Nasty bugs

I've mentioned before that one of the things I like most about GW's current 40k sculpts is the weird variety. I was more than pleased by thing: after the exercise in blandness that was AoS and the earlier bigly marines, I was worried about where this was going. I was pleasantly surprised that they started, in their models at least, to explore the peculiar corners of the dark millennium. This is particularly important in the case of Chaos.

The worst examples of 40k Chaos armies appeared probably around 2007-8, when a bizarrely luke-warm codex essentially made Chaos Marines into slightly spiky versions of their loyal brethren.

The best Chaos armies, by contrast, are nightmarish agglomerations of deranged and twisted creatures and madmen. Superhuman traitor Astartes marching beside Neverborn horrors and deranged maniacs. And worse things. With this attitude, you can well imagine how much I loved the Gellerpox Infected when they first arrived.

As well as the rampaging Nightmare Hulks, the small, scurrying things appeal to my Blanchian sense of the 40k universe.

Someone asked me recently why I tend to paint everything Nurgloid in human flesh tones when I can. The simplest answer is that it's more horrific: Plaguebearers look kind of ridiculous green, but they look hideous in flesh tones.

They're pretty quick to paint, too.

The Cleaved

"Reckon they'll show?" asked Sergeant Thrombax, leaning on his manreaper. 
Kallador Doomhark didn't look around at him, instead regarding the grim, twisted woods ahead. 
"They will," he said eventually, "they know better than to piss off Lord Eiterfex by summoning us to this rock without good reason."
Thrombax hacked up a glob of foul putrescent ichor and spat. 
"They give me the creeps," he said, apparently without irony. Doomhark looked at him sharply, smiling a little behind his filth-crusted helm. Then he frowned.
"They are Grandfather's servants, as are we," he said sternly.
Thrombax grunted and wandered over. 
"Yeah, well. That oily crud that leaks out of their armour bugs me. Where's it all coming from?"
They had no more time to talk. The fourteen Death Guard legionnaires behind them tensed as one. Doomhark and Thrombax felt it too, whispers in their minds which would once have been the chime of proximity alerts. 
And then they came. 

They moved strangely. It wasn't the low, stolid, lumbering stride of the Death Guard. It was soft, cautious, almost delicate. Painful. For followers of Grandfather Nurgle, they were almost obscenely clean. Their rose-hued power armour was free of grime, and though the brass was dull, it was not gnawed by Grandfather's gifts. 

But, as Thrombax had noted, there was the ooze. Blood? Oil? It was difficult to tell. It seemed to evaporate after laziness descending for half a metre or so. It did not spurt, or pump. The flow never seemed to increase or slacken. 

They give me the creeps too, thought Doomhark. 

"Hail brothers," Doomhark boomed, "I am the Herald of Lord Eiterfex. The Lord of Suffering would know why you have sent for us."

The Cleaved stopped. Froze, almost. For several moments they were entirely silent and still apart from the relentless oozing. Eventually, a towering warrior in terminator plate spoke.

"Hail, brother," the creature whispered, "I am Baphomord. We pay homage to the Death Lord and the Lord of Suffering."

He paused.

"We would have alliance with our brothers in Grandfather."

The basic reason I decided to start painting a detachment of the Cleaved was... well, I saw the new models (at the time of writing it's March 2019) ans decided that they had to be part of my life. But I didn't want to start an entire new army. I decided instead that they would be another Nurgle faction, presumably vassals to Eiterfex's Synod of Suffering. The Cleaved appear just because they're so different to my Death Guard, palette-wise. I also like the idea that their corruption is almost entirely inside the armour, with only that unsettling drool of blood or oil showing just how damned they are. 

It's more complex than painting rusty Death Guard, but I hope the finally effect will be worth it!

Whiteknights!

No, that's not some kind of swivel-eyed racist organization. I work at the University of Reading in Berkshire, England. The main Whiteknights Campus is a beautiful place to study - indeed, it's the whole reason I decided to move to this town and study at this Uni 17 years ago!

Anyway, one of my colleagues made and starred in this awesome tour video. The footage was taken when the sun was beating down like mad, but it gives you a good idea of the campus. If you're considering a UK university, give it a look*!

*We're not all as cool as my colleague. Sorry.