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!

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...

FLESHMOWEREN!!!

(to be shouted to the tune of Finntroll's classic 'Trollhammeren').

I really love the Foetid Bloat Drone mode, even if I can almost never stop myself from calling it a 'Blight Drone'. It's a charmingly absurd and has just the right degree of absurdity. GW wanted far too much money for it, but there's a nice workaround: you can get one for £22.50 from Darksphere or similar outlets, and the kit has enough spares that you can then put them onto Dark Imperium Drones, which are available much cheaper on Ebay.

One of the things I'd like to look at briefly is that the Drone is a perfect opportunity to work on nice, moody bases. The Drone itself has minimal contact with the base, and there's plenty of space around it. In this case, I used coils of model barbed wire and pools of goop. Other things I've used are crumbling jetties sticking out in rivers of filth, which can be easily made with matchsticks glued onto the base.