Finished Beasts of Nurgle

Back in the 90s one piece of wargear you could get for your Chaos Space Marine army was a Beast of Nurgle. From there the legend of Sluggie was born. At some point I acquired two more of this era of Beasts of Nurgle and they were last used in a Warhammer Fantasy Battle campaign in Vancouver.

For that campaign I rebased them from their original cavalry bases to “monster bases” which were just pieces of balsa wood I cut to the right size. Somehow when the Chaos Daemon Codex came out and the rules suddenly changed so that I could have daemons in my Diseased Sons again, even if they wouldn’t be wargear cards, I quickly latched on to fielding Beasts. Of course I still want to field my sea of Nurglings or my horde of Plaguebearers but at 25% of the power, three Beasts of Nurgle will require at least a 48 power game and I think I must spend one command point to take them.

So I’ve been rebasing these models since September. I ended up doing a lot more than just slapping a round base on them. I had to cut the balsa wood and the plastic to fit. I had to fill in and round the hard edges, cover them with sand and skulls then paint that. I also used a variety of basing material I picked up over the years. During all that the models picked up a few nicks so rather than just leave it or touch it up with green or black, I got the idea to improve both the bones and the tentacles.

I did several highlights on parts of the green Beast of Nurgle, Sluggie. Esmeralda, the purple one, got the fanciest base. I tried out some new paint and ink on the runes but I actually think it looked better two coats of paint ago. She got the least new coats of paint on her tentacles. I also picked up some Blood for the Blood God paint recently and decided to try that on all the guts and sores. Finally Sluggie got Nurgle’s Rot gobbed on his tentacle tips.

Picked up recently at the Sentry Box was a tank, the Plagueburst Crawler. I don’t own one and the peanut gallery thought I needed one, I also bought a can of spray paint as no way that is getting done with tiny lines any time soon. In fact I don’t need any more models, but you get a discount on your birthday week so I should buy something.

Next up in the paint queue may be another old classic Diseased Sons model that I’ll spend less time on, but I think I thought the same about the Beasts of Nurgle, then I can see a primed and converted Chaos Spawn, the new Maceo, the Plague Surgeon and his objective marker and already on my painting table because I figured I’d be done lone ago are two plague marines that will finish the Burning Sores, but after a year of campaigning my thoughts on arming plague marines have changed.

Three Beasts of Nurgle

I also have two battle reports to type up and I think I have not even completed updating my campaign roster after my last game. I’ve been working a lot of hours and it has affected my sleep. Also I have not done a hobby blog retrospective or a post detailing my plans for next year, so that might happen before the battle reports, I’m not sure. I enjoyed reading several recently and I’m not sure the all battle reports all the time blogging style is maximizing likes.

After reading a thread about them, I ordered a set of magnifying lenses that go over my existing glasses. I’ve only tried the weakest ones, but it does make a difference. I’m not sure it has made me a better painter, but it does give me more confidence. Obviously having perfect vision is ideal, but I may never have had that, instead I need to try new techniques and options to speed up my painting. I doubt I’ll be doing freehand murals on tanks again any time soon, but who knows, I never thought I’d be painting a tank again so soon.

So if you have thoughts on what I should add to my Death Guard campaign army, or how either Arks of Omen or 10th Edition will affect the Siege of Vanithros’s Bastion you can leave a comment below. Even if you have idle speculation on what vintage model I’ll dust off next and bring back to the gaming tables thirty years later, fire away.