Thursday 3 December 2020

mortem tyrannis: officers

 I've accidentally put together a fallen Death Guard force.

officer cadre

How do you 'accidentally' put together an entire army? Well, the same way any fall occurs: one step at a time.

At any rate, once I realised that the three squads of plague marines, mobs of cultists, and swarms of zombies basically constituted an army, I gradually put together an officer cadre. I've painted several of these grimy bastards this year as breaks between projects, so I might as well show 'em off.

sorcerer

This is the Forgeworld model Necrosius, although when I went to look him up to link him, it appears he's no longer produced. I intend to use him as a Malignant Plaguecaster (an idiotic name for 'plague-themed sorcerer' but whatever). I think he was the first of the officers I painted, some time last year.

The sculpt is great, with ritual bone skewering him, rotting pauldrons and a cool glaive-staff. I've given his back banner runes in the Dark Tongue and an old-school check pattern, but the paint scheme is otherwise the streaky white with yellow details that I use army wide.


surgeon

Plague Surgeon. I put this guy on a 32mm base without thinking; the Death Guard officers are all on 40mm bases, as they are huge. I don't like that officers are weirdly bigger than the regular soldiers, but it works okay in a chaos army so I'm happy to ignore it here. I should get him a base extender though.

This sculpt is also lovely, with a screaming daemon in one pauldron, all the tools of a healer and then a sick rotting sword, which I've painted up like corrupted bone. I also let him keep the white robe of a real doctor so that he didn't get mistaken for his yellow-robed magician pal, above.


brewer

Foul Blightspawn. I picked up this model and the Biologus Putrifier below in the second-hand section at CanCon 2020, intending for them to serve as painting palate cleansers. They are actually quite detailed and intricate sculpts, which proved a bit frustrating to paint. I eventually came to love them, as my Death Guard painting style really is a lot of fun.

alchemist. grenadier.

Biologus Putrifier. He has so very many vials and bottles, which made me put off painting him, but the design is actually cool as shit. He's an insect-faced parody of an angel, with the wings replaced with racks of alchemical nightmares. It's a great concept and very neatly fits into the concept of Chaos Space Marines being 'fallen' Angels of Death (with the obvious caveat that in rebelling against the fascist Imperium, they aren't so much evil as just completely fucked). I also wrote a lil' passage on the original instagram post for this guy:

"..and then descended the seventh part of a seventh part of the Great Horror; and in its vanguard were seven fiends, each cast in its own aspect of the Decay That Wastes Hope... and then the fourth was shaped like unto an angel of Order, but corrupted. In place of wings, it bore branches of bone, hung upon which were vials and alchemy, the rotted fruits of evil. In place of a halo, it bore a half-crown of broken bronze. In place of a face..."

-From the Seventh Prophecy of Šeru’a-eṭirat.


bannerman


Noxious Blightbringer. Mildly converted from the really excellent Blightkings kit for Age of Sigmar as the only way to get one of these bell-ringing maniacs is in the 8th edition starter box, Dark Imperium, and the resellers on ebay charge a surprising amount for them. Mostly I just love the conceit that his guts have been replaced by the dark gods with another, smaller bell. Hilarious.

I gave him an old marine right arm, replaced one leg with power armour, and gave him a Heresy-era Death Guard helmet to make sure he reads as a fallen space marine. I think it works. 


archivist

Tallyman. I joked on instagram that once I realised that Games Workshop had released a fat archivist model that I needed to buy one, so that I could have #representation on the tabletop. Because I am also an overweight archivist, you see. Do you get it?

(admittedly, I lack tentacles or an abacus made of tiny skulls)

He was fun to paint, especially adding some spare scrolls and book pieces to his base to make it look like he's standing in a ransacked, filth-soaked library. Note that his right arm is red, indicating that he was once a Dusk Raider.


captain

Chaos Lord. This creature has been fighting the Long War for many ages of man. Short even among his brethren in 1991, he is now completely dwarfed by the giant-sized modern sculpts of the other officers, as you saw in the first image. That's fine with me, as he's clearly been blessed by the deities and demi-deities of Plague and Despair: face of a Plaguebearer; Nurgling infestation; rotting skin; hooved feet; and fewer fingers, at the very least. Being made shorter is just one more way he is #blessed.

I agonised over how to paint the Nurgling, but eventually decided on the classic yellowish green, making him deliberately cartoony to contrast to the marginally more subdued murky greens and dirty creams of his armour.

He also has a red right hand. How low you have fallen, O son of Albia.

See more photos of all these grim gentlemen below this here cut.
captain





archivist






bannerman




alchemist. grenadier





brewer





surgeon





sorcerer




Coming up next: d̷͈́̃̄̕a̵̯͛͋͑͘ë̶͙͓̫́́̔̏ḿ̶̛̳̙͕̅o̸͍̤̊̈́̓̋n̴͕̜̿ ̵̗̙̹̰͊͂̋̇é̵̡͓̄͜n̶̝̲̮̓̿̐̆g̴̘̫̳̑̐̋ͅí̴̡̂̈͝n̵͈͖͆͆̔͛ͅe̵̱͓̞̟̓́̃̑͘͜s̵̤̽͆ͅ

4 comments:

  1. Fantastic work, man! The painting is really well done, would be good to see some group shots with your other units too! I’ve always had a soft spot for Nurgle, maybe partly due to how forgiving painting them can be :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SO forgiving. Every time I paint a Nurgle model, I wonder why I do any other kind of SF painting.

      Don't worry; more photos are comin'...

      Delete
  2. Legit! The right amount of color splashes as well. 💪

    ReplyDelete