The trees STILL have an attitude problem

I've always had this feeling that trees should look like... well... trees. In most cases, I prefer some nicely based Gaugemaster trees. However, for reasons I honestly don't quite recall I have a couple of Citadel Woods in my bitz box. I decided that it was time to make an evil wood. I was inspired by two pieces of lore from the old Realm of Chaos tomes - if you haven't got these, try to get hold of a copy. They're the most Chaosy thing that ever Chaosed. Anyhow, the passages in question are the descriptions of the 'Tree of Damned Shades' and the unwholesome forest around 'The Marcher Fortress'. I decided to make some nasty trees that can either be used as spooky terrain or as Feculent Gnarlmaws.

The two trees I started working on were pretty different. One was almost intact whereas the other had been rudely sawn off halfway as part of my Coeddil conversion. This meant that one of them would be traditionally... uh... treeish, whilst the other might take a bit more thought. 

With the more complete one, the first thing I had to do was to put some visibly and identifiable Nurgle bits on it. I find that if you add a couple of very recognizable bits to a piece, it chases the mood of the model to fit the theme. In this case, I used symbol Nurgle glyphs, some of the rotten heads from the Plaguebearers sprue, some bells and a Plaguebearer head. I also added a spare Kharibdyss head for extra creep value. You'll notice that some of the ends of branches have been replaced with bits from the Rotigus staff but the Great Unclean One sprue. 

I had a special idea for the other one, give its shape. I added a Nurgle glyph to one side, but the main event here was the addition of a Maggoth mouth to the end to give it the feel of a carnivorous plant crossed with an angry dune worm. 

Finally, I added some more ghoulish bits. The larger tree has a zombie hand groping from the end of a branch, and I glued Woodland Scenics lichen onto both to be the flesh vines. 

The trees are mounted onto 3mm MDF bases to give them an extra bit of bulk. And there we have it. More evil trees for a display or game board!

The trees have an attitude problem

I haven't done anything clever with this model, I just love it!

GW have done a lot of things in the last few years which ensured that I would not do the dance of joy for three moons (AoS, holes through the galaxy, bigly marines etc). But on the other hand, they've done lots of amazing things (8th ed 40k ruleset, many lovely models, much improved engagement etc). And one of the things which I love is the initiative of putting new pieces of scenery in with releases. There are a couple of reasons why I love this. Firstly, it encourages hobbyists to think of the broader, rich context of the tabletop events. Whilst these models have rules, you can't help get the feeling that these were made for the hell of it and then had rules thrown in. Which I am more than fine with. Secondly, whilst I am a bit of a terrain maniac (look in the background of any of my model photos), not everyone is. Nor has everyone worked at GW and had to learn how to manufacture terrain. For less confident or experienced gamers, these new terrain pieces are a great way to populate a table with characterful landmarks without getting frustrated or breaking the bank. I'm a big fan of the Beastmen Herdstone and the Night Goblin shrine wossname, and the Vampire Counts gate thingie is nice too. Of course, for a square-base maniac like myself, being able to reverse engineer these pieces into WFB is nice too!

The Gnarlmaw is one of my favourites. It manages to straddle the line between absurdist humour and body horror perfectly - and makes a convincing presence out of a gurning devil-tree!