Although I took a break and despite the new hotness of the Chaos Codex being here I am still painting Plague Marines for my army the Diseased Sons. I definitely am not as skilled as I used to be and I’m not sure my signature painting technique is wise when speed matters and your vision gets worse every year, but I’m committed to painting maybe a dozen more rank and file models for this army.
This model of course has the not terribly popular Plague Spewer. I must paint another one right after this for the same squad, the infamous Burning Sores because I embraced letting the galaxy burn before it was cool, so when the Death Guard Codex came out I decided despite it not being the darling of the Internet to go with the Chosen Sons. I’m still waiting for this decision to pay off, but I hope once I finish this squad it’ll start paying dividends.
If you have not been following our narrative campaign, I have not been dominating and my commitment to using my vintage models in a plague marine heavy army has been a struggle so the new sexiness has some appeal. Devin will use the new rules, I will focus on updating my army and leveraging the rules in the Death Guard codex this year.
Maceo has not proven optimal and after failing again to kill the enemy warlord despite me unleashing the toxins, I won’t be surprised if he turns into a chaos spawn. I have one new on sprew for just such an occurrence, but I also have a new daemon prince too for you optimists out there. And I believe it is a 2 in 9 chance to turn into a spawn so less than 33% of the time.
Tomorrow the Chaos Codex may be physically available. I did pre-order a copy from the Friendly Local Game Store but I’ve also been reading the odd blog post and in a big change from the days when we had to pray every day for a Chaos Codex, they actually sent a pile of copies to various social media influencers so I’ve already seen battle reports and reviews on YouTube.
Painting Challenges
Before I engage in speculation I’ll point out that I decided against the Plague Marines backpack being all metal but then one of his leg pieces of armor was just too tough to paint in the tiny line style so it is going to be a big piece of brass. The armour plating is basically done, I did not use the exact same recipe as the terminator and I think I’m in the market for a dark green that covers over black well. Either that or I go full on contrast paint for my plague marines, I think I can just paint tiny lines over that.
Next up, likely tomorrow as this is Canada Day long weekend, is the metal bits starting with some iron or steel coloured metal. I’ll do the trim in a tin bitz plus brass just like always then it looks like I may have to use some copper or even some gold as these new models are both big and detailed. I will possibly be simplifying my Nefarious Fire paint scheme, maybe even use some dry brushing.
I’ve been painting these models and this army for so long there isn’t a recipe that is in-print, but I did use one of my secret weapons, Black Green Game Ink, which I did not use on the terminator.
Chaos Codex Potential
If you’re a long time follower of this blog or Muskblog or my online activities in general you’ll know I’m not really a Death Guard player. I’ve long been a Nurgle guy, but I developed my own chapter, paint scheme, fluff and never used any of the Death Guard special characters though I definitely used their model bits.
I also thought I was done painting more Nurgle guys, I’d painted them all, I converted all the conversions, tried all the schemes, I’d moved on to Chaos Undivided and painting other models I’d collected over the years like Noise Marines and Bezerkers. But then my life changed and I basically got out of the hobby for many years, but I never sold my models, I just put them in storage until things got better.
Now I’m back living in Calgary Alberta and one of the few people I knew who lived here was a gamer and after dabbling in Warcry and various board games the big game must have called to Bill as we’ve completed eleven weeks of our narrative campaign and I think 9th Edition is the version I’ve played the most since perhaps 5th edition Warhammer 40,000.
I was of course following the rumours over at the B&C but the plan was to use the DIY rules to may own renegade chapter for both the Diseased Sons and the Nefarious Fire then when the book finally comes out, it turns out there are no DIY chapter rules, so you must choose a legion and then just paint it however you damn well want and forgo special characters which I do anyway. I wanted to use all my models or as many as I could so the Chaos Legions devoted to a single god were out, that still left several options and I’ve pretty much decided the best fit is the Iron Warriors, oh the irony.
How many times can I make that joke? You see back in 2nd Edition and even more so 3rd Edition the Iron Warriors were infamous because they could take an extra heavy support choice and they could thus have more big guns than any army and this was a big deal on the original Grand Tournament circuit. I believe I played against Iron Warriors in Vancouver, but Jeff supposedly chose the legion because it was easy to paint. I’m going to choose it because it is tough, Iron Warrior rules plus Nurgle rules will be the Diseased Sons.
If you played against the Diseased Sons in 2nd Edition you’d know not only did my Nurgle Renegades have heavy weapons I had a quite a few and they were mostly missile launchers too, because I had developed a Rad Missile strategy even won a tournament with it. But after many years I stripped a lot of models both because I thought I could paint them better and the missile launchers and other heavy weapons couldn’t be Nurgle anymore. Then GW changed the rules…
Games Workshop has changed the rules many times since, but if I want to field as many painted models as possible I must use two or three or possibly even four codices. I have many many Nurgle daemons on square bases, I doubt I’ll ever rebase them, but if we keep playing 40K and they release another Chaos Daemon Codex who knows, but right now I’m focussing on Death Guard and planning to use the new Chaos Codex to field an army with Plague Marines, Bezerkers and eventually at least one squad of Noise Marines and I will use the Iron Warriors rules to do it.
HQ
Although I don’t have the book yet, it doesn’t matter as I mainly go with the rule of cool so I’ve decided now that I’m an Iron Warrior I need a Warpsmith. I also must have the Cultist Coven as I still plan to paint up two squads of twenty cultists. That just leaves the warlord and I don’t know, it might be a terminator lord because that is what I want to do with the Death Guard rules, I want to field the Lord of Virulence, but I could just go with a Daemon Prince as they’ve released a new snazzy model, but that would take me a month or more to paint, so what I want/need to paint is a consideration and I already have suitable terminators painted.
Elite
I can field over seven squads of plague marines and my goal this year is to try to get them all on the board and funky fresh, but when I use the Chaos Codex I generally only use one or two squads max. This is when painting my models a different color for their battlefield role actually proves useful. I also bought the White Dwarf and may get my one squad of painted Khorne Bezerkers on the table again. I believe I have every Khorne Bezerker ever made which is way more than one squad but my goal is ten in a rhino. We’ll see if I remember how to paint evil dark red.
Long have I thought Noise Marines were the best, but the Rubric marines could be the best now I don’t know, we’ll see after people get a few more games with he new rules. I doubt I’ll ever do 1000 Sons but I will get my Tzeentch Renegades on the board again and maybe I’ll run a Tzeentch Daemon Lord as my supreme commander. But eventually I’ll paint my collection of Noise Marines as just like Bezerkers, I believe I have collected them all. Playing in the narrative campaign has made me a big fan of max sized squads, why not have all the toys?
The problem with the Elite section of the codex is there is too much good stuff. I of course have Chosen including a whole squad with combi-meltas which may no longer be an option, but I’ll probably come up with something new and a big block of ten terminators may be returning, they are just too strong or too tough not to field and I already have them painted. Using models I already have painted is a big theme for me in 9th Edition 40K.
Troops
If I’m spoiled for Elite choices I have even more troops as basically every squad in the Diseased Sons can be fielded as Plague Marines or Nurgle Renegades plus I have a bunch of Undivided and other god worshipping models. My plan still remains to paint more cultists. I will go for two squads of twenty, half armed for H2H and half armed with long rifles. That leaves me four troops choices, my Tzeentch lascannon with Icon may be legal again so that is interesting, but I’ll also do at least ten Nurgle renegades, then how can I not do a squad armed with chainswords but they may worship Slaneesh as I pretty much want the Balefire Tomb or whatever it is called, to have a mini psycher. I could conceivably field six psychers.
Fast Attack
I will bulk out my spawn more, I want to get a full squad of five. I also will build a squad around my lone Nurgle model on a bike and my Nurgle models with jump packs. Then I’ll probably do another bike squad, I think based on the what I’ve read I may be a big biker user in this Codex.
Heavy Support
Even before I became an Iron Warrior I already had quite a lot of heavy support choices including by my count three havoc squads, two devoted to Nurgle and one undivided the legendary Longed Four. As I plan to run a Warpsmith I was thinking a daemon engine but he apparently can boost any vehicle so maybe a new predator or land raider or defiler instead of a Mauler Fiend. Lastly I do have a lone Obliterator and fielding him and possibly some new mates will probably happen, basically the plan would be to max out everything in a detachment.
What about Chaos Knights?
Painting a Chaos Knight seems to now be a part of my three year plan. I own the codex but have not read it. Basically I’ll paint if not the biggest one then the coolest one, maybe the psycher one as I plan to field an army of psychers, but the Knight player in our campaign Aiden says it is less useful if you aren’t running a pure knight army…
If you have thoughts on painting plague marines or how to use the Death Guard codex or the new Chaos Codex you can leave a comment below.
Musk's Miniatures 
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