Typhus – Herald of Nurgle

It’s so good to both build and finish a model that’s been sitting on the shelf for a while, therefore I am very happy to present my interpretation of Typhus, the Herald of Nurgle.

 

This model was an absolute joy to paint, so much so that my next project is going to be a Nurglefied Contemptor Dreadnought from the Betrayal at Calth box.  You might notice that I didn’t include the Nurgling that goes on the base, I thought about putting the little guy on, but I don’t really like the older Nurgling design and all my plastic ones are reserved for a far bigger project…

Project Wirewolf

Today I was pondering all things Chaos and, in particular, how best to represent my Chaos Space Marine Lord’s Combat Familiar on the tabletop.

Luckily I’m also re-reading Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts novels and have recently finished Traitor General which I think is (thus far) the best book in the series.

In this novel, the reader is introduced to the horrific Wirewolves, daemonic creatures that are activated when the population of the occupied planet of Gereon get too rowdy (or when daring Colonel-Commissars decide to take matters into their own hands).

These creatures are best described as inactive life sized human shaped metal forms which hang on gibbets. When they activate, bright warp energy fills their form, the drop to the ground and, well, you really don’t want to be anywhere near them.

Unless of course you’re a female surgeon with a heart-shaped face, but I digress.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I quite fancy making a few of these for my Chaos Marine army and, as a trial, I’m going to make the first to represent my lord’s Combat Familiar.

The plan is to make a wire frame before filling it out with Green Stuff which will represent the warp energy. Next I’ll overlay this with more metal wire to form the creature’s corporeal body.

Below is a very rudimentary sketch of what I hope the frame will look like.

Here’s hoping I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew…

Hitting a Brick Wall

That’s it. I knew that this was going to happen eventually but I’m officially stuck. You see, today marks a dubious record for me as it’s been exactly four weeks since I’ve picked up a paintbrush, dice or craft knife and I’m not sure how to start again thanks to all the part-finished projects I’ve temporarily abandoned.

I’ll get my excuses out of the way. This summer has been extraordinarily busy, at work our annual audit took longer than expected not to mention I’m both breaking in new staff and have just finished a massive office relocation at incredibly short notice. At home my wife and I have had to complete her application for permanent settlement in the UK, believe it or not this has taken us over three months to finish, we only just posted it yesterday! There have also been weddings, a funeral, birthdays, the Edinburgh festivals, hospital appointments and this is just what I can remember. In truth I feel that my feet haven’t hit the ground since early June!

On the hobby front I have the following outstanding:

1. A half-painted Dark Eldar Venom
2. A half-painted Dark Eldar Wych Squad
3. An unpainted old metal Dark Eldar Wych Squad
4. A half-painted Finecast Commissar Yarrick
5. 20 Unassembled Imperial Sector sprues
6. An unpainted metal Dark Eldar Incubi Squad
7. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Archon
8. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Succubus
9. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Haemonculus
10. An unpainted Finecast Dark Eldar Lhamaean
11. An unassembled Dark Eldar Razorwing
12. An unassembled Dark Eldar Ravager
13. A part-assembled Chaos Space Marine Predator
14. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Lord
15. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Squad
16. An unpainted Chaos Space Marine Terminator Squad
17. A half-completed Assault on Black Reach Dreadnought I’m converting for my Chaos Marine army.
18. Two sprues of Battletech Battlemechs that I’ve had since 1996
19. 14 Inner Sphere Battletech Battlemechs I’d like to repaint
20. 18 unpainted Bretonnian Knights of The Realm
21. 15 unassembled Bretonnian Men-At-Arms
22. 40 unpainted Bretonnian Peasant Bowmen
23. 10 unpainted Bretonnian K nights Errant
24. 1 unassembled Bretonnian Lord with Great Weapon
25. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Paladin with Battle Standard
26. 1 unpainted Bretonnian Pegasus Knight
27. 1 half-painted Deathknell Watch

So, what do I do? Thus far I have always prided myself on my ability to not jump on the new army / game bandwagon every time something exciting is released, all my 40K armies have been gestating for many years (and I have the out of date Codexes to prove it!) but I think it’s obvious that my enthusiasm and ambition have slowly got the better of me.

I’ve attempted to prioritise my hobby time based on upcoming games but since most of my regular opponents have been similarly busy this really hasn’t been effective. It’s impossible to go with what I like the most since that’s part of what’s got me into this state in the first place!

I think that the best thing for me to do is to bloody finish something as soon as is humanly possible and luckily I have this coming Sunday free to do just that. But what do I attempt to finish?

Watch this space…

The Heralds

For this week’s Miniature Monday I’d like to share my first attempt at the colour scheme for my Chaos Space Marine army that’s provisionally called The Heralds of Woe. You can more information on their (still very draft) background in my first ever post.

I have a couple of half built squads, a Terminator Lord and a Dreadnought and Predator that are halfway through conversions. All unfortunately unpainted but the pending release of Dark Vengeance has prompted me to pull my finger out and get something ready for my inevitable purchase(s).

I’m more or less happy with it but I think I overdid the black ink glaze, so I think I’ll knock up a couple more trial models before I start on the good stuff.

Dark Vengeance Miniatures Spotted?

Get your salt wagons ready for today this image has been bouncing around the internet which apparently shows some of the miniatures from the forthcoming Dark Vengeance box.

Chaos Space Marine Rumours

The internet’s aflurry with rumours and counter-rumours surrounding the imminent release of what’s almost certain to be the first 6th edition codex.

Luckily, those lovely chaps at the Blood of Kittens network have published the most common (and most likely) rumoured developments in two easy to digest parts which you can find below:

Part 1

Part 2

What’s looking increasing likely is that the codex will be released in late August or early September, indeed I’m saving the gift voucher I won from The Bear’s Competition towards it! Indeed I fail to see how it could possibly come out after the Dark Vengeance boxed set since the units rumoured to come with it aren’t covered in any current codex.

Below are some of the rumoured changes taken from the articles linked above, I really hope these are true!

-Special Characters

Ahriman: Mastery Level 4, Same Stats as before, Access to Biomancy, Pryomancy, Telepathy, and Tzeentch. He is the master of witch ire spells, he can cast three spells that are witchfire in the same phase. He can also give up to three units infiltrate ability.

Huron: Same Stats as before, Mastery Level 1, Spells are randomly determined at the start of each turn.

Typhus: Same Stats as before, Mastery Level 2 can only take Nurgle powers, Destroyer Hive has been changed to be a Nurgle Holocaust Str4 AP2 ignores cover. Has Fear

Kharn: Same Stats as before, Him and his Unit get 2+ to deny witch and is completely immune to force weapons. Still attacks random people, but now a sneaky way around it. Always hits on 2+ in Assualt. Has Hatred All that he gives to the rest of his unit.

Fabius Bile: Same Stats as before. Enhanced Warriors can only ever kill one model gives them Str and Fearless.

Lucius: Same Stats as before. His attacks are the same number as opponent’s WS (Avatar vs Lucius fun times). Re-rolls all Wounds, Armor saves made by Lucius inflict str 4 ap2 hits back.

–Vehicles–

Dragon: 170pts AV 12/12/10 Can Vector Strike as a MC, Has Str 8 Heavy 4 guns

Shooty Demon Engine: 120pts AV 12/12/10 Two Str 8 Heavy 4 guns

Assault Demon Engine: 135pts AV 12/12/10, Immune to Cover, 12″ Move, Two Str 8 AP1 Melta Weapons, plus PowerFists

Hellbrute New CSM Dreadnought: 105pts Crazed, BIG CHANGE no more DCW now just power fist will strike at I4

Chaos Land Raider: 220pts Only Godhammer variant, only holds 10 guys, still can get dozerblades
Upgrades: Mini Deff Roller Str 5 Ap – hits and double for failed death and glory, Chaos Lash whips but reduce attacks to 1

-Unique Items–

Demon Weapons: All Demon Weapons on a roll of 1 will attack user, but no longer will you lose the rest of your attacks.

Unique Chaos Power Axe: +2 str Ap2, Blinds Opponents, Gives Rage, Demon Weapon.

Unique Chaos Power Maul: AP4,

Fleshbane, Demon Weapon, Any unsaved wounds causes instant death after toughness test is failed, in addition at the end of the assault phase any model with in 3″ must make another toughness test or take an AP1 wound.

Unique Chaos Power Sword: Ap3 Marked for Death, select any character get str x2 AP1 instant death when engaged with that character

Unique Chaos Flamer: Str 5 Ap3 Torrent, Soulblaze

Unique Icon: Once you kill a model the Icon unlocks and any model enemy model within 12″ must take Difficult and Dangerous Terrain tests and all friendly deep strikers don’t scatter.

Unique Spell Book: Gain Random powers every turn can possible hurt you as well

–Wargear–

Attack Familiar: Two additional familiar attacks

Magic Familiar: Grants Random Spells

Chaos Iron Halo: 4+ invul can stack with MoT so that means 3+ invul

Flails: AP 2 Str 8 reduce WS of targets

–Units–

Chosen: 19pts each, Infiltrate gone

Terminators: 31pts each, Upgrades got very cheap FULLY kitted 10 man unit for about 400 pts with more versatility than any other Terminator unit in the game. Still has Combi-Spam.

Berzerkers : 19pts each, Chainaxe Str 4 Ap 4

Thousand Sons: 23pts each, Champion Mastery Level 1

Plague Marines: 24pts each, Same as before now have Poison Assault Weapon

Noise Marines: 16pts each, Must still buy Sonic Weapons. Sonic Blaster 24″ inch Str 4 Ap5 Salvo, Ignores Cover, Blastmaster 25 pts assault 2 or heavy 1 blast same as before now with ignores cover, Doom Siren Same as before.

Assault Obliterators: Elite Slot Weapons act like Ymgarl Genestealers powers

Possessed: Random Chart is now D3 acts like Ymgarl Genestealers powers, but determine at the beginning of the turn.

Havocs: 13pts each, 5-15pt drop for all special weapons from past edition, can buy Flak missiles

–Psychic Powers–

Tzeentch: 4 powers only. Prime Power Random Str blast that keeps on exploding random hits for every dead model, 1-2 Roll on Big Chart re-roll spawn result, 3-4 Bolt of Tzeentch but how is a Beam, 5-6 Breath of Chaos

Chaos Rising

The tubes have been alive with whisperings from The Warp of late and after much speculation GW has today released this:

Other sites have been somewhat more forthcoming with The One Ring releasing this image apparently showing what shiny whatnots will  be released next month.

The general consensus is that a new Chaos Codex is due in August/September with sites like Bell of Lost Souls gleefully disseminating potential details.

I can’t wait, my Chaos Marines force has been slowly stagnating in various to-do piles for the better part of two years.  Indeed my only post thus far has been my first ever one where I sketched out some of their basic background, and quite a bit of it has changed since then!
Let’s hope that the first 6th Edition Codex sets a good standard for the rest to follow.

 

More Chaos Rumours

Some more rumours concerning the imminent Chaos Codex are making the rounds, you can read them here on Bell of Lost Souls.

These make a certain degree of sense to me however I wouldn’t be surprised if the 6th Edition surfaces first.

More Forge World Loveliness

Those crazy fools at Forge World have been busy again, take a look at the very cool Decimator Daemon Engine!

Full details, including experimental rules can be found here.

Chaos Rumours

Interesting, very interesting.

Bell of Lost Souls have today updated the forever-brewing Cauldron of Chaos Rumours with some hopefully specific details, click here for more info.

While these are, let’s face it blindingly obvious expected changes and updates, it’s nice to see that things are (apparently) gaining momentum.