Eye of Terror Maggotkin of Nurgle for AoS Escalation League

I’m running quite behind with this update – my report on my first Escalation League Battle on 7th April. I partly blame the length of time it takes to upload things to this site, unfortunately, although I’ve also been very busy.

Anyway, the battle was against 12 year old Arthur and his Seraphon, led by Lord Scalius (I think this was his name!). His dad, Jamie, did a magnificent job explaining the rules to both of us.

I deployed nearly everything ready to be able to seize the central objective (which was a mistake, as I lost out on some crucial summoning points by leaving my deployment zone). Half my army got into a fight with Arthur’s Saurus Warriors and then his skinks. I gradually ground him down (mainly thanks to disease rather than my attacks).

Unfortunately, the arrival of the Carnosaur-riding lord and the Kroxigor result in the crushing of my Herald, Plaguebearers and Nurglings before I’m able to finish the Saurus off.

The Saurus and Kroxigor then head off to cover the objectives, leaving the Carnosaur to take on my Blightkings who’d effectively been held in reserve.

Biting off more than he can chew, the Carnosaur is brought down by weight of attacks (and a little luck).

The Seraphon won, with control over two of the three objectives.

I was pretty pleased with the game. It had been a lot of fun. Arthur was a lovely and his dad was also a great guy. If Arthur had played more aggressively I think he’d have swiftly wiped me out. As it was, his feeding of units piecemeal into the fray gave me a chance. I also forgot several important things – like leaving space to deploy endless spells, spreading units out to generate summoning points, etc.

The main challenge now, other than a lack of time, is a feeling of not really wanting to invest more time in learning the current rules when there’s a new (and from what I’ve seen so far, better) set coming out soon.

That, and a desire to get some paint on some metal Diehard miniatures!

I was able to get a Badab Black wash over all of the metal (armour, weapons and bells) on the Putrid Blightkings and my Lord of Plagues. I’m not sure how much difference you can see in the photo but they look so much better in real life.

I’ll have to consider whether I want to use a more opaque black wash / thinned paint / contrast paint to make the armour even darker, as well as what else I might want to do to grime it up with rust, etc. The Les Edward artwork has the armour with a kind of greenish tint, which I might try – that should be possible without losing the metal armour look.

My first game in the escalation league is tomorrow, so as per my entry of 1st April, I decided to get some paint on to my Putrid Blightkings and the leader (not shown here).

The Guillimen Flesh contrast went on well and quickly for all the fleshy bits. Some old Leadbelcher looks reasonably good on the armour and other metal areas, but took longer than I anticipated. It also makes me question whether I should have sprayed this unit silver as it’s the main colour. That said, hopefully now the metal is base-coated everything will be quicker and more interesting.

I need to wash the armour to darken it down as well as get onto some of the other areas such as the cloth and bandaging.

You can now see some of the 40K elements in the grenades a couple of them are armed with, and the Space Marine backpack which carries the unit’s bell.

I’m fairly pleased with how they look.

Still got a couple of hours left to get a bit more done today!

The modern plastic models won’t achieve the full ‘Oldhammer’ look, but that’s okay. I like them nonetheless, and I can still draw inspiration from this classic piece of art. The main points to highlight are the bolt gun, the armour and the red hood.

The piece was painted at a time GW were hinting or implying that the Warhammer World might have been a part of the 40K Universe, without explicitly confirming that it was. There was also quite a bit of crossover with the miniature ranges. So the Realm of Chaos, being the strange place that it was, would sometimes see ‘fantasy’ units or characters armed with ‘futuristic’ weapons rolled up on one of the many legendary random tables.

I don’t want my army to look like a 40K army. But I want the occasional piece which might give the impression that there might be something else going on… That the Mortal Realms might be located in 40K’s Eye of Terror. That Sigmar may be one of the missing Primarchs, even if he doesn’t realise it. And that some of the Chaos Warriors may be Space Marines who’ve been so badly lost in the Warp that they don’t realise what they are or were.

Although I like – and want some of – the green look that we usually associate with Nurgle armies, I also want this brutal metalic look of this art piece.
And I also really like the red, not a colour normally associated with Nurgle, but which looks fantastic here.

Let’s see how it goes…

I’d finally undercoated most of the models I needed, something I usually consider to be a big barrier, but now needed to get on with it. My first game is in a week’s time and I can’t see how I’m going to get it all done in time. So I at least need to get something done that looks like progress.

So I picked the Plaguebearers and the Herald. They’re simple models that should take Contrast paint well, and even only partly done will look MUCH better than grey. The Herald will also be my general for at least the first few games I play, so it would be nice if he’s got some paint on him.

And wow… I know Contrast paints aren’t new (and I’ve used them before), but even a single coat of the appropriately-named Plaguebearer Flesh to do the skin/flesh looks pretty good. SO much better than just an undercoat. And it didn’t take long to do the full squad and the Herald.

I used Skeleton Horde for the horns. Some of which were partially or fully painted with Plaguebearer Flesh first, as an experiment to see what it would look like to have some with a greenish transition and/or tint. I wouldn’t say it makes them much better, but doesn’t hurt either. So certainly no need to worry about splashing the green paint around in future!

I do think the horns – especially the larger ones – will need some regular bone-coloured paint on the ends to make them pop.

While I had the Skeleton Horde out I also washed the maggot pile on the Herald’s base, the areas of flesh poking through the Plaguebearers’ skin and went over some of the more knobbly areas of skin, to provide a bit of variation and further contrast. I like the effect.

Next step will either be a metal for the blades (which will need washing to look good but will mean the models are 98% covered in colour) or a green paint to highlight some of the disgustingness of the skin/flesh.

However, as I’m pressed for time, I may move on and make a start on the next unit in the hope of being able to present an army that has at least some paint on almost everything.

My first game – which I’ll be playing in a couple of weeks’ time – requires me to have a 750 point list. I want to include a variety of units that I think capture the look and feel of the army. I want to use models I’ve already got (mostly).

Complicating matters is the fact that Maggotkin can summon additional daemonic reinforcements during the game, so I’d need some ‘spare’ models.* I decided to prioritise options that I’m likely to want to include in the base 1000 point army list when we expand in the next round.

My army list includes:

1 x Poxbringer (Herald) – and the General of my Army
10 x Plaguebearers
3 x Nurglings (bases)
1 x Lord of Plagues
5 x Putrid Blightkings

1 x Aethervoid Pendulum (Endless Spell)

My sub-faction is the Befouling Host, that requires me to have a daemon general and which gives me an additional Feculent Gnarlmaw (daemon tree!) faction terrain piece, which in turns makes it marginally easier to summon things.

It seems its not one of the stronger sub-factions, but I like the idea of smothering the tabletop – both with diseased trees and additional summoned units!

I generally like bases that are relatively simple so I didn’t want to add too much too them, but I decided to experiment with Daler-Rowney Texture Paste, using it to build up the bases just a little.

It didn’t work out quite as I’d anticipated, not least because the paste doesn’t have much texture! Once undercoated it appears more as smooth blobs than uneven raised areas of dirt. Perhaps I’ll paint them as slime (although I’m not very keen on the idea), or I may use a proper texture paint over them.

*This is why you’ll see a Beast of Nurgle and Sloppity Bilepiper ready to be undercoated in the picture.

I’ve had most of this stuff knocking around for many years. I did made a single unit of Blightlords a year or two ago but then lost momentum. I figured that my Friendly Local Game Store’s new escalation league was the kick up the bum I needed.

Although it’s for Age of Sigmar and uses all the modern plastics, I am inspired by a lot of Oldhammer artwork, including that which hints that Warhammer Fantasy might be set inside 40K’s Eye of Terror. As such, I want my army to have little hints to being part of a wider, futuristic / Science-Fantasy universe.

I want to get quite a lot of stuff built and painted relatively quickly, so I’m not going to spend ages on every model, but I do like to try to theme units with a bit of kit-bashing and minor conversions and paint schemes.

I believe the league will switch to using the new AoS 4.0 rules when they’re released this summer, but as I’m not trying to become a great player, I doubt it’ll matter much to my army construction. I do hope that the new rules retain the ‘vibe’ of the current Army Book though.

Although the league will run for a year – so well beyond the length of the Spring Clean Challenge – my hope is to get in the habit of building and painting my way through my pile of shame!

I’m starting my first post of my first project on this site with a photo of a miniature that is both iconic in its own right and emblematic of what I’m hoping to achieve.

The Maggotkin of Nurgle ‘Lord of Plagues’, as he’s currently known, is very reminiscent of the design of Nurgle miniatures going back decades. The model has become a touchstone that loads of good painters seem to want to have a go at. And while I’m not a good painter, I’d like to have a go too. This model also shows off the kind of conversion work I’m hoping to spread throughout my army.

All I’ve done is give him a headswap (I think the fly head came from the Pusgoyle Blightlords kit). But it gives the model a very different vibe.

He’ll also help tie the daemon and mortal halves of the army together a bit. I’ve started building a unit of blightlords who are all going to be characterised by having daemonic heads. I’ve got a unit of plaguebearers with human(ish) heads – you’ll see them later. I’m hoping I have enough of them to be able to do a plaguebearer unit with fly heads.

In any case, this is my Nurgle Chaos Lord, and I’m quite proud of him!

I’ve added a bit of texture past to his base and undercoated him Halfords Grey Primer and the GW Grey Seer, ready for a combination of Contrast paints with a bit of more traditional painting to bring out some of the detail.