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. 

Warhammer: Age of Rebuilding - Interlude the first

Bet you thought Valten was dead. Again.

But nothing seems to keep the Wolf of Sigmar down for long.  Of course, he’s now in a city filled with evil dwarfs who want to torture him until they figure out what makes him tick. This should go well…

Read what Valten's up to

This is the first of my ‘interlude’ supplements. The plan is to do these between those bigger supplements which take a long while. ‘Thunder over Nuln’ is taking a while, so I thought it was time to catch up with the man who just won’t stay dead.

Note: Valten’s peculiar condition will be familiar to some readers of Black Library novels. However, even the most eager consumer of lore will be slightly bewildered to that Valten has this unusual gift. This is entirely my invention. I’ve never wanted to decanonise the Storm of Chaos, which is why Age of Rebuilding is peppered with references to the invasion of ‘Surtha Lenk, the False Archaon’. When debating how to account for the fact that Valten has apparently died twice, I decided to embrace it.

Veteran readers may smile at the return of another badass of yesteryear, who finds himself debilitated in a way that deviates from the original lore. You’ll understand when you come to it. This apparent contradiction is because unlike the Storm of Chaos, this character’s two timelines were not possible to blend. So instead, I retconned one and decided to retell the other one in a slightly different form.

Zombie pirates from SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE

I think I've probably said this before, but my current relationship with GW is confusing even to me. As someone who has worked in marketing since the early Eocene era, it has been nice to see their new management making some intelligent decisions. From a hobbyist perspective, though, it's all been rather odd. It feels a bit like every time they've tried to write new lore in the last four years they've managed to make pig's ears complain about the comparison (bigly marines, holes in the universe, Bjorn is a psyyyyyker, Age of Sigmar etc). And if it was purely about background, I wouldn't have much time for them these days. But conversely, they have definitely been producing some amazing models (if you exclude the pathologically bland child of focus groups that is the Stormcast Eternal range). What's perhaps more surprising is that they've really got into exploring the peculiar, gothic corners of the 40k universe which attracted a lot of us in the first place. The crusty, bling infested Rogue Traders, peculiar looking assassins and overdressed armsmen we've seen recently all come straight from the drunken Regency fever-dream that I see Imperial society as.

And these fleabitten thugs symbolise the visceral body horror of Chaos vividly well. They're ugly, insane, suffering and dirty. 

I'm really glad that GW has finally put more effort into this side of the 40k universe - the weird, knackered clapped out bits of a galaxy a bit too long in the tooth.

Unleash the hounds!

I think that Warhounds are probably my favourite models from the new Adeptus Titanicus. This might be because I once had one of the Forgeworld ones. It took months to construct, paint wouldn't take to it no matter how much it was scrubbed to the extent that I had to mix the basecoat with PVA. I was a GW staff member at the time, so I was at peak hobby-knowing stuff, before anyone tries to tell me I was doing it wrong. When it was down it was a pain to store and I worried about its fragility so much that I used it twice in a decade before selling it at cost. Like so much stuff to come out of Forgeworld, the poor materials used made it a big disappointment. So it's entirely possible that have two Warhounds that went together in an hour went to my head. I've finished one loyal one, and decided this week it was time to sort out my Nurgle ones.

There are a few things that the two have in common. The trees are from Eve of Battle Scenics, who you can find on Ebay. The pockmarks on them are as ever created with a small drill. The horns are from Plaguebearers, I think (can't quite recall). 

Laser/Inferno gun boy has a weird bony noble thingy growing out of its carapace and a censer hanging from its chassis. These are from Plague Marines. The fleshy grows are a spattering of texture paint. 

The manky flesh-growth on the right leg guard is a Spellcrow bit blended in with some texture paint, and around his inferno gun is a coil of model barbed wire, available from numerous Ebay sellers. The fleshy fronds on his left leg guard are Woodland Scenics foliage glued down firmly.

The smashed palisade on his base was created by cutting lolly sticks in half lengthways for thinner planking and then sticking these bits to a bit of MDF.

Mega-bolter/Plasma Blastgun boy has some bells hanging from his chassis. These are a spare from the Plague Marines kit. Up on his carapace is a weird fleshy chimney thing. That's a bit from Spellcrow. 

The river on his base is done in a similar way to those on the base of the Hanging Tree and the Hierophant, building up the banks with MDF to give the impression of depth. The slabby bridge is just a bit of MDF. 

Now, if I could just stop myself from overheating their reactors...

Of Gods, machines and monsters

I love the new Adeptus Titanicus game. It's engaging, intuitive, immersive and makes the player think. My only real issue with it is that it is set in the somewhat restrictive Horus Heresy era. But that's okay: my friends and I just decided that our games would be set in 40k!

Of course, there was one slight problem, that being that the Chaos Titans looked very much the same as the loyalist ones. Not one to be daunted by that, I set to work. My loyalists are of a yet-unnamed legion, but the Chaos battlegroup was created to fit in with my 40k Nurgle collection. Evidentally, Lord Eiterfex has decided to roll out the big guns. 

As with all of my Nurgle gribblers, this was quite easy. I converted the Titans with leftover bits from Great Unclean Ones and assorted other Nurgle kits. The Warlord's horn is, if I recall correctly, a spare from a Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Warrior Chariot. 

The nasty flesh-vines you can see growing out of the Nurgle Titans is just Woodlands Scenics foliage glued firmly down and painted. 

Now, I wanted to give a real sense of scale to these models. Those little trees you can see on the Warlord's base are from a new company called Eve of Battle Scenics, who were very helpful and quick. 

The service roads you can see are literally just 2mm thick MDF strips with the edges beveled off. The chainlink fencing was a tad more tricky, but not difficult: the posts are paperclips cut down and inserted onto the base with holes I drilled out. The fence itself is from modeling mesh that's cheaply available on Ebay cut down to size with scissors. 

A couple of the close combat weapons have jagged wire wrapped around them. Again, just modeling barb wire available from Ebay. 

I hope that they ultimately decide to move this away from HH. They have a great game with excellent models. I think it had way more potential than they might currently think!

Vampire Counts: Blood Feuds

Nagash is gone. Vlad Von Carstein has renounced the undead and joined the Empire. A new world awaits... but what does it mean for the Vampire Counts and their allies?

Read Blood Feuds to find out!

Notes

This ran longer than I expected. I think it's because I wanted to redress a few issues. Mannfred Von Carstein always used to be portrayed as a charismatic, manipulative individual who used guile instead of brute force. So why has the depiction of him in the last couple of editions become that what would happen if Brock Lesnar had a teleporter accident with an angry bat? I decided that it must have been an affectation, a 'war form' if you like. But I think Mannfred works better as the master manipulator. You'll see what this means in the notes. There's a callback to 'The Safe Zone' here. A character we met then reappears. And yes, I cast Jason Isaacs as Mannfred. 

On a similar note, I wanted to examine Balthasar Gelt. One of the stronger aspects of the End Times was Gelt's tortured morality, and his descent into damnation for all the right reasons. As with everything else, GW managed to make a pig's ear of this promising notion, so I thought I'd revisit it. 

I'm a bit tired, but if anything else comes to me I'll let you know!