Batting .500 at 10th Edition 40K

That is right haters, using the sorry Codex-less Death Guard led by a sub-optimal Chaos Lord who did nothing and relying on my legendarily powerful units of Nurglings, Chaos Cultists and Chaos Spawn I emerged victorious. I defeated the Ultramarines after carefully adjusting my army list, improving my tactics and not getting randomly assigned the same primary and secondary missions as last game.

Not only did I win handily, all my models died! Death Guard is famously not as hard to kill as it was a few editions ago. It still isn’t that shooty and my plague marines are not optimized for melee. Bill also completely changed his army since last week, he has a large collection of painted Ultramarines that you can see not only here in pictures, as he is my most regular opponent in Calgary but on his very own Instagram.

He abandoned the winning ways of the first company for more of a mixed force. They all got to have Heavy weapons somehow which in 10th edition is basically plus one to hit if you stand still. Unfortunately most missions require you to move, so despite playing an all foot slogging Death Guard army I was able to infiltrate, scout and even deep strike my way to victory. I plan to continue to play with my mostly OOP foot slogging Death Guard force but I reserve the right to bring vehicles and I’m already on record stating I will use the new Chaos Codex when it comes out unlike last edition where I bought lots of rules and never even got around to reading them all.

What did I change?

First I continue to read and re-read the rules. I still don’t have much time for the forums let alone talking head wannabe know-it-alls on YouTube. But I have learned a thing or two, for instance Stealth via Cloud of Flies seems like a no-brainer every enemy shooting phase. Bill always uses the Oath of the Moment to make it easier to kill one unit of mine, so I can counter that if I choose with Stealth making that unit slightly harder to hit.

I also changed my 1000 point army list. I sold back a single squad of plague marines. I replace it with my chaos cultists, the Cancer Cell plus an icon bearer to join the Burning Sores. The Icon Bearer did not do much and in fact died earlier than he should have due to the Ultramarine’s voluminous shooting. The now twelve model squad combined with the ten man cultist squad and the nine stand nurgling squad gave Bill a lot of targets to shoot his blast weapons at.

The other change I made was adding Toe Jam my first two heavy weapon hellbrute, replacing at no point cost, my single heavy weapon hellbrute Rabban. In tenth edition very few weapon options cost points so you should generally max out on special weapons and upgrades. In fact I will theme my army less going forward as leaving stuff on the shelf when I could have it for free is getting old.

Infiltrate on top of the centre objective

What worked?

Having a strength 12 gun, one that could shoot over 24 inches, probably helped. But I continue to use my hellbrute to tag a unit I want to destroy, Bill used his big land speeder in a similar manner. Infiltrating the big squad of nurglings right on top of the centre objective makes them a problem. They soak up a fair amount of fire and although I can not play Aura of Flies on them, do the Chaos Daemons have a similar card I could play? I think they did in 9th Edition, but then again I spent a lot of money on codices and stratagem cards for that edition. I am not sure I can use any other stratagems than the basic set and the Death Guard set under the rules of tenth edition Warhammer 40,000. That is the way I’ve been playing it.

Going to ground is still a thing apparently, but nurglings are not infantry so can not use that stratagem. None the less, I should remember it as an option to use instead of or in addition to Aura of Flies. I really should buy a set if possible of the basic stratagems. Were they only in the big box? I don’t see them on the website currently.

I finally got to overwatch with my four plague flamer squad and the plague spewers did work, first when Bill moved a land speeder nearby and eventually some terminators within twelve inches of my big plague marine unit the Burning Sores. I don’t know why a plague marine squad wouldn’t have a plague spewer in it, it does not compete with another special weapon. I have soured on the less powerful plague belcher and would rather have a melta gun. A plasma gun which can shoot 24 inches also seems more valuable and versatile in what is a glorified tactical squad.

Scout and advance the Chaos Cultists

The increased movement of both the Chaos Spawn and the Chaos Cultists along with deploying nurglings in the centre of the board allowed me to jump out to an early lead. I still have no alpha strike capability. I think I may have killed one space marine in the first turn of shooting, certainly no actual units, but I completed both my secondary missions and I got an early start on winning the primary mission. So making me go first and expecting me to do nothing but shuffle some plague marines five inches forward is no longer guaranteed.

Bill decided the Cancer Cell must die.

Should you always declare every charge?

What’s next?

We’ve agreed to play again I think. I definitely think we agreed to drink some of the expensive beer I picked up at ABX today. I’m not sure if we agreed to invite DiceHateKris or any of the riffraff. I figured we would go up to 1250 points and Bill is eager to get more of his toys on the table. I had tentatively picked out 210 of my next 250 points and was leaning towards yet more nurglings but given how the game went and my desire to improve my plague marine squads further I’ll make even more changes.

I’ve gotten away with a single hellbrute along with a token heavy weapon in my Blightlords unit but I will definitely add a second hellbrute at 1250 points. I have three painted and I told Bill I might just try the third one, Blastmarker Billy, he could be the best of the three for 10th Edition but honestly I really like the “Infused with the blessings of Nurgle” rule so much so I plan to always include a hellbrute in my 10th Edition Death Guard armies, so why not two?

Ultimately I plan to run an absolute brick of Blightlords, they are right hard. I’ll eventually paint a Lord of Virulence to lead them. However in smaller games it is a lot of points to commit to one unit, better to have more pieces to move around hence the cultists, spawn and nurglings.

Will I ever run four plague flamers again?

Although I like having themed units and not just running cookie cutter squads, the all flamer squad isn’t cutting it. I need more anti-armour. I think I’m going back to the green all-stars and the purple all-star plague marine units. With the Chaos Codex coming out first, I may never need more than three plague marine squads, until Bill and I play our legendarily large game. I usually run one colour of models as plague marines and the other colours as Nurgle renegades. I also have the option of running undivided or multi-mark armies in the Chaos Codex. I can still sprinkle daemons on top. And although Bill hasn’t been reading the rules, the lone giant Chaos Knight as an army centrepiece after thirty years collecting Chaos models has appeal.

My mind is still stuck in previous editions of the rules. So many editions of the rules have come out I can’t even remember if things were rules or if they were just thematic ways of running your army. For instance, currently there is no rule restricting you to one Chaos Lord. In our 9th Edition campaign not only did I run one just a single Chaos Lord, even after Maceo turned into a Chaos Spawn I never replaced him. I just had McFly lead as that was in the spirit of the game, rather than optimal. The reason I mention this is if you want to empower a squad of plague marines, why not go all out and put a Chaos Lord in the squad, this seems like a good option given I recently painted a plague surgeon.

Doctor Stealgood lasted the longest.

Ultimately I may paint my new daemon prince and deploy it along side my biggest block of plague marines but in the short term after I crunch some numbers I may run two chaos lords. I need all the help I can get what with all the bolters and knifes I run, re-rolling ones seems useful. Similarly I may add a leader to Syphilis squad or just go up to seven models. All my plague marines used to be legal seven model squads with an icon. So I can quickly throw in an Icon Bearer to boost my Death Guard army for 45 points, this is almost as cheap as nurglings and cheaper than a unit of chaos cultists. I could also deploy one or more Malignant Plaguecasters in my army.

Usually I frown on herohammer, but with every other Death Guard army on the entire Internet led by the Primarch, can’t a unit of Death Guard take a piss without literally one of twenty Primarch every genetically engineered by the Emperor personally supervising? Even the combat patrol has a named character. Do all the combat patrols have a named character? Does every army have named characters now?

What hasn’t worked?

Not having guns is a disadvantage. You may think this is obvious and if you’ve read this blog long enough you’ll realize I’m in favour of having a gun in a war zone at least 40,000 years into the future. However some people play a very assault heavy force and advance whenever they can. This is all well and find until you read some of the missions where it says “a unit eligible to shoot”. We have been playing that as requiring a gun. So nurglings and to a lesser extent chaos spawn and likely a lot of units can not complete these missions, so having too many units without a gun is a bigger disadvantage than you might suspect.

I am still committed to running nurglings and may add a third squad again. I also seem to be adding a second squad of chaos spawn in the future. One use of these small cheap units is to deny space to deep strike to your opponent. I was able to deploy arguably my best unit in the Ultramarine deployment zone on turn two. I deliberately put the second squad of nurglings where I thought Bill might want to deep strike his terminators. Similarly putting some chaos spawn in my own deployment zone and just keeping them there until all the deep striking is done may be a valid tactic. You could use some other units that are cheap and have an actual gun too I imagine for this purpose, but I may try spawn as they can move pretty fast.

Isn’t this a painting blog?

It kinda is a painting blog. But I really did injure my painting arm. I think I could paint a little and may finally try tomorrow. I plan to paint a chaos spawn. Not because chaos spawn are so great in 10th edition Warhammer 40,000 but because they come in units of exactly two now and I’ve painted exactly three. They also apparently have feel no pain, which I seem to have forgotten for at least the last two games if not all four I’ve played of tenth edition. After that I plan to paint Blightlords, two that are actually Forgeworld Death Guard terminators, that I assembled and primed many editions ago. They were not included in my vow but their Chaos Black primer mocks me.

I do plan to paint some actual Blightlord models. If I paint three, that will let me run close to an optimal brick or even two units of five which might better. But next year it seems I will switch to the Chaos Codex so then Death Guard unique units like Plagueburst Crawlers or Death Guard specific guns like the Blight Launcher may be shelved in favour of the old boring weapons I’ve used since 2nd edition and the many many models I’ve painted that haven’t been fielded, potentially ever.

Three squads of plague marines is more than most Death Guard players use. So far in 10th edition, that is the most I’ve fielded. Would I even be limited to just three in a Chaos Space Marine army? I can still be “all Nurgle, all the time” if I want to using Chaos Space Marines. And I do own non-Nurgle models including many old rare OOP non-Nurgle models I could eventually get around to painting. When the 10th edition Death Guard codex is finally released in a year or two, if Bill and I are still hardcore I can resume painting Death Guard specific models.

This post is up to at least twenty paragraphs of mostly sober ramblings. Most blog posts are not this long and include some sort of top ten list and call to action. Plus of course a click here for me to make money link. I don’t have a click here for me to make money link, however I have at least two fans on the entire Internet. So if they have thoughts on what I should do with the Diseased Sons or you are stunned I won without Mortarion, Typhus, or whatever is supposedly good in a Death Guard army list you can leave a comment or just blame Bill.

Lost Again at Warhammer 40,000

Do any of my loyal readers remember when I was undefeated during 10th edition crushing the dreams of kids with their golden armour clad super soldiers that were even taller and more bullet proof than the Emperor’s finest? Astride their majestic jet bikes, capes blowing in the wind facing off against two chaos spawn and whatever else I plucked from the shelves of my miniature cabinet and threw on the table when summoned by Bill. Expected by one and all in the gaming store, to be swept aside because the Internet said Death Guard sucked? Those were the days.

Stay twelve inches away at all times.

I have of course been busy and I also injured myself, so badly in fact I could not paint and there was doubt I’d even make it to my scheduled game against Bill. So before I go any further you may be asking why are there goblins in the banner image? Several reasons, one I never took any photos of our game today I thought would make a good banner, there was doubt I would make it to the game, let alone persevere through pain to blog about it. Two it was recently Orktober, I was going to keep painting hard then I suffered a seriously painful injury. Mike, neigh Uncle Mike also talked to Bill and I informing us that not only was Mordheim coming up but Warcry may be run as a league at the Sentry Box soon. These very goblins were used in Warcry at the Sentry Box previously, some of them may have even been used to play Mordheim. The rules for Orks and Goblins were in a White Dwarf article which must be at my mom’s house somewhere.

Now that everyone is confused and I’m on beer number four, I should inform you this will not be an exhaustive turn by turn battle report, like some of the fifty or so others I’ve typed up over the years. Rather it will be some observations both on what has changed in Warhammer 40,000 since I last played and they re-balanced the game, but also will reflect the fact that I painted my ass off. And although most people would say I have little to show for it, I would counter not many people have the painted Nurglings necessary to flood a flank with them. The record will clearly show I lost the game to the snazzy codex toting Ultramarines. Some random store patrons were really impressed with my museum quality collection of nurglings though.

Ten things I learned today playing 40K

Deep Strike then Charge!

Exterminatus Level Threat

Bagonhead’s Last Stand

The Beast needs more torque!

1. I really, really, need to read all the rules. I have excuses, work and pain being chief among those. But I bought the mission card deck and I still haven’t read it. I also need to learn the stratagems to the point of memorization. I’ll never read all the enemy codices and I’ll continue to pay for that, but I just don’t have time. However I own two 10th Edition Rule Books, Bill kept borrowing my new small one, but I really should learn the basic rules.
2. I need to remove some of the restrictions I place upon myself. No I’m not switching to unpainted pieces of plastic. No I’m not using named characters. No I’m not abandoning Nurgle. But since I can’t paint faster, I need to paint smarter. I still plan to finish a few more models I don’t need for any tactical or strategic purpose in Warhammer 40,000 10th Edition. I also still plan to paint more fluffy models like Chaos Spawn, but I spent all of 9th Edition using a single sub-optimal Chaos Lord. The fact Maceo the Maligned ended up a Chaos Spawn is indicative of how effective he was on the tabletop. So new leaders or even old leaders will be fielded and I’ll slowly improve my army by adding more characters to it as the Death Guard can field a lot of character models with up to two leaders per plague marine squad, because plague marines with knifes and nurglings with strength two claws can only kill so much.
3. Today we played 1000 points and honestly I can field a lot of models at 1000 points these days. I had twenty plague marines, a dozen nurlgings, I had Blightlords, a hellbrute, I even had two Chaos Spawn! But Bill had some fancy land raider which had super flamers and took advantage of the new Overwatch rule and killed seven plague marines during my movement phase when they walked around a corner. I didn’t even charge the damn model! It is indeed 2nd Edition all over again. I honestly didn’t mind playing 1000 points but I think we’ll trend towards larger games as some people do field Chapter Masters and named characters and models that cost four hundred plus points!
4. At this point in time, I must complain that Google has gotten worse. I of course am too busy to keep up the latest and greatest thinking about Warhammer 40,000 but I try to provide useful links for my readers on occasion and honestly it seems hard tonight. I had a lot more observations I wanted to make, detailing my thoughts having been away from the game for a few months, but I am getting frustrated trying to find a link to illustrate my point above. I told Bill I think someone at GW HQ reads my blog, because things I write seem to get incorporated into rules updates eventually, but maybe someone at Google will read my blog and become less greedy. Who am I kidding? Usually I can find a link explaining what confused me, but I have standards, there are websites I don’t link to anymore for reasons. Also the reason Google sends you to YouTube videos is Google owns YouTube.
5. Seriously today, may be the day I finally abandon Google. I just want a blog post I can link to about the Landraider Redeemer’s effectiveness in 10th Edition since the rules update came out and no, I don’t want to link to Redit, YouTube or a random forum post that will be blocked in a day or two. If you have thoughts on the Landraider Redeemer or Google please leave them in the comments. I just want to support fellow indy hobby bloggers, not feed the giant corporate juggernaughts devouring the Internet. Shoutout to Goonhammer for not sucking.
6. So besides adding a better or even more Chaos Lords to my army along with more Foetid Virion and finally learning the rules, what else do I have planned? Blightlords. They died but they did protect my Chaos Lord and they can teleport. They can have a gun that shoots over 24 inches. I’m not sure if one squad of ten is better than two squads of five. But given restrictions I place upon myself they are the closest thing I have to a hammer in my painted miniature collection. They don’t take that much more time to paint than a regular plague marine and they have more wounds, a better basic gun and a better basic H2H weapon. Their objective control score may not be as good but at one point today I had infected four of the five objectives and I still lost. I definitely chose sub-optimal secondary objectives.
7. I finally counted and I have 21 bases of painted nurglings. Plus I have five and should convert a sixth nurgling infested objective. That would give me the maximum number of 27 nurgling bases that I think can be fielded by the Death Guard. I doubt I’ll buy and paint two more boxes of nurglings. When I played Kharne, Angron, and the angry red horde, the nurglings died quickly. Today most of them survived the entire game, so the optimal number of nurglings per 1000 points is yet to be determined. Nine nurglings in a single unit is awkward to maneuver but I do think just dumping them on top of or slightly in front of the centre objective is “my plan”. Then I’ll either teleport or march up another unit to actually capture the objective as they are famously objective control zero.
8. Fast Attack is no more and for too long was denied the followers of Nurgle. My commitment to the aesthetic and the inexplicableness of Chaos Spawn is admirable but there are faster better models I could be fielding. I still plan on finishing the fourth Chaos Spawn which has been primed black on my desk since before my injury but eventually I’ll add some daemon engines. Bikers or jump pack assault troopers are unlikely to return to the legions of the Death Guard and I told Bill that if the Chaos Codex comes out first I will give it a go as last edition I bought it then never even used it. Hopefully the option to field plague marines with CSM remains. Because let me tell you, having a codex is generally, if not always better, than not having a Codex.
9. Bill has apparently switched allegiances to the first company, abandoning the second company. That is what passes for variety among Ultramarines. Why this matters, is Bill and his Ultramarines are my most frequent opponent since moving to Calgary. Today when I chose my army list I thought to myself, “this doesn’t have much anti-armour.” I just fielded my latest greatest painted models or most of them because we were playing for fun. Then Bill brings a land raider, a particularly brutal dreadnought and what Bill referred to as a transport. That adds up to three vehicles, plus terminators, Sternguard and Bladeguard so despite going with the -1 armour infection, I struggled to put it mildly. Melta guns have always been my favourite special weapon, but I plan to keep painting more plague flamers because I’ve bought the models. My need for more better guns continues. This army will never be an alpha strike army, but Bill likely will never play an army again which deploys one gun that can shoot over twenty four inches. I really want to field the Predator Annhilator and may even have one “new in box” from several editions ago. I need to paint harder or at least faster.
10. It has already taken too long to type this all out but I feel I should have ten top learnings. Even if Google did sap my mojo and I have decided to not publish this tonight because I like to proofread and carefully edit my text if you can believe that. So besides learning all my rules, bringing more better models I’ve already painted, planning for bigger games against tougher opponents, trying to make time to keep up with the meta so I don’t have to rely on Google, painting and fielding more Blightlords, tempering my nurgling obsession, adding more maneuverable elements to my army, getting my own codex, fielding more guns with high strength and longer range, what else does my army, the Diseased Sons of Nurgle need? Probably practice. Back when very few people had played very few games I was more competitive. Now that the fine print of stratagem cards are being adjusted and actual thick ass codices are being released I’m going to have to commit a little more time to actually playing the game instead of just painting and earning badges.

Today is #MiniatureMonday and I was going to write more, I did type up a revised 1000 point army list. Basically I swapped hellbrutes, dropped five plague marines and added ten chaos cultists which can infect objectives now though they too need more guns. The other addition will be an Icon Bearer. I had one per squad painted before so I have seven painted already. This unit is only costs 45 points but I can’t decide to put him in the five model squad or to make a twelve man squad. One thing I discussed with Bill was putting a Chaos Space Marine Lord in the Burning Sores. That may happen eventually, after I paint the Lord of Virulence, there are so many options I’ve never tried. I also have an unpainted Daemon Prince that I specialty ordered…

If you have thoughts on everything wrong with my playing, my army, my blog, and Google you can leave a comment below. Who knows I may heavily edit the text tomorrow, but I also need time to edit the photos because if I could post better photos on the Internet surely I’d be rich and famous by now.

Behold, my badges!

So it took a while, but apparently I earned two more badges on the Internet. If I read the rules better and tried to game the system more, perhaps I could have done even better. I didn’t think this was even an online painting competition, but it turns out there were prizes that I could have won. Online painting competitions are a lot more common than they were twenty years ago.

Besides being rushed for time and trying various untried techniques and paint combinations, I also would have benefited from taking better individual pictures of my models. I pay for webhosting and Flickr and I actually tend to upload smaller images than kids these days, because I’m old and remember when the Internet was slow. So next time I volunteer to paint something for the good of the Internet I’ll try to take better pictures as I think I may have painted more hours than the average participant but earned less points.

Plague Surgeon

WordPress updated since I last posted and if you guessed it works worse, you’d be correct. Every time I tried to use the menu on the left to add a subheading, it would crash. Now experts say subheadings help your search engine optimization so I tried and tried until I used a different button to add this subheading.

So my Plague Surgeon is going to be called Dr. Stealgood, because of course he’s going to make your gene-seed all mine. I actually think I could have done a better job painting him. I wasn’t happy with the grey or even the apron. I wanted to avoid the usual burgundy everyone else does. I did go with white or offwhite armour using a technique I’ve already described.

Nurgling Infested Objective

So the reason I wanted to add a Plague Surgeon to my 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000 campaign army was he had his own agenda. Recovering the gene-seed of fallen foes as represented by a special objective you were supposed to convert, paint and give to your foe to place on the table. So of course I made mine an Avenging Son, because clearly they need something to avenge and apparently they don’t like the Death Guard for some reason that was never clearly explained to me.

Of course I scoured the Internet for bits, of course I had to use Swaggy P or whatever they call this Nurgling which meant buying another entire model to get one bit. Then for the Ultramarine I was pretty sure I had an Ultramarine bit or two. Obviously they are all old and thus not Primaris. Apparently the Imperium isn’t against all mutations, hypocrites.

Bill was supposed to give me the exact transfer to apply and I bought the specific blue to use as the basecoat, but then I used whatever blues and other paints I had lying around for the rest of the model. I put a lot of skulls on the base and a lot chain which I spent a lot of time rusting. So yeah this was a time consuming paint job but it could have been worse. Maybe the Nurgling shouldn’t have been dark green, but I didn’t have a lot of time to second guess myself.

The Future

Since painting these guys, I’ve already painted more Nurglings and I have more models on my painting table but we’ve gotten busy at work again. I think some people are about fed up with us always being busy and being expected to stay late. I expect there will be more changes in the New Year.

We or at least me have not been playing much Warhammer 40,000 or anything. But I did complete my painting vow and earn my badges. I don’t know if that will impress Vince Venturella. I did buy some of the paint he recommended so I don’t know if I’ll use much of it on the models currently on my table but I can see some Poxwalkers in my future not to mention, Blightlords, Plague Marines, and probably more Chaos Cultists. I seem to be big on footslogging this edition, because I have lots of painted models so might as well push them around on the table.

The problem is of course is the cheap models die easily and they can’t kill big tough stuff, I’m still hopeful the Blightlord Terminators can, so that is the unit I will optimize next. I also will likely get new HQ on the table, maybe not in 2023 but in 2024. Not sure when I’ll paint a tank or a daemon engine but eventually.

I don’t keep up with the rumours, but I think Necrons may get the next codex, but if regular Chaos Space Marines get their codex before the Death Guard, I’ll probably go back to being Nurgle Renegades or I could just run my non-Nurgle guys the Nefarious Fire. In the mean time, I hope to keep painting with my new lower standards, but basically it is the weekend or nothing, as during the week I work late and don’t have a lot of spare time or energy, hence updating this blog later than usual, but I got my badges.

If you have thoughts on the optimal Death Guard army, online painting competitions or people’s obsession with badges and vanity metrics you can leave a comment below. If you hurry over to the Bolter and Chainsword you may even be able to vote in an online painting competition and see all the models better than mine.

Heroic Painting Accomplishment Achieved

Not only did I finish painting the models I’ve been working on for the last little while, they look decent and I earned a badge on the Internet! I haven’t seen the badge, I kept checking the Bolter and Chainsword to see the final score, but I’ve also done a couple minor touchups or additions since the deadline officially closed.

The last thing I did was put gloss varnish on a few choice bits and then I did gore. I couldn’t do bloody gore the way I usually do, because my Tamiya Clear Red was a solid block when I tried to use it today. Instead I used Citadel’s new Blood for the Blood alternative and I even mixed in a bit of strong tone. I may have to buy some more Tamiya Clear Red and maybe even some more black ink because sometimes the old ways are the best.

The latest greatest picture of my Plague Surgeon is actually on Instagram as today is #MiniatureMonday and I remembered to post. Most of today’s holiday day off was spent ranking hockey players in Excel and I really should prepare more for my two fantasy hockey drafts coming up this week, but I made a vow. I did of course take more WIP photos and posted some of them to Bill‘s Discord server for his amusement. We’ll see if he follows through and gives me an Avenging Sons’ transfer, I used Macragge Blue.

So the banner picture represents about three months of hard painting for me. I painted most every weekend and often for very long shifts. Plus I painted some during the week, even on my lunch break. All the models were primed and assembled before this escapade started though I may have done some extra cleaning and gap filling, especially on the Chaos Spawn. I also hunted down a model to be Maceo’s new squadmate so that will get cleaned and primed soon.

In the near future I plan to paint yet another Nurgling stand, this one will be slapchopped. Though I’ll probably still do extra details and highlights and throw a wash on, maybe even Army Painter Strong Tone. Having enjoyed my Pro Acryl paints I’m going to give Scale75 a try. I even found a store in Edmonton that carries them. No I’m not going to Edmonton anytime soon, but I like to support local stores when I can and Edmonton is in Alberta and I’ll have to visit there again, because besides the airport which I was forced to detour to, I haven’t been to Edmonton since the 90s.

I’m almost on to my fourth glass of a Belgian beer I don’t even like, but what can I say I bought a giftset on Friday to celebrate it being payday and a long weekend and I didn’t use Untappd first and realize I actually don’t like Duchesse de Bourgogne. Though in general Belgian beers are my favourite, but in truth my favourite style is Russian Imperial Stout. I like the strong abby beers a lot and the tradition of brewing beer since the Middle Ages, maybe I’ll have to go to Belgium soon, I think I may have some beer or hobby contacts.

I almost forgot to mention I bought a Vortexer Mixer from Vevor. But it whines so I complained. It works best on dropper bottles, even the rounded lid Citadel paints work better than my old flat lid round or hex pots. All the illfated bolter shell pots hardened long ago and were chucked by me. But now with little steel balls and this mixer I may try to save some paints. I also transfer them to droppers when their old pots when the lid starts to crack, which always happens…

The other thing I forgot to write about was all the effort I put into the rust effect. It didn’t come out as good as last time even though I used the Internet’s favourite product. I tried five different rust products and I may have to try seven next time. I painted a lot little bits of rust and the last thing I recommend is brushing on some thin silver lines overtop. You can see how the products look over a flat gunmetal splotch. I recommend you change the order or do what I did and add more of the bright yellow rust last, which I thinned too much this time. I like to turn it into more of wash, but you can try dry brushing it just like Ryza Rust, but with all the off-white armour on the Plague Surgeon no drybrushing was being done at the end.

If you have thoughts on beer, music, or painting miniatures rusty you can leave a comment below. Optimizing my Apple Music and acquiring new songs and records is also crucial to my painting success. I bought the 10th Anniversary vinyl edition of Southeastern on Friday when it came out, but I’m not sure there is any Jason Isbell on my 40K gaming mix, maybe I’ll have to rectify that. Until next time make mine Nurgle.

Paint Harder!

As all three of my loyal readers may remember I foolishly made a vow to paint every model that was primed and on my painting table by a certain date. That date is fast approaching and I have been spending an ungodly amount of time alone in my apartment painting not one, not two, not three but six models.

I’m on the last two miniatures and I may have to lower my standards or otherwise cut corners using Citadel’s Contrast Paints as much as possible and even some dry brushing. But then of course I spent an entire Saturday just painting the bases of two models. I think I also touched up the base of Maceo the Mutated. Bases are important, so I’ve been told by painting judges.

The two models I spent all weekend painting are the Death Guard Plague Surgeon who apparently has a name, Nauseous Rotenone, but that isn’t what I’m calling mine. In our 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000 narrative campaign, the not quite legendary Siege of Vanithros’s Bastion I planned to take the Plague Surgeon because he had a special objective for which I dutifully converted a special objective marker.

Astute readers will note that we are now in the time of Warhammer 40,000 tenth edition and that before the latest point cut the Plague Surgeon wasn’t considered the greatest, but his Nurgling infested objective, featuring the most legendary Nurgling ever sculpted, standing atop a very specific Space Marine from a very specific Chapter, was something I was looking forward to painting. Alas I had to really think hard about how I’d get this conversion painted in under two weeks, while still looking awesome.

The Ultramarine is base coated in the manner Bill insisted upon but then I used Army Painter Strong Tone and some very OOP Citadel paints to highlight and shade the armour. I didn’t go too bright because I plan to go heavy with rust and maybe blood and guts effects. But as I learned from repainting Cancerous the Extremely Naughty you can’t really do both on top of each other, at least not without more carefully planning.

The Plague Surgeon used a technique I’ve been wanting to try that others have been running with. Basically it is lots of thin washes, I used Contrast Paint, Guilliman Flesh was what was recommended. I also used a lot of Wraithbone on these two models regularly touching it up. I still used some tiny lines and three different white paints so far. It is not my best work, but Bill likes it.

The Plague Surgeon has on a lot of robes on so those too get the Contrast paint treatment, but then I did some quick highlights and used one colour that doesn’t seem to get a lot of love online, Mortarion Grime. I’ve been putting it over grey and I’m going to use it even more often, after all he is the Primarch of the Death Guard. Not sure I’ll pollute my white with more washes and glazes, but I’m tempted, this is probably the only Plague Surgeon I’ll paint. I may do one of each Foetid Virion or I may just do a few, I own the Tallyman but the one I also want is the Foul Blightspawn, he and the Plague Surgeon may lead the Burning Sores.

Before the latest points change I was planning on using three Icon Bearers as I have those models painted. I may paint two more icon bearers, as I want one per squad and they have snazzy new models. Unfortunately, you can only field three in your entire army now. With the maximum Plague Marine squad size now being ten, I’ll reorganize my models so there are two additional squads, but three squads is probably plenty for an average game, but I still may outnumber my opponent as I plan to run plenty of Nurglings and I may go full horde with cultists and even some Poxwalkers as I probably can contrast paint the hell out of them.

If you have thoughts on how to paint pale Death Guard armour or why Ultramarines are the most boring chapter to feature on an objective you can leave a comment below my latest two Plague Marines, Morslug and Morslug’s spare head.