Dark Angels vs Plague Marines: Preparation

After a great weekend painting, this week has yielded no progress as life got in the way. The big game on Sunday draws near and it's looking increasingly unlikely that any further progress will be achieved before then.

I've been struggling on a list for some time. Knowing that Bull's Dark Angels will undoubtedly be bringing something new to the party and having read the new DA codex, I've felt rather on the back foot. This is the love/hate relationship many of us have with list building. It doesn't matter how many points the game is, you can never quite squeeze in what you would like. This meant that, when I went to a lot of tournaments in the past, I never fielded the high cost characters and vehicles – one shot could often taken them out of the game, leaving you hamstrung for the rest of the battle.

In 'fun' games like this there is no such consideration – hamstrung be damned, I want to crush and intimidate. I like to embrace the role of the bad guys, even if I end up with my grand plan in tatters at the end of the day. I thought about filling my army list with high-cost scary units – things that would truly give you nightmares and that most enemy units could not deal with in a one-to-one situation. However, that would give me so few models that if the dice gods deserted me (which they often do) then the game could be over in less than four turns.

So, I have taken on board the results of the previous outings of my Plague Marine army, thrown in some new stuff, dumped the rubbish stuff. As I said earlier, this has meant I couldn't fit in everything I wanted, but I've come to a happy compromise. It has involved the addition of allied detachment to the main force but I'm confident of the devastation that will be wrought.

I also look forward to the day when we can have a real Apocalypse sized game and I can bring all my Chaos toys to the table.

But this weekend's game we're hoping to have a guest or two join the battle. There will be photos aplenty, team break downs and analysis and possibly some video replays. There will also, no doubt, be plenty of banter in the aftermath of what is going to be a fantastic game.

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It had gone very quiet. There had been no sight or sound of the Dark Angels or their reinforcements for weeks. Had they gone? Had a Nurgle virus wiped them out? Not likely thought Typhus. They're keeping their heads down and their cards close to their chest. It did not matter; the chaos force that Typhus had gathered would be more than a match for anything these Dark Angels could throw at him. Anticipation was growing, manifesting itself in a restless twitching of his armoured gauntlet. In less than 48 hours all hell would break loose and Cherbull would be drowning in the Dark Angel dead.

40k: Painting A Nurgle Forgefiend

Buoyed by the progress made on the Nurgle Heldrake during the week, I dedicated a few hours this weekend to bring my Nurgle Forgefiend in line with the flying beastie.

With a large part of Friday evening and Saturday spent painting, he is now starting to look a lot more the part. I'm currently up to the point of doing the final highlights – I've done most of the front armour but the back half is not complete yet – bringing it in line with the Heldrake. I've been doing a tag-team paint with these two models, progress on one informing the treatment of the other. It also breaks up some of the monotony of painting the same models for several days.

One of the big decisions to be made here was what colour to do the fleshy parts of the Forgefiend. In the end I went with a purple colour to contrast with all the green and brown. It was toned down with Brown and Green washes and by using green in the highlight process. The desaturated result looks very much the part now.

I can now go back to the mouth of the Forgefiend with my purple recipe and try and get it to match. The only thing left to do after that is the two gun arms, so I'm hoping to have him finished for the weekend.

Nurgle Heldrake – part 4

The 1st of February already and our next big 40k game is only 10 days away!

Nurgle  Heldrake – part 1
Nurgle  Heldrake – part 2
Nurgle  Heldrake – part 3

As promised, here's a first proper look at the Nurgle Heldrake mid-paint. I'm several highlights in – to the point of an off-white colour – and just waiting for a final wash to knock them back a bit. You can also see above, the right eyeball basecoated in anticipation of some details. Hoping to go with something rather Lord of the Rings with the eye.

The boils all over the model were painted up with a brown/orange basecoat then highlighted to almost white. I then washed them and the surrounding areas in a thinned orange ink. I need to add a limited amount of red ink to represent inflammation around these areas.

The fungal vents at the back of the model were painted up in exactly the same way as those on Typhus. Privateer Press Cryx Base and Cryx Highlight, both mixed with a little Black and washed in green. I haven't done much to the flesh elements other than give them a Dark Flesh basecoat, plus the tail bone and horns are still brown.

The overall effect is looking good and, once those highlights have been blended in a bit, it should look the business. I've purposefully tried to match the colour schemes used on the Plague Marines so that there is a visual coherency on the battlefield.

Still lots to do but, once complete, this model will serve as the colour guide for all the Nurgle vehicles in my army.