Musk's Miniatures

Tubes, Tubes Everywhere

Forgive me Grandfather for I have sinned it has been over twenty days since my last blog post…

Forgive me Grandfather for I have sinned it has been over twenty days since my last blog post. I have been painting. I did not post to the ‘Gram on #MiniatureMonday nor on #ThrowbackThursday but I did go through my bitz box and find a twenty plus year old piece of metal to glue on to my latest Chaos Space Marine Lord.

The title of this blog post refers to the fact that this model has so many tubes, they are more like intestines. Plague Marines have them too and for my latest batch I’ve been painting them Grey Seer. The plan is to use Contrast Paints particularly Magos Purple and Flesh Tearers Red. I’ll probably thin the former but the latter I usually use dark and thick. I can always highlight or shade further.

Pictures or it doesn’t count

Relax, chill, pour yourself a beer. I’ve indeed been taking pictures, but apparently not great pictures. I’ve shared some on Discord and Bolter & Chainsword where their software doesn’t like my pictures after I’ve cropped and resized them in GraphicsConverter. I have also vowed to paint a Chaos Space Marine Lord, not the new sexy model, I couldn’t buy that in a blister due to GW’s sales techniques. However I found a new to me model, but it wasn’t very conducive to conversions. While staring at it next two Plague Marines it looked puny so I gave him a large metal back banner.

This necessitated using two-part epoxy. Actually it didn’t because it absolutely did not set in five minutes or even days. Eventually I crimped the banner to the post, that may be “as designed” but I’ve never done it before. But despite drilling a hole in an already assembled and primed model, eventually I had to take the banner off the model and put in super glue from Bob Smith Industries. I don’t have the patience for epoxy, especially when it doesn’t set.

I have a plan

So as mentioned, I pledged to paint a single model, this sounds easy for those who just slap paint on and have 20/20 vision, but those of use whose eyesight gets worse every year and are trying to come close to the painting standard we achieved twenty years ago, we have to plan ahead. My plan is to lift less weight, yes I skipped a workout and spent the time holding pieces of metal hoping epoxy would set. But on Sunday I painted quite a lot. I’m trying to get the Chaos Space Marine Lord to be where the Plague Marines are.

Basically I want to paint the metallic bits and the aforementioned tubes and intestines together. The Plague Marines will have purple tubing, whereas the the Chaos Space Marine Lord being a member of the Nefarious Fire renegades chaos space marines will have green tubing, but brass is brass, copper is copper, rust is rust.

I may have Chosen the Wrong beer

No I don’t have my caps lock on, I’m not that drunk. I haven’t even finished my first beer, but it is particularly strong and I thought it would inspire me to update my blog, but all I want to do is go to bed. I’ve been tired for quite a while. Tomorrow the Edmonton Oilers play their final game of the season, obviously I don’t have to drink, but the Oilers seem to play better when I do.

Black, Blacker than Black

So my beer is black and besides Grey Seer I’ve been painting black. I tried the new Vallejo Model Color Black 70.950 and it dries flat not glossy like Chaos Black. I accidentally grabbed my tube of Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, Two Thin Coats, Doom Death Black (and yes I grabbed both tubes to get their names correct). I don’t care for either of those, though I can see where you might want a flat black rather than a glossy black, but I usually want to match GW’s spray primer. So the black I may order off the Internet again and the basis of my black highlighting strategy for years now is Foundry Paint System Charcoal Black, triad number 34.

I’m in the middle of highlighting the power armour of the Chaos Space Marine Lord and just like the Chaos Cultists before him and every Nefarious Fire Chaos Space Marine before that I have used this triad as the basis of their black armour over a Chaos Black spray primer. I can highlight the edges more with other greys but I can’t recall which wash I’ve used and I think that has changed over time. I’ll need to re-read my own blog to remember.

H6! Have I ever used H6 before?

This blog post may have gone off the rails, but honestly I’ve only had one beer, I’m just tired and I’ve blogged about all this before. Besides the question is valid, in twenty plus year of blogging have I ever used heading level six before?

One of the reasons this blog was started, maybe the primary reason was so I could join the From the Warp blog network. That blog network is long gone but others remain and maybe after twenty plus years of hobby blogging it is time I join another network. I haven’t given it a lot of thought I was thinking of Tales of Painters. I think I’ve had more interaction with the Chest of Colors crew but apparently I’m not hated in Poland or Germany.

Wow three links in one paragraph, but basically I’ve been doing this a long time and people still steal my ideas even my content, yet I’m not as well known as Taylor Swift, color me shocked. I’m not trying to beat the Swifties, far from it. I wish them luck. I just want to paint faster, have better eyesight and less back pain. Alas I think the latter two will always exceed my grasp so I do the best I can with my limited free time.

Perhaps I should not drink and blog but my few fans are amused by my antics and I’m smart enough to proofread and hold off publishing, besides it is no crime to paint miniatures then after a hard Sunday painting miniatures or at least a modestly difficult Sunday to have a beer and write a blog post. No kittens were hurt writing this blog post.

No kittens were harmed during this blog post

If I haven’t said it recently, fuck that guy and his content scraping. I’m sure he’ll say something like I made my RSS feed completely available. Yes, so people could subscribe to it and use their blog reader not for you to republish my posts and slap your ads all over my content.

This blog post has definitely gone off the rails. I tried to improve it the next morning, but in short I plan to highlight the black more. Eventually I’ll paint tubes/intestines and metallics. After that I’ll need some diseased skin, both blue, green and probably purple. So if you want to see me dig deep into my paint collection and bag of tricks stay tuned. It is hard making progress after all these years.

The Long War Continues

And not just against the puppets still in thrall to the Corpse-Emperor but against my current webhost Liquid Web who I swear make my old website run slower and slower to try and get me to upgrade…

And not just against the puppets still in thrall to the Corpse-Emperor but against my current webhost Liquid Web who I swear make my old website run slower and slower to try and get me to upgrade. I literally had my wallet out and was going to upgrade but their idiot of an online sales person tried to keep upselling me to a fully managed account that would be four times what I thought I would be paying and even more than 400% more than I currently pay.

So I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but putting more effort into Muschamp.ca and especially Muskblog is getting really frustrating. I worked on it every weekend since I came back from Scotland and it just became more and more unenjoyable. I could take the entire website down. I could just leave it running and pay $14.95 USD every month like I’ve been doing. Liquid Web can’t even seem to process my credit card so I have to use PayPal. They have been nothing but a headache since they bought my previous webhost, which bought my previous previous webhost. I’m going to have to think on it, I was very close to having updated every old post I wanted to update.

But this is a painting blog

Yes and it is on WordPress.com and it is free. I spun it off so I could have a dedicated miniature painting blog and be featured on other hobby websites. But my old content and my non-miniature painting content is still online and was moved to Liquid Web which has given me so much grief I’m thinking of wasting even more of my time to move to another webhost. But first I’m publicly badmouthing them as that is how the Internet and the blogosphere works. There is absolutely no reason to try to repeatedly upsell me other than training and commissions. I did not need or want a bigger more expensive webhosting package.

And yes I was painting both new Plague Marines as well as touching up vintage 90s paint jobs before I decided I better finally upgrade my web hosting so my life is easier, but some idiot who works for Liquid Web managed to not just take more of my money and instead drove me to basically hang up on him, fill out the dissatisfaction survey and now I’m badmouthing the customer experience on my miniature painting blog because I’m legitimately upset but I still wanted to share pictures of my latest work.

New Plague Marines

Because of Bill I’ve been spending too much time on the bases on my two newest Plague Marine recruits. He wanted glowing green skulls again. I’m going to scrutinize his models next time I see them for glow green skulls on the bases.

Anyway I think I’m done with the bases. I once again think I could do better. If you want to do glowing green skulls, definitely consider getting resin or plastic cast bases. But if you really want a fancy painted base you need to paint the bases separately from the models. Or at least get both parts fairly far along before pinning them together.

This time I used both white ink, two layers. Then I used two layers of an old florescent green ink I bought in the 90s from Mona Lisa. It is the Daler Rowney brand and I swear I’ve had some of these inks since the 90s and never use them because my painting style is so subtle and nuanced. But if you want glowing green bases there are a variety of products available. Painting white or even off-white first, on things you want to glow or be really bright, is probably best.

Updating old Plague Marines and Chaos Space Marines

So I did get the new Chaos Space Marine Codex on Saturday. I made it to the 14th page before I fell asleep, but then later that evening I read the datasheets in my app. Some I’ll likely never use but I have a lot of vintage painted models. I think I have too many especially as I could have dozens if not over one hundred more unpainted and unassembled. They may even be “new in box”. So while staring at my painted miniature case I realized Jaundice Squad who I wanted to get back on the table doesn’t work as a Havoc Squad or a Chosen Squad in the new rules.

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I swear the last time I fielded them it was as Chosen Chaos Space Marines but the models I selected to be transferred to another squad had no campaign badges since 2002! That was when they did serve as Plague Marine Havocs, back when that was a thing. They actually started during the Black Codex days and that is the direction I’m taking them. When the 2nd Edition Chaos Space Marine Codex came out I made them what I dubbed “the list squad” after the Warhammer 40,000 mailing list.

Basically in the second edition Chaos Space Marine Codex, you could have squads of three Chaos Space Marines and every single Chaos Space Marine, all three of them, could have a plasma gun. Then you could spend one more point to give one a sword. So I painted up the models to make that squad. It had a lot of firepower for very few points but now there is no way to have three plasma guns in a Chaos Space Marine squad. You can have three plasma guns in a Plague Marine squad and I’ve done it, Jaundice Squad may have done it first. You can even give the champ a bubonic weapon so I thought about making Jaundice Squad be armed that way, but they have so many models that can only be champions under the current rules.

They also have a missile launcher. The model and conversion looks old but I think the paint job is newer. It is circa 2008. I have found WIP pictures of him which I posted above, the pictures were probably posted to Bolter and Chainsword back in the day. During my lengthy updates of old content I realized I should take new photos of old models as many many models have been painted by me and have never been photographed, let alone had those photos uploaded to Flickr. And I don’t know how many, but many of my models have never even been used in a game. This is why I hope Bill organizes another crusade as that will encourage me to paint new models and update old models.

Fresh Paint Old Models

So these members of Jaundice Squad I think were painted when I lived with Owen back in the 90s, they could be even older. I had previously deemed them painted well enough that I did not strip them or even try to update the existing paint jobs. However if they wanted to get on the field and it might be my only copy of that metal 2nd Edition Plague Marine with Plasma Gun, they needed to leave Jaundice Squad and go into the bigger pile of “green marines”.

As the maximum squad size for power armoured models is now ten, when previously you could have fourteen or even twenty in a squad, I have too many painted power armoured models. I definitely have over sixty which is the maximum you can allocate to Battle Line in the 10th Edition of Warhammer 40,000. I can do either six Plague Marine squads and be Death Guard or I can do six squads of Legionaries and not be Death Guard. I could still run three squads of Plague Marines, plus three squads of Havocs, plus three squads of Chosen, so the Chaos Space Marine Codex is definitely a better fit for my army. I could field at least 150 power armoured models this way and less models would collection dust. My army was started prior to the first Chaos Space Marine Codex, so most of my models have plenty of dust.

So for Jaundice Squad, in 10th Edition, using the latest Chaos Space Marine codex I will take them back to the days of five man squads. They will have a single heavy weapon, but they will still have one of each special weapon and three different champions have been painted for them over the years, though one of the models, a Plague Marine with a chain sword, was not a champion when I painted him. However, now only champions can have a chainsword and a bolter it seems. This is another copy of the model I did my Plague Marine painting tutorial on, back in the days of Gorkamorka dry brushed metallics.

I think I’ll do two new models for this squad, but I’m thinking of using old models as after spending $275 dollars at the Sentry Box on Saturday, painting models I already own rather than buying new models is starting to look really good. I want these new two models to just have bolters. I was going to give every squad a Balefire tome as I think the rule is cool, but I want this squad to sit at the back and babysit an objective. This isn’t a role I can trust to cultists or chaos spawn. I want Jaundice to have an important battlefield role so they get included in army lists and to do that they need guns that can shoot over 12 inches thus why they have a missile launcher.

Final Thoughts

So the random sales guy at Liquid Web basically ruined my Sunday and makes me regret all the time I’ve invested in updating old blog posts over the last two months. I believe his name was Brad. I hope filling out the survey and tell him and his colleagues my low opinion of him has some consequences, but me taking my 15 dollars a month of business elsewhere isn’t going to cause a corporation to lose sleep, but I’ve been doing this for twenty plus years so I know how little support I need and how little bandwidth. I plan to blog more about this on my other blog but wasn’t sure I had two blog posts in me tonight. I’d rather be painting.

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The two old Chaos Space Marines are basically updated and looking better than ever. They got fresh highlights in the tiny line style. They got a glow up on their Plasma Guns, the taboo of having plasma guns in the green plague marine squads will be broken, I just don’t know when and which squad. I’ll eventually make a green squad IV and a purple squad III but I’m not sure when. If we do another Warhammer 40,000 Crusade we’ll start with 1000 points. I haven’t made my official list. On Saturday, I bought a new, to me, Chaos Lord. I also have a new, to me, daemon prince. I want to do a new sorcerer and maybe one of every character model as I think it is cool to have a character leading a squad.

I have big plans for Chosen, Raptors, and Biker squads but I don’t think I need three squads of each. I’ll probably do two, one Nurgle, one not Nurgle. I may end up running two Havoc Squads. Diarrhoea Squad has four heavy bolters and even a lascannon. They served as Havocs at one of the Astronomi-cons. I’ll probably do a squad of three heavy bolters and the single lascanon and make it all metal models. The rest of that squad can either become Legionaries or just sit in the case for another couple editions. My other Havoc squad may become three auto cannons and a lascanon as I have them painted. Havoc Chaos Space Marines even the champion have to be on 40mm bases so making and sticking with this decision is significant.

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The rest of my painted heavy weapon models will go into Legionaries squads such as Jaundice Squad. The squad will just have whatever I have painted for previous editions. I have a bunch of unpainted models including chaos renegades with heavy weapons but I bought a box of the new Havocs as much for the champ as anything, but I’ll try to make better army lists in 10th Edition.

This is another long rambling blog post that was the result of one particular individual who deserves his Internet infamy. I’m sure he was sitting at his laptop, following his script, trying to upsell, upsell, upsell. But now he’s getting badmouthed, badmouthed, badmouthed. If you have thoughts on the new Chaos Space Marine Codex, my vintage army and how it should be used, or even bad online customer service and sales experiences you can leave a comment below.

Blog on McDuff

I apologize. I’ve been back from Scotland for over a month now and I haven’t updated this blog…

I apologize. I’ve been back from Scotland for over a month now and I haven’t updated this blog. Of course I’ve been blogging up a storm elsewhere but no miniatures were painted and no games were played until yesterday.

Bill and I played our umpteenth game of Warhammer 40,000 and my fifth game of tenth edition and I was soundly trounced. Bill employed a new tactic, he took a phone call prior to the start of the match and while waiting all ability to think and roll dice left my body. In hindsight I still need to choose better army lists, employ better strategies, make better tactical decisions and learn the rules.

The Future

It is an exciting time in the blogosphere. I’m highly doubtful all my effort will have a positive ROI but the fellows over at Goonhammer have done a stellar job reviewing the Chaos Codex. In the olden days there was nothing, then there was the Gates of Fenris, then there was probably leaks on Warseer, now it seems some hobby websites get preview copies to review.

Did I mention I’ve been maintaining a hobby website for over twenty years and have done book reviews before?

Yet Another Chaos Codex

I ordered the next Chaos Codex from the Sentry Box last night. I never did play with the last one, but at least I read part of it. That is more than I can say for my 9th Edition Chaos Knights Codex. I also have boxes of sealed cards and I’m not even a Magic the Gathering player. I once gifted a twenty year old box of blisters to a friend and then he gave it to another person because that is how much we love Magic the Gathering in my old gaming group.

As discussed before I will be switching allegiances from the Death Guard to what I dubbed the Irony Warriors of Nurgle. The Diseased Sons started at the dawn of second edition so before the first Chaos Codex or the first plastic Plague Marine. We were Nurgle Renegades we were in squads of five with a single heavy or special weapon. Of course a lot has changed since then but I ran an all Nurgle army with no Plague Marines at West Coast Mayhem and people’s minds were blown. I’m not sure I’ll completely forsake the Plague Marine, in fact I will stick with Nurgle and Chaos just not the Death Guard.

Will we Crusade?

Of course, Bill didn’t seem to be reading the Goonhammer as close as me and I don’t know if the same cast of characters will be back. Maceo, Bagonhead, their names will live in infamy. I’ll definitely select a new model to be my Warlord and likely new squads will come to the fore, starting with Diarrhoea and Jaundice which were the third and fourth Diseased Sons squads ever created.

What are you painting?

Nothing, I did put some Blood for the Blood God on my two most recent Blightlords which will now go back to being Chaos Terminators (of Nurgle). I’m excited to have chainfists back but I’ll miss the Plague Spewer however I can still field them in my Plague Marine squads. I probably will paint two more plague marines next, both with blight launchers.

At some point I bought a whole bunch of blight launcher bits off the Internet. I think I wanted if not one per squad then two! Tenth edition is all about free guns so I’ll likely be buying, painting and gluing on havoc launchers everywhere I can. I already ripped one off Blastmarker Billy.

My exhaustive study of the optimal dreadnaught armament, (Bill says I have to call them Hellbrutes), will continue. I actually have an unpainted Chaos Forgeworld Dreadnaught. Every time, I paint something OOP and Forgeworld random people emerge from the Internet asking if I’ll sell or give that model to them. The answer is still “no”.

So yeah I’ll do one or two dreadnoughts for 10th edition. They are Iron Warrior-y. I am definitely pro-H2H weapon on my dreadnoughts, in fact in the Chaos Codex there are various new daemon engines, I’ve always wanted to do one of them. I’ll probably do another Obliterator as I think I need two to have a unit now in 10th Edition but before all that will be that predator tank I bought.

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What about Nurgle?

Besides a couple plague marines and perhaps a sorcerer in terminator armour, which I may have to convert, a lot of my more recent Death Guard purchases may sit in a blister. I may do a Daemon Prince but I might buy that new plastic one and he may be Chaos Undivided. I have so many Nurgle daemons I don’t know if I’ll ever play a game large enough to field them all, but I may try them all on the table in tenth edition eventually. I noticed Goonhammer proposing units of a single Beast of Nurgle.

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They were wargear cards in 2nd Edition, that is when I originally purchased one as a mobile bullet magnet. They seem better than Chaos Spawn especially given the reviews of the Chaos Codex I’ve been reading.

What about Non-Nurgle?

Of course eventually, but given how slow I paint, I will focus on the Diseased Sons, the Irony Warriors of Nurgle, Chaos Renegades fighting the long war since the Dark Age of Technology or at least the nineties. However the Nefarious Fire also exist. They fit best as the Word Bearer-y detachment, aka the one that was released first, aka all the Marks of Chaos.

My new dreadnoughts, err Hellbrutes may be Neafarious Fire, the Predator I have a clever plan for and anything non-Deathguard and non-CSM size may be black with purple flames to not be tied to specific fluff and god. I need to paint three more Bezerkers and maybe a squad of Khorne Terminators. I wish I bought the Forgeworld ones in hindsight.

Raptors, Bikers, Chosen will all have two squads, one Nurgle, one non-Nurgle. Some of this will require a lot of converting and painting. Others ambitions will just require me to rebase existing painted models, maybe redo a squad marking or two. I can field one hundred plus power armoured dudes. Whether they are Plague Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Chosen or Havocs doesn’t really matter. They are painted, converted, and some of them definitely still look cool.

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Badges we don’t need no stinkin’ badges

Actually we do. If there is a tenth edition campaign or if I ever enter another convention/tournament there will be badges. The humble melta gunner will be drafted early as every army list needs a melta gunner. There must still be some armour left on him without a badge on it.

Pictures or it didn’t happen

Bill and I indeed played a game of Warhammer 40,000 last night at the Sentry Box in Calgary. People came by and Kris noticed I had new terminators. Someone wasn’t there to comment that my new models were still almost twenty years old, definitely over ten years old, however it was literally their first game since getting painted.

It was at this point I realized I may have err’d in setting up the Nurglings in the centre. I should have learned against the World Eaters, if an army wants to advance quickly and get into melee, giving them an infiltrating unit to charge is a mistake. I won’t make that mistake a third time. My Irony Warriors, especially at 1000 points may not have the wall of Nurglings. They raised the points costs of Nurglings, but the little deep striking squad may be a must bring, however a single Beast of Nurgle apparently is another viable option as they actually have OC.

I may bring a lot of Nurgle lesser daemons in the Irony Warriors that would be close to my 2nd Edition Diseased Sons army, but I don’t think I had Nurglings until 3rd Edition. I painted the first six stands while living with Owen in the late 1990s. I rebased so many models, however I have thirty more Plaguebarers to rebase, that is a very low priority.

GraphicsConverter 12 seems to do weird things to my photos when I edit them, resize them, and convert them to jpegs. Alas I just don’t have time and energy to investigate why as it doesn’t seem to happen every single time. I actually think it could be Safari on my Mac. If you have photo editing expertise especially with GraphicsConverter 12, leave a comment below.

Nurgle Forge World Terminators

Currently the second rust effect and the second verdigris effect paint is drying on my Nurgle Forge World Terminators…

I don’t have a lot of the time for the hobby, but I do try to paint every Sunday and I sometimes get a little painting in after work, but generally I’m tired and busy. Currently the second rust effect and the second verdigris effect paint is drying on my Nurgle Forge World Terminators, but I’ve been taking work-in-progress photos during the day so I can share those.

These models are now out-of-print and people are expecting me to just cough up my other two alas I didn’t get your DM bro. But it is not my responsibility to buy models with my limited income over the last twenty years then carefully keep the models in mint unassembled condition so you can then have them whenever you post to social media. My advice to you is build a time machine, or pay the Internet price.

Pay the Iron Price

How I painted these models

This is at least the second post about these models and there was a third model I primed years ago, that was actually finished first. That was the first green Diseased Son Nurgle Chaos Space Marine Renegade model I’ve painted in years. I guess I can dig out a picture of the finished model once again. I need to take more pictures of my old models and post them to Flickr, it is a much better repository than Instagram.

These models of course belong to the Right Hard Posse which is currently being run as Blightlord Terminators but will probably become Nurgle Chaos Renegade Terminators when the next Chaos Codex comes out. I have the original lead Rogue Trader era models then I probably have most of the 2nd edition metal models. Then of course I have the first plastic CSM Terminator models which I’ve augmented with the Forge World bits as shown above. I even did champions and terminator lords over the years.

All the Nurgle Terminators I rebased — The Right Hard Posse

I actually stripped and repainted some of my old OOP Chaos Terminator models, the lord may have been painted three times in total. But this is not supposed to be a greatest hits post. The new models I’m actually trying to paint less well. I used random greens, browns, purples, reds, and metallic paints. One good thing about Nurgle is no one expects your army to match perfectly and mine is so old, people often don’t know what army I’m even playing or codex I’m using.

Da Kan Opena — Another converted terminator model with Forge World bits

I actually got to bust out some of my evil dark reds for these models, I painted some blood drops and the tank on the combi-flamer first terracotta then various red, including some Reaper Master Series paints I bought at Imperial Hobbies. I’ll probably hit the blood with Blood for the Blood God technical paint after I varnish the models. I actually varnish my models because they are gaming pieces. I’ve learned that this reactivates both pigments and the Dirty Down Rust product, but what can you do, I want the Dirty Down to interact with the other rust paints and washes I’ve used so can not apply it after varnishing, but I can apply the glossy Blood for the Blood God.

I just got out the poisonous “wine spirts” as the British call them and uses some of my formerly internet famous AwesomePaintJob.com rust pigments. I may even use some other Internet famous pigments to produce a more yellow rust. Dirty Down has released a yellower rust product and yellow isn’t a color I use often. I learned about these pigments from Hirst Arts, they are Doc O’Briens and mine have sat unused for years because I think for rust AwesomePaintJob’s selection is enough, but now that I’ve gone rust effect crazy, perhaps it is time for some yellow pigment to be added to my models.

The Bubonic Blades which are a little out of focus, Bill is slipping he hasn’t complained or commented on any of my social media posts for a bit. The Bubonic Blades were painted with some cherrypicked Monument Hobbies ProAcryl miniature paints. This is a bit different than what I usually do. I own a lot of green paint, I’d say 20% of my paint is greenish. I even have green metallic paint which GW used to sell and I used it along with their purple metallic on these models.

I actually used a lot of different metallics on these models. I used the Dark Bronze from ProAcryl but I used new Citadel paints and old Citadel paints too. I also used Vallejo, Army Painter, Nostalgia ’88, Warcolors, and Wargames Foundry triad system paints. I waste a lot of paint using the droppers some people love, but they may use wet palettes. I may have to bust mine out after all these year, but I am one of the few people online who tries to paint worse than they used to paint. I even take off my glasses because my prescription is for distance and they make miniature painting worse. I never got out the magnifying headset for these models and honestly I think they look fine, even if my photos are blurry.

Maybe if I post another poorly focussed picture Bill will be summoned. I shared them on his Discord server and he said nothing, even DiceHateKris was silent. It is like my slaving away at the painting desk using long out of print paints on long out of print models doesn’t even matter to them anymore.

Luckily for me I have one fan on the Bolter and Chainsword who lives in Edmonton and threatens to come to Calgary and force me to actually play a game of Warhammer 40,000 with my every growing collection of painted Chaos Space Marine models. My posts also usually get liked by fellow bloggers but do very poorly on Mark Zuckerberg’s walled garden of a social network. I refuse to optimize my social media usage to maximize vanity metrics. I continue to hope that eventually my twenty plus years of hard work will again be noticed by the corporate overlords.

Paint then drink and blog

If you guessed I randomly opened a very strong beer you’d be correct. It is called Deth’s Tar and it has sat in a box in my apartment for months until this evening when I just gave’r. That is a genuine Canadian expression we even conjugate it. I taught Canadian slang to my fellow English teachers when I was in China, they were quite impressed with all the words we have associated with drinking.

I myself am going on vacation next Friday. I am going to Scotland and I will give’r. I have booked myself into a very long, very detailed whisky tour. Then I am pressing on to the far North of Scotland where my family originally came from. I am not a big whisky drinker. I actually prefer Irish whisky or bourbon over Scotch, but I want to make my coworkers jealous. I have some fans in Scotland and if I was smarter maybe I would have gone to Warhammer World in Nottingham, but I’ll just have to visit the UK again and tour whisky distilleries on Islay.

The North Remembers

A long time ago, or not that long ago depending on your thinking, Sarah McLachlan’s band had Corb Lund on bass and Luke Doucet on lead guitar. Now I’ve never seen Sarah McLachlan play but I’ve seen Luke Doucet many times. However, the reason I mention this is actually because of Corb Lund who is an Albertan whom my sister loves. I could not link to the official video, because Corb wouldn’t let me embed it on my blog, Corb why you do me this way?

My sister actually just finished her annual poker tournament, I’ll be in Scotland during some charity poker tournament I was asked to play in. I don’t even like Rye whiskey or poker particularly, but I like songs about poker and whisky. Corb seems open to drinking Irish whiskey. My sister is overdue for her annual visit to Alberta, alas she seems more interested in dinosaur bones and high tea than drinking whisky in honkytonks.

Last time she visited we did go to the Calgary Stampede and saw the rodeo, so maybe she’s gotten it out of her blood.

This is the end.

This blog has really gone off the rails. I’ll post one more picture because I’m going to have let that toxic mixture of poison and pigment dry overnight and then hit post, because these models are not getting finished this evening and GW is probably not going to feature this blog post on their podcast.

If you have questions about whisky, beer, or painting Nurgle you can leave a comment below. I gotta go.

Not dead, still painting Nurgle

January is the busiest month of the year at work. We are still trying to fix everything and complete all our obligations but I try to make a little time on Sundays to paint…

January is the busiest month of the year at work. We are still trying to fix everything and complete all our obligations but I try to make a little time on Sundays to paint and yes I have been taking pictures of the two models I am currently working on. They are two old Forge World Nurgle terminators which I of course will run as Blightlords at least initially.

You might remember the Fabulous Mister Toad, he has gotten two coast of gloss varnish plus a little Blood for the Blood God. He still hasn’t gotten on the table but he was in the last army list I wrote out which I will have to redo after the January Balance Slate. Perhaps next weekend Bill and I can resume our rivalry.

Forge World Nurgle Terminators

These models have been converted and primed for many years, going back to my time in East Vancouver before yet another stint of unemployment and of course working in China for four years. I don’t really need more Nurgle Terminators at least not those with what GW is calling combi-weapons. These models have a combi-flamer and a combi-melta and I wish both were still options. The other conversion was to use two bits one of which is definitely Black Templar one to make an Icon.

Somewhat Random Green Paints

When I painted the last one I used green paints I owned at the time. This would have been around Week 7 of our narrative campaign during 9th Edition. Since then I’ve bought more paint but I’ve also thrown more paint away. The original Diseased Sons painting scheme involved drybrushing and used what I now suspect was a slightly off pot of Ghoul Grey. It also of course used Ork Flesh and Waaagh Green Ink. More recently but still in the previous millennium it may have used Dark Angels Green and I definitely regularly use the red lid pot of green glaze.

I did buy a paint mixer, but some pots just have separated too much or never were mixed well. The new miniatures paints are supposedly so much better than those from twenty or more years ago. I also switched from Smelly Primer to Chaos Black primer so I don’t need to start with such a dark green in my experience. I always use at least one wash so generally I go darker then brighter then darker then lighter until I finally say “enough” which you’d know if you followed my painting vow last year.

My midtone green has changed the most as I keep trying out different paints. The final highlight remains a hexagon era pot of Striking Scorpion Green. Sometimes I use multiple midtones, but my dream is to have a triad plus a wash and maybe a glaze. More than five coats of paint I of course do, but I really got to break that habit on rank and file models. My pot of Bilious Green died so if I want to go really bright green, I may now use a non-Citadel colour. However I remain somewhat subconscious of going too bright as my style has been called cartoony.

On this batch I also tried two new metallic paints, likely some recommend by Vinny V, a Vallejo Airbrush Colors one and a Signature Pro Acryl Dark Bronze I had high hopes for. That paint really needed a lot of mixing, it was the least well mixed Pro Acryl pot I’ve tried. I find you still want a highlight on your metallics and a wash so I’ll hopefully get back to painting soon, but you can see where I left the models this afternoon below.

I also did the traditional random brown drybrush of my beach sand. I went with a very new Citadel base color, then a poorly mixed pot of Vallejo Model Color followed by two Foundry Triad colors so my dirt is partly British Uniform Brown for those who remember my brief foray into historically accurate miniature painting.

New Chaos Space Marine Codex

I’m not sure when it will come out, in the past I read all the rumours and of course I bought the last CSM Codex but I never used it. In 10th Edition the Chaos Space Marine Codex comes out way before the Death Guard Codex. I was never really a Death Guard player, that codex came out while I was out of the hobby. I started the Diseased Sons at the dawn of second edition so they were definitely a homebrew Chapter of Nurgle Renegades.

Over the years I expanded into non-Nurgle models even models worshipping the other Chaos Powers. So in order to use more of my painted miniature collection I’ll probably benefit from switching to using the Chaos Space Marine Codex as my main book. I think that was the ultimate plan for 9th edition. I can still run some Death Guard, some Daemons and even a Chaos Knight. I can still hopefully do a pure Nurgle army, but I could also field some models that haven’t seen a gaming table in a decade or more, if ever.

I want to wrap this post up, but if you have thoughts on painting green, brown, or metallics or the proper way to play Death Guard or Chaos Space Marines or even if you just have some random speculation about the codex you can leave a comment below. I’m tempted to make my army a lot different, lots of bikers or raptors or havocs or even all three? I have plenty of bog standard bolter guys.