Airborne pestilence

The airborne shock troops of Hytothrax the Younger are among the more horrific of the forces fielded by the Synod of Suffering. Attacking with a swiftness at odds with Death Guard battle doctrine, great swarms of Bloat Drones and their monstrous Harvester cousins thunder down on enemy emplacements, drowning the astonished foe in a tide of hacking blades and putrefaction.

The leader of this benighted company is Hytothrax the Younger, and even by the standards of the Death Guard he is far gone to insanity. Hytothrax the Younger never knew a normal human life: he was born in the hellscape of the Plague Planet amid the lunatic tribes of that nightmare domain. Even from that early age, the boy enjoyed the inexplicable favour of Hytothrax the Elder. This is not to imply that the daemon prince’s patronage gave the youth an easier life. Indeed, the Elder seemed to enjoy inflicting all manner of appalling trials of the body and mind. By the time he was raised to the ranks of the Death Guard, the Younger was barely recognisable as a human being. Proud of his progeny, Hytothrax the Elder conferred his name upon the newly raised monster.

Hytothrax the Younger is everything which the Synod of Suffering aspires to. And yet, his rise has not been smooth. Lord Eiterfex seems barely able to tolerate his presence. Whilst he has granted the Younger plaudits and command befitting his abilities, the Synod’s dread lord is at best frostily civil. On the rare occasions when any dare to press him, Eiterfex answers that he finds the Younger reckless and ill-disciplined. None are entirely convinced. Even Kallador Doomhark does not know the truth of this.

Yet Eiterfex allows the Younger to rise and gain acclaim within the legion for his daring, bloody raids. Some wonder whether Eiterfex’s dislike may stem from a fear that he may one day be supplanted…

There’s isn’t too much conversion here, at least not that much which had been discussed. The Harvester has been discussed elsewhere. It is worth noting that the three Bloat Drones were a lot cheaper than could have been the case. I was given the multipart one for my birthday by a friend, and the other two are Dark Imperium Drones. The one with a Blight Launcher uses spares from the multipart kit. Now, you can find Ebay sellers doing DI Bloat Drones for about £12 and you can get the multipart one for £22.50 from Darksphere or a similar retailer. That’s around £46.50 for the three – much better than the comedic £90 GW asks. 

Barring the Harvester, the biggest conversion here is Hytothrax the Younger, and if I’m perfectly honest he’s not really that clever a conversion. Other have done the conversion first, so I can hardly claim to be an innovator. The majority of the model is simply a Pusgoyle Blightking kit. But instead of using the torso and weapons supplied, I sawed a Plague Marine in half and used his torso, backpack, head, shoulder pads and great plague cleaver. Worth noting is that I took the now redundant body of the Blightking and mounted it on the spare legs, creating the Taskmaster. Somewhat ironically, I finished painting him months before I finished the conversion that I actually wanted to do!

Spoilpox Scrivener - a glorious satire

I think that the Spoilpox Scrivener may be one of the most thematically brilliant models that Games Workshop has done in years. I don't know how much of it was intended and how much of it was the sculptor going into business for themselves, but there's some ruthless satire going on here. To understand this, we have to look at the lore for this unpleasant fellow. Codex: Chaos Daemons paints a picture of a humourless, self-important busybody bullying those around him with embarrassing zealotry. Remind you of anything? Because it sounds an awful lot like a corporate lower or middle manager to me.

The model is full of visual cues to support this. The most obvious is the massive, screaming mouth. Just looking at that bellowing maw evokes a sense of the corporate: a broadcasting, noisy mouth, seemingly neither listening to nor seeing what they're screaming about. But there's a secondary visual joke here. Look at the way that the trunk wraps around him before rising up over his shoulder. At a glance, it looks rather strongly like he's talking out of his arse. 

Like a corporate apologist, the Scrivener is obsessed with numbers and targets regardless of overall quality, productivity, sustainability or morale. The codex pointedly tells us that the Scrivener relentlessly browbeats the Plaguebearers, apparently unaware that his efforts are as likely to distract them as to have any positive effect. Anyone who has worked in a corporate environment has encountered this sort of obnoxious martinet, militantly obsessed with enforcing their limited authority without any real understanding, wrapped up in their own perceived importance. This is also reflected in the way that the Scrivener is brandishing his scroll, like a spreadsheet of numbers. In his mind, it's the most important thing in the world. But ultimately, nobody else views it as that important. The Nurgling devouring the end of the scroll is a nice nod to the futility and waste of corporate process.

Whilst his third eye is open, his regular eyes are either closed or very narrowed - blind or blinkered, just as a corporate manager.

If you're wondering, I've worked or several corporations, some charities and in Higher Education. The difference in charity and HE are startling. You will occasionally find a decent lower or middle manager in the corporate world, who is invariably frustrated by the demands from above. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

In any case, a great model with some scorching satirical aspects!

More Possessed, only a few months late

Back in April I started a unit of Possessed. And... erm... then I stopped. Anyway, no point repeating the explanation, just worth showing pictures of the next two!

One day I shall have a legal unit!

Sergeant Thrombax, the gallows joker

Sergeant Thrombax occupies a peculiar place within the Synod of Suffering. He is a capable warrior and shows a certain flair for leadership when leading his squad in battle. But there are problems. Thrombax is a trouble-maker. He is a practical joker, and seems to attract others of his kind. He is a constantly smiling, obnoxiously confident individual who seems perpetually amused by everything going on around him, regularly mocking his battle brothers with provocations which have almost led to violence. Brother Maladax finds him so offensively flippant that the two rarely attend the same war councils. And yet, despite all of these irksome qualities, Thrombax inexplicably enjoys the favour of Lord Eiterfex. The maverick sergeant often attends Eiterfex's court, and at times seems to take suicidal delight in pointing out the flaws in his master's plans. It never occurs to Maladax, Doomhark or the others that this frankness may be the very reason that Eiterfex values Thrombax. Nor do they stop to consider that a man who appears to be an unpleasant joker may be rather more calculating and observing than it might immediately seem...

Sergeant Thrombax was a really quick, simple conversion: only a few minutes to put together. The basis is one of the Dark Imperium Plague Marines, who has an impressive crown of horns. In order to create the manreaper, I got a spare scythe rom the Pusgoyle Blightkings kit. One of the hands (the right) was attached, and a moment's tinkering allowed me to attach a spare arm from the Plague Marines kit to it. I knew that the other hand would be more difficult, so I got the Plague Marine arm with the open hand and used poly cement to attach this to the scythe. Now, that arm doesn't have a thumb, which is a problem! However, I had a spare torso front from the Plague Marines kit which had a couple of tentacles protruding from it. I snipped one of these off and attached it to serve as a thumb. I poly cemented it in place, and then filled with green stuff.

Attaching the arm assembly was difficult: after all, I was using Plague Marine arms on a Plague Marine body. A wee bit of shunting about and the arms fitted nicely (I did have to do a bit of filling on one side). Any unevenness was concealed by adding spare Plague Marine shoulder pads.

And there we have it! A nice little mood piece made from spares with minimal effort!

The Good Doktor

Despite his frightening appearance, Doktor Clademann is a very kind and compassionate man. A gifted expert in pathogens and virology, Clademann travels to plague-ridden worlds with Imperial relief efforts and works with unusual intensity to save ailing citizens. Over the years, Clademann has developed a bitter enmity towards the Plague God Nurgle. Although not primarily a fighter, Doktor Clademann has become a persistent irritant to Lord Eiterfex. Whether this will shorten his career remains to be seen...

I wanted this character to look really ghoulish, whilst being a nice man. The oddity of 40k: men who look like monsters but are heroes. I started with the Cairn Wraith, because that's where most conversions seem to. I sawed a plague-doktor-esque head from a chaos cultist and trimmed it down. With a bit of fiddling, this fitted nicely into his cowl.

The left arm was made from a Magos Dominus arm and a Skaven clanrat's big kitchen knife. This made a reasonably nice bonesaw. The right arm was a similar piece, made with the hand from a Dark Eldar Haemonculus.

The trunk of his body was a random Adeptus Mechanicus component trimmed down to fit. His reaching mechadendrite with the claw, the pack hanging from his back and the funky bionics on his back are all from a Tech Priest Dominus. The other mechadendrite is the majority o a servo skull (the Scions one I think). I added the censer from the servo skull to his back, the idea being that it constantly burns holy incense in diseased places to alleviate suffering and ward of spiritual malaise.

The piece was finished by the long, curling mechadendrite he's balanced on, which is also from the Haemonculus. I then put a purity seal on just to remind people that he's Imperial, and he was good to go!

The Harvester

The Eldar spat on the ground and glared up defiantly. The show of bravery vaguely amused Lord Eiterfex. Defiance was generally what happened when the enemy ran out of actual achievements to be proud of. 
"You think you have won, lackey of the Promordial Annihilator?" the xenos raged, struggling against the grip of the Plague Marine who held him more to show his unbrokenness than in an attempt at actual escape. 
"Well, my men are still standing and most of yours are dead," said Eiterfex cordially, "so I'm going with a yes on this one."
The Eldar didn't see the funny side and spat again. 
"Your vile feet may yet defile Eth-Athon, but with every drop of your blood we come closer to avenging Kurnous and wiping you from the universe!"
Eiterfex leaned over in his throne to Kallador Doomhark. 
"Which one's Kurnous?" he stage whispered. 
"Hunter god," growled Doomhark, glaring at the xenos, "this one's an Exodite."
Eiterfex grunted, and waved a hand to Brother Maladax. 
"Send in the Harvesters, Mal."
He stared steadily as the Eldar's face turned from hateful defiance to horrified astonishment as the awful, sawing buzz filled the air. dark, lumbering shapes passed overhead, and within moments the sound of shrieks came from behind. The Eldar struggled to see what was going on. 
"You're right, of course," Eiterfex said conversationally, "resources are the biggest problem we face. It's difficult to create a new son of Mortarion. That's why we need lots of spare bits and pieces."
The Eldar barely had time for the horror to sink in before a monstrous sting stabbed into his back, delivering him into a new world of horrors...

This was significantly easier to design than to execute, largely because of those wretched rotors! The starting point was a Dark Imperium Bloat Drone. Initially, I had the image of this being a vast, bloated monster, but on reflection I decided that a nasty, hooked wasp-like form would be better. So, I sawed off the back of the Bloat Drone, just behind the round metal bit, and then pinned the body of a Rot Fly onto the back. It looked rubbish! But that's usually the case at this point in the build. I used poly cement, waited until it ws firmly set and then went on.

Next up was the sting. This bit was easy. The sting itself is a spare Maggoth horn. I imply trimmed down the bottom of the Rot Fly's abdomen until the sting could fit smoothly then used poly cement to anchor it in place. I stopped at this point to do a bit of gap filling, and then moved on to the damn rotors.

I had the idea that there should be four rotors, principally because I hd four lying around but also because I wanted it t look bulkier than a regular Bloat Drone. There was no easy way to do this: the carapace of both the Bloat Drone and the Rot Fly are hatefully curved, which basically meant that it was a case of pinning the four rotors in place, drenching them in poly cement and then leaning the model at such an angle that on each side the rotors would more or less line up with each other. When this was finally one, I filled in the gaps.

Now, for its mouth I got aspare Maggoth mouth, trimmed down the back and glue it to the Bloat Drone just beneath the probe (I had to cut off some of the cabling for this) There was a lot of gapfilling after this, but eventually looked nice.

To finish up, I added four arms from a Dark Eldar Talos. I envision the Harvester slinking around the battlefield, stinging survivors to immobilise them, and then using those long, groping tendrils to scoop the still living supine forms into its vast maw, to boil in its guts until the Synod of Suffering can make use of the flesh...

House Lyoncourdt rides to war!

I so psyched to have finally got some Imperial Knights finished which are... well... Imperial. I've finished Khorne an Nurgle ones before, but finally, two noble machines of House Lyoncourdt are ready!

Has anyone got used to plastic Titans yet? I still haven't. 

The Headsman

None can say for sure exactly where Lord Eiterfex got the towering, ghoulish entity which he jovially refers to as 'the Headsman'. The creature has been seen in proximity with the Synod of Suffering's lord for many centuries, which discounts the possibility of the thing being made by Eiterfex's new disciple Belisarius Cawl. In general shape, the creature vaguely resembles a blasphemous hybrid of an Astartes dreadnought and a rangy humanoid creature. Certainly there are biological and metallic components, but the creature seems to have at least some daemonic qualities: for one thing, stale blood continually seeps from the nightmare's sutured body in quantities totally unsustainable in a biological form. For another thing, there are seven credible reports of the creature's apparent destruction, only for it to reappear elsewhere. Whatever the nature of the thing, Lord Eiterfex makes brutally effective use of it as a linebreaker... and as a gristly butcher of screaming captives when the battle is over...

One of the many great things about Nurgle is that you can use bits and bobs to make horribly effective nightmare creatures. I had all kinds of bits laying around from other conversions/sprue spares. So I decided that I would make a... thing. 

The trunk of the body is a Dark Vengeance Helbrute which I got in a job lot a while back. The model is... fine. But I'd already painted one. So I sheared off the arms and legs. I wanted to give him a bit more height, so I used a par of spare Forgefiend legs. The feet looked a bit daft, so I replaced them with spare Maggoth hooves. I had to do a lot of pinning and filling toget the feet, legs and torso to work together!

Now, I had the idea of him being similar to the monstrous executioner from the film 300. I had a vision of long, powerful arms with sutured blades at the end. Maulerfiend arms would serve: I sawed the hands off and replaced them with daggers from the Great Unclean One. With a bit of filling, these were pretty easy to pin onto the torso. 

I sketched a few ideas involving eyes, all of which looked absurd. So I decided it would be blind, possibly with the bundles of cables high up being remains of where the eyes once were. Still, it needed a little something else, so I inserted a Maulerfiend tentacle into the maw to serve as a hellish, rusted tongue.

When I'd finished, I looked at my latest creation and wondered if I should make a diorama of a Constable landscape. Or some nice clouds.