The New Great Unclean One

Hey there Chaos fanatics! Old Man Chaos is back with a new look at my finished Great Unclean One (just like the title says duh). Let's take a look...

How long I have waited for this model. I have been hoping for a plastic Great Unclean One since they did the plastic version of the Bloodthirster. While the 'Thirster was a tremendous re-envisioning of what came before, the GUO isn't nearly as radical a change. Indeed, his form is more of a natural evolution rather than a major overhaul.

My friend Joe says that he is unimpressed with it, as it looks not unlike the Forgeworld GUO (forgettting his daemon name at the moment). But to me that's the point. They all tend to look like Nurgle himself (check Nurglings... they look like micro GUOs). This model looks exactly how it should- boils, maggots, slimy tentacles, and of course huge open wounds. There is no mistaking what this model is.

I should also comment that the thing is as big as a house. While not the size of a Knight or something it will likely be the biggest single thing on an average battlefield. It is clear that he's "large and in charge" as it were. Certainly a sight to see in a game of 40K that's for sure.

For his skin, I sprayed him Death Guard Green then I did successive washes of Earthshade (heaver in some places than others). Then I highlighted some of the folds with Nurgling Green to make them stand out a bit. The boils I did with yellow and a wash of Earthshade over that to make them duller and dirtier looking.

The wounds / guts were outlined in flesh tones to make their edges stand out from the rest of the model. Then I painted the wounds with screamer pink and then some khorne red. Finally, on the muscles I added some brighter pink to differentiate the muscle strands a bit. The guts I decided to keep dark red, as it contrasts with the rest of the model. Naturally I put the Blood for the Blood God technical on, but used it sparingly.

The tentacles I decided to do purple. Purple and green go together nicely, so I figured why not. Speaking of, I made the GUO look the way I wanted- a big sword but with the sorcerer's (Rotigus') arm- I thought the dagger was stupid, and I just didn't want a flail. If I ever did another I'd do the bell- I like the idea, but since I'm only likely to have one I decided to go with my top choice.

Overall, a very impressive model. I am quite pleased with it. I was also pleased by my paint job. I still feel that my Bloodthirster is still my best. However, it is certainly clear that this thing is the leader of my hordes of Nurgle Daemons.

Though Joe is right about one thing- it is a bit bigger than the forgeworld GUO, but not by a lot. That means that I have two GUOs. I should make up a story about the "Brothers of Ruin" or something like that lol. I wonder how a game with two of these things would go...

Until next time...

The Wulfen Have Awoken My Daemons

Hey there folks! Welcome back to the Corners of Chaos. I'm still thinking about last week's Tournament. That was a lot of fun. There's supposed to be another in April- hopefully that weekend will be clear so that I can go.

I just finished the Curse of the Wulfen book. I love the story- a saga of heroes, misguided heroes, and some villains too, in the form of Chaos daemons. I also love the friggin' cliffhanger of an ending too. Wow. I am really looking forward to the conclusion (assuming they are following the format of the previous campaign book releases).

Of course, my eye was immediately drawn to the Daemons part of the rules. I am slightly disappointed with the Daemonic Incursion "Decurion". The number of models (and points) required to take these formations make it fairly impractical. You simply don't have the points in most 1800-2000 point games to fill out the Incursion and have the flexibility that the Daemons codex actually provides. I mean, you can possibly have both a Tallyband the Tzeentch formation (9 units!!). It blows.

However, if you take ONE of the formations AND instead use CAD... well, then it is possible to build a decent army around a solid core of the Formations. I could well take a Tallyband, and then take a standard detachment with a few other daemon types. That, I think, would work really well. I could (thanks to my numerous Daemonkin) also do the same with a Murderhost. Tzeentch and Slaanesh- well, I don't have enough models for those, and I doubt I ever will.

I am appreciative of the god-specific psychic powers, artifacts, and warlord traits. Several of the warlord traits are actually useful, and some of those artifacts can be nasty. I am pleased they expanded this after the rather too narrow scope of the original Daemon codex. Oh- another bonus- you can now take the new Bloodthirster and give him Lesser,  Greater, and Exalted Gifts. That ain't too shabby.

Of course, all this talk of Daemons really got me thinking. I told you before, the lure of Chaos is very strong, and I can only be away for so long before I get sucked back in. Well, thanks to the Wulfen book- I'm doing Chaos again. Now, don't get me wrong- I still have Mechanicus I'm working on. I'm enjoying that army so I will continue to build on it. However.... must... paint... Daemons! LOL

After reading Wulfen and dreaming of a Tallyband, I counted my Plaguebearers and Nurglings. I had 6 between the two unit types (provided I use the minimum sizes for each). So... you know what I had to do. I decided to buy one more box of the plastic Plaguebearers of course! Now I have 7 units (and of course, I already have a Herald of Nurgle).

I love this "new" plastic kit. Don't get me wrong- the metal ones from 4th (I think) edition are really nice. At the time, they were the best. I enjoyed painting those (I think it was in 2002 or so). Those metal models inspired me greatly, impacting my modeling work in many ways. I had already been doing Plague Marines, but doing the Daemons pushed my painting techniques further, thus influencing my painting of subsequent Plague Marines. Indeed, painting these metal Plaguebearers made me a much better painter- I only started seriously painting in 2000- and my Dark Eldar were quite plain. Using the old White Dwarf articles, I learned about new techniques and applied them to the Plaguebearers. I really upped my painting with them. (Truly, that is something I truly miss with White Dwarf magazine as it is now. It is merely a sales brochure- I loved the old WD that had hobby and story articles that INSPIRED).

Anyways, as I assembled my Plaguebearers I decided I would do something totally different. I decided I would spray them white and then do their flesh ONLY using washes. It is a technique that I have NEVER used before. Naturally, I have used washes (recesses, to alter a hue), but never have I used washes to primarily paint a model. I have read about the technique (WD had a few articles when the new paints were released, but mostly I read about it online).

So, I used different wash combos on different Plaguebearers. For some, I used Cammoshade to make the sickly, pale green that has been the trademark of my Plague stuff since day 1. However, the washes allowed me to get a nice color much more quickly.

For others, I used alternating coats of Fleshshade and Sepia. This gave them a more fleshy, yet still sickly appearance. Though my original Plague stuff was NOT this color, I had since painted Nurgle stuff in all kinds of colors, as long as they were disgusting (though I still primarily do that pale and sickly green, I have enough colors interspersed that they still form a coherent looking army).

On one, I used Fleshade and Earthshade. That guy looks the most different. However, he still looks like part of the same Daemonic force. I think I may paint future Nurgle stuff with that color combo, as I like how dirty it looks.

There was only one model I had a mishap with. I used Bel Tan Green on one- yikes. Waaaaaayy too green. I tried to put Cammoshade over, but to no avail. So, I had no choice but to re-coat him with Deathworld paint, followed by Cammo wash. Despite this error, he still came out looking like his festering brothers. (Note to self- don't use Bel Tan Green over white again. Ever.)

The rest of the details I painted with regular paints and the technical paints. The guts I did Khorne Red, then I brightened them up with lighter reds, finally adding pink to some of the intestines. Then I followed this by using Blood for the Blood god technical paint. Nice and goopy in some spots.

The swords I did with Leadbelcher, followed by Typhus Corrosion technical paint. This gave them a filthy look. As for the eyes, I used my old technique of painting the entire eye area white, followed by a Mephiston Red eye rim, and finally a slit of black for the iris.

For the sores and tumor looking stuff, I used various contrasting washes (yes, Bel Tan Green works for this stage, as does purple and yellow) and the Nurgle's Rot technical paint around/over the sores, then used white to highlight the top of the sores.

Finally, I put gobs of Nurgle's Rot on their swords, their sores, some of their mouths, and running down their legs and onto the bases. Once all of that was done, I used 'Ardcoat over the entire model- sword and all (EXCEPT the banner). This gloss varnish makes them look extra slimy and sickly.

Oh- forgot one thing. My Plague champion I put a zombie head on. The one think about the kit I don't like is that SOME of the poses are limited. The champion is posed so that his sword is sticking straight up. I decided that, since there was little I could do with the sword, I put a zombie head on the Plaguebearer, thus making him look different from the others. After all, according to the mythology, anyone killed by one of Nurgle's plagues becomes a Plaguebearer in the warp. So- why not look slightly "man-ish"?

Now- a confession. I enjoyed painting these guys so much that... at last week's Tourney, I bought a Start Collecting! Daemons of Nurgle box... That means I have more Nurgle stuff to keep me busy. I told you- Chaos will always have me in its grasp! Hehe! As for the ones I just finished, they match quite well with the rest of my Nurgle Daemons- as I mix and match them, they would form a very unified force- all the colors of filth and rot. I think I will paint my next batch of Nurgle stuff in the same manner with the washes, as I like the results of this technique.

I also wanted to show off some terrain I recently finished for my friend Joe. As you may recall, we recently finished his ice world table (it is beautiful for sure). Joe had the old wrecked ship terrain from an old 40K boxed set from the early 2000s. He asked if I would paint it for him.

So, I painted the ship to be Dark Angels, which is now is primary army that he's working on. I did it simply, Caliban Green with lighter green highlights. As for the snow, I started with Kantor Blue, then used brighter blues. Then, I followed with a liberal drybrush of Russ Grey, followed by brighter greys and whites, making sure to leave the blue beneath. It gives the whole thing an icy appearance. If you paint it just snow white, you lose a ton of detail and visually its rather dull. The blue under the white gives it the appearance of glacial ice or something.

These didn't take me long to do. I used Blood technical paint to give it a little something interesting. I also put on some Dark Angel transfers. With all the pieces together, they really make a nice set of terrain pieces, and the ice blue will go with Joe's table perfectly.

So- that's everything for now. I'll be back next time with undoubtedly more Daemons, but I will be getting back to Mechanicus as well very soon.

Until next time...

Zombie Champion Challenge

Hey there, my fellow denizens of the Warp-Hell that we call the Internet! Welcome to yet another edition of Chaos Corner. Old Man Chaos is here to entertain you and hopefully inspire some conversion creativity in my readers. All the time, I look at other blogs, Facebook pages, etc. and get inspired by the great work I see there. I am not saying my work is "great", but I enjoy my hobby and if somebody sees my blog and says "Hey- that's not bad, but I could make that even better" and they do it- well, that's what this is all about folks.

I have been fascinated by zombies for quite some time. When I was a little kid (growing up in the 80s and 90s) my parents got me interested in sci-fi. I watched Alien at an early age for sure, as well as Star Trek, Star Wars. I was also exposed to horror films like Halloween, the Howling, Tales From The Darkside, etc. though my parents were more into the classics like the Universal Horror movies.

However, there were some movies that my parents refused to let me see. The Exorcist for one. Night of the Living Dead was another. I remember seeing part of it on TV till my mother changed the channel. She said that movie was "bad"- not bad as in poorly made- rather, bad as in evil. Wrong. Just too scary for all the wrong and evil reasons. I was forbidden to watch that film.



But, in 1996, I was a senior in high school when the situation changed. I bought a PSOne in 1995 when it first came out, and in 1996 a game came out for it that would alter the video game industry and my own movie/game interests forever- Resident Evil. In that game, you are a elite cop trapped in a mansion that has become a nightmare of experimentation gone wrong- mutants, viruses, and of course... zombies. My world was changed forever by that experience. I did get a copy of Night of the Living Dead on VHS and that was it. I was a zombie fan for life. I quickly discovered Dawn and Day, as well as Zombie! and a host of others (both good and lame).

Naturally, my enjoyment of the undead eventually found an outlet when I got into 40K. At first I played Dark Eldar, but soon the Plague Marines beckoned and that was it. It was so easy to make bloated, decayed Plague Marines. However, I soon got another zombie jolt for 40K with the Eye of Terror book (a hollowed classic that they have never been able to recapture), which featured Plague Zombies. With that little impetus and inspiration, I made 75 Plague Zombies. I used fantasy zombies, but I also used plastic Cadians and Catachans too- Imperial soldiers that fell to the zombie plague. I had a vast horde of Plague Marines and their victims- arisen to aid those that brought the plague in the first place (If you read Wright's Space Wolf series he describes this incredibly well, as does ADB in Cadian Blood). Great times as a Nurgle player.

However, subsequent editions came out, and there were no equivalent rules for Plague Zombies, and I was afraid they would be consigned to oblivion (or friendly, rules-loose games). But, then 6th edition came out- though the new Chaos Codex had issues, they allowed you to take Plague Zombies once more, by having Typhus as your warlord. My undead would walk again in the name of Nurgle!

It took me a while to "get it" that zombies had to have champions just like cultists. At first I thought that was an "upgrade", but really no- its required. So, when I fielded them I usually just said "this one" is the champion. But, I didn't like that... it felt like a cop out. Problem is, I didn't have an alternative. That changed this past summer, when inspiration hit me like a plague-ridden slap in the face.

The new Space Marine kit is a great one- lots of weapons, armor varieties, etc. Then Nurgle told me that such could be brought more in line with his ways of entropy... yes, I could convert them into Plague Zombie Champions! I took up my cutters, knife, and glue and... bam! Plague Zombie Champions!

Just imagine- an Ultramarine is fighting the forces of Nurgle when he is bitten by the zombies- now, he is in agony as his geneseed-enhanced body tries to fight off the infection. He fights on in the streets of a hive city, trying to save the uninfected as his own body begins to succumb to this virulent strain of Nurgle's Rot. Finally, even his superhuman body falls to the plague, and when it does he mindlessly attacks those he was trying to save.

When the end came, most of the planet's inhabitants had died and returned as plague zombies of Nurgle. As the Plague Marines stalked the streets of the dead, admiring their work and praising Nurgle, they stumbled upon the heroic Ultramarine- his armor corroded, his body wasted and oozing, and his mouth wet with the blood of human flesh recently feasted upon. The Death Guard captain laughs grimly, and orders his troops to bring the Ultramarine to their lander. The captain smiles with rotten teeth, knowing that on the next world they "visit", this Ultramarine will help spread the plague far and wide before he is lain low by his uninfected brethren. Imagine their horror to see a fellow Ultramarine with the taint of Nurgle... that would be foul. That would be glorious.

And that's what I did. I made Space Marines of several chapters into Zombie Champions. I put them in various stages of decay, and put the appropriate blood, slime, corrosion, and mutations (I figured that the enhanced geneseed of the Marines would make the Plague react in other ways, causing more advanced mutations- the more enhanced, the more mutation). Now, there can be no mistaking which zombies are the champions. I can't wait to use them in battle alongside my regular zombies.

So I hope you liked this look into the workings of a mad devotee of Nurgle. So, I ask my fellow Nurgle players out there- how do you handle your Plague Zombie Champions?

Until next time...

Conversion Time: A New Nurgle Heldrake

Hey there everybody! Welcome back to another edition of Chaos Corner. Today I have a sequel of sorts to a previous article, which you may want to peruse first HERE. In any case, allow me to present... my second Nurgle Heldrake...

So, as you may have seen in my previous article- I love the Heldrake (having 2 for my Khorne Bezerkers), but I felt that the model just wasn't "Nurgl-y" if you well, and given the model it appeared (at first) to be difficult to make suitable conversions. Of course, as a Chaos player I always have my eyes to conversion. Thus, one day I was in my hobby shop and I said to some of the gaming group that it I was thinking of combining the Heldrake with the Fantasy Zombie Dragon. The gaming group was impressed, save one. One of the circle of gamers sighed, saying that there was no way to do such a conversion. Naturally, I could not resist such a challenge and thus began to work furiously at a conversion.

I loved how that turned out. However, once I was done I realized I had a ton of parts left over- certainly enough to do another 'drake? So, I envisioned what the second one would look like, and immediately began work. However, there were problems. With the parts available, this would be a trickier conversion to pull off- I'd need lots of putty and brass rods. I also wasn't sure if my "vision" would look right, even if I could pull it off. Finally, other projects kept vying for my attention- the Imperial Knight, Plague Drones, Dreadnoughts, etc.

Finally, in the midst of summer, I began work on a Nurgle Forgefiend- and I decided to work on the Heldrake simultaneously (Am I ambitious or what?). Thus, I was properly motivated by Grandfather Nurgle to get this bad boy done.

So, let's break it down piece by piece. I put the Heldrake neck/head on the zombie dragon body. This did not fit on nearly as well, so I had to do some putty work. Putty is easy for Nurgle- you can make it look like ridges or sickly growths or whatever. It hides a multitude of sins. I then put the wings on. I could only do the two, otherwise the model would pitch. Again, I had to putty the hell out of it to keep the wings in place. I wanted the wings up, to give it some motion (it's swooping quickly).

At the back end, I wanted to put the heldrake legs on. Here, I used brass rod and drove it straight through the model. Then I glued the legs to the rod. Finally, I used putty to cover the rod.

As I looked at the model, I saw that a few things felt missing. First, in the rib cage it looked awfully empty. Thus, I decided to make putty intestines dangling in there, as if Father Nurgle wants its guts to spill everywhere to infect his enemies. I also put putty intestines around the brass rod holding up the heldrake in order to give the rod more support.

But, something still was amiss. I didn't like how he looked suspended just by the rod. It just wasn't appealing. So, as I mulled it over I did something I rarely do- I made a scenic diorama base. I used some of the spare building pieces I had to make it appear he is flying over an Imperial city. And from the one side it hides the rod almost completely.

And yet... I wanted more from the scenic base, so I decided to literally make a scene. I put an Imperial Guardsmen (painted in my brother's scheme) on the outside, looking up fearfully- he is clearly desperate to avoid the heldrake's gaze. So why isn't he hiding inside the wrecked building--- hahaha! Take a look...

But that nod to Walking Dead still wasn't enough. So, I put a zombie inside the building. A victim of Nurgle's plague, the dead man now walks, seeking to spread the joy of Nurgle's Rot with others.

But... to really doom the Guardsman, I put this message...

Boy, is the grunt in trouble or what? If the zombie doesn't get him the heldrake will. I had a lot of fun visualizing that scenic base, and I love how it came out. The scene enhances the look of the Heldarke- he is banking around, looking for a victim.  He looks emaciated and the guts spilling out of him ties him into other elements of my army (Daemon Princes, Plague Marines,  and some vehicles have the guts spilling out).

I am happy that I was able to make two Heldrakes like this. They are really different and to me, they now look like they belong to the forces of the plague god. (And I think I saved some cash, as the zombie dragon is cheaper than a heldrake, thus I have Saved Money the Chaos Way once more).

Well, that's all for now. We have all heard the rumblings--- Dark Eldar are coming up sooner or later. I am hopeful that the new book will continue what the redo started... I really should ally Chaos with the DE at some point, shouldn't I...?

Until next time...