Death Guard Army for FSA

[Verm1s]

Green stuff's definitely at it's best when it's mixed with another putty.

Some procreate users (including me) find that the claims of a hard cure don't quite work out in practise. In my experience it's a little harder than green stuff, and brown stuff's harder still. But to be honest, while they have their uses (keep bugging the shop owner for PC), the fact they're harder than GS isn't saying much. They both still have a certain rubberiness to them. Mixing them with GS won't help that.
For rigid, easily-cleaned pressmoulding results, I'd head straight for the properly hard-curing claylike putties. They also have the advantage that when they're freshly-mixed, they're a lot softer than the elastic, blu-tack consistency of GS, BS, or PC. All the better for pushing and squeezing into pressmoulds.

Milliput's the hardest, in my experience, although it can be a little stiff to mix if it's not a fresh, new batch. I've started a very fresh pack of bog-standard yellow-grey (no traces of age discoloration or nuthin'), and it's like butter compared to my old pack of superfine-white. How much that might have to do with the different products, I dunno. Superfine-white also seems a little more elastic to me, even when it was fresh. But anyway, if you mix it with GS and pressmould it, you might not have to go with the most expensive, premium type of milliput.
It also seems to have a tendency to ignore or absorb lubricants (vaseline and cooking oil, at least) and stick, in my own pressmoulding efforts. Although the effect might not be as bad with a flexible mould material like siligum, than a table tennis ball cut in half...

And if you're using 50% milliput or more in the mix, it isn't going to give a monkey's uncle how much blue you put into the GS. It's going to cure hard.

Then there's stuff like apoxie sculpt, magic sculp and cold clay, which in my experience pretty much all act like the same thing. (At least, the differences are negligible compared to other putties) Freshly-mixed, they're softer and less messy than milliput. They don't cure just as hard, but are a touch easier to dry-sculpt. They also take notice of the sunflower oil coating the inside of half-a-ping-pong-ball.

[mageboltrat]

I found this on the Web which might help us all out with the impossibility of finding 60mm 1.5mm thick plastic bases for titans anymore, also it will help making bases for large models like Defilers. http://stirfried.org/~wigs/gaming/mi...ularbases.html

[Verm1s]

Does anyone know anyone that sells plastic discs in a variety of sizes.. the old Titan ones are impossible to get hold of and I will need ones roughly the size of a Terminator base for Land Raiders and Defilers

I've mentioned this shop before, to countless 'what's your bases?' questions. I'm sure most of the taccommers are sick of it by now.
No 60mms, but I've a few 38mm counters for use with my own (future) land raiders. I've attached a couple of pics to show them off beside a titan base, and with a selection of land raiders. Biggest problems are they're a tad higher, and have a rounded edge.

The problem with rotary hand tools as makeshift lathes, is you need a good one that'll hold a thing dead straight. I don't. I found out when I tried to bevel the edge of a brass tube, and it went lopsided.
Cutting circles: I use a compass cutter, and run it backwards to scribe the circle rather than slice it. It's a bit more labour-intensive, especially with thicker sheets of material; but the blade's less likely to skew, and the results are quite clean.

[Malakai]

Those are nice bases. I prefer flat bases for my Epic stuff and have been looking around for something for my scout titans and other oddly sized miniatures. Thanks for the link Verm1s.

[Tiny-Tim]

I would like to add my praise to mageboltrat's army, got to see it on Saturday and play against it on Sunday. Very nice models, it was a bit of pity to kill things as they then left the board.

[mageboltrat]

In the end the small flight bases were the right size for my Defiler. Should work for my Greater Demon too.. which I'm just going to go up and have a look for.. I have both of the classic ones and the Warmaster one. I'm thinking of going with this one.

It just has so much character and it's not quite as comical as the other classic one.

On to the Defiler. Got the Test one put together.v It came out not to bad at all.




Over Easter I'm going to try and get 4 Dreadnoughts, the Defiler and the Last Contagion Engine I need for a formation completed, if I can hide from parents for long enough

[mageboltrat]

As promised a photo of the Dreads.



And I managed to put together another 4 Contagion Engines, I will hopefully have most of them done by the end of tomorrow. I'm also starting to put together some ideas for the plague tower. I want it to be quite big, it's DC 8, so should be comparable to a Great Gargant in size, which should look impressive as a centerpiece to the army.. though I really want 2 in the end.



Also I need to get at least 3 more Defilers made, and start on the Space Ship, I'm not sure what I want to use as a base. I have quite a few chaos ships I could start with though I'm also tempted to start with a strike cruiser. any opinions?

[Verm1s]

Flippin' excellent.

Good question about the ship. I think the chaos ship (plastic chaos cruiser?) would suit your army, regardless of the fact that it's a chaos ship in the first place. But on the other hand I'd very much like to see what you'd do with a strike cruiser.

[mageboltrat]

Finally feeling better, stupid digestive virus. Also managed to finish my Contagion Engines, those took too long. They are a nice easy conversion for people that can't get the classic ones (they can be expensive and a pain to get hold of), though I added extra detail they look great with just the nozzle added on and a suitably Nurgle paint job.




Tempted to paint some more Hellblades and Talons next as they a quite fast to paint.. I'm also tempted to mess around with some demons, take the Plaguebearers up to 10 units and add a Great Unclean one and a Demon Prince to the Army.

[mageboltrat]

Started work on my Demon Prince, he's going to take a little time to construct, but I cut down a Arihman's backpack to make a smaller version, it's a great candidate for it as it has 4 vents, so removing the top pair and cutting down some of bottom vents seems to get it to fit.. Got the first layer down on the shoulders and leg pads, once they are dry I can start getting the details in.. I want to get at least part of the chest plate made for him too. Then I can add a couple of Plague Bearers to the base to make him legal and get him painted, I think it's going to look fun.



Next to start hacking up the Warmaster Great Unclean one.. I want to make him much more curved so he looks a bit more like Jabba the Hut.

[mageboltrat]

Started work on the Great Unclean One, I worked out what was wrong with the model, due to the fact it had to fit on warmaster base it was rather skinny. So I ended up sawing off it's tail, and adding a lot more bulk sideways, also I felt it needed some horns.. in the end I found a nice pair off the helm of a Bretonian knight. Strangely it reminds me of Pikachu, I really don't know why.. my girlfriend really doesn't see it.. I think it's something to do with the horn slope and the large haunches. I've already started adding more detail to all the added skin and I think it's going to be a suitably icky centerpiece to the army. For all you 40k players out there (I post this blog on a few forums) Greater Daemons in Epic are not the pansy things you get in 40k, they count as Warmachines and are about as tough as a Baneblade. They turn up for a turn or if lucky 2, stomp around bellowing and stomping on the enemy and disappear back into the warp. I hope this explains why Epic Greater Daemons are far larger in proportion to a marine than yours.

I've also started adding the extra detail onto the Daemon Prince. I worked out what it was holding in it's right tentacle was a horses head. Which was huge as it was WM that is 10mm not 6mm.. so I removed the entire arm and added my own tentacle and more flames. It's starting to really look like he is wearing what used to be power armour.

[Malakai]

Christ.. Those Contagion Engines are sweet!

[mageboltrat]

OK.. The Daemon Prince is definitely looking like a Plague Marine that has Ascended, the Deathguard symbol sculpted on his shoulder is looking ace. However I have a tiny bit of a dilemma, the stand is technically illegal if it doesn't have 3 models as it's infantry, what do you think I should go for in way of a retinue. The options are wide Nurgly beasties, cultists, marines, daemons. I'm tempted by a marine with a banner for him and maybe a couple of marines, but Daemons would also look cool. whatever he's next to he's going to look hugh he would be a 15mm model if he was a marine so he will stand 2.5 times as high as a normal marine.

[Malakai]

If it were me I'd ignore those rules. I'd do what looks best on my model.

[Spectrar Ghost]

Have a couple upper torsos coming out of his body. Failing that, +1 to Malakai's thought. Are the figures per stand rules really enforced that heavily in the tourney scene?

[Lord Aaron]

love the hell cannon lookin things, would be a good conversion for a lot of things. as ever you make me want to smash my epic to small bits and cry in a corner yelling "ITS NOT FAIR!"

[Verm1s]

Marines, I'd say.

Flippin' fantastic work, but that goes without saying.

[mageboltrat]

Finished working on Pikathulhu Great Unclean one of Nurgle.. had a lot of fun with him messing around with greenstuff. Though I never thought I would spend so much time staring at a Great Unclean ones **** trying to work out where the muscles would be. As you can see I've also extended the spine to give it a bit of a tail and then draped skin over it all



Attaching the bells was a bit of an issue, as you can see they have changed from the original ones.. these had a longer connector so I could drill into the hilt of the sword to give it a stronger join



I also had a little play with different mixes of green stuff. So it makes it quite hard to see what I've sculpted on this side. there are lots of nice little details like the nurgling coming from under his skin flaps, entrails made of old skaven tails, maggots and the bone and muscles ripping out of his side.



I went with the chaos marines in the end for the Daemon Prince, strangely it only really worked with 4 of them on the base with him so he's got quite a retinue. The major issue with them was shortening down the banner as it was far to tall and detracted too much from the big guy.



Lastly I made 2 Chaos Spawn.. I love the Necromunda critters for Epic Spawn... though I can't seem to find any Ripperjacks to base up..

[mageboltrat]

Finished work on the first Defiler.. I think the test one came out OK. SO I'll need to start casting legs. I'm wanting to make 8, 4 defilers/4 desecrators. I've found a box of Hydras so I'll be using them either as I side mounting onto the nurgling, or cut them down and mount them over the shoulder, or a mix.. It will probably take about a week to cast up enough legs and then I will make a production line.. I'll do some photos at different stages so you can see how I'm making them.




I've also made an animation, which was rather fun

Defiler Animation

[mageboltrat]

Started working on my Cruiser for the Gothicomp, I never thought I would end up using Tau parts for a Nurgle model, but I think you will agree that they definitely work as a Nurgle bridge, making as they do his symbol. All the parts are in place, but there is still a lot of green stuff work to do.. all of the landing bays will be little mouths, some with tongues lolling out of then. The exhausts need to be modeled to match the metal ones, the gaunt arms need to have quite of bit of work done to them, skin needs to be stretched over the back and a lot of gun ports need to be sculted in. It's still going to be quite a lot of work. but I've got a while before the deadline for the Gothicomp and I can paint stuff in between..