Typhus, Herald of Nurgle

Hey there my fellow demented followers of Chaos! Welcome to another edition of Chaos Corner. Has it been cold in your neck of the woods? I certainly know its been cold here in the Eye of Terror (USA) that's for sure. To keep warm, I have been busy painting and taking pics of some "older" models for display on my blog. I have to, in order to keep up with Games Workshop's insane weekly White Dwarf publication schedule.

A word about that. I have seen nothing of either the weekly White Dwarf of the big magazine, aside from partial cover shots on Bell of Lost Souls and some descriptions on Faeit 212. I do not know what the overall quality of these will be. However, I am optimistic. For the weekly WD, my mantra will be simple- don't buy it the first day. Wait for word to get out about what's in it. If you like what you hear, then by all means buy it. If it has nothing that interests you or is relevant to your army, then just skip it. I think this is certainly doable. As for the monthly- I have the ipad subscription, which I renewed in January- so according to GW I will be getting the new mag, no problem. If it is going to be more "hobby-centric"- sounds like what I'd like to see. If it fails to impress or I prefer the weekly more- I can just not subscribe after it runs out again next January.We shall see on Feb 1.

In the meantime, I have been working on lots of stuff. I'm not ready to show any of it yet- I have painter's ADD right now, with lots of projects at various stages of completion. As they get done, I will be posting. Some are solid, others are fantastic (in my opinion) conversions, and a few- well, they will surprise you. But you won't see them till I'm done with them! Meanwhile, let's bring you an oldie, but a goodie- Typhus...

Ah. Typhus. The Herald of Nurgle. The Traveler. For a while, all the other cults got special characters, but not so Nurgle. Bile. Kharn. Ahriman. Doomrider (hehe). The other gods got a special character to call their own, but not the Lord of Decay. This must have chafed poor Papa Nurgle- after all, when the plague is at its height, Nurgle is more powerful than the other gods combined. So, one day, Nurgle convinced the GW guys to do right and give him his special character- thus, Typhus was born.

The model is simply incredible, even now. The plague-infested bulk of the model. The spike/horn on his helm; indeed, the hem itself, with that awesome visor. The destroyer hive on his back. The pitted and corroded grieves. The nurgling clutching at him (for the record, I never cared for the one licking the horn). The fly shoulder pad. And, of course- the scythe. Wow. This is perfect- he is truly an incredible vision of what a Plague Marine Lord should be.

I remember that I ordered him directly from GW. When it arrived in the mail, I said "I've got Typhus!"- I bet that's the first time anyone ever said that in such a positive way (see, now you know why I follow Nurgle). At any rate, I could not wait to paint him- though I didn't right away. I wanted to make sure I would do him right. I planned it very slowly and meticulously. I took my time, knowing he'd be a centerpiece for the army.

At the time, my Death Guard were a slightly brighter hue- the use of bleached bone and rotting flesh with a 'ardcoat varnish made them look decayed but also slimy- they were generally brighter. At this point, I decided that I wanted to set Typhus apart- his armor would be slightly darker- still my nurgle colors, but darker. I didn't go so heavy on the rotting flesh, sticking to the layers of dark angels and camo green.

The armor ridges and the scythe was a (then) new painting technique for me. I had always done the Death Guard weapons in boltgun with brown ink to make them dirty. However, thanks to my friend Pete and a White Dwarf article, I used scorched brown, with orange stippling (my first ever), and some metal highlights. The result is a real-looking rust effect. These youngin's today with their Typhus Corrosion and all that jazz. In my day we had to work to make the rust effect! Haha.

 The Pipes/Hives were also unique for me. Many people had used purple for Nurgle, but I never really did (some purple ink for diseased wounds was all). This time, I decided to put on some purple, but not straight up purple. The destroyer hive partsI painted with a grey-purple mix that Pete made for me. I have never painted ANYTHING else with that mix. That paint is unique to Typhus alone.

Since I didn't want that stupid nurgling licking the bone/horn on the base, I decided to do something different. I didn't want to go crazy with the base, lest it distract from the model. So- I just simply put three skulls in front of him. It looks like the 3 part Nurgle symbol. Now- did he just kill these three? Or perhaps the bugs of the destroyer hive? Or were the 3 skulls an offering to Nurgle?Thus, was Typhus completed.

In 2005, my friend Pete and I decided that we would go to Games Day in Baltimore. I was so damn excited- I knew I wanted to enter their model contest- but how? I decided I would go with Typhus and... a newly purchased Forgeworld Dreadclaw. I used the same techniques for the rust on the Dreadclaw, but brightened up the hull ever so slightly. I also did a new squad of Death Guard, with colors much closer to Typhus. I would tend to paint newer Plague Marines in this way, though I sometimes go brighter- as it is Nurgle and Chaos- why the heck not? At any rate, I worked so hard to get all of that done, with me basically working down to the wire to get it done. I even had Pete help with making a display base. So, very carefully, I carted those models to Games Day. I had a great time there, and though I didn't win any awards, I still had a blast and was glad to be a part of the proceedings. And let me tell you, Pete and I got so many ideas from that one Games Day it isn't funny. Urban table perhaps? Haha.

So, several years later, where is my Typhus now? Though I don't always use him, he is certainly one of Chaos' best special characters, and his ability to make cultists into zombies is fantastic, especially since I have like 75 plague zombies that I made for Eye of Terror. In bigger games, he is my go to HQ- since I can spend the points on him and mobs of zombies and then still have points for Plague Marines. He is a bit more limited on smaller games, but hey- can't use special characters all the time, or else they aren't special, are they? Typhus has had his ups and downs in my army- sometimes being gunned down like a bitch, other times totally destroying all who stand against him- a few recent games against my brother's Grey Knights were especially amusing for Typhus, actually.

What I am hoping for is that GW does more with the character (as they have with Ahriman, Kharn, and Bile and Lucius) in their fiction. After all, what is his full story? Why don't the Death Guard get the Horus Heresy treatment? Fulgrim,  Lorgar,  Magnus and Angron (and their "children") have all gotten some great stories from the Horus Heresy- so why not Mortarion and Typhon? I would also like to see some 41st Millennium Typhus stories. His appearance in Cadian Blood was fun. The short story with him and the singing virus in The Carrion Anthem wasn't bad, though a "singing virus" isn't quite what I have in mind when I think of Typhus. Come on Black Library- give me books worthy of the Death Guard!

Hope you enjoy the pics. Until next time...

History Of A Gaming Table Part I

Hey there Chaos fanatics! Old man chaos is back in (somewhat) fine form today with a story about my own gaming table- a story of inspiration, vision, hard work, teamwork, and a lot of fun.

In May 2005, my friend Pete and I went to Games Day in Baltimore. There, we saw some great, great stuff. Besides all the great models and really cool people and games, I was intrigued by the battle tables. Now, up to this point, I had a green gaming mat, and Pete had made a great desert table, but that's it. As I looked around at Games Day I saw all kinds of terrain. Then, I saw something that I fell in love with as a gamer...

I saw an urban war zone, complete with roads, overpasses and very large buildings. When I inquired, the guys there said the buildings were provided by Gale Force Nine. As I looked at the beauty of that table, the gears began to turn in my head. That evening, back in the hotel, Pete and I began to bounce plans back and forth, and Pete whipped out his graph paper and began drawing... We thought of all kinds of crazy things we could never do (removable roads with sewers underneath, for example). Finally, we came up with a reasonable plan for it. It would be huge, have a bisecting road in the middle and have 3 roads going across the width of the table. There would be 8 (!) city blocks in which to put buildings, rubble, and whole armies. It would be a masterpiece.

In June, we began to build this dream table. Pete selected the heaviest, best wood to build a sturdy, heavy table (he has a tendency to over-engineer). We also bought white card to make the sidewalk sections. I called up Gale Force Nine and asked for several buildings. They said that they don't just make them like that- but I begged and they relented. They buildings were pricey, but oh so worth it. It was Pete, Joe, my brother, and another friend Brian building this in my basement in the heat of June. Just so you know, my basement has a boiler that emits a heat of like a billion degrees, so you could well imagine.

We had some laughs in that heat. Pete hammered everything into place. Joe decided to stop working and play with my vintage Scorpinok base from Transformers- since then he has been obsessed with it. Brian came to the house not realizing he was going to be pressed into service... I can still see him and my brother cutting little lines into the white card to denote the slabs for the sidewalks. I remember pouring a ton of Gorilla Glue and then putting the hab-blocks into place.

Then, when it was built, I began the painting process. At this point it was just me- this was now up to me to complete. I used paints from Home Depot to paint this huge table. I painted the roads black with yellow hash lines. I painted the hab-blocks dark grey, and then stippled lighter greys on top, to give it a textured effect. I also painted a ton of terrain pieces from Armorcast (at this point, there was really nothing from GW).

It took a full summer, but when all was said and done- the table and accompanying terrain came out wonderfully. Truly this is the biggest single project I had ever undertaken, with all of my friends lending their considerable might to it (except Joe, who is STILL playing with Scorpinok). The table was exactly what I wanted it to be- a table large enough for a huge city battle that could fit like 4 armies on it. It inspired Pete to build his own huge lava table (which is breathtakingly intricate and detailed).

We played some great games there. We played our "Gryphone IV Campaign" on that table (which my brother won with his Imperial Guard, by the way). The table has seen Plague Marines, Traitor Guard, Daemons, Imperial Guard, Ultramarines, Black Templars, Eldar, Tyranids, and Orks fight there. I bought new pieces of terrain for it as time went on (some from others, but certainly the GW Cityfight stuff were welcome additions). Good times at that table. Good times.

But, like all gaming sagas, this one must come to an end. It turns out that there were some problems with my table, or rather, my table's location. My basement was always too cramped to play in comfortably to begin with. It is an unfinished basement, and quite dusty (no matter how much I clean). The basement is also used for storage, thus cramping it further. And then there is the boiler- or as Pete calls it, the "gateway to hell". It is old and throws off so much damn heat that playing down there in the summer was next to impossible.

Finally, when my wife moved in last year, she needed to put her stuff down there too... As we cleaned and threw out old basement stuff we realized that the table was taking up too much room, and that it was always a hassle to play down there. So, we decided that the table would have to go. It took a lot of soul searching on my part, but I knew that this would be the right decision. So, I asked my friend Joe (STILL playing with Scorpinok) if he could take the table... He just bought a new house, and the table would fit comfortably in his garage. So, a few weeks ago Pete and Joe showed up and hauled away my table. A bittersweet end- I don't have my table, but at least my friend Joe has it which means I'll get to see it anytime I want...

But, this whole ordeal has left me with two questions:

First, I still want a gaming table of some kind, even if it is less opulent. But what should I do? I like the GW Realms of Battle- it is storage-able, but quite pricey. Pete suggested that I get two thin boards and paint them. It'll be cheap enough, and if they are lightweight I can store them (unlike my table, which weighed a ton). I'm not sure what I'll do... but I do know that, one day, I will have a gaming table once again...

Second... where the hell is Scorpinok? What the... I think Joe took both the table and Scorpinok with him... Damn him!! How did he pull that sleight of hand?! Now I have to find a way to get it back from him (I told you that he was obsessed with it!!).

Until next time Chaos fans!