Monthly Archives: January 2018

I finally ended my struggle with the Mary Poppins Nurgling and managed to finish the four Nurglings for my starting warband.

My biggest problem with Ploppins was the umbrella, especially at this size. After a lot of test with paper, cardboard and green stuff I finally settled on the folded paper method which worked out fine in the end. With a fitting hat, bow tie and a shrunken head handbag Nurgle’s own version of Mary Poppins came to life. 🙂

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

For the remaining three Nurglings I chose a clown theme, which is what Nurglings do best in my opinion – I imagine that anything which includes Nurglings ends up being a huge clown fiesta. 😀

At first a handstand and balancing objects seemed a little to athletic for a Nurglings, but I suppose the belly acts as a fitting counterweight. Topped off with a clown nose the easy conversions began.

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

Next up I dug up this little Nurgling and again the base models are just about to fit without any conversion at all. This one got a clown nose as well and is ready to work in the chamber of horrors or some character dance.

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

Nurgling clown #3 gives balloons to all children visiting the carnival. They even float and make a funny buzzing noise. Needless to say that popping one and looking for the buzz’ source is a really bad idea though… 😉

Carnival Nurgling

Carnival Nurgling

Even though the Carnival of Chaos’ daemonic henchmen are extremely good early on in a campaign, I usually want to get my warbands up to six heroes as fast as possible, which made the inclusion of some experience gaining Brethren in the starting warband mandatory. More Brethren (especially with bows) will sure follow as the Nurglings’ value will decrease over time, but for now two of them seemed sufficient.

Despite that a juggler was my first idea for the Brethren, the first Poxwalker I clipped out of the sprue was just destined for card player conversion with his two fitting arms. So I made some playing cards out of cardboard and gave him a hand of cards just like the original Carnival Master had. With a twist at the elbow his upper left arm just looked like he’s about to pick a card with his crooked fingers.

Carnival Brother

Carnival Brother

Carnival Brother

Carnival Brother

The other henchman is kind of unspectacular compared to his card playing brother, but it was an easy and yet fitting conversion of the Poxwalker as I just exchanged the broken gun for a nice mallet so he can fixate all those tent pegs for the carnival. Also it’s one of the few Poxwalkers with real trousers. 😀

Carnival Brother

After hitting a wall with my Mary Poppins Nurgling (making a tiny umbrella proved to be really annoying), I decided to work again on the warband’s two Brutes.

As mentioned before, I switched the Verses Brute’s weapon head for something hammer-like (thanks to IKEA’s free pencils) and modelled a fool’s cap for him. Now he fits way better into the whole carnival theme and I got a bit more cloth to paint in the Darkmoon Faire colours. 🙂

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

For the second Brute I wanted a more robust looking fellow and found a spare Ork Runtherd in my stash. A quick leg swap (with another spare Savage Orc) provided a nice base and the Runtherd’s weapon was easily converted into another double-handed hammer from IKEA. His left forearm came from the Blightkings kit and gave me both some swollen flesh as well as uneven hands for a more freakish look.

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

The head was a problem at first and again I had a Plaguebearer head in mind, but I decided against it even though the orcish body would have compensated for the daemonic head. My second try was the same head as the other Brute as some shared feature.

This idea kind of stuck and finally I used another Blightking mask and gave him another sculpted cap. While the other Brute’s cap works just fine, this one probably needs some bells or balls at the end of the “spikes”. Instead of another star-shaped collar this Brute got one similar to the one Luther the Hunchback wears.

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

After finishing my two Plaguebearers (of which only one made it to my starting warband list^^) I started with the first of my carnival heroes. For income maximisation I will use all available heroes from the start which means using a Carnival Master, two Brutes and two Tainted. To stay with the “inspired by” theme of the daemons my first Tainted is based on the midget running gag from “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”.

Originally I obtained the Ironguts Gnoblar as a mutant for Inq28, but never came around to use it. So I cut the backpack hook and replaced the club with a bell from the Plague Drones command. The head also came from my renegades’ stash of Dark Vengeance cultists and got a nice new clown hat. The buttons got a bit large and wobbly, so I probably will get rid of them and use the heads of pin needles instead. 🙂

Carnival Tainted One

Carnival Tainted One

For the first Brute I got inspired by Verses the Persian from “The Twelve Tasks of Asterix” with his frail stature and the massive right arm. 😀

The base miniature didn’t need a lot of work aas the Poxwalkers are such amazing sculpts already. Its right arm had to go anyway and so the Poxwalker with bionic arm was nice fit in the first place. A spare Black Orcs arm was just big enough for the visual imbalance I aimed for and a 2mm brass rod seemed a fitting hilt for his double-handed weapon. The weapon’s head sponsored by another Plague Drone still doesn’t fully convince me and maybe a simple hammer might be better. :think:

Finally some more sculpting work to get the circus theme and a Blightking helmet completed the Brute. Before settling on the helmet it had a fly-like Plaguebearer head which looked really cool, but just didn’t fit a human model as it just made the Brute look like another daemon.

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

Carnival Brute

This means 2/5 heroes and 2/8 henchmen are done now and will do my four Nurglings next to bump that counter up fast. 😀

To match my warband’s first Plaguebearer I needed new inspiration to create something equally bizarre as the Gene Kelly daemon. While browsing through an image search for old carnival and circus performances I stumbled over a pictured unicyclist and remembered a YouTube video I saw like ages ago – the Portland Unipiper. 😀

For those who didn’t have the pleasure to know the Unipiper, I put an educational video below:

Now off to the conversion itself. Like my first Plaguebearer this one is based on a Plague Drone rider with some additional parts from the regular Plaguebearers kit.

The bagpipe started as a simple triple flute, which I cut in half and stuck all parts into a green stuff bag. To compensate for the missing mouthpiece I just used a head with trunk and modelled it into the bag.

The unicycle was more of a rushed job as I didn’t find any fitting wheels in my bitzbox and therefore just made one out of several layers of cardboard. I still need to add some structure to the wheel as well as pedals.

A floating High Elf cape made the model a lot more dynamic and allows me to add some carnival cloth colours to the otherwise naked model. 🙂

Carnival Plaguebearer

Carnival Plaguebearer

Carnival Plaguebearer

Carnival Plaguebearer

My first Tainted is nearly done as well and I’ve got a lot of ideas left for my remaining warband members. 😀

• A Mary Poppins Nurgling with umbrella and hat
• A clown Nurgling balancing on a ball
• A Nurgling with vest and fez for the Carnival Master
• Someone who juggles with three Nurglings
• The Carnival Master with a street organ
• …

While I tried to get my huge pile of bitz sorted, I discovered that my Nurgle Renegades provided enough leftovers to create a whole new warband for Mordheim. The Carnival of Chaos is one of those warbands I didn’t play with or even against in my whole Mordheim “career”, but as a regular Possessed player it was always an intriguing warband. Especially as it would give me the option to use the darkmoon faire’s colour scheme with green, purple and yellow. 🙂

So I grabbed some parts from my daemonic artillery conversions and picked a fitting theme song for my project. 😀

Nevertheless my first conversion brings more Gene Kelly vibes along and so the concept for my first Plaguebearer was born, as the model obviously likes to rot in Mordheim’s acid rain. The daemon still needs some green stuff filling and I’m not completely satisfied with the nurgly banner top. Therefore I’m probably just going to exchange it for some street signs.

Carnival Plaguebearer

Carnival Plaguebearer

Carnival Plaguebearer