It's the season to be putrid ... lalalala lala lalaaaa!

 I bet you lot thought I'd forgotten you...

I apologies for the photos; due to the weather I had to take them inside therefore, they might be a little orange.

 

 

Pox walks -  So since I finished my latest phase of Adeptus Titanicus, my time and my focus has been solely on building and painting the largest Death Guard army I have ever created! So far, I have a mechanised Death Guard army (marines in rhinos), a Demon Engine Death Guard army and now, I have a 'zombie walking' foot-marching Death Guard army with 150ish Poxwalkers! 

Yep that's right; 153 Poxwalkers - to be precise - have been painted along with eleven characters. It's been a mammoth seven months but finally, its been completed.

A tale of the 8th edition starter set and contrast paints - As any true Death Guard player will tell you, the 8th edition starter set is a steal for all of the lovely Death Guard figures inside. So much more because a lot of the normal Plague Marines are easy to convert into Elite Characters (See photos below). With 9th edition looming, I bought another 8th edition box set to add to the one I had already had. Add to this winning about 90 Poxwalkers on eBay and, you can see where the 150 came from! 

With so many Poxwalkers to paint, I also tried Contrast Paints. I had resisted using these on my Death Guard marines and opted for more conventional paints. With 150 Poxwalkers to paint I gave into Contrast Paints for the large majority. For those of you thinking that Contrast Paints are the holy grail and that, from now on armies will take seconds to paint up ... well ... my own personal opinion of them is that they are 'okay'. They are great for painting up a horde; there is no way i would have painted 150 Poxwalkers without them! They however, don't look anywhere near as nice as your standard highlighting / edge highlights / shading techniques. I certainly wouldn't use them on characters.

So without further a-do, lets go through the new models in the most logical way.

Characters

Two 8th edition box-sets equals two Lords of Contagion. I like these guys - especially after Physic Awaking gave them the 're-roll 1's' aura. Within my Poxwalker list, they are to infect the Poxwalkers with disease to cause multiple Moral Wounds on my opponent. Though there is little control on who is Mortally wounded, the output of mortal wounds can be huge.

 

 

The box-set comes with a Plaguecaster and, I've converted one of the plague marines to either be a Plaguecaster or a normal sorcerer. I painted the Powerfist purple to represent physic power flowing through his hand. Plaguecasters are great because, yet again, they add to the mortal wound output of the army (roll a 7+ for a cast and a moral wound is dealt to an enemy unit within 7" ... better than a poke with a sharp stick!).

I am quite proud of the fact that, I've been collecting Death Guard for three years and this is the first Special Character I have bought and yet to use. I plan to make Mortarion the final Death Guard model I paint. I have always stated that these guys are special characters who would turn up in 5,000 / 10,000 point battle ... not a 2,000 point battle. Having said that, the theme of 150 Poxwalkers is just too strong not to include Typhus ... especially as he grands +1 Toughness and Strength to Poxwalkers within 7".

Elites

 

Again, using one of the marines from the box-set, I have converted my third Biologus Putrifier. These guys are amazing if you can get them, and a unit of marines, into range of the enemy.

Two box-sets equals two Noxious Blightbringers. The other is another handy marine from the box-set converted. These are a must if you go for a foot-slogging army as you can roll 2D6 for advances and pick the best. A very useful unit.

Again, another handy marine from the box-set. I also managed to purchase Fabious Bile's backpack (the old Fabulous Bill ... not the new) off a Facebook Warhammer 40,000 group for £6 ... bargain for a character model! The idea was given to me by a friend and it looks great. Now, all I need is one of the proper surgeon models.

Okay so, for those 'keen eyed' among you, you'll notice two very different painting styles here! The reason for this has nothing to do with creativity; it's to do with the face that I was bought two boxes of nurglings pre-Contrast Paints (which i sprayed 'Death Guard Green' so ... no Contrast Paints can be painted on them!) and two boxes after Contrast Paints were released. I 'ummed' and 'arrred' what to do with these critters. If I don't use Contrast Paints on them, it means that I wouldn't be able to Contrast Paint any nurgle demons I purchase in the future and therefore, the time needed to paint this army would grow and become uncontrollable. Do I then try to scrape the 'Death Guard Green' off the nurglings which I already have; knowing that they wouldn't be quite as good as new? Do I buy more nurglings to replace my green sprayed ones? 

In the end I decided to use two painting styles and mix them together. I think my nurglings highlight perfectly that Contrast Paints aren't going to take over the world as, the Death Guard Green nurglings - in my opinion - look much better (but took longer).

What will happen with these in the future ... I don't know. Only time will tell if I come back to repaint some / all.

And this is what 153 Poxwalkers look like! 

It was very important to me, to make sure that they didn't look 'regimented' and that they looked like a shambling mob of zombie like beings. To make sure this happened, the 153 Poxwalkers were split into groups. All of these groups were painted in a completely different way; some with Contrast Paints, others not so. Some were also not painted by me as I bought a load off eBay. I am happy with the final look. I also think that they help enhance the regimented Death Guard Marines.

2000pt Poxwalker army list

Though a new codex is imminent, I thought that I would write a 2000 point list so you can see what you can fit into an army. The idea of this army is to take control of the board and to spread moral wounds around the enemy. As characters are so, so important, Plagueburst Crawlers have been added to the list. Their mortars are to seek out enemy snipers. I would have put one of those ForgeWorld artillery tanks in (the one that fires twice) but Death Guard cannot take them anymore.

Battalion Harbingers Company (deep striking Poxwalkers ... yes please!)

 

CHARACTERS

Typhus - Warlord - +1 T and Str to Poxwalkers ... certainly

Plaguecaster - mortal wounds through smite. Also, there are quite a few 'buffing spells' to make my Poxwalkers even better

Lord of Contagion - Harbinger of Nurgle - Makes the Poxwalkers cause Mortal wounds.

 

CORE

 

4x units of 20 Poxwalkers

1x unit of 10 Poxwalkers - To erect banners

1x unit of 6 Nurglings

 

ELITE

 

1x unit of 7 Terminators - 4x combi-melta, 1x flail, 1x combi- flamer - Every turn, these guys will have 'a cloud of flies' on them so that they cannot be shot at due to a wall of Poxwalkers. 'Veterans of the long War' will be used too. Their job is to destroy armour and provide some 'shooty shooty'. All else fails, they are great in combat too.

 

2x Noxious Blightbringers - Vital to keep the army moving with their '2D6 pick the best' when advancing. One of these has the 'Fugaris Helm' to make their aura bigger.

 

1x Talleyman - Not for the potential Command Points coming back (who has ever rolled a 7?). It's because they give re-roll misses in combat. Very useful for Poxwalkers and Terminators alike.

 

HEAVY SUPPORT

 

2x Plague burst crawlers - They are to kill enemy snipers and enemy snipers only. My characters are so important, I can't let them die. One Crawler has Entropy cannons as I imagine these will be at the back of the board staying out of mischief. The other has Plague Spitters; this is to protect both of them from potential enemy deep strikers wishing to attack them in combat.

TOTAL 1996

        

 And that is it! Next up will be another 'tranch' to my Adeptus Titanicus army featuring two Warhounds and ten knights (four knights have already been painted and a further four have been built and primed).

 

After this ... I want to do a 1st Chapter Death Guard with lots of Terminators and Land Raiders.

Stay tuned people!

Toodle Pip!