mortem tyrannis: finis

 Thus, all tyrants projects.

Daemon engine. Defiler-class. Cognomen: 3-9-ϴ-27

This is it! The last model for the (post-heresy) Death Guard! Except for that pesky Lord of Poxes, anyway, but I can get him when he's released. This is the last planned model. I've finished another project! Exclamation marks!!!!

I've loved the Defiler sculpt since it came out in the early 2000s. A little goofy, sure, but it was so unique to Chaos, showing that they had developed a new material culture, new methods of waging war, in the time since their exile into hell. Plus it walked. Who can't love a walking, skittering crab war engine? Of course, I never had a chaos army back then - in fact, I was barely still in the hobby at all.

When I was sketching out which parts of the corrupted Death Guard I was interested in - when making my accidental project into an actual army as opposed to 'handfuls of guys - I realised that I didn't want Predators or other main battle tanks, and neither did I want to paint three Plagueburst Crawlers, but it is important that units be in multiples of three or seven...

The kit itself is pretty aged at this point, yes. That's why everyone online seems to hate it and presumably why the rumours say it's about to be removed from the range. But it's pretty innovative for the time, with multiple points of posability and really lovely detailing, especially on the central carapace. I've certainly encountered modern kits which are worse in terms of design.

The real issue is twenty years of mould degradation, meaning that a lot of joins didn't exactly fit together, requiring a little cutting or filling - and mould line removal sucked, especially on that big flail. But, again, hardly worse than anyone with more than basic skills couldn't handle. This baby doesn't deserve the internet flack.

I wanted to focus on the classic nature of the kit, so I went with a pretty simple, minimalist scheme, in keeping with the rest of the corrupted sons of Mortarion, including keeping most of the trimming white as well. Daemonic flesh in Caucasion skin tones to keep them pale, oily but not rusted metals. Transfers add a touch of the pre-Heresy as well as tons of fun magickal nonsense, using bits from quite a few transfer sheets. Some of the black runes around the sealed hatch are from the Space Marine Vehicle sprue; it's techno-magick!

A friend pointed out that it's less corrupted-seeming than some of my other vehicles. Like I say, that's to focus on the actual sculpt. But it's also because this thing is designed to keep its passenger contained. It has runic seals and bronze chains and so forth. Those poor Rhinos were just shells, exposed to the Warp. (Also, it's funny to pain the literal daemon engine in the most restrained way in the entire army.)

A really fun piece, and a great way to wrap up the project. I'll see if I can get a decent group photo at some point.

Now for some palate-cleansers. What's in my weirdo drawers..?