Chaos by Givemead - Death Guard, Poxwalkers

[Givemead]

Hi Everyone.  I’m Givemead.  I’ve been lurking, off and on, on here for a while, but I’ve finally got around to setting up an account and starting my own log.

 

For those of you who are interested here is a bit about my hobby history:

Hidden Content

I have been in and around the hobby for something over 30 years (my first White Dwarf was issue 110 in February 1989).  I started out in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, moving on to Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3^rd edition and then EPIC.  I have only ever dabbled in playing WH40K but have been enamoured with it since those early days, first with Rogue Trader and on through the editions, I think I’m right in saying I have played a game in every edition but I’m not 100% on that!

 

Before 3^rd edition I’d not really collected a 40K army having only inherited a (mainly Harlequins) Eldar army from a friend who emigrated to America, but had added quite a bit to that with aspect warriors and other troops.  3ed was when I fell into the clutches of the dark gods and, inspired by the new codex at the time, started collecting chaos space marines.  Things got more serious around 2007/8 when I decided that I’d had enough of collecting and painting at random and that I should make a concerted effort to get an army painted.  I took part in the Tale of 40K Painters over on Warseer for several years and have as a result quite a large chaos army painted up – mainly daemons and within that mainly Nurgle (including about 40 of the last version of plaguebearers made in metal).  In later years I did a bit more of the chaos marines; some 1K sons, a Hellbrute, a defiler, some plague marines and Warp Talons.

 

Then for some reason I decided I wanted an army that I could finish (Ha, what a joke!) so I started collecting and painting a Tau Empire army.  This was when the Riptide and other plastics were released.  And I stuck at it for quite a while, through to the Stormsurge/Ghostkeel release when I bit off more than I could proverbially chew and I lost my hobby mojo, for the Tau at least, trying to convert the Stormsurge to have an enclosed cockpit.  I forget the exact sequence of events but it was about then that GW release 8^th edition, Dark Imperium and followed quickly on with the Death Guard.  And with that I was back in thrall to chaos!

 

Over the last year I’ve been having a few real life things that have meant that I haven’t had a huge amount of time to devote to the hobby, but the end is in sight and in short order I should be in a much better position for hobby time.

 

If you have read this far then good on you.  I’ll shut up now and get to the point.

 

I want to have a real go at tackling my Death Guard, especially as I got the Infection Cluster battleforce at Christmas (not to mention the backlog).  There may be other chaos stuff thrown in at some point just for good measure.

 

First up a pic of the last good sized chunk of chaos models I painted, circa 2012/13; a Hellbrute and cultists, some plague marines and Warp Talons.  Also some daemons; plaguebearers (the last metal ones), some screamers and plague drones (with riders converted from the metal plaguebearers).

 

 

This next pic is the Death Guard from the first pic.  They are mostly based on the old metal plague marine models that I think are about 17 years old now.  One of the plasma gunners is from the slightly later havocs set, which was probably circa 2004.  The icon bearer is built from plastic CSM bits plus some goodies that I had in my bits box.

 

I'm not sure I want to do the new Death Guard the same way, not least of all because I remember the paint scheme I went with on these old ones was quite a lot of work, but I’ll expand on my thoughts later.

 

 

Some more recently painted stuff now, from last year; an additional 3 plague drones, giving me 7 in total:

 

 

These plague drones aren’t based yet (basing is something I want to explore a bit and get some feedback on).

 

As mentioned above I have quite a few of the most recent Death Guard models, but I also have more old metal ones.  Something that was bothering me when thinking about how I would tackle the old metal guys was that there has been a marked increase in size with the new models compared with previous versions. They are great models with masses of detail, but they're big.  I thought about this quite a bit and decided that the main problem was that their legs are rather short and weedy in comparison with the new models but their torsos and heads are not so bad.  I decided to saw the legs off the metal models and use Mk3 armour the metal torsos. I’ve got some of the metal havoc torsos and have used the Mk3 legs for them as well.  This gave me the opportunity to boost the height more by putting filler in between the legs and torso.  They are now much the same sort of height as the new ones:

 

 

The hybrids may not have quite the same bulk as the new models but they will blend in much more now.  It has been quite a bit of work but quite satisfying.  I am now at the stage where I have 17 hybrids (including 3 FW resin torsos (how I came to have these I don’t know)).  Here are some of them:

 

 

The next problem to tackle is the bulk of the old models for which I think I will just use some plasticard at the shoulders and use arms and shoulder pads from the new multi part marines. I’ll also need to do so creative gap hiding around the waist area, but I’m sure my bits box is up to the task.

In my next post I’ll show you where I’d got to with my poxwalkers.

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Givemead

[Dragonlover]

Welcome aboard! Those are some nifty Plague Marines, might have to try something similar with mine when I get round to the Death Guard.

 

Dragonlover

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on Nurgle's children and grandchildren. The Plague Marines bear his gifts well; I appreciate the effort you made in painting their armor to look corroded and outright rotting.

[Givemead]

Dragonlover and Bjorn Firewalker - Thank you both

 

Poxwalkers

As with a lot of others I wasn’t that taken with the horns and other stuff that was making the poxwalkers seem too busy, so I did some light pruning (gardening related puns are appropriate for Nurgle, I think).  I also wanted to try to address the doubling up from Dark Imperium, so I did a few swaps of arms and weapons.  These 2 pics show the changes, with the originals on the top row and the converted ones on the 2nd:

 

 

 

Left to right on the second row:

Top pic

1. hand turned through 180, big hammer pole cut down and head swapped for the flamer/exhaust end from no.2

2. hammer head from no.1 instead of flamer/exhaust end

3. right arm with hammer (converted to an axe on the first set on the top row) swapped for mechanical arm from no.5

4. broken gun swapped for the broken gun from no.7

5. mechanical arm swapped for hammer arm from no.3

2nd pic

6. big spanner hand swapped for a mace wielding arm from the old Mordheim Carnival of Chaos set

7. broken gun swapped for the broken gun from no.4

8. arm swap with no.10

9. knife swapped with no.10

10. arm swapped with no.8 and knife from no.9, (gas bottle retained)

 

I have also been picking up some of the WH40K Conquest issues that have Death Guard stuff, from which I have 2 sets of the easy to build poxwalkers.  This next pic is what I’ve done with them to disguise doubles:

 

 

From there they needed just a little more cutting and filling, which I completed quite quickly.

 

For painting them I am trying something new (for me, although it seems everyone is doing it these days) and have gone for a Daemonic Yellow (Army Painter) spray base, which I’ll confess I was a bit concerned about beforehand.  I'm just doing half at a time to keep it manageable. I patched up the spray coat with some Iyanden Darksun (I should say that there will be a real mix of paints going on these models - mostly GW, but a mix from old and new ranges) and I've drybrushed the skin Dheneb Stone. I'm now working on getting the base colours on, so far just some Dawnstone, Solar Orange and a bit of white. Here are the pics:

 

 

 

This is more or less where I’ve got to so far, but I’ve added to the colours a bit, highlighting the yellow and orange on the overalls using white and then a yellow or orange wash and also doing straps and pocket flaps etc in white (I’m going for the look of fluorescent jackets with reflective strips).  I’ll also be using other washes of purple, red etc before going over the whole model with Agrax Earthshade and Seraphim Sepia, as I’ve done with my Nurgle models previously.  I'm trying to learn from that previous experience and keep the colours bright, almost too bright, before the all over washes as that really knock the colours back.

 

As I should have said in the OP all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.  Thanks for looking in.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Givemead

[Givemead]

I've been fiddling about trying to work out how to arm my standard marines and I've figured out I should be able to arm all my old metal guys with weapons from the current multi part set that use two hands.  This means that I won't have to work too much about filling gaps at the front as they will be hidden, at least in part, by the weapon and arms.

 

I've also been distracted by an idea for a Foul Blightspawn made from the multi part set.  I like the official model, but I like messing about with bits, so I've come up with this:

 

 

He is just tacked together while I play around with bits, but I think it shows promise.  The base is the plague spewer backpack which I've cut up.  I've added a backpack from the Ad Mech Electro Priests set.  The smaller tank on the right is from the top of the plague spewer backpack just turn round.  Obviously I'm going for a three circles Nurgle symbol.  A lot still to do like the whole of his right arm - not that sure what I'll do as I don't want to use the plague spewer part but I'm not really taken with the garden hose that the GW version has.  Any ideas?

 

Comments and criticism would be appreciated.

[Sgt. Blank]

I really like the mix of old bitz with new parts - the finished models look amazing and the WIP stuff is looking very promising.

[K0rtmer]

Good work on those poxwalkers! Fantastic effort, they'll look awesome when they're fully painted.

[Givemead]

I really like the mix of old bitz with new parts - the finished models look amazing and the WIP stuff is looking very promising.

 

 

Good work on those poxwalkers! Fantastic effort, they'll look awesome when they're fully painted.

 

Thanks very much, glad you like what you see.

[Givemead]

I have a sort of mini update as I managed to take some pics of the poxwalkers:

 

 

 

Not much further forward and still looking way too bright, but that's what I'm going for ahead of the washes.  I'm keen to see how well they turn out with the yellow undercoat - as I said using a different colour undercoat is something new to me but seems to be quite a common thing these days.

 

And now for something a little tangential, but still Chaos Marines:

 

 

I got Haarken when he was released, but I hadn't done anything with him until now.  The obvious change is that I've swapped his spear for a lightening claw from the Warp Talons set and a boring old CSM shoulder pad.  What isn't so obvious is that I've trimmed down the spikes on the trophy racks - I've never been convinced by most trophy racks, but I thought leaving them off completely would change the model too much.  They are maybe still a little over the top, but I'm fine with them.  Jump pack and 'not holding a spear' arm are just tacked on right now.  I'm in 2 minds about whether to commit to the lightening claw arm or magnetise it and the original spear arm.  Thoughts?

 

As always comments welcome and thanks for looking.

Edited March 4, 2019 by Givemead

[Givemead]

A little more progress to share:

 

 

Sorry, this is a bit out of focus.  I've been messing about with bits for the Foul Blightspawn's plague sprayer.  I wanted more of a gun type device than the hose that the GW model has, so this is what I've come up with.  This is a cut down plasma pistol with an Ad Mech scanner thing and a Cawdor blunderbuss muzzle.  Tacked up with the pipes from the plague spewer that I cut up originally and a Mk3 armour arm.  A bit of bodging will be needed to get it to all link up, but I'm pleased with it so far.

 

The nozzle from the plague spewer has gone to replace the end of the flamer on one of my old metal Havoc torsos:

 

 

Thanks for looking.

[Givemead]

I have a couple of small updates for you.

 

First off is my Haarken where I have decided to go with the twin lightening claws and not bother with magnetising:

 

 

I've left the head and backpack as separate bits until after I've painted him.  I will almost certainly go with something like the scheme I used for a unit of Warp Talons a few years ago:

 

 

Next is a little progress on my Foul Blightspawn:

 

 

 

All I've done here is just to neaten up and then glue together the various bits that make up his backpack.  I went with a head from the multi-part Plague Marine set that is similar to the one on the Foul Blightspawn model.  Next will be tackling the pipes to the gun part and coming up with some way of plugging the whole in the backpack - maybe just some pipes?

 

I've also been doing a bit of messing about with the easy to build Lord Felthius terminators set and second Foul Blightspawn conversion.  I'll try to get some photos up for these tomorrow.

[Sgt. Blank]

I like the scheme for the warp talons, I imagine it will look nice on the converted haarken. I've got a lot of old metal bits rattling around as well and I like seeing how you're breathing new life into old kits with a few plastic bits added. I also know how much harder it is to cut up metal models to.rework them - your work looks great, keep it up.

[Givemead]

I like the scheme for the warp talons, I imagine it will look nice on the converted haarken. I've got a lot of old metal bits rattling around as well and I like seeing how you're breathing new life into old kits with a few plastic bits added. I also know how much harder it is to cut up metal models to.rework them - your work looks great, keep it up.

 

Thanks very much Sgt. Blank, glad you like what you see.  The older a model is the less I'm worried about chopping it up and I do have a lot of old models!  From time to time I try not to buy that many new models, but it's so hard - the new chaos marines stuff has me very tempted, especially that Lord Discordant.

[Givemead]

As I mentioned at the end of yesterday's post I have been messing about with the easy to build terminators and a second Foul Blightspawn.  I'm going to save the second Foul Blightspawn for another time, but here are the two ETB terminators I've tackled so far.

 

The terminators in the ETB set are for me both fantastic and awful at the same time.  Fantastic in that they seem to sit together as a unit well (better than the multipart Blightlords) and don't have the over the top mutations and whatnot of the multipart Blightlords, but awful because the mutations they have seem rather cartoonish to me and they have way too much slime, particularly on Lord Felthius himself (what is with the bowling ball of slime thing?), which doesn't really feature on any of the other Death Guard models.  There is of course also Felthius's head which is hilarious.

 

I was lucky enough to pick up two sets when they were in WH40K Conquest.  This gives me 6 blightlords as the basis of a good sized unit and the 2 Felthius models will either go towards a unit of Deathshroud or be converted into sorcerers or other characters, I'm undecided at the moment.  The first thing I knew I would need to do is swap at least one of the plague spewers from the two sets for another weapon.  I will probably change the other as well as I'm not a huge fan of the plague spewer or any of the flamer equivalent weapons.  This is what I came up with:

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

This is a relatively straightforward arm swap with a combi-bolter from the multipart bilghtlords.  I've also given him an axe from the multipart plague marines, apart from anything else to give him something in his left hand, which was otherwise looking a bit odd.  I've cut off a lot of the teeth/horn type mutations and whatnot  and there is still some work to do, but I think it looks pretty good.

 

The second one is a bit more subtle as it doesn't involve any weapon swaps.

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

Apart from being in focus now(!), I have worked on the horns to give them more of the crevasses and to make them look a bit like the chimney/pipe things on the top of the deathshroud models.  It is actually closer to what I did with the pipe things on my Nurgle daemon prince way back in 2008 or there abouts:

 

 

And on the a rhino I did before that:

 

 

I'll do a bit more on him before I'm happy, but I can see where I'm going.  I will try to give the others similar pipe type mutations to keep the unit coherency.  The final one will be a bit more difficult as he has tentacles rather than horns so I may have to get out the greenstuff.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Givemead

[Givemead]

The final part of my recent session of messing about with bits is a second Foul Blightspawn conversion.

 

Soon after I started the first conversion I had an idea for using this guy as a base:

 

 

This is of course Festus the Leechlord.  I thought his backpack would be good for a low-tech version of the Foul Blightspawn's weapon and he seemed to have a number of other bits that could be useful.  However, I realised that as he is on a 32mm base he is clearly a bit on the small side, but I went ahead and ordered him anyway.  After a bit of measuring up and playing around with various bits from the multipart plague marines I came to the conclusion that I'd need to get my saw out and it would just be his upper torso and backpack that I would use.  This is where I've got to:

 

 

The light coloured resin doesn't photograph very well.  Quite a way to go, but I'm definitely pleased I went ahead with the conversion.  Sorting some arms for him will be next on the list and how to carry over the low-tech theme into some sort of flamer weapon.

 

The rest of the body and the arms from the original model will probably go into making a poxwalker, as will the kneeling zombie type character.  His staff will go towards a sorcerer conversion of some kind.

 

Comments welcome as always and thanks for looking.

[Givemead]

It's been rather longer than I might have hoped due to various real life things (moving house mainly) but I'm back to messing about with models.

 

The Call of Chaos was the nudge I needed and is shaping what I want to work on for the next couple of months. In terms of what I might pledge I'm thinking of going with the remainder of the poxwalkers that I haven't started. Although I have the 17 that I've started and I want to get these finished I don't think its fair to include them in a pledge as they are about half finished. I have 15 in the 'other half' which seems like a good number:

 

 

Since starting the first group I've got hold of a bunch of the Contrast paints, which I think I'll experiment a bit with on these poxwalkers.

 

I also want to do some chaos cultists. Not just any old cultists though:

 

 

These are from the old Mordheim Carnival of Chaos set from 2003. I will use mostly the weapons they came with as well as some Cawdor guns:

 

 

I plan to use some flagellants to make up the number to the min squad size. This might take a bit of work to make it look like they are all part of the same unit.

 

I've started to convert the heavy (middle top row) to be armed with a heavy stubber from the genestealer cults:

 

 

I'm not sure about this so I may end up arming him with the big hammer instead.

 

I'm not sure whether I'll add anything else to the pledge as I'm really not a fast painter and the conversion work required for the cultists will take some time to complete. I do have Haarken who is ready for paint. All the other models I've been messing about with recently need further conversion work not to mention a deathguard paint scheme worked out.

 

Anyway that's where I've got to. Comments welcome as always. Thanks for looking in.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Givemead

[Givemead]

I have placed my vow for the Call to Chaos. After thinking about it I decided that the Carnival of Chaos would be to much work if I wanted to get some other stuff painted.  I went with a basic unit of 10 cultists which will be ones from the old boxed game.  I had painted a dozen of these some years ago and the remained have been converted to have some variation in heads and weapons.  All they need now is to be based.

 

I have also gone for a unit of 15 poxwalkers, which is the balance of the ones I'd started previously.  I aim to finish both units but the first is too far along to count.  I have done some more painting on them with washes and they are getting there.

 

The final unit I have pledged is my modified Haarken with two lightening claws, that I showed in a previous post.  I aim to paint him up in a similar way to my warp talons. He has been primed black and has been base coated Naggaroth Night.  The only problem  have now is that I have realised that I've had to bin my Liche Purple that I used before as it had dried out.  I will have to get some Xereus Purple to get any further.

[Givemead]

At last the type of update that I've been looking forward to - one with painted models in!

 

Progress on the first set of Poxwalkers -

 

 

 

I think I'm calling these done in terms of the models themselves, obviously still need basing up.

 

Since the last time I should these I have attacked them with washes.  First with Seraphim Sepia and then Agrax Earthshade, both over the whole model.  Then Baal Red (I luckily picked up a couple of pots before they line was updated) in a fairly selective way over boils, wounds, tentacles etc.  The final wash was Thraka Green much more selectively in recesses and some other areas that I thought would be infected.  The last part was Blood for the Blood God in wounds, mouths and other places that looked like they might be bleeding, as well as on the weapons.

 

There are a few touch ups needed but as these are just cannon fodder I'm not going to spend much more time on them.  I really just wanted to get them finished so I can move on to what I have pledged for Call to Chaos.

 

Speaking of Call to Chaos I have made a bit of progress on the jumppack lord and based up the cultists -

 

 

 

The Naggaroth Night is so dark you can hardly see it in this pic.  I have Xereus Purple on order (along with the two Blackstone Fortress bad guys boxes that are on pre-order).

 

The cultists needed a bit of cleaning up before basing with small slate from the old 40K basing set and some sand.  These guys will get sprayed black as soon as the weather cooperates.

 

As always comments welcome and thanks for looking.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Poxwalkers are well-painted.

[ranulf the revenant]

A lot of nice ideas, I'm interested in how that Festus/Blightspawn model will turn out. Edited October 14, 2019 by ranulf the revenant

[Givemead]

The Poxwalkers are well-painted.

 

Thanks very much Bjorn, glad you like them.

 

A lot of nice ideas, I'm interested in how that Festus/Blightspawn model will turn out.

 

Thanks mate, I need to start turning some of those ideas into finished models I think!  The Festus-spawn model is waiting on me getting inspiration for the gun part of the spewer.

 

I'm making steady progress on the cultists and the poxwalkers that are part of my pledge for Call to Chaos.

 

 

I have got the first unit of poxwalkers based up so they are nearly finished and out of the way.  I am really pleased with these guys, but I'll probably leave them at this point and concentrate on the second unit that is part of my pledge.

 

 

These guys have been glued on the sprues, sprayed yellow and have had the skin drybrushed Dheneb Stone.  Next I'll be fixing up the yellow on stuff that will stay yellow and adding all the other colours, grey, orange etc.

 

 

The cultists have had some base colours for metal bits (Bolt Gun Metal, Mechanicus Standard Grey) and flesh (Tallarn Flesh and Dark Flesh).  Next I'll do a bit of drybrushing on the grey metal and then carry on adding colours.  This will mostly be from the old foundation range as they cover well over the black under coat and these guys will match in with the original dozen cultist I did quite a few years ago.

 

Thanks for looking in.

[Kolgrim DeathHowl]

That purple on that marine is really cool, love the conversions can't wait to see more!

[Givemead]

Thanks very much Kolgrim DeathHowl, glad you like what you see.  By the way cool name!

 

Some incremental progress to show you today.  First the cultists -

 

 

Gradually adding the base colours to these guys.  Nothing else done on the poxwalkers since my last update, but I have progressed with this guy -

 

 

The jumppack lord is coming along.  Done the purple drybrush and have now started doing the edge highlight.  There will be some bone coloured section to his armour as well as the grey/red of the Warp Talons scheme.

[Kolgrim DeathHowl]

Thanks was my Wolf Lord's name I made back in the day when I first got into them in the early 2000's.

[Givemead]

A bit more progress to share on the jump lord and the cultists.

 

 

The jump lord looks quite a bit further along now that I've put some red on him and done the basics of the bones and skulls.  They were done with the Contrast Skeleton Horde paint over Dheneb Stone and I have to say it has turned out very well.  I think on some rank and file models I'd be happy to leave it at that, but given that this guy is an HQ I will do a bit more to highlight and fix a few bits.

 

I'm still undecided on the colour for his loin cloth.  I think red may end up being too much as I was wanting that to be just a spot colour.  Maybe try something between red and purple to marry the two together a bit.

 

The metal bars for the trophy rack ended up darker than I was thinking of going as a result of having to use Tin Bitz due to my Sycorax Bronze going lumpy, but I think I'm happy with them.  The dead primaris on the base is going to be a Dark Angel, as I have a long term plan to have a contingent of Fallen, lead by Cypher.

 

 

Similarly the cultists look a lot better for getting some red on them.  I'm trying to stay quite muted and light with the colours so that once I do the Seraphim Sepia and Agrax Earthshade washes they will look suitably grubby.  The red and possibly some orange will be the main bright spot colours.