Path of Damnation: Damned, but not Lost

Regular readers of the blog will know that just over a year ago I sold my soul to Nurgle and set out to create a Warriors of Chaos army for Warhammer: The Old World using only models that were collected in the dim and distant past by a teenage me.

I have now put the finishing touches to that army by adding a handful of models and a command group to the Chaos Marauders, the unit I began with.

My own personal rule for this army was that it needed to fit the Oldhammer brief and only feature miniatures which were produced in the early 90s or before, and there were to be no duplicate models.

The aim was to get an army which evoked the cover image of Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned).

I've drafted in every metal Chaos Warrior, Chaos Thug, Beastmen, Chaos Dwarf, Barbarian, Minotaur and monster that I could lay my hands on, supplemented with a handful of plastic miniatures from Heroquest and Warhammer Quest.

Perhaps the most recognisable model in this batch is the dynamically posed, and taller than I remembered, Warhammer Quest Barbarian.

He will take the role of unit champion, but I may need to lighten his skin at some point as I think he lacks a little definition.

Also from the boardgame department is this Zombie from Heroquest. I've come to really like this sculpt and have started to look for ways to use more of them in other projects.

Although he's joining a unit of, very much alive, Chaos Marauders, he's also a nod to the fact that the first Nurgle army list did allow units of Plague Zombies and Plague Skeletons.

I've also been drafting in a handful of Blood Bowl star players, who are very much Chaotic in nature and add a flamboyant amount of mutation to the army.

This is Dieter Hammerlash, one of a very early batch of star players, whose star card I first got from a copy of White Dwarf.

Although he could quite easily have been given a Tzeentchian flavour (he has a touch of the Pink Horror about him), I've gone for a more fleshy look and just added a weapon.

The most obvious Blood Bowl player of the bunch is also the most fitting for a Nurgle army: Bilerot Vomitflesh.

I was presented with a conundrum of how to get his very 'football' look to fit in, and so I opted to turn him into a musician, by giving him a bell ( which I think is from the Grenadier Undead Mammoth I wish I still owned) to dangle.

I also added a shield on his other arm to make him a little less sporty looking.

The final miniature and standard bearer for the unit is Slarga Fourstrike (which I've discovered the internet often, wrongly, refers to as Slarga Fourstrike - check his card).

I commited Oldhammer sacrilege and pinned the banner, which was cobbled together from my bits box, in place and left him at that.

I'm really pleased with this one.

And there we have it.

A 2000 point Warriors of Nurgle army for Warhammer: The Old World. Admittedly it's probably not very good and needs a hefty chunk of magic items to get across the points threshold, but that's pretty normal for Chaos armies.

This army has been at least 37 years in the making and I'm actually a little bit choked up to finally have the Chaos army (or at least a variation of it) that I planned so long ago.

In other news, I've printed and painted some rock formations.

They're not really exciting enough for their own post, so they're here.

Acquired: 15

Painted: 79

Lead Mountain: 698

Path of Damnation: Organised Chaos

After a bit of a hiatus, I've finally got around to working on the last few models for my Oldhamner Nurgle army by completing the command models for my unit of Chaos Warriors.

This includes a Chaos Sorcerer of Nurgle. Along with a standard bearer and a musician bringing along a little bit of star quality to the army.

This is because two of these models are actually converted Blood Bowl star players.

The Chaos Sorcerer, however, has nothing to do with Blood Bowl and is one of the frankly excellent range of metal Chaos Champions that were released around the same time at Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned.

This model, along with a small handful of nuglings and a single Pestigor, is one of the factors that convinced me to sell my soul to Grandfather Nurgle, as I couldn't see a scenario where this model would fit into a force dedicated to one of the other powers.

The standard bearer is based on Dorjak Sureclaw, a Chaos Star Player for the second edition of Blood Bowl. He was a somewhat lacklustre player, having fairly average stats, a couple of minutes not skills and the claw mutation.

It always seemed odd to me that he had the Sure Hands skill as he wouldn't be handling the ball with his claw. Mind you, his other hand is massive.

The claw and big hand perhaps suggest Dorjak might be more suited to the service of Slaanesh or Tzeentch, but the gods of Chaos are fairly easy going when doling out mutations.

I'm not massively happy with the banner. It feels a bit too simplistic but I'm never great with free-handing.

Also from the second edition Blood Bowl stable of Star Players is my musician, Galmen Goreblade, who was much more useful in a Chaos team, being fast, strong and having the Mighty Blow skill.

I really like the fallen noble aesthetic of this model.

To make him a musician I have used the same trick I used on my Age of Sigmar Skaven. Giving him a bell-flail. This is also a nod to a very old model in the Chaos range that has a similarly blank helmet and was armed with a mace and a bell.

And so there we have my full unit of Chaos Warriors on foot (the Warhammer Quest model will be the unit champion).

I want to do something more with the banner and there hasn't been an edition of the game where 10 expensive and easily avoidable heavy infantry haven't been a bad choice, but perhaps having a sorcerer in their ranks will bring the enemy to them.

I just have a handful more thugs/Beastmen/marauders to finish off and my Path of Damnation will be complete.

Acquired: 11

Painted: 50

Lead Mountain: 723

Protagonist vs Antagonist

In the run up to Christmas I was still in a Fallout mood, but obviously was unable to buy more with festivities around the corner and not knowing what I was going to get.

Therefore, I once again turned my attention to using what I already had: a pile of unpainted miniatures and a 3d printer.

And the result was a 3d printed Vault-Tec Poster Girl and a kitbashed version of a Fallout 3 character, the Antagonizer (the ants are models I already had and are from Crooked Dice).

Both of these models demonstrate a certain amount of ingenuity on my part and I'm quite proud of both of them.

Easiest to talk about is the Antagonizer, who is a character that you can meet in Fallout 3 that is engaged in a superhero-supervillain conflict with the Mechanist in the town of Canterbury Commons. 

Your character can intervene in this situation, taking one side or the other. A third option exists, which was the path I trod, where you kill both of them because you repeatedly say the wrong thing.

Interestingly, there is an official model for the Mechanist in Fallout Wasteland Warfare, but not for the Antagonizer (yet). I suspect this is because whilst there are plenty of robots for the Mechanist to command, there aren't any Giant Ant models, which is odd, as they are a fairly frequent hazard.

However, I did have a model from Crossover Miniatures called Whiskers knocking about from my proxy Marvel project. I liked the model (which is clearly Catwoman inspired) but had not found a use for it. Until now.

The model comes with a range of heads and tails, but the best fit is one with cat ears that needed filing off and antennae (bits of staple) adding. I also filled the hole in the base of the spine for her tail.

It's a fairly good fit, although the mask covers the whole face and the armour is somewhat less spiky. However, a nice touch is the knife strapped to her leg as the Antagonizer's weapon is a knife called the Ant's Sting.

Painting was quite interesting as it's quite hard to get a clear image of the character in Fallout 3 as she's mainly encountered underground. The colour of her armour can vary quite a lot between images. I when for black and gold as I felt it would be in the right ballpark without just being a mush of browns.

I'm really quite pleased with the outcome, although I need to put some though into what profile I am going to use for her in the game, and I probably need to put together a custom card.

The Vault Girl came as a part of a Humble Bundle of Fallout files and STLs I picked up before I had a 3d printer. She's actually the model that demonstrated the limits of my FDM printer when I first got it as its thin limbs small details proved too much for tree supports and even a 0.2mm nozzle could handle.

However, I've found a way around the problem.

Or more pertinently, a YouTube channel called Painted 4 Combat has with a tool called Resin2FDM.

Basically, this is a plug in for Blender that allows you to thicken the supports from pre-supported resin STLs and make them suitable for printing with an FDM printer.

The 'lite' version of the plug in is free to download and obviously required me to download Blender. However, despite never using either program, it was really easy, especially as the channel's guide video walks you through the whole process.

The outcome is a pretty dame good print. Still not as good as a resin print, but definitely better than my previous efforts and certainly good enough to use.

The model comes with a sculpted base that I was able to print more conventionally, although I did manage to clip off the pegs from. The feet of the miniature before realising there were holes for then to slot into, making gluing the whole thing together a bit more awkward.

As you can see, when painted, the details are pretty good. The undersides of arms and keys are a little less good, but, as I said, I'm really happy with it.

Painting was done really simply with bright colours and the outcome is a model that I actually think is better than the pvc miniature of Nora that can in the starter set.

I've not yet had any success with other sculpts as I've been away since Christmas Day and the one miniature I did try was a Carnevale sculpt that hasn't worked, however I'm looking forward to trying out a few more sculpts.

On the subject of Christmas, Carnevale and Fallout, Ive gad a bit of a haul this year. Mrs Cheaphammer took advantage of Black Friday at Element Games in Sheffield to make the pounds stretch a little further and I now have the latest Carnevale starter set, World's Faire After-Party, and the Hollywood Heroes set for Fallout Wasteland Warfare featuring characters from the TV series.

They were also running a paint lucky dip which garnered me a Camo Green that will definitely see use and a Purple airbrush paint which might not.

On top of this I got a haul of Horus Heresy boxes that actually have me pondering whether to start a new army. The Predator and Jet Bikes would fit perfectly on not my Blood Angels army, but the Mk II Assault Troops come armed with chainaxes, which aren't available to loyalist marines in 2nd edition, which we've stuck with.

This is making me consider starting a traitor, specifically World Eaters or Sons of Horus, or Blackshields forces. However, I'm also tempted to create some converted Angels Tears for the Blood Angels.

I received the Ravening Hordes book for Warhammer: The Old World, which contains the army lists for Orcs & Goblins, Beastmen, Tomb Kings and, most importantly for me, Warriors of Chaos. 

This allows me to run my Nurgle army in Warhammer: The Old World, and the Arcane Journal adds rules for Warp Dragons making the whole army game legal.

Finally, as part of this year's 7TV Secret Santa, I received this handful of Robin Hood themed miniatures from David.

It's a sprue of Oathmark Humans, who can easily be kitted out as Merry Men, but might also serve at Rangers of Gondor or Ruffians in MESBG. However , there's also a couple of Norman soldiers carrying a chest and so, given that I've at least one Norman miniature in my backlog. I might very well venture into a Sherwood Forest based project next year.

All in all, it's been a good few days, giving me plenty to be cracking on with.

Acquired: -52 

Painted: 532

Lead Mountain: 246

Honour Your Ancestors

There are many plastic Dwarfs that have emerged from the subterranean halls of Games Workshop and they have gone by many names.

However, whether they are known as Dwarfs, Squats, Fyreslayers, Kharadron Overlords, or the Leagues of Votan, they can all trace their lineage back to the same ancient heroes.

Technically, the first multi-part plastic Dwarfs were made of the amazingly named 'psychostyrene' and came in blister packs of three for the amazing price of 75p.

Yes, I absolutely did pick up a pack with my pocket money, but sadly they disappeared long ago.

What I do have though, are these guys...

These are the Dwarfs from the Fantasy Regiments box, which boasted of 60 miniatures for £9.99 and contained 10 models of some x fantasy races: Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, Orcs, Goblins and Skaven.

Calling them multi-part was a bit of a stretch, given that this boiled down to two head options for each pose, alternate weapons for the Orcs, Skaven and Dwarfs, and optional shields for everyone except the Wood Elves.

As, you can see, I haven't retained any of the hammer options to replace the default axes, and a couple of the shields aren't original, but I did manage to make use of some spare Dark Elf crossbows to offer a bit of variation.

The cunning 'strapped-to-the-back' kitbash trick has allowed me to put together four rangers as well as the five clansdwarfs and also give a better look at the whole models.

To be fair, for almost 40 year old models (they were released in 1987) l, the hold up pretty well.

Yes, they are pretty much monopose and only rank up diagonally, but they are characterful minis that paint up.well. aldo, slight changes like the heads, weapon options and positioning of the shields (and crossbows) make for just enough variation.

The decision to use the crossbows was driven by a couple of factors. Firstly, I genuinely thought they were for the Dwarfs as I do not have any of the Dark Elves. Secondly, several of the Dwarfs had scarring on their backs from prior assembly and painting.

In fact, the guy with the shield on his back is hiding a pretty nasty gouge which had been made by a somewhat corrosive glue.

They'll look perfectly good when mixed up with a few more interesting metal miniatures, which leads me to...

This chap is not of the same provenance as the rest of my Dwarfs, being a 90's sculpt. He's also clearly a Ironbreaker (a heavily armoured Dwarf) and so can't really firm a unit with my hand weapon and shield crowd.

However, he was remarkable easy to paint.

Due to the amount of armour on display, I did all of this batch with a silver undercoat, hit them with a wash of Nuln oil and then worked up the other colours, allowing me to get them done pretty quickly.

Finally we get to these two heroes.

On the right we have Sven Hammer helm, the Dwarf hero from Advanced Heroquest. As it was released in 1989, Sven is a touch more spritely than the rank and file, and shows how quickly Games Workshop were moving forward in their development of plastic miniatures.

On the left, with the unfeasibly large axe, we have the Dwarf from Warhammer Quest from 1995. Already you can see an aesthetic change towards massively long beards, comically large weapons and more dynamic poses, something that would ultimately result in Fyreslayers balancing on their bizarrely unburnt beards (no, I'm not a fan of them).

These two, along with the Heroquest Dwarf, went on plenty of adventures with me as I tended to play the Dwarf in our games.

Looking back it does seem odd that I never got around to building a Dwarf army, but I think that the immobile gunline of Warhammer Fantasy Battles wasnt really appealing. Also, by 4th edition I could get a wider range of plastic Skeletons, High Elves and Goblins more easily, prompting me to focus on them.

It's a shame because I've really enjoyed painting these and so I might have got more Dwarfs for niahed at the time if I'd known.

As it happens, I now have the very beginnings of a Dwarf army by mixing my metal and plastic miniatures together. It is only a beginning as the entire force is currently less than 500 points in Warhammer The Old World.

I am.very tempted to keep going, but as with my Nurgle Warriors of Chaos army, I'd want to keep it strictly Oldhammer.

Alternatively, I might just have enough to think about old scenarios such as those from Terror of the Lichemaster or Bloodbath at Orcs Drift. It's something to think about.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 447

Lead Mountain: 325

Path of Damnation: What a load of bull!

With the recent addition of several hard hitting characters and monsters, I figured I should probably get another unit on the table.

This also gave my another reason to procrastinate about the standard bearers and musicians that are needed for my Chaos Warrior and Marauder units.

Therefore, I took a different bull by the horns.

This unit of Minotaurs with function as Chaos Ogres in my Warhammer: The Old World army because the teaming hordes of Chaos have a somewhat rigid structure dividing them into Beastmen, Warriors and Daemons.

I, however, refuse to be bound by such restriction, and also don't have that many more options regarding units to add to the army.

I'm not sure how useful just three Minotaurs/Ogres will be, but that's what I have.

 

 

The unit champion is a lightly converted Warhammer Quest Minotaur, and these were a truly feared sight for adventurers, particularly when you drew three of them in the first room of the dungeon and immediately died.

The light conversion is a hand replacement, giving him an Ogre spiked gauntlet I had left from making a Bloodbowl team many years ago. This is to give him two hand weapons to match the rest of the unit.

I actually have two more Minotaurs like this one (although one has a club) but opted not to use them because I want the army to have no duplicate models in it. Also, the fact that he's bigger than the other two makes him an imposing champion.

The other two members of the unit are metal second edition Bloodbowl Minotaurs, hence the large pads and spiked gloves (additional hand weapons).

They are significantly smaller than both the Warhammer Quest model and the 'modern' plastics (which I hate, btw, just for reference). These were the 'big guys' of their time but stand no taller than a Primaris Space Marines.

This was from a time when something being the equivalent of seven or eight foot tall would be rightly viewed as imposing.

The final model is a curiosity, because I have no idea what this pose is meant to be representing. As a single piece model I'd that he's just a natural consequence of having to sculpt in a flat plane and try to make him visually different from the other guy.

He's also the reason why I didn't try any conversions to give the unit double handed weapons as I have no idea how I could go that on this model and make his pose look remotely natural.

This unit was unbelievably quick to paint and leaves me with about half a dozen metal models left to do from my initial plan to complete the army.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 400

Lead Mountain: 372

Path of Damnation: Cavalcade of Nurgle

One of the features of the forces of Nurgle as outlined in Realm of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned was their tendency to move of festering caravans of carts, wagons and chariots, travelling from town to town and visiting plague upon them.

Sadly, this feature seemed to disappear quite quickly outside of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but I have managed to cobble together my own Chaos Chariot to perhaps be a precursor to my own caravan of corruption.

My chariots, bearing a Sorcerer of Nurgle has been scraped together from my bits box, and owes more than a little to my Vampire Counts army.

Obviously, the skeletal horses are the most obvious element, but the winged sides are hefty chunk of metal from the chariot of Arkhan the Black, who was jettisoned from my army in the Great Sundering (Arkhan himself went to a friend).

The chariot body is from a Wargames Foundry Ancient Briton chariot, which, when I bought them, were featured in the pages of Warhammer Ancient Battles and so counts as official.

The element across the back of the horses is actually a Wood Elf bow.

I made the decision to use skeletal horses because the only other horses I have available are not Games Workshop models and look far too healthy.

Before I opted to plump for a solely Nurgle army, I did have the idea to mutate those horses with eyestalks, horns and bright colours to dedicate them to Tzeentch, but that would feel out of place with where the army is now.

Anyway, in The Lost and the Damned the Nurgle army list includes Plague Zombies and Plague Skeletons and a unit called a Plague Cart pulled by skeletal oxen, and so the undead feel to this model feels appropriate to me.

If the opportunity presents itself, it could also function as a Plague Cart in a game of 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Thr Chariot is crewed by a single metal Ghoul I had knocking about. Technically this should be a Chaos Warrior with a Halberd, but I'm a bit short on Chaos Warriors and didn't want to use one on the Chariot (also, they're all too bulky to fit).

The Sorcerer is Azoth the Faceless, another of the Heroes for Dungeonquest alumni featuring in the army. It's quite hard to get a decent photo of him given how he's buried beneath the wings.

I'm really pleased with how this unit has come out as it brings a bit more weird into the army., I'm also pleased to finally get to use at least part of the Arkhan the Black model I bought with birthday money many moons ago.

Acquired: -77

Painted: 395

Lead Mountain: 373

Path of Damnation: Heavy Metal

I think I've mentioned before that I never really took to the more ordered aesthetic Chaos adopted with the transition to plastic.

Nowhere was this more apparent than with the plastic Chaos Warriors, whose bulk demanded a very regimented pose to allow the models to rank up.

They weren't bad models, far from it, but combined in thire serried ranks, pressed shoulder to shoulder, they didn't exactly shout 'chaos'.

Fortunately, this is not going to be an issue with this motley bunch of glamorous all-stars.

I think I've lamented in these pages before about selling my unit of Champions of Slaanesh before I'd ever painted a single one of them.

They were a beautiful set of models.

Although the combination of drawing together a mishmash of Chaos Warriors and them dedicating to Nurgle means that they will probably lose out on beauty. However, this magnificent seven more than make up for this with their collected renown and notoriety.

First up we have one of those most stalwart and fearsome denizens of the halls of Heroquest, the Chaos Warrior.

This is a great model that only slightly shows it's age around the horns (which merge into the armour round the sides) and still cuts an impressive figure.

Next week have a pair of Champions, one of which the eagle-eyed will notice, is actually a Champion of Tzeentch.

I opted to include this anomaly because I felt that nothing would amused Grandfather Nurgle more than a corrupted former servant of his arch-enemy still bearing his former livery besmirched in corrosion and filth.

The Champion of Nurgle bears only the slightest hint of his allegiance in the sculpt. Only the rune of Nurgle at his breast and some cracks in his armour betray who he serves.

I like this choice as the rest of the Champions of Nurgle are so corrupted that they don't really suit being used as merely the champion of unit of Chaos Warriors, whereas this guy fits the bill perfectly.

Next, as a step up from champions, we have some real 'heroes'.

On the right is the Warrior of Chaos character model from the boardgame Talisman, who not only had the power to corrupt those he came into contact with (somewhat appropriate for this army) but also would receive gifts from the gods each time he slew an enemy.

He was one of my favourite characters to use in the game, and I'm pleased that the colour palette I'm using for this army allowed me to make a nod towards his appearance in that game.

One the right is what I deem to be his successor (later versions of Talisman don't count), the Warhammer Quest Chaos Warrior.

This chonky boy made for a somewhat odd companion in groups of heroes that could include Wardancers, Warrior Priests of Sigmar and Witch Hunters.

However, he is a beautiful miniature and would make for an excellent Chaos Lord were it not for the fact that there is no way I'm putting that amount of points and death-dealing killyness on foot. Therefore, he shall serve as the unit's champion of champions.

Yes, I know the spike on his ace is bent, but I quite like it. Imagine what he might do with that hooked end...

Finally we have some real celebrities, named characters in fact, to add a sprinkling of glamour to proceedings.

On the left we have Thargrim the Dark Lord from the Heroes for Dungeonquest expansion to, unsurprisingly, the board game Dungeonquest. I've already added four of the Dungeonquest alumni to the unit of Chaos Marauders, and there are still a couple more to come if I can find a way to include them.

On the right, the last of this all-star line-up is none other than Duke Luthor Von Hawkfire, the somewhat superfluous thrower for the Chaos All-Stars Bloodbowl team. I say superfluous because the majority of throwing that team would do would be if Goblins, specifically Dirty Dan. However, the presence of Morg'th N'hthrog (later bastardised to Morg 'n' Thorg for simpletons) meant that the All-Stars favoured the punching and running game.

Duke Luthor isn't the only Bloodbowl player destined to join the horde, but he is, in all likelihood, going to be the most famous name amongst their number

Acquired: -78

Painted: 394

Lead Mountain: 374

Path of Damnation: Ancient Dragon

My goal with my my Warriors of Chaos army project is to build an army solely from the pile of ancient lead and plastic that has sat unpainted for 30+ years, with the ultimate of fielding it in games of Warhammer: The Old World. Sadly, this means that some of my collection can't be fielded due to the lack of suitable rules to use.

However, the recent release of the Warriors of Chaos Arcane Journal included the rules for Warpfire Dragons, meaning that I can now include this beast in the ranks of my horde of Nurgle.

This is technically a Blue Dragon that was released by Citadel in a boxed set with a Sorceress and a pile of books in 1987.

I still have the Sorceress, and she actually served as a Necromancer in my Vampire Counts army for many years, however, I have never even tried to paint the Dragon. Admittedly, it sat in a friend's garage for twenty years, but it's well past time it hit the table.

I think the pile of books got sold as part of a lot I should never have gotten rid of.

The 'Blue' Dragon is curious and characterful sculpt, in a pose that is unusual for fantasy Dragons. Rather than attacking or rearing, he's sat on his haunches, giving him a pot-bellied look that is not out of place in Nurgle's ranks.

Being all metal, you'd expect assembly to be tricky, but I never had a problem with this one, but some patience was required with the wings.

With painting, I went with mainly contrast paints, which work extremely well on metal models that are sculpted with this much detail. A newly bought pot of Plaguebearer Flesh for the scales and Skeleton Horde for the wings and underbelly give him a sickly and unpleasant look.

I furthered his links to the Plaguefather by painting some of lumps on the body (which I think might be meant to embedded jewels) as pus filled boils using Nazdreg Yellow and ringing them with Carroburg Crimson.

Another curious design feature is that this Dragon has hair along its spine, which I gave a coat of Basilicanum Grey, for a dirty, matted look.

Finally, claws and horns were done with Ushabti Bone, a few bits of jewellery were done with gold and washed with Nihilakh Oxide for a corroded look and the eyes were done red.

My usual basing with AK Scenics Muddy Ground and then pools of Nurgle's Rot technical paint completed the model.

To say I'm pleased with this one is somewhat of an understatement. This was the first 'big' model I ever owned and it was therefore the most intimidating to paint to young me. It's a shame because it's such a good model and the excellent level of detail would have helped a young me get a decent result with just a little patience.

Added to that, I'm really happy with the colour choices I've made. The paper pallette gives him a sickly Swamp Dragon feels that suits the looks and feels of the army. I also feel that including a Dragon in such a small force is a true homage to the spirit of 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles as you could just add monsters to your army, pretty much as you saw fit.

I'm really beginning to get my teeth into this project, so expect more disease and corruption in coming posts.

Acquired: -78

Painted: 387

Lead Mountain: 381