The Shadow of Death - Foetid Bloat Drone

Death Guard vehicles were a bit of an alien concept for me: modest in size and definitely modest in terms of budget - these guys were something of a revelation to me! I had been used to Land Raiders and Rhinos taking a big chunk out of my wallet, and being treated very much as a Vehicle with a capital 'V'.

So these vehicles - included in basic starter sets, and set upon bases - were something of a novel idea. The model itself was wonderfully easy to put together (although, of course I did have the Easy To Build version, which lacked options or customisability - more on that later), and was fully built and based within half an hour.

There are a few different options in the Codex for how you can load out these little buggers, but the key choices seem to be whether you choose to equip it with a Fleshmower (for getting up close and personal with your enemy), or a couple of Plaguespewers. Personally, I would always choose the latter. I hear good things about the Fleshmowers, and how devastating they can be, but the idea of auto-hitting nastiness on a mobile gun platform is my kinda jive.

In terms of painting, I used the exact same scheme that I developed with both my Blightlord Terminators (for the armoured panels) and my Poxwalkers (for the fleshy areas. Vallejo Heavy Khaki and Rakarth Flesh were the two key colours, with Vallejo Rust and Vallejo Gunmetal used for the metallics.

After an all-over wash with Agrax Earthshade, I started working the details back up. I used a drybrush on the large armoured carapace, then picked out some of the pitted, cratered areas of the shell using Ogryn Camo, whilst I used Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh on the fleshy areas, using Bloodletter glaze and Druchii Violet wash to add accents here and there. 

Once again, I used Vallejo Steel and a 4:1 mix of Vallejo Rust and Vallejo Steel for highlights on the metallics. I had to be careful with the brass/copper highlights, because that Steel colour can be overpowering if you're not careful with it. Use sparingly!

The lens on the Bloat Drone was done using techniques that I used for the blood drop gems on my Blood Angels. I painted a black basecoat, then applied a thick band of dark red - in my case Vallejo Gore Red, but Khorne Red would also work - then added decreasing amounts of lighter colours. I used Vallejo Fire Red, followed by Jokaero Orange. Then, to finish, I used a couple of dots of white Daler Rowney artists' ink at the top of the lens to give the impression of a reflection.

This vehicle was loads of fun to paint, and provided a quick antidote to the grind of batch painting infantry (a problem that I am now facing, further down the production line). The compact size and the limited palette made it a reasonably quick and easy job to work through, but one that was really rewarding. My first Fast Attack option completed!

The Shamblers - Poxwalkers

The Shamblers - standing together as my very first Death Guard Troops unit.

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Obviously, after starting this project with an HQ choice and and Elite unit, I needed to get some boots on the ground in the form of some Troops, and where better to start with Death Guard than with the infamous Poxwalkers?

I was looking forward to painting these guys, and I had recently painted up a Nurgle Blood Bowl team, so I had a decent idea of the scheme that I wanted to use. The core colours would be Rakarth Flesh (for the flesh, duh) and Jokaero Orange for the fabrics.

It really didn't take long to get these guys starting to look respectable. A quick basecoat of Rakarth Flesh, given a wash of Reikland Fleshshade worked for a foundation, whilst the orange fabrics were given a wash of Fuegan Orange. The leathers were painted using Rhinox Hide, and the metallics were painted using Vallejo's Gun Metal. Both of those were then given a Nuln Oil wash, and suddenly things are starting to take shape. I used a watered down bit of Bloodletter to give the boils a blushed look, and then moved onto layers.

The pustules were once again (just like with the Blightlord Terminators) done by applying a thinned-down layer of Ungor Flesh over the Bloodletter, then another layer of the glaze before topping it with some pure, undiluted Ungor Flessh.

I applied some Athonian Camoshade to parts of the models, just to give them a grebby, mouldy look, and used successive layers of Druchii Violet wash over the ends of tentacles and such, to try and give a nice transition to a gribbly end.

As with the Blightlord Terminators, there were a few bits of gloop that needed painting on these Poxwalkers. I used the same techniques here - Ogryn Camo overlaid with an Athonian Camoshade wash and then given a final touch of Nurgle's Rot technical paint to give it an element of shininess.

I didn't do a huge amount of weathering on these guys - I decided that their aesthetic was going to be fairly clean-cut and more like the box art, and less like the grimy realism of my Chaos Space Marine army. However, no Death Guard unit would be complete without a hint of rust around the edges.

With that in mind, I used some Ryza Rust to make their weapons seem corroded and oxidised. I'm not sure, really, how this particular paint is supposed to be used, but I have had fun results taking a small blob of it, putting it on a palette and then really watering it down. The colour is so vibrant that it can handle being diluted, and I've found that the way it runs into crevices etc is pretty good.

The final thing of note with these Poxwalkers is that they have the odd open wound, here and there. It doesn't really matter how these are done, as uniformity isn't really necessary when you're talking about grievous injuries, but I went for a Game Color Purple base, then applied various washes over it and built up the colour using a variety of reds and pinks, such as Khorne Red and Screamer Pink, with a wash of Carroburg Crimson over it.

The bases for these guys were all done using the same techniques as the Blightlord Terminators - PVA glue and sand before being primed (which will help to seal the sand and will soften the texture a bit), followed by a coat of Vallejo Medium Grey, washed with Agrax Earthshade and then drybrushed with Vallejo Light Brown.

I then opted to paint the rims black so as to frame the miniature. I know a lot of people prefer to do a brown, or even a grey (I have done both in the past), but I have come to really like the black look as my painting style has changed.

And here the squad are, in all of their gribbly glory. Of course, the problem with Poxwalkers is that you need a LOT of them. They work best in greater numbers, and they are very cheap, points-wise. Thankfully, they are also very cheap in terms of money as well, given how easy they are to get hold of through boxsets and things such as the Hachette series, Warhammer Conquest. With that in mind, I made plans to start collecting another 40-50 of these chaps...

Lord Octavius Kal-Mazog & His Retinue

Here is Lord Octavius Kal-Mazog, in all of his fully-painted splendour (or what-have-you).

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And so, the odyssey begins (or "began", should I say, as I am writing these parts of the blog in retrospect). These models were the first Death Guard models that I attempted, and I felt the need to lay some ground rules at this point.

Obviously, the colour scheme of my warriors would be established here, but so would my tone. The Death Guard models, whilst lovely and quite literally oozing with character, also hover quite close to the infamous Goof Rubicon. A small amount of exaggeration and heroism in a model is cool and characterful, but too much turns them into caricatures and figures of fun. A number of the Nurgle Daemon models (I'm looking at you, Sloppity Bilepiper and Horticulus Slimux) are particularly guilty of this, and whilst they have their own charm, of a sort, it was something I was hoping to avoid with this army (at least in general).

Exhibit A in the case for the prosecution was Lord Felthius - the named character who comes with the Easy To Build Blightlord Terminator box. He's a Lord of Contagion (I guess?), but the head that the model comes with is pure Goof Incarnate, and I wanted shot of it, quick-sharp.

And so, I opted to use one of the Chaos Space Marine Terminator heads, which I thought looked to have a suitable amount of gravitas. Of course, his serious expression is somewhat undermined by the gloop attached to both his scythe and the weird plague censer-style thing he is holding aloft... But we can't have everything, hey?

I followed the same approach with one of the Blightlord Terminators. It was tricky, because the heads that came with the box are designed for specific use with those bodies, but a little trimming and gouging helped me to sort them out.

The other important element that needed sorting out with this unit was my colour scheme. Death Guard Green was the specific paint that GW came up with to use with these chaps (which I think is just an updated version of the old Death World Forest paint), but I wanted something a bit brighter.

My Sons of Gorgax Chaos Space Marines army were supposed to (at least in narrative terms) be the fore-runners to these chaps, and so I made a decision to essentially use the same colour scheme - albeit one that was perhaps made a bit brighter. I used Vallejo's Heavy Khaki, which is a light green colour - a bit more vibrant than an olive tone - alongside their Rust paint from the Model Air range. These were the two key colours I used for the Sons of Gorgax, and I thought some continuity would be nice.

With that previous army, though, I basecoated in the Heavy Khaki, did the trim, used a Xereus Purple spot colour for any pteruges or other fabrics, and then applied an overall wash to the model to dirty it up. With these guys though, I did the same basecoating process, but used Screamer Pink, rather than a purple colour. It's one of my favourite GW paints, and I thought it would offer a nice contrast to the green. I then applied a liberal, all-over wash of Agrax Earthshade before then building the colour back up in layers. Y'know - the way you're actually recommended to!

I used Ogryn Camo as a highlight on the green armour, whilst I used a 2:1 mix of Rust and Vallejo Steel to highlight the metallics. The Screamer Pink was highlighted with a mixture of Pink Horror and varying mixes of the two, along with some added Ushabti Bone.

For the fleshy areas, I used Rakarth Flesh, highlighted with Pallid Wych Flesh where necessary. The boils were painted using Ungor Flesh, laid over with a glaze of Bloodletter, topped with subsequent thinned-down bits of Ungor Flesh and a variety of yellows.

I had to decide upon what to do for my bases, too. I wanted something that would be easy enough to replicate across my whole army, so I didn't want to do loads and loads of scenic additions. In the end, I opted for sand bases, painted in Vallejo Medium Grey, washed in Agrax Earthshade and then simply drybrushed with Vallejo Light Brown. The plan was to maybe use some cork to create scenic bases for the characters, but this chap was big enough already - plus there were some moulded rocks built into his sculpt, so...

Anyhow, here are the rest of the Blightlord Terminators from this batch - Felthius' Cohort, as they are technically known. They were fun to paint - so much so that I ended up with something of a Death Guard problem...