That is correct, apparently I do not have enough painted and converted plague marines. I used to have them all, now I don’t, but I did buy thirteen of the new models, a box of regular ones and a box of heroes. And since I’m the plague flamer guy apparently, they all have plague flamers.
I’m not sure I want to be the plague flamer guy after spending all afternoon assembling three models. I cursed the Redemptionist with a flamer, it was a pain to assemble and tricky to paint too, then all three of these models have a similar design with tubes that must connect to the backpack so you must position everything perfect and glue multiple spots at once.
Some of the models have plastic pins and grooves to make it harder to screw up but I still made some minor mistakes. The Space Marine Hero has lots of these plastic pins and holes and when you test fit it, you may need an exacto knife to pry it back apart. These models required pins, I had to get out saws, needle files, knifes and of course super glue, but hopefully they’ll look good.
They are being primed black. I was encouraged to change to a different primer but I already have a hundred or so models I’m trying to match these three to, but for most anything that isn’t black (or very dark armour) or literally in black robes like the Redeptionists and the many many night goblins I’ve painted, you probably are better off with a white, off-white, or light grey primer. There are also coloured primers so I have used Dark Angels Green in the past on vehicles and I still have a partial spray can of it, not sure if it would be enough to do another tank…
The Plague Spewer
I couldn’t figure out why more people don’t field this weapon. The model is a challenge to assemble but I can’t see the drawback to this guy. Moving and shooting heavy weapons is now possible, but the minus one to hit is completely negated because it is a flamer style weapon and automatically hits. Then because it is a plague weapon you can re-roll wounds especially if you are near the Arch-Contaminator. Apparently plasma guns remain the most popular special weapon.
All these models are going in the Burning Sores, I’ve decided to max out flamer style weapons in one squad both for visual appeal and for shock and awe in our narrative campaign. The optimal plague marine squad is still to be determined. Most online run either five man barebones squads or they go with as many of the good H2H weapons as they can afford. I’m not anti-five man squad, but I want a wall of models so my Lord doesn’t have to take a Vanquisher cannon again anytime soon.
The resin bases were in my toolbox. Based on the colour and plain ziplock bag they were in I have no idea who made them. I’m not sure why I even had some 32 mm bases. They are actually a tad small, I measure them at about about 31 mm. But I own them and supposedly bases and faces is what matters when painting an army, so I’m always upping my basing game and only one of the models I assembled has a face.
In order to get the plastic models to attach well to the resin bases I had to pin them. When I was painting before I was working through all the Chaos Renegades I’d collected or the plastic models were sticking to the resin bases fine. Not all resin bases are created equal. I definitely have bought some I don’t like. They may never be used, because even after washing them in soapy water, paint just does not stick. I never washed these ones, hopefully I won’t regret it. It is these strange yellowish resin ones that are basically worthless and I should chuck.
I have more bases coming from Poland, Micro Art Studios makes nice but very elaborate bases. I got some more 32mm, but also 40mm and even larger. Other base companies I like include Scibor and Dragon Forge. I’ll order from both of those again, in fact I think I have a lot of Jeff’s bases.
Morslug
I missed these models when they first came out as I was out of the hobby and living abroad or just not dialled in. They sold out quickly in Calgary but then I read on the Death Guard Facebook where I could get some in British Columbia and ordered a set. I never opened all the boxes, but each one has a unique base with an unique Nurgling and probably two heads.
I was today years old when I learned three shields means you have an option of which part to use. I’d previously assembled Cultists, Nurglings, Necromunda models, Gloomspite Gitz, and a Chaos Spawn without figuring that out.
Morslug is not quite as hard to assemble as the previous model. I’m not sure when it was decided Chaos Plague Marine shoulder pads should be multiple pieces, but that is one more thing to glue. Morslug fits very snug to his base and together in general. You may have to pry him apart with a knife after test fitting. This also meant I didn’t glue every piece.
He doesn’t have two tubes like the regular Plague Marine with a Plague Spewer and due to his pins you almost have to bend the plastic into place. Both the head and the tube going into the gun have to be put in before you glue the two halves together. I got this wrong once, but realized in time to fix it. The backpack and one arm are just on their pegs, the other arms and the tube should hopefully hold everything in place.
The Plague Belcher
This is plague marine number six. He also got pinned to his base, then because Morslug has a spare head I decided to just use that, but due to the way Morslug’s head fits and regular plague marine heads fit, I ended up pinning it too. This is the most pinning I’ve done in ages, I thought GWs models all went together perfectly now, but in truth a metal pin and if I took the time epoxy would be a very strong join, as it is I just used super glue, because did I mention it took me all afternoon to assemble three models?
Of course this model has a tube going from an arm to their backpack. I again left one arm loose and I think I may have shaved off the little nub that was put there to guide me, but if your arm join isn’t perfect you can usually cover it up with a shoulder pad, then the shoulder pad comes in two pieces…
Hopefully this model stays together I put extra super glue where I thought it was weak and you can’t see the poorly attached arm because of the shoulder pad and once primed black most little imperfections should disappear. I’m not sure I like this face and I may have clean off a bit I wasn’t supposed to clean off, but I like my models to look different and if I buy another box of Plague Marines they’ll all get head swaps.
Yesterday’s Game
Apparently once again we played the mission wrong, you can’t score VPs on the first turn of this mission, this makes sense as it makes the random roll to go first a big deal. Devin got to go first, but I still think the biggest reason I lost the game was I took an army list I knew was worse, just to try out different models. I’m still learning the rules and almost every game I play, I have a new set of rules to learn. Not every single mission can be completed with seven Death Guard and a Daemon Engine.
I did field a counts as Plague Spewer once before and that model almost made it into Syphilis and thus the start of the campaign, but I decided I wanted to keep Syphilis as the bolter and plasma gun squad, so the Scarlet Fevers when they join the campaign may not max out plasma guns and bolters.
What’s Next?
Well obviously I am painting four models, the fourth model has a heavy flamer and uses the Forge World Death Guard terminator bits, I bought them, even built three models but never got them painted. Since we are using PL and I’m apparently the flamer guy, I threw in a black primer-ed model to my campaign force. I’ll get him painted as fast as I can but Plague Marines and terminators are bigger than cultists and those cultists took me weeks.
After that it is back to mud and skulls. I want to get five more green guys rebased and then five purple guys then maybe five more of each. I’m not sure the optimal plague marine squad is bolters and plasma guns or all the flamers. I think a mix may be interesting because you face different armies and different missions so you need to perhaps run your Plague Marines against all comers.
Me personally I suck at killing heavy armour, I always have. My abundance of flamers dates all the way back to 2nd Edition when I would play against Harlequin Jetbikes on Vancouver Island, these were incredibly hard to hit, but they had to go in a straight line to do their drive by slashing or whatever it was called. My solution was to give just about every squad in my army a flamer. Because flamers auto-hit even back then, you just take your beating then burn the bikes out of the sky.
I’m not sure I’ll run a plague belcher in every squad but that would be very old school, I like my squads to be different and have personality, but with the removal of the combi-flamer on the champion, I may spread out my flamer type weapons in the future. Giving your champion a plasma gun is new and quite powerful. I have a number of champions with a plasma pistol, but it was never my favourite option in previous editions. If I’m going to crawl within twelve inches of the enemy I’m going to melta them.
A plague marine squad with one plague belcher, one melta gun and one blight launcher has appeal, the blight launcher as an assault weapon seems good. I like assault weapons and obviously plague weapons are good. Some do prefer the plasma gun but now that the champ can have that you can pack quite a few guns into even a small plague marine squad. I still like the bolter boosted by Malicious Volley, Inexorable Advance and a banner, but in a campaign the temptation to max out on goodies is strong.
If we switch to using points in the future I may have to look at trimming some fat, but for right now, I plan to paint all the goodies, including more icons and eventually a H2H focussed squad. The big three guns seem to be plasma, spewer, and meltagun, so why not have a blight launcher or plague belcher too? If you have thoughts on the optimal five and ten man plague marine squad you can leave them below.
Musk's Miniatures 
8 thoughts on “Painting New Plague Marines”