A lone Death Guard icon bearer summons forth plaguebearers from the Warp to reinforce his position.
Model & Conversion work.
The basis for the icon bearer is the plastic chaos space marine icon bearer (2007). The model's right shoulder pad is a metal Death Guard bitz available through Games Workshop direct. The head and part of the chest & lower abdomen are from the plastic zombie (Warhammer Fantasy) range. The aim was to come up with a simple and effective Death Guard miniature that didn't require too much work given the rapid approach of GT2008.
This model was assembled rather quickly using superglue and milliput (green stuff equivalent). All the major component plastic chaos space marine parts were assembled & glued in place first, followed by the zombie head. The only tricky part here was to make certain that there is enough room left over for zombie abdomen to slot in to place.
A good blob of milliput was pressed in to the body cavity at the front -- entirely in the place of a normal chaos marine front armour segment. With a dab of glue on the back, the zombie abdomen was pressed in to the (still pliable) milliput. Using a metal-tipped shaping tool (regularly dipped in a handy pot of water; a paperclip would do in a pinch instead of a specialized tool), the excess milliput around the abdomen was scraped away. The left over milliput was then sculpted in to place to resemble guts pouring forth from inside the model and blended with the zombie part.
The final additions to be glued into place were the mechanicum iron circlet on the top of the backpack, the metal shoulder pad and the bolter (attached to the left leg). I'll post an article on my full Death Guard squads at a later date (I'm currently out of town...).
Evaluation.
Positives: Zombies in power armour! Hardly original, but Death Guard can be very simple to model and offer a wealth of conversion opportunities. This piece is not a clever conversion in the slightest, but it is effective enough when combined together with the paint scheme to make this Death Guard appear as little more than a futuristic zombie. When placed side-by-side with other (metal) Death Guard, or with the plaguebearers that have been summoned to the icon bearer in the picture shown above, the model looks perfectly in place.
Negatives: More working of the power armour (scratches, fungus growth and the like) would have improved this piece. The paint work aimed for a rusted feeling (along with the rest of my GT2008 entry; see the previous article on the dreadnought) and it somewhat makes up for the lack of scuffing whilst simultaneously serving to highlight the red innards.
And Finally.
I have a question for the FtW group on a potential "house rule" they might be using in friendly games: How do you reconcile the different icons available to the forces in Codex: Dameons and Codex: Chaos Space Marines, if & when you mix forces from those two codices together (e.g. in an apocalypse game)? Can daemons be summoned equally to both types of icon? Do daemons summoned to only CSM icons effectively gain "fleet"?; if so, do you alter the points values of any icons? Thanks in advance for your answers to this one: I hope to use them for an upcoming idea I've got for a minidex/sourcebook...
Model & Conversion work.
The basis for the icon bearer is the plastic chaos space marine icon bearer (2007). The model's right shoulder pad is a metal Death Guard bitz available through Games Workshop direct. The head and part of the chest & lower abdomen are from the plastic zombie (Warhammer Fantasy) range. The aim was to come up with a simple and effective Death Guard miniature that didn't require too much work given the rapid approach of GT2008.
This model was assembled rather quickly using superglue and milliput (green stuff equivalent). All the major component plastic chaos space marine parts were assembled & glued in place first, followed by the zombie head. The only tricky part here was to make certain that there is enough room left over for zombie abdomen to slot in to place.
A good blob of milliput was pressed in to the body cavity at the front -- entirely in the place of a normal chaos marine front armour segment. With a dab of glue on the back, the zombie abdomen was pressed in to the (still pliable) milliput. Using a metal-tipped shaping tool (regularly dipped in a handy pot of water; a paperclip would do in a pinch instead of a specialized tool), the excess milliput around the abdomen was scraped away. The left over milliput was then sculpted in to place to resemble guts pouring forth from inside the model and blended with the zombie part.
The final additions to be glued into place were the mechanicum iron circlet on the top of the backpack, the metal shoulder pad and the bolter (attached to the left leg). I'll post an article on my full Death Guard squads at a later date (I'm currently out of town...).
Evaluation.
Positives: Zombies in power armour! Hardly original, but Death Guard can be very simple to model and offer a wealth of conversion opportunities. This piece is not a clever conversion in the slightest, but it is effective enough when combined together with the paint scheme to make this Death Guard appear as little more than a futuristic zombie. When placed side-by-side with other (metal) Death Guard, or with the plaguebearers that have been summoned to the icon bearer in the picture shown above, the model looks perfectly in place.
Negatives: More working of the power armour (scratches, fungus growth and the like) would have improved this piece. The paint work aimed for a rusted feeling (along with the rest of my GT2008 entry; see the previous article on the dreadnought) and it somewhat makes up for the lack of scuffing whilst simultaneously serving to highlight the red innards.
And Finally.
I have a question for the FtW group on a potential "house rule" they might be using in friendly games: How do you reconcile the different icons available to the forces in Codex: Dameons and Codex: Chaos Space Marines, if & when you mix forces from those two codices together (e.g. in an apocalypse game)? Can daemons be summoned equally to both types of icon? Do daemons summoned to only CSM icons effectively gain "fleet"?; if so, do you alter the points values of any icons? Thanks in advance for your answers to this one: I hope to use them for an upcoming idea I've got for a minidex/sourcebook...
I think with Apoc, the idea should be to keep the game moving and go with the flow.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I've only played one game of Apoc and that was before the rules were released for it so I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Technically, even in an apocalypse game I think you need to stick to the icons of the force in question. Therefore, CSM icons only summon CSM genero-daemons while Daemon Army icons summon regular daemons. So, I would go for this in the absence of any house rule.
ReplyDeleteOf course, a house rule where you could summon any daemon to any icon of the right chaos god sounds cool to me. Just get permission from the group first.
Hi Guys,
ReplyDeletethanks for the feedback. I agree that the rules should be stuck to unless by prior agreement with fellow players.
I'm trying to figure out the most equitible manner in which to combine them for (say) a pure World Eaters army when they're facing off the Death Guard; I hope to present a solution in the minidex that I'm writing up.
I'm still hoping that the Death Guard (etc.) codex rumours I hear about become more than rumours one day ...