Only to find out on the morning of the big Warhammer 40,000 game, the possible start of our long discussed campaign, that it is cancelled on account of snow. That’s right it started snowing while I was painting last night and although we didn’t get that much, it was deemed enough to delay our 40K game for a day or a week or more.
All was of course not lost, as although not my best work, I did paint an entire model in under a day, I finished it this morning. I also embiggened the bases of another batch of Plague Marines. I did forget to enbiggen the base of my proposed Death Guard Chaos Lord. After consulting the Internet and Bill it was decided to go with 32 mm, so I have to paint yet more mud and skulls.
Nurgling Infested Objectives
Long time loyal readers may recall I entered the 2002 Calgary Grand Tournament. That was about twenty years ago and I’m still painting bits I bought by the pound or gram back then. One of the requirements was to bring three themed objective markers so of course I converted some Nurgling infested ones.
One of them was on a 40mm base but the others were just loose pieces of plastic and metal. That’s right Nurglings like everything else used to be metal. They were finished the night before the tournament using whatever greens Owen had lying around.
I think I won the most games of any Grand Tournament I attended in Calgary, but I got a lower painting score and I didn’t think they did a very good job judging, so I vowed to show those guys in Calgary where they could stick their brushes and painted like mad for the next Western Canadian Grand Tournament, the 2003 Vancouver GT.
Campaign Badges
A lot of models got stripped and repainted since 2002 so models with the campaign badge from then are rare. However that is when I started the tradition of painting little badges on the power armour and vehicles of the Diseased Sons. Bill still hasn’t determined the name of our yet to start campaign. I volunteered the ultra uncreative Nachmund campaign.
Once I get a couple more models painted and rebased I’ll take a group photo of those who started the yet nameless campaign. Unlike a tournament this campaign could go on a while and you are allowed to spend requisition points to add new models, weapons, even entire units to your force. So even though my eyes aren’t what they once were, I’ll be painting a lot more little campaign badges and those with eagle eyes among you can play spot the campaign badge and try to work out which force that model was once a part of.
Mud & Skulls
Another thing my models have been dinged for at tournaments is the bases. They are basically dry brushed sand. Eventually I bought a lot of resin bases so most models painted since the early 2000s will have those, but I grew up on an Island, sand was free and dry brushing bases was the way it was done back in the 90s.
Now as part of the great rebasing of 2022, I’m adding at least one skull to every base. My new skull recipe is Wraithbone then Skeleton Horde and honestly that looks pretty good. I’ve tried various combinations and the colour I’m most likely to use to highlight with if not Wraithbone itself is now Vallejo Game Color Bonewhite. Then if I want it even whiter which I didn’t do this batch I’ll go to Vallejo Game Color Dead White.
I’ll often use another wash, I can spend a lot of time on skulls. I will use a thin red wash or glaze, I’ll also sometimes use a thinned black ink. Also in my bag of tricks are various GW products, I was a big fan of Gryphonne Sepia, while everyone else was on the Devlan Mud bandwagon I preferred the more subtle effect of Gryphonne Sepia. I also have my old old Rust Ink, which when it is gone, I’ll be sad. I’m beginning to use Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone, Agrax Earthshade, and even Seraphim Sepia but my secret weapon last night was Baby Poop.
How to paint Nurglings
You can paint Nurglings anyway you want, but I tried out a couple new to me paints/products on this batch. I did the horns the same as I did the skulls and I am trying hard to use Contrast paints so the one I tried out this batch with some success was Militarum Green. Maybe I’ll go back to Plaguebearers Flesh. If I have unlimited time I’d paint them all different colours, but if you have to paint a horde of Nurglings you need some tricks and shortcuts.
So after you spray them Wraithbone you do a thin (possibly actually thinned with Contrast Medium) of your favourite green, this time it was Militarum. Then I recommend a dry brush, a lighter dry brush colour than I would choose if I was edge or layer highlighting, the odd combo and top secret Nurgle colour I’ve taken to using is Foundry Paint System British Equipment Canvas A. I picked up a lot of paints to try and match the historical colours of the Vandoos.
After your dry brush you then want a wash or a glaze. Last night I finally tried Secret Weapon Baby Poop. So if you want to know why some of my Nurglings look like shit, it wasn’t an accident.
Another product I bought at Sentry Box after reading about it online is Vallejo Game Ink Black Green. I used to make my own dark green wash, because some green washes are too shiny and sometimes as second wash dulls things too much. So when I want dark greens I’ll use this ink or the baby poop or maybe one of the GW products listed above. I also want to order some more stuff I’ve read about online.
What about the pink Nurgling?
Like I said I’ve been experimenting with the Contrast paints and I’ve tried two purples: Shyish Purple and Magos Purple. The former comes out dark and shiny so you probably want to thin that with Contrast Medium. And it is so dark you’re going to have to paint a lot of highlights on it, I haven’t had enough success with it to make me want to replace my traditional purple recipes.
So that leaves Magos Purple which I put on quite thin but no actual Contrast Medium was used. I think it is easier to paint some things with Contrast paints, I wouldn’t use them everywhere for everything. Something small with folds like Nurgling skin is a good option. But then I used a product apparently few people bought and now is long gone GW Purple Glaze, these came in hexagon pots with red lids. I honestly wish I’d bought every one, as it is I have five.
As my eyes have gotten worse and I’ve tried to speed up my painting process I’ve looked to make greater use of techniques like dry brushing. I’ve always used washes, generally thinned but sometimes straight out of the pot/bottle as the manufacture designed them. The other thing I really like are these glazes. Maybe the chemistry behind Contrast paints and GW’s new shades is fancier, but that pink Nurgling was literally two coats of paint, very thin, pushed into the folds.
Guts and Boils
I was rushed finishing yesterday’s Nurglings, for today’s Nurglings I did paint some boils. Guts have gotten really easy over Wraithbone I like Fleshtearer Red, then I’ll do another quick highlight with whatever old GW red I have that has still survived. For the trivia obsessed that is Ruby Red at the moment, but any bright red will work. A wash or a glaze is also good. Sometimes I might use pink or purple for guts, but generally I stick to red.
Now boils, I have chanced upon a boil recipe that will stand out on both brown, green, and purple flesh and you can see it in action on the newest Nurgling Infested Objective. Basically paint the boil brown first. This will cover, you can use a variety of browns but today I used Terracotta Clay from Reaper Master Series. The next colour I used was red, again from Reaper Master Series, this time Clotted Blood. These are from my quest for an evil dark red for my Bezerkers and were bought at Imperial Hobbies in Richmond, the only reason to go to Richmond except maybe noodles.
Then I dab on orange and yellow. You don’t have to be that neat, I use a pretty thick dab of yellow. This time the yellows and orange were from Vallejo. I used the same yellow for the Nurgling eyes after first trying the Contrast Yellow. Then for this batch of boils I put Nurgle’s Rot over top, but you can use a thin glaze of red or yellow or orange, even purple might work.
Nurgle’s Rot
I want to like this paint and you need to shake the pot a lot and I think it benefits from multiple thin coats, but many gob it on at the end which isn’t always optimal. One of the Nurglings on the base of the model I plan to use as the champion got green vomit as opposed to guts. It was painted green, I think flat green from Vallejo then washed with the original Waaaggh Green Ink, then I did Tesseract Glow and probably should have stopped, but on the Escher Necromunda model I did Nurgle’s Rot over top.
It came out better the time before and as per the introduction I literally was painting these models this morning, so now I can get it out of the miniature case and put a thin wash over top because it lost a lot of definition that I had gotten from careful washing and highlighting. Let me stop blogging and do that.
After it dried I took another photo. Maybe I’ll paint another highlight on, this is a problem I have, I spend too much time on small parts of models sometimes, I could have had pink/purple vomit in two coats, but I like coming up with never before seen colours especially given I’ve painted so many Plague Marines, Plaguebearers, and Nurglings.
What does tomorrow hold?
Well maybe another game of Warhammer 40,000 if not the start of our nameless campaign. These 40K campaigns are supposedly a lot of book keeping. I have a journal and the biggest index cards Staples carries. I want to get a printer but Bill thinks I should get a car, until I pointed out to him that the printer was $200 dollars at Staples and the car was going to clearly cost more.
After busting my ass the last 24 hours some of the models when looked at in a blown up digital photo have obvious spots I should have touched up or highlighted further. I also don’t always get the real life colour in the photographs especially on Instagram. I’m using various magic wand buttons either on my iPhone Mini 13, or the one in Apple’s Photos or the one in GraphicConverter 11 which I think is the latest greatest version.
Sometimes the photos I take with my Panasonic DMC-GM1, my fancy lightbox, and the algorithms do worse than just a quick snap with my iPhone on my painting desk. So when I do add photos to this post it will be from a mix of cameras, apps, and algorithms.
Next Up in the Painting Queue
I discovered this morning that I didn’t enbiggen the base of the Chaos Lord I planned to use to start the campaign, Maceo the Maligned. I would like a Lord of Virulence but I’m trying to use models that are already bought and painted. I need to paint four more cultists to give me the minimum squad of ten fully painted models. I also want to paint another “counts as” Blightlord. It is a real Chaos Space Marine in Terminator Armour with Forgeworld Death Guard bits but it isn’t armed with the latest weapon you can only get if you buy an entire box.
I haven’t bought an entire box of Blightlords yet, but I do have a box of Plague Marines and Space Marine Heroes so three more additions to the Burning Sores will be assembled and primed next. But once the campaign starts who knows what will happen. I will get my spawn on the table, painting first then gaming, unless my Lord rolls poorly and ends up a spawn. I plan to stroll along the Path to Glory, but I have unpainted spawn and an unpainted daemon prince just in case.
A Plague Surgeon and even more themed objectives and markers will likely happen, I don’t know if that will help me win games, but it will impress Bill. I haven’t bought that model yet, nor do I have Plagueburst Crawlers, Myphitic Blight-Haulers, or Foetid Bloat-drones. Units that cost exactly 5 PL would be the easiest to add once the campaign starts and what will take the least effort is another five Plague Marines even if they don’t have Blight Launchers or any of the new snazzy magic sticks.
Five more plague marines will cost cost 6 PL…
If you have thoughts on how to paint mud, skulls, Nurglings, vomit, boils or the Death Guard in general you can leave a comment below. If you think I’m crazy to be starting a 40K campaign with no [insert the best thing in the codex] you can leave your diatribe below.
Musk's Miniatures 
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