Paul's Gribbly Beasts of Nurgle - Month Six (354.5 points)

The Watcher saw the corruption everywhere it looked as the war band moved across the land. The very ground heaved with a multitude of tiny multicoloured demons, aping the forms of their larger cousins, capering among a moving carpet of blood filled maggots that seemed to be spontaneously generating in the morass of the warband's passing.

The change had touched every living thing for miles around, as witnessed by the crooked forms of the Goblins that had started tailing the main force, their number slowly growing as the changes they endured made it impossible for them to stay with their old tribes, and impossible to resist the call of Chaos.

The great armoured warriors were the last to come to the Gandfather's banner. That was only right. Only the greatest Warbands could force these aspiring champions to put aside their own ambitions and fight together for the greater glory of Chaos.

The Warband marched onwards, destined to cause carnage and corruption to any in its path! The Watcher watched... and was pleased. This was prophecy fulfilled, but this was not the end... 


Whoop! and, indeed, Booom! Six straight months of OWACateering and no mulligan. I am exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.

Having made strong start to the month getting everything base coated within the first week, progress then slowed to absolute zero until the last few days of the month when heat wave and stomach bug be damned I was going to get this thing put to bed.

To be honest this has meant I had to rush some models I'd been deliberately saving until last so I could enjoy them (note for future challenges - it doesn't always work that way and probably best to space them out) but where as the repetition of the colour schemes had been beginning to wear me down at the beginning of the month and contributed to no progress being made, once the pressure was on having the colour schemes predetermined was a big help in getting stuff done.

As I think was mentioned on one of the fb groups recently, it doesn't always have to be a work of art, sometimes you just have to have a good recipe, and that has absolutely been my mantra for this army - stick to the recipe. This month that has probably meant not making as much of the four classic Chaos Champions as I should/could have, but hey, they are painted and look very much part of the army... for now at least, even if chomping at the bit to split off into their own warbands given the slightest chance! ;)

To balance out the four Champions, I included some sculpts in this unit that I felt represented Chaos Marauders who had just stepped up a pay grade. However in researching this post I discovered it was even more of a promotion! The bearded Axe Man turns out to be Chaos Thug sculpt 021307 from the 1988 catalogue, and the furry booted harpoon fetishist is sculpt 021310 - thanks CCmWiki! Shout out to fellow challenger Tom Young for a great deal on these Thugs/Marauders turned Warriors :)

A number of these included shield bosses... but no shields. I'm not counting equipment costs for any of my OWAC units, but if I was these guys would be getting Double Handed weapons, so I wouldn't have included shields anyway. That's not to say they won't get them in the future just for completeness, and painting them as part of the armour just doesn't work for me, hence why the shield bosses have been left black.

The beardy axeman on the end (who for some reason I think looks like a Norscan Raider, even if we all know that heavy armour would be totes innapropes for maritime combat) has a doppleganger who is going to be Iannick's thank you mini for running the challenge. As someone who runs painting challenges myself on a much smaller scale I have some sense of how much work this all is so I was very happy to be able to select something that I hope both feels like it belongs to the OWAC but might also come in handy in the odd D&D game now and then. He got painted in a slightly more neutral colour scheme with that double partly life in mind, as well as the beetle-shell blue feeling like it was in keeping with his possible Norscan roots.

The Nurglings were painted in the full cacophony of colours present across the warband, deliberately echoing some of the plague bearers and Beasts of Nurgle in particular. The chaos warriors helped get me over my fear of putting purple and red next to each other in a unit, and the Nurglings helped get me over the fear of putting them on the same base. It is chaos after all, not a colour scheme for a bathroom suite. Although now I'm thinking about brown and avocado 80s Plague Marines as a 'vanity' project...

My plan to paint the little blood filled maggots with Tamiya Clear red over a dark red base, then a flesh coloured dry brush over the top turned out OK. Would have been better if I'd realised I wanted to do that before doing other base colours, but hey... it looks sufficiently gross that both my children actually made a face when I showed it to them. Result :)

These 'Chaos Goblins' really are a hodge podge. Including a 'unit' of five goblins obviously serves no tactical purpose (although I have already acquired more suitable minis to bulk up this unit) and at 12.5 pts for the whole lot it obviously wasn't about bulking out on points (probably the opposite really as I was already over the 1000 pts mark at the planning stage). No, this was always about painting a collection of old minis that I really liked the look of and would almost certainly not get painted otherwise.

Three of the five were damaged in some way, with odd poses or very thin joins making weapon repairs a bit of a challenge, I want to say these are from an early Middle Earth range, but I haven't made any serious investigations as yet (clues welcome in the comments!). I think my favourite is the slightly oriental looking Hobgoblin chap. He got Oni-red skin and off-white hair to play up the slightly eastern mythology feel, which I think has worked.

The next one was bobbling around my collection missing it's head and I have lost count of the number of times I'd picked it up and thought about sticking a white plastic goblin head from the Fantasy Regiments box set to make it into a Chaos Goblin - it was the inspiration for this little unit to be honest. Thanks to research on the beastment last month I now know it is the Broo Attacking body from the Runequest Broo Box Set.

The final sculpt is of course the classic 80s Citadel skull faced Chaos Thug (code 021002 from the 1988 Catalogue), another trade from Tom Young and a mini I have long wanted to have in my collection (Cheers again Tom!). He's had a bit of a demotion down from thug to goblin. Who even knew that was possible!? Perhaps that is why he looks so confused and down on his luck.

So here is June's breakdown:

5 Nurgling Bases (30 pts each) - 150 pts
5 Chaos Goblins  (2.5 pts each) - 12.5 pts
8 Chaos Warriors (24 pts each) - 192 pts
1 Chaos Warrior for Iannick's Thank You present - 0 pts

Total for the month: 354.5
I realised too late that I didn't take a picture of the whole unit of Chaos Warriors in the light box, so here's a pic I took of the whole month's minis with the unit ranked up :)

Right that's me done until the wrap up posts. Massive congratulations to everyone who has made it to the end! :D