthius. However, I've used him as a proxy for the Typhus model (which I don't like).

Cultists. I never had much use for these, and they lacked the disgustingly resilient special rule. These miniature are mostly old Cawdor metal figures from the original Necromunda game.

My usual army commander, a Daemon Prince of Nurgle. I kit-bashed this miniature from a bunch of old plastic bits I had lying about, mixed with greenstuff.

The Poxwalker horde. I went mainly for daemon engine builds so never really maxed out on these fellows.  They were a useful bit of bubble wrap for the MAlignant Plaguecaster though.

My Hellbrute. I don't remember ever fielding him.

Myphitic Blight-haulers. I bought into the three tri-lobe tactic so have nine of these little plague snufflers. They're a great unit with some real flexibility and decent special abilities.

Foetid Bloat-drones. HAnds down my favourite unit in the army. Fast moving, hard-hitting, and surprisingly tough. I used them together with my flying Daemon Prince to form a brutal assault cadre.

My trio of Plagueburst crawlers, these daemon engines are excellent "tanks" and I had a lot of success with them.

I also have these bits still to complete.

I also have a Chaos Heldrake knocking about somewhere, and three Foetid Blight-drones from Forge World.

I really must get round to finishing this army off.

Edit: More finishing off, and the Great Unclean One

Space Marine, Crimson Fists: Army Showcase

With a new house and a new hobby space, and a rare bit of time off work today, I thought I’d get on with sorting out the collection. I’m slowly taking stock of what I have, what I still have to paint, and I’m steadily getting paint on the bare lead/metal.

As yet, the pandemic is still keeping me away from the table, but I’m hoping that’ll change soon and these little toy soldiers can get pushed about amid the clattering dice again.

Today I dug out my Warhammer 40,000 (40k) Crimson Fist space marines and thought I’d do a bit of a showcase. Looking through them I see that the basing is in dire need of standardising and updating, but otherwise there’s a fair bit done.

I’ve been collecting these for many years, but aside from 8th Edition of the 40k game I’ve not played it much since 1st Edition. I sold most of my old models when I moved to Australia for a while, so these are mostly later models.  I’d also bought a few of the newer “Primaris” models.

Anyway, here’s the army on parade.

Mostly Firstborn, with a cadre of the new larger Primaris marines.

The Relic Terminators lead the way.

The rest of the Terminators follow on.

I've always liked the flyer, which i posed as if swinging round to turn back in on a target. The Thunderfire cannon (and Techmarine) is a "Finecast" model and was utterly horrific to put together. The barrel was so badly warped that I had to cut out a large part of it - hunce its stubby appearance. 

Firstborn heavy weapons Devastator marines. I always favoured the missile launcher (clearly!) for its versatility. they are flanked by the old metal Scout models. I mainly used them in sniper configuration.

The big man himself, Pedro Kantor. If i recall, this was also a "Finecast" model that I had to do a lot of work on to repair.

The grunts. Firstborn Tactical marines. I'm surprised I only have 23. I was sure I had more. Clearly they've been lost in the Warp.

A couple of the Dreadnaughts. I like these both in the lore and as models, but they've alwasy seemed to underperform for me. The arms aren't glued on so I can swap them out.

The Dreadnaught skulking off-camera there is an old metal model and weighs a fair bit! For some reason back in the mists of time, I stuck it on a square base. I guess I'll have to get round to putting it on a disc at some point.

Assault marines. I always found they overperformed for me, and I usually brought as many of these to the fight as I could.

Some more leaders.

The Primaris leader

Primaris Eliminators. I found these models tricky to assemble for some reason. I've tey to use them in anger.

The Primaris grunts - bigger and better than the Firstborn marines apparently...

Centurions - when you put a marine in a marine so you can marine while you marine. They're super-silly as a concept, but the few times I've used them they did well. I favoured them with heavy bolters, but gave one lascannons for a bit of punch against vehicles.

Redepmtor Dreadnaught. A real pain to build and I put a couple of bits on upside down. It's nice enough but lacks the charm of proper dreadnaughts in my view.

The three little tanks. Two are usable as Rhinos transports or Razorbacks.

I still have these to finish painting.

Then there’s these.

And I also have a bunch in boxes somewhere. Pretty sure there are a couple of drop pods and another Redemptor Dreadnaught knocking about. I’m sure I had a lot more bikers too.

See more here. (Infantry and bikes)

And here. (Drop pods)

Oathmark: Chaos Warriors

Oathmark

I recently picked up the Osprey Oathmark rules and I’m keen to give them a go sometime. Oathmark his its own range of miniatures of course and seems to have a “Lord of the Rings/fantasy Dark Age” aesthetic, but I figure my sizable backlog of various fantasy models will do for the game.

At least at this stage I’m focussing on getting these done with an eye to using them for “rank & flank” games of some kind.

I started these a while ago, mostly the undercoat done, but finished them off now (although the bases still need doing). These are Games Workshop figures of course, and my devotion to Papa Nurgle has transferred from my Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard army.

I forgot to take WIP photos, but here’s the final results.

The Chaos Warriors were easy to complete, mostly with rust-style dry-brushing and simple grubby base colours and washes.

These Chaos Marauders were similarly pretty quick and easy to complete. Again, here I used washes over a white undercoat, and simply dry-brushing to achieve the results.

I also have a couple of Chaos Spawn monsters.

With these nearly finished I had a root about in the nether regions of the plastic mountain and found some as yet unused Chaos figures. 

Here I have a few more Nurgle units.

From this box, the Plaguebrearers were based for 40k, but I think I may rebase them on squares for this army.  I still have these fly-monster things to build.

I also have a couple of other Nurgle boxes that will do.

I found these Khorne-aligned units too, so I guess I’ll be breaking out the red and brass paints!

Not sure what this thing is but I think it’s part of the Khorne army. I think it’s a “Daemons of Khorne Skull Cannon”.

It should be fun sorting this out.

From the Oathmark context I'm not sure what army these would be. Human I guess? I'll be making these up with an eye on flexibility of use though, and I may acquire some more figures depending on how things pan out. But I want to paint up all I have first. I know I have some ogres, Bretonnians, various elf factions, and Skaven in boxes somewhere. It'll be useful to get that all done first before deciding what, if anything, I'll do with these figures. 

There are various rule systems that they could be used with; Oathmark, Kings of War, Warband Fantasy, or even the old out of print Warhammer Fantasy rules.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 2022

This month’s Wargames Illustrated (WI409, JANUARY 2022) covered something I've seen before but never took much notice of - The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I thought it might be fun to do this (or a close approximation of it) to motivate me to get back into the painting rhythm. My gaming friends have also pitched in so there’s a nice bit of peer pressure and friendly “group work” going on.

So I'll track my progress here!

Total Challenge Points: 3010/1000

Project: Turnip 28

28mm miniatures

• 29 Infantry
• 2 Cavalry

Project: Chaos Warriors

28mm miniatures

• 41 Infantry
• 2 Monsters

Project: Warcry

28mm miniatures

• 6 Infantry (gnoblars)
• 3 Ogres

Project: Lord of the Rings/Warband (Orcs of Isengard)

28mm miniatures

• 86 Infantry
• 2 Trolls

Project: Lord of the Rings/Warband (Gondor)

28mm miniatures

• tbc

Project: Stargrave (001, 002 Caprans, 003)

28mm miniatures

• 48 infantry
• 1 Monster

Project: Bolt Action WWII

28mm miniatures

German Early War

• 24 infantry
• 2 Field artillery pieces
• 1 Vehicle (PzIV)
• 1 Vehicle (Stummel)

British Early War

• 44 infantry
• 2 Field artillery pieces
• 1 Vehicle (Universal Carrier)

Following the challenge, I've decided to maintain this throughout the year to track everything I get finished in 2022.

Project: Tyranids

28mm miniatures

• 63 infantry
• 3 Large monsters
• 1 Huge monster!

Project: Necrons

28mm miniatures

• 35 infantry
• 4 Large monsters

Project: Orks

28mm miniatures

• 145 infantry

I still have a few days left and will certainly be painting a few more bits before the New Year, but I'll call it a year here, with 543 miniatures painted in 2022.