Sexy Beasts

Hi all, my beasts are painted and their bases are half done. I went with dipping them to keep a consistent look between all of my Nurgle forces. My last model to do for Nurgle is Epidemius, and I spent a couple of minutes patching up the gaps in his model.

I'm keeping up my unit-character-unit painting schedule, so the Masque is next. I went with an undercoat of black followed by a quick dusting of white; I'm hoping that it'll give a bit of texture to the basecoat.

Flamers are all done and based now too. The champions turned out well despite one of the models coming without an arm. I green stuffed a fire to stick out of the socket, making it look like it's just burning uncontrollably without an arm to guide the fire.

 I've gone back and put washers in the bases of everyone on 25mm bases to work with my magnetic movement trays. The Nurglings and such will be getting some for safer transportation, but I need more washers first.

Very happy to announce that the group I'm in is starting a Blood in the Badlands campaign next weekend. Despite the rules being poorly written and full of holes, it should be a great time. My main general is Larry the Bloodthirster, who I have written as once being one of the Chaos Knights that stomped my Nurgle army a couple of months ago. Here's his backstory and a few points of flavour about him:

Larry, Devourer of Souls

Once a mortal devotee of Khorne, Larry served as a knight in a battle against a Daemon army of Nurgle. On that fateful day, his frenzied attacks carved through wave after wave of Plaguebearers, while his horse trampled Nurglings underfoot. By the end of the battle, Larry was overcome by blood-rage, and suffered a heart attack which claimed his life.

With Larry's ability to slay Nurgle Daemons proven, Khorne planned to use him in the constant struggle between the Gods. He seized the soul of Larry as it began to fade and reforged it in his own image. Taking the armour of the vacant body and the flesh of the abandoned steed as raw materials, Larry was reborn as an immense Bloodthirster.

Larry now leads armies against all who dare oppose him, gorging on the flesh and rending the souls of his victims. He hopes to one day meet those he once regarded as brothers in battle to test their mettle and laugh at their puny mortal forms.

*Larry no longer hates Daemons of Nurgle and will fight beside them, although he will happily send them to their death before those who serve any other God

*Larry is a wild fighter but is quite easy to fool; he will believe anything that is told to him in the form of a rhyme

*Despite having wings, Larry chooses not to fly. He simply jumps extraordinarily long distances

Expect my productivity to drop after this week, with the release of Diablo 3. Killing Daemons just won't seem quite as right as it used to.

"There is a place of great evil in the wilderness."
     -Akara, in Diablo 2

Daemons of Excel

Well it's been a while coming, but I finally got my army list creator finished:
Army List Creator (DoC)
Very handy if you don't know the points and stats for everyone, not to mention also telling you if you're over your 25% and 50% limits.
A quick how-to:
1. Enter the point limit for the list in the red cell up the top
2. Choose models from the drop-down lists on the left
3. For Core, Special and Rare units, enter the number of models in the unit next to the list cell, you can select any Options for the unit in the drop-down lists on the right
4. For Heroes and Lords who can take Gifts or Options, pick them from the drop-down lists in the appropriate area, Heralds can be a BSB

The cells up the top showing percentages will turn red if you are under the Core requirement or over any other limit. Unfortunately Furies are counted in the Core points, so just keep track of that. At the bottom you can choose any mounts that you are using to see their stats; these don't affect points.

Cue the release of a new Daemons army book.

*Update* New version uploaded with a tab which is the list creator without stats and special rules. Much easier to read and print.

Heraldburger no more!

Success! Over just 2 nights I managed to not only paint and base my Tzerald, but stop him from looking like a hamburger too! Naturally I forgot to document the process again, but he's looking good nonetheless. Without further ado, blarg:

It's a shame about the mould lines, but I couldn't do much about it. His body has a matt varnish and the eyes are glossed to make them stand out. I carved the crystals out of empty sprues and glossed them after painting to get them all shiny.

That's my last Nurgling at the bottom, but fear not, I've got another 20 or so on the way. Nice and blurry on the right are my Flamer champions, OOP models, and they'll be my next job.

Back to work.

"Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder."
      -Surprisingly apt adage

Maybe Daemons aren't OP

I've been doing some thinking based only partially on the fact that I lost a game last weekend, but mostly on a post that I read on the Daemons forum this week. The gist of the post was that yes, Daemons were very powerful in 7th ed, but they have been weakened to the point of - gasp - balance in 8th.

Not that I'm saying that my loss was due to my army being bad by any stretch of the imagination; I made a fair few mistakes through the game and my opponent played well. Considering that I've been playing for less than 3 months I can only claim to know the rules, not the tactics that come with experience.
What I'm saying is that - as was stated in the forum post - people are clinging to the notion of inequality because when you're not steamrolling an opponent consistently it's easy to forget your wins and concentrate on your losses, saying that they're overpowered since that's how it's always been. As an example, take Flamers. I rolled pretty consistently shockingly for shots in that game, but next time I roll high there will still be claims of them being overpowered despite their history.
Speaking of Flamers, I painted these guys this week. Not done basing yet but here they are anyway:

Ok using my iPad for photos from now on. That one's just awful. Back on topic.

One of the obvious strengths of Daemons is magic. While Master of Sorcery is indeed a great gift and underpriced for what you get, consider that it's just on a level 2 wizard. It's rare that an army doesn't have enough magic to use all of their power dice anyway, and without those extra points to cast, they just get used up faster. Without MoS, there would only be access to the Daemonic lores, and most of the time only Tzeentch. It's 50 extra points to get a level 1 on the other heralds, and the cheapest way to get a level 4 is with a Lord of Change for 535 pts. Nurgle and Slaanesh GDs cost 570 for L4, limiting them to 55 pts in gifts on a 2500pt game.

Greater Daemons, Flesh Hounds, Fiends and Bloodcrushers lost the ability to take on blocks of enemies when ranks started giving steadfast. The standard 12pt cost of Daemon core makes outranking in general more difficult. Enemies just don't flee like they used to, and on top of that Fear was nerfed. Suddenly Daemons just aren't as scary anymore.

Nurgle forces in general are weaker since regen and ward saves were merged, going from saving 2/3 wounds to 1/2. There goes the anvil. Time for another photo, here's the GUO all based and pretty.

The universal 5+ ward is a big sticking point for some, but the inability to take armour or indeed any extra equipment easily cancels that. It helps to save a few wounds obviously, but every core but Plaguebearers only have T3, so they're quite easy to wound in the first place.

Back to Flamers: they're 35 pts each with similarities to HE archers. 3.5 archers are 38.5 points and have an extra 1.5 wounds and attacks, along with longer range. The limited Flamer range makes constant movement necessary, giving -1 to hit every turn. Add to that the 25% limit on rares, meaning that you have to both limit Flamers to fit, then further to allow other rares, while archers are unlimited.

There we go, enough ranting for now. I've got to finish basing then moving onto a character in my never ending quest to paint an ever-growing pile of models.

"Bio-ball is OP"
"Force field is OP"
"Fungal growth is OP"
     -Three Starcraft 2 players not understanding the point of balance

The Red Hat of Patferrick

I thought I'd take this short bit of free time to show off my latest works. Flamers will be started this week, but in the meantime I finished off my fez tentacles and gave them a Herald.

The Herald isn't based yet, but I'm quite happy with how things are turning out. Kind of hard to believe that they cause Fear isn't it?

Since the Daemon Prince is going to be taking part in the game today, I assembled him and re-posed his arm and horns. The horns originally pointed forward and his sword kept on hitting his wings, so I put a stop to that.

Ok, time to finalise my list for today.

"What's the plural of fez anyway? Is it just fez?
  One fez, two fez, red fez, blue fez."
       -The question that I can't seem to get out of my head

Here's Daddy!

Wow, so, really happy with how this guy turned out. Sunday I undercoated my Great Unclean One and put a dark brown fleshtone drybrush over him. Monday night had various layers of green, giving him this look:

At this point I considered starting collecting Wood Elves because I'd be able to paint an epically mossy treeman. Tuesday night had me painting the flesh around any open wounds purple and putting red in the wounds. Boils got a coat of orange, the inside of his mouth and the larger wounds got some pink. His two tongues (one for each mouth) went red.

Wednesday night: small open sores are bright pink, maggots are brown, exposed spine is bone white, he's going to town. Sorry - rhyming again - couldn't help myself. His teeth, gross toenails and fingernails also get some bone white and all of the tiny worms going over him are painted orange.

Thursday had me painting his sword: I considered going for a green stuff slime blob hanging from it, but went with a glowy magical sword instead. No rust, this guy takes care of his things. Actually, I went with some rust on his flail; you'll see that soon.

Friday night and it's time to put a quick sheen of green over the boils before varnishing. I was quite happy with him at this point and didn't want to risk ruining it all with dipping, so I went with painting wood stain and varnish on the boils and bones followed by gloss over the rest of the model. Here he is in all his gory...glory.

Basing will be happen tomorrow if I can find a way to fit him on the 50x50mm. He's a Lord, so I think he deserves a particularly corrupted base.
            "You, you are unclean
             You, you are obscene
             You may say you are holy
             You may say you are the only
             You tell me your disgusting tales
             Like little wails
             But you are unclean..."

               -Unclean by Psychic TV           < Don't bother looking it up, it's an awful song

Productivity and Plaguebearers

Well it's already been a busy long Easter weekend; I never thought sitting down for an entire day would be so exhausting. I've painted and based almost all of my Nurglings in the past week and today I painted all 20 of my non-tentacle Plaguebearers.
First things first, I'm running out of 40mm bases thanks to these guys:

I'll forgive them because they're adorable. I decided to go with dipping for my Nurgle forces, which gives them a slimy look and also a durable finish thanks to the fact that they're dipped in wood stain and varnish. It also lets me learn to paint without any risk because it tend to cover up my mistakes.
The method I've been going with is supergluing a pin into the bottom of the model, dipping it, then flailing my arm about wildly to shake the excess off. I'm now in a significant amount of pain; I think I pulled a muscle.

Anyway, I ruined my first brush with some hehavy drybrushing on my Plaguebearers, who looked like this pre-dip:

And post-dip they look a little something like this:

Sexy. I'll be giving them a day to completely dry then basing them by the end of the weekend. Something tells me I'm not going to be swinging the Great Unclean One around if I dip him. He could do some damage if he got loose.
Next is... maybe some Flamers, my fez tentacles, GUO or the Heraldburger. I'll decide when the time comes.

"I can see inside you, the sickness is rising,
It seems that all that was good has died,
Oh no, the world is scary place,
Now that you've woken up the Daemon in me..."
           -Down with the Sickness as performed by Richard Cheese