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...