Daemon Prince of Nurgle Project - Part II: The Build

The daemon prince has started to seriously take shape now and is all but ready for painting. The assembly went reasonably smoothly. As with all Forge World pieces, I started off by getting an old toothbrush and gently scrubbed away the remains of the dirt and mold lubricant to ensure that the model was clean before starting any work on it.

After removal from the sprues, the flashes of mold spill-over were removed with a hobby knife and the stumps of the sprue that were left on the miniature were carefully filed away.

The dragon wings were not too hard to file down by comparison. However, the stubs of the wings where they connect to the dragon's body needed to be removed in order that the wings connected to the body of the plague ogryn smoothly.
An enlargement of a join area is shown below:To actually connect the wings on to the body required some solid pinning. Both the wings and the shoulders of the body were drilled quite deeply and a long section of a paper clip was used to hold them in place. With a little glue and much milliput (= green stuff), the wings were soon connected to the body. The milliput required some work to get it looking reasonably correct for the connection. One thing that I've not done is make the wings more decayed and Nurgle-looking. I think I'm going to keep them as is, but paint them in appropriate dull browns and greens.

Battle Summary: Death Guard vs. Loyalist Marines (1500pts)

Today is a battle "summary" rather than a battle report as I don't have any true photos of the event to go with it. The gratuitous photo is one taken at home of a subset of the force that I used, the maps are hand drawn in paint. Poorly.

Location: Local GW.
Terrain: Medium to high-density urban ruins. Just enough space for rhinos to squeeze between on the long edges, more open in the centre.
Mission: Seize Ground (four objective counters).
Deployment: Pitched Battle.
First Turn: Opponent.

Death Guard Army (very similar to my successful GT2008 list):
HQ: Deamon Prince, wings, Mark of Nurgle, Warp Time
Elites: Dreadnought, plasma cannon
Troops: 2 lots of: 7 plague marines, including plague champion with power fist, melta gun, flamer, icon, rhino with havoc launcher
Troops: 7 plague marines, including plague champion with combi-plasma and melta bombs, two marines with plasma guns, icon.
Troops: 6 lesser daemons
Heavy Support: 1 Obliterator
Heavy Support: 2 x daemonically possessed vindicators

Marines (very roughly as I don't have it exact):
Lysander; 9 sternguard veterans in drop pod with Pedro; Sniper squad with Telion; Iron clad dreadnought in drop pod; thunderfire cannon; two tactical squads with missile launcher; predator annihilator.

The objectives were placed in a skewed rhomboid, each of us had one object in our deployment zone, the other two were out of reach. I castled up almost all of my army in the one corner that had the objective counter in it. I sat a vindicator just forward of it and set the non-rhino-mounted plague marine plasma squad just behind it. The second vindicator and one of the rhinos sat left of this. The obliterator set up in a building with a good line of sight and the second rhino hid behind the building. The dreadnought was left to its own devices far away from the other miniatures whilst the deamon prince hid behind a different building, biding his time to fly in.


Turn 1.
This turn was mostly taken up with shooting from my opponent. Nothing really happened apart from 1 death guard marine being removed from a random shot - all my vehicles survived the initial onslaught. In my turn, I moved the vindicators 6" forward to get in range, zoomed the left-hand rhino 12" forward (popping smoke), moved the non-crazed dreadnought forward 6", moved the right-hand rhino right in order to get in range of securing a second objective and flew the daemon prince forward 12" to hide behind another building. The vindicators did some damage to the squads holed up in the (reinforced) buildings opposite me, whilst the obliterator missed everything by rolling a 1 to hit. Nothing from the dreadnought either.

Turn 2.
Oh dear. Here's trouble. The iron clad dreadnought comes in (cyan circle on the map). It shoots a wound on the obliterator, but turns its back on my plasma cannon dreadnought. Meanwhile, my opponents predator which has been sat merrily at the corner of the board destroys the havoc launcher on the left hand rhino. Further shots on the rhino completely immobilize it! The thunderfire cannon targets the obliterator without success.
In my turn, the obliterator shoots at the iron clad with a lascannon. And utterly misses by rolling a 1 to hit. The dreadnought fires at the rear of the iron clad with the plasma cannon. Despite scorching the vent pipes, no damage results. My second (right-hand) rhino meanwhile is moved forward to fully claim the objective and uses its havoc launcher to kill a few more marines with a lucky shot. My un-mounted plague marines fail to do anything to the iron clad despite three rapid firing plasma guns. Meanwhile, in the left-hand immobile rhino, my squad stay put inside, happy in the smelly interior. They shoot up the snipers but don't do too much damage. One vindicator meanwhile scores a shot on the predator which renders its guns useless for the next turn.

Turn 3.
More trouble. Lysander arrives. Pedro arrives. A squad of veterans arrives (the second cyan circle on the map). They rapid fire my un-mounted plague marines with their special "must kill all Death Guard, don't care your toughness is 5, I wound on 2+" bolts. The Death Guard smile in a happy manner as the shots add more charisma to their riddled bodies. No damage there. The predator sidewinds behind the sniper occupied building, taking it out of harms way of the obliterator. The thunderfire cannon then immobilizes my second rhino. On the objective. No worries there, the plague marines are quite happy to stay in their squalid rhino. The dreadnought suffers at the hands of a missile launcher and can't shoot next turn.

In my turn, my daemons arrive from reserve and deep strike in next to the unmounted death guard squad. The daemon prince warps time and space in its vicinity. The dreadnought goes blood frenzy and charges its way toward the tactical squad, not making it into charge range, but getting close. My left hand rhino miraculously repairs itself and moves closer to the snipers. Close enough for my death guard to use its flamer in fact, so the squad disembarks and rapid fires the snipers for a good number of casualties. The unmounted death guard take out a few more veterans with their bolt pistols and steady themselves to charge in. Meanwhile, the obliterator rolls a 1 to hit with its lascannon targeting the iron clad. What's up with this obliterator?! The only other shooting was from the havoc launcher that takes out the remaining marines in the right hand building; and my two vindicators which miss entirely. In the close combat phase, my daemons, daemon prince and Death Guard charge Lysander, Pedro and the veterans. The veterans are wiped out, a couple of daemons and death guard also perish and Lysander and Pedro take a couple of wounds. The daemon prince is reduced to 1 wound. Predictably, the space marines don't rout. At this stage, I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to hold on to my "base" objective. However, I also knew that the best that my opponent could do was to contest it. He'd never get any troops there in time. Therefore, I can still win by concentrating on the other objectives.

Turn 4.
My dreadnought sustains lots of incoming fire from the thunderfire cannon and other marines, but survives without incident. The Death Guard who got out of their rhino last turn take one casualty from snipers but otherwise remain intact. The predator tries to kill more Death Guard from the same squad but they can't feel any pain and laugh as the heavy bolter rounds drill more handsome holes in their already rather charismatic power armour. The melee doesn't go well though. Warping time, the daemon prince kills Lysander but dies to Pedro. The iron clad takes care of almost the rest of the Death Guard. Having lost combat, the rest of the Death Guard and the daemons promptly die, leaving Pedro and the iron clad standing tall. They consolidate next to the vindicator. I've written off this objective now being contestable at best. But that's okay - my position is probably both superior and sustainable.

The second map shows the situation at this point.

My Death Guard stay put pretty much, but the dreadnought moves to target the thunderfire cannon. Unleashing a great bout of plasma, it wrecks the thunderfire cannon. A lucky shot from a havoc launcher finishes the job - no more cannon or crew. One vindicator takes care of the predator once and for all and the second vindicator misses (despite taking a point blank shot at the iron clad directly in front of it). The obliterator shoots a lascannon at the iron clad and (don't gasp too loudly) rolls a 2 to hit and misses entirely. I don't really need to move the obliterator to contest the objective, but I could always do that next turn or turn 6 if needed. The Death Guard at the top left of the diagram now move forward toward the objective and shoot up the remaining snipers in the building.

Turn 5.
The remaining tactical squad in the middle building in my opponent's deployment zone move out to contest the upper left objective and rapid fire at my Death Guard. Another two casualties, but they're still going strong. The vindicator next to Pedro and the iron clad gets wrecked in little time at all.

In my turn, the obliterator (cannily thinking that twin-linked plasma might be kinda neat compared to a malfunctioning lascannon) rapid fires at Pedro. It misses one and reduces Pedro to one wound with the second shot. Pedro survives. My Dreadnought meanwhile moves to contest the upper right objective. My Death Guard secure their position around the upper left objective and rapid fire the incoming marines, some of whom fall.

The game then promptly ends.
Top Left objective: contested between Death Guard and tactical marine squad.
Top Right objective: contested by my dreadnought.
Bottom Left objective: contested by Pedro and the iron clad.
Bottom Right objective: controlled fully by a Death Guard squad.

Result: 1-0 victory to the Death Guard.
(NB: I've probably left out a few details and got a couple of things wrong .... e.g. shooting from the drop pods at the obliterator and how my second vindicator got immobilized .... so I'll put in a standard television-like caveat: portions of this battle that did not affect the outcome have been edited). This was an awesome game overall and both of us really enjoyed it!

Evaluation:
Marine Positives: Iron-clads are wonderful. They're just so hard to down. Lysander, Pedro and Telion work very well in combo.
Marine Negatives: I can't help but think that the points spent on the thunderfire cannon would be better spent elsewhere.

Death Guard Positives: Warp Time is awesome - its worth every point. As are Death Guard marines with the feel no pain and toughness 5. I must learn to avoid everything that doesn't care about their high toughness.
Death Guard Negatives: I've really gone off obliterators. I'll be using a predator for my next game instead. Finally, every squad of Death Guard needs a champion with a power fist.

Obliterator - Minor Conversion

Obliterators: part marine fused with armour and technology, and part daemon; obliterators are of utility in nearly any chaos space marine force.

The obliterator model has only a couple of different castings, but each has the same pair of arms. The arms come with a selection of ranged and close combat weapons that can be added to the end of each arm - a bit like weaponized fingers. Therefore the obliterator model can be constructed in a number of poses and configurations.

One problem that I've had with the model is its sheer fiddliness. Getting some of the weapon options to fit in to the metal holes that they're supposed to can be terribly tricky - especially the small bladed close combat weapons and some of the larger weapons if the holes in the arms aren't particularly deep.

Really, there is little point in converting the rest of the miniature unless there is a specific goal that you have in mind. Perhaps a few additional spikes to the shoulder area. The arms and fingers of this model do, however, present a good opportunity for a little work.

Pictured is one of my work-in-progress obliterators (possibly for use in GT2009?). On the right arm, I've replaced the entire row of finger slot with a space marine missile launcher pod from a land speeder. The missile pod fits snugly over the top of the wrist of the obliterator with little additional work. Admittedly, in the new chaos marine codex, obliterators can no longer fire missiles, but I still regard it as fluffy that they might be able to manifest missiles. So, I've also replaced three of the missiles in the pod. The lower two were cut out and filed down so that I could pin a heavy flamer on to the model. The heavy flamer comes from the chaos terminator boxed set. I like this as the pipes from the heavy flamer wrap around the side of the arm and re-insert themselves back in to the arm. Finally, one of the upper missiles has also been removed to make way for the front of a plastic plasma gun.

On the left arm, I've gone for a more typical obliterator configuration. The las cannon and other weapons come from the obliterator sprue. Each of them has been pinned in to the arm to give better stability and durability. Moreover, the pinning has enabled me to extend these weapons further away from the arm and make the look longer and more protruding. The chainblade is sourced from a rather old space ork sprue and is positioned on the outside of the fist, much like a chainfist.

All of the new components have had milliput (i.e. greenstuff) applied to them to help them blend in with the rest of the arm. This is particularly evident on the missile launcher arm. On the las cannon arm, milliput has been used to extend the length of the weapons so that they poke out further from the bulk of the fist.

This miniature hasn't been painted yet, so a second article on the paint job will be posted once I've gotten around to the painting. I'm thinking of a rusted scheme to be in keeping with my Death Guard forces, with the fleshy bits in something contrasting; perhaps blue.

Representing Generic Lesser Daemons

What type of daemon should a chaos space marine player use to represent generic lesser daemons in their army? There's plenty of choice, ranging from plaguebearers and nurglings through to bloodletters, daemonettes, and horrors of Tzeentch.

What about other daemons? Can fiends of Slaanesh be used to depict lesser daemons on the battlefield? The rules do not specify which models can and should be used for generic lesser daemons. However, the pictures in the chaos space marine codex implies that it should be one of the typical lesser daemons. As such, almost any model in the standard chaos daemons range that is not a greater daemon could be used (i.e. since generic greater daemons are a different, distinct entry in the chaos space marine codex).

Reading Bell of Lost Souls, this idea is taken further by mixing together different daemons (specifically plaguebearers and nurglings) to create a minor advantage (larger charge threat range) due to the difference in size of their bases. How common this stratagem is, I'm uncertain.

Recently, I've been thinking that other miniatures could be used if mounted on circular bases. As I suggested in an earlier post on daemons of lesser powers, grave guard from the vampire counts range could certainly make interesting looking lesser daemons - perhaps for necromantic chaos space marines?

Skeletons and ghouls could also be utilized for the same (necromantic) chaos space marines. What about something more exotic? Would lizard men and skinks be appropriate under the standard "counts as" tournament rule? What sort of chaos space marine would summon lizard men...? How about squigs from the goblin range? They'd look distinctive and cool. But what narrative would the chaos space marines have there?

Forge World Death Guard Plague Marine

To build up the number of Death Guard plague marine troops in my collection, I'm using the dedicated Forge World upgrade set. The Forge World set comes in at the usual standard that we have come to expect of the company: highly detailed and cast well apart from the odd bubble here and there. On Nurgle models, such air bubbles in the casting process is hardly noticeable in the slightest! On the contrary, it adds to the feel of the model.

The Forge World parts consist of the torso and shoulder pads. All of the other parts must be supplied by the hobbyist. The pictured Death Guard plague marine is the first one that I've assembled. It is also a minor conversion. Aside from the Forge World components, this model uses a bolter (with strap) from the Dark Angels veterans sprue; a loyalist marine shoulder pad (in order to make the number of Death Guard shoulder pads go further - there are two supplied per torso!); and legs, arms and back pack of a standard chaos space marine. To convert it slightly, the shoulder pad and bolter have been "decorated" with studs that are created from chopping up a small-diameter plastic cylinder in to bits. The non-Forge World shoulder pad with the studs added has therefore become reminiscent of a loyalist space marine veteran's shoulder pad. This was done since it is probable that the Death Guard are still using millenia old power armour - they are renowned for crafting exceptionally long lasting (albeit ugly looking) equipment.

The base of the miniature has a small number of cast-off and otherwise unused plastic bits from random sources (sprues that would otherwise be binned, etc.). The base will eventually be an urban rubble one. Perhaps with a tiny amount of weeds popping up from between the rubble.

A number, perhaps the majority, of my Death Guard collection are posed with their bolters held in one hand. This is done so as not to cover up the typically Nurglesque additions to the model (in addition to representing the "true grit" rule in the old codex). With the Forge World models, the desire to not cover up the decaying details on the torso is doubly hard to resist. Moreover, posing the miniature with the bolter held across a Forge World Death Guard torso often causes a poor fit - the blobs of decay and broken pipes cause the arms to be pushed further away from the torso. Therefore my future models will likely follow the bolter in one hand strategy, or bolt pistol plus chainsword. This model was one of the exceptions (bolter across the torso) to simply see how it looked. It'll get painted up another day once I've assembled a few more.

Epidemius and Aura of Decay

The Issue: If a player using Epidemius racks up 20 kills using followers of Nurgle, then the tally chart says "All attacks from followers of Nurgle ignore armour saves."

Does this mean only hand-to-hand close combat attacks, or also shooting and ranged attacks? For example, would Aura of Decay mean a strength 2 hit with no save allowed? How about in an Apocalypse game where daemons are playing on the same side as plague marines -- do plague marine's bolters effectively become AP 1? (Streuth!)

Locally, ever since the release of codex: daemons, we've been playing using that interpretation (i.e. both close combat and ranged attacks are affected) - but is it correct / accurate, and is it how other people out there play?

Choices

I'm torn. Death Guard or Mixed Daemons for GT2009? I think the answer is that I'll be working on both this year. Therefore, I don't have to make up my mind about GT2009 until a much later date (indeed, the date for GT2009 locally is much later than I'd anticipated at New Year). I'm going to experiment and simply enjoy assembling and painting both armies concurrently.

I'll post example army lists at a later date for criticism and feedback.

I think I'm going to have a few games with both Death Guard and Daemons over the coming months and see which I end up liking better. As such, I'm probably not going to post more on GT2009 until much closer to the time.

Horrors of Tzeentch Squad

An update on my pack of Tzeentch Horrors today. In previous postings, I outlined the general colour scheme for the basis of the bulk of my horrors as well as a burnt-out looking horror who would have the bolt upgrade.

Since those postings, I've painted sufficiently more horrors to make an entire babbling squad of warpfire chucking monstrosities, as well as touching up the paint work on the burnt-out horror. It has certainly been a long time coming! The observant will also notice the following in the squad alongside the burnt-out horror:
(i) the converted blue horror coming out of a pink horror base;
(ii) the icon bearer with the bit from the chaos space marine sprue;
(iii) an instrument player conversion with a drumskin and bone drumstick from a zombie sprue; and
(iv) the Changeling, ...sporting an appearance not too dissimilar to a vintage chaos champion.

Evaluation:
Positives: Very happy.
Negatives: Time. I really enjoy painting and get a lot out of it. It's relaxing after a hard day at work. But these horrors take a significant amount of time to crank out - especially the blue-in-pink variety.

Death Guard Plague Champion: Cariosus

To create Cariosus, a plague champion from a Death Guard squad / warband, I selected a number of components from various sources.

The legs are from loyalist marines, but made suitably Nurglesque by adding in cleft hooves for shoes. I left in the oath-of-the-moment parchment - Cariosus has some dark promises to carry out for Nurgle. The lower parts near to the base have some grit glued on to them to create a dirty appearance.

The body is that of a standard chaos space marine champion with the chainmail draping at the front. The backpack is the special (one per boxed set that is) backpack from the standard chaos space marine boxed set, as is one of the shoulder pads. The second shoulder pad comes from the Death Guard upgrade shoulder pads from Games Workshop direct. The power fist is a standard chaos space marine one. The other arm comes from the warhammer fantasy battle zombie sprue and is holding a standard bolter that is roughed up with some grit glued on to it.

The "blight grenades" (death heads) are also sourced from the zombie sprue and glued at the tip of the gathered hair to the champion's waist, alongside a bolt pistol holster. Finally, the head comes from a spare head off the chaos spawn set.

Overall, I like the miniature! The head is a little disproportionate compared to the rest of the body, but that's okay - its chaos. The paint job follows my standard approach to Death Guard marines - greens and rusted brown colours accentuated with bleached bone for the raised parts of the armour.

Spore Plaguebearer

I do indulge in other hobbies, including computer gaming. Sometimes they intersect very well with Warhammer 40,000 (Dawn of War, etc.); othertimes not.

I've been playing Spore a fair amount over the last few months. I love it! So much so, that I decided to have a go at creating a Spore plaguebearer! Here he is:
He's my first attempt at creating a Warhammer 40,000 creature for Spore. Hope you like it. If you also play Spore, then you can find me with the user name "jabberjabber" -- but be aware that my wife shares that user name as well.

There are also plenty of other Spore creations that are inspired by the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 Universe out there on the sporepedia. If you play Spore and haven't discovered them, then take a look: some of them are remarkably good.

Daemons of Lesser Powers - Part IV: Greater Daemons

Creating a greater daemon requires a vast outlay of power for the nascent chaos power. Therefore in creating some rules for generic greater daemons, the first point to make is that they will be very rare. This means that they must be restricted to a maximum of 1 per army or force organization chart.

As with the lesser daemons, I want the generic greater daemon to have many options, but be restricted to choosing only a few. The guiding principle is that they should be much less powerful than the greater daemons of the Big Four.

Greater Daemon of a Lesser Power (HQ slot)
Cost: 100 points

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
8  0  6 6 4 4 5 10 -/4+

Unit Type: Monstrous Creature
Number per army: 1 (unique).

Special Rules: Daemon.
Armed with a single close combat weapon (i.e. claws, teeth, horns, etc.).

Options:
The daemon may select ONE of the following psychic powers:
Daemonic Gaze (+20 pts), Breath of Chaos (+30 pts), Boon of Mutation (+30 pts)

In addition, the daemon may select TWO of the following options:
Iron Hide (+15 pts), Daemonic Flight (+60 pts), Unholy Might (+20 pts)
Instrument of Chaos (+5 pts), Chaos Icon (+25 pts), Power weapon (+20 pts), Preferred enemy: mortals (+30 pts), Preferred enemy: daemons and non-mortals (+25 pts)

Modelling Suggestions.
From Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Be'Lakor and the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth. Although frankly, any other weird and wonderful conversions that look suitably warp-spawned would be good!

A Collection of Names for Death Guard Characters and Squads

There is plenty of latin in Warhammer 40,000, ranging from people's names and place names, to battle company mottos and the Emperor's orders.

This page presents an incomplete collection of latin, latin-like, and other names (with their approximate English meanings) that are suitible for Death Guard and plague marine characters. I might expand this concept to other armies at a later date, but for now, this'll serve as a repository and resource for naming my Death Guard characters and squads. If there's anyone out there who has a better grasp of latin than me, then let me know if there's any bloopers or obvious omissions! Further suggestions would also be very welcomed!

Aeger (infected)
Bubonicus
Cariosus /Caries (decayed / rotten)
Contagio (infectious)
Decrepitus (decrepid)
Foetidus (smelly)
Fungor (fungus)
Gravatus (sick / gravely ill)
Infirmus (sick)
Lues (pestilence)
Maculo (defile)
Malignor
Morbus (sickness /illness)
Morior (death / to die / withering away / decay)
Mortis (death)
Nex (death)
Nidor (smell)
Pestis (plague)
Pestilencia (plague)
Plagatus (wounded)
Prosterno (to ruin / to knock down)
Pulsus
Putesco (putrefy / rot)
Sempiterna (eternal - i.e. everlasting, thanks to Nurgle!)
Spolio (despoil)
Tritonus
Vomica
Vomitus (vomit)

1000 points of Holiday Daemons

Here's one version of the list of daemons that I used over the vaction period recently. I don't think it is terribly optimized, but it has fared incredibly well, much to my surprise.

HQ:
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut, blessings of the blood god (110)

Troops:
7 Bloodletters; deployed with the Herald (112)
8 Bloodletters (128)
7 Plaguebearers, icon, instrument (135)
10 Horrors, icon, Changeling, instrument (205)

Fast Attack:
3 Screamers (48)

Heavy Support:
Daemon Prince, daemonic gaze, iron hide (130)
Daemon Prince, daemonic gaze, iron hide (130)

Primary wave: Herald with 7 bloodletters, Horrors, Screamers, 1 Prince
Secondary wave: Plaguebearers, 8 bloodletters, 1 Prince

The idea behind the waves is that whichever one winds up being deployed first, there will be one icon lodged in a tough squad (horrors with a 4+ invulnerable save or plaguebearers with high toughness and feel no pain) and a daemon prince to be a fire magnet.

On turn 2, if the bloodletters can charge multiple units then the tactic that I use is to break off the herald from the squad (as an independent character) to engage as many opposing squads as possible. The screamers meanwhile will move to engage tanks or armoured walkers.

Later in the game, I will try to deep strike or maneouver either the plaguebearers or the horrors on to an objective (if required) and then (a la Saim-Hann) contest any other objectives with whatever miniatures I happen to have left over.

The real "hit" of this army is that an opponent will often perceive the daemon princes and the icons are the things they should go after. They should really be shooting up and charging the bloodletters if at all possible - they are the ones that will take apart any infantry they encounter. This list will, and has struggled against pure horde armies and pure mechanized armies however. But that's alright for an all-round army for casual, fun games.

FtW Basing Contest: Necron Conversion on Scratch Built Base

Long term readers of Warpstone Flux should have zero trouble spotting which is my entry in to the FtW basing contest. Hence, there's little point in keeping it a secret any longer since it is not against the rules to go public with it.

From the beginning, I knew that I wanted a base that the miniature would interact with. I have had a go with this kind of idea before with my blue horror that is coming out of a pink one on its base. I eventually settled on a necron that is heaving itself out of water and on to a rusted platform.

The ingredients list is pictured above. Alongside the necron, I've used a plastic sprue stick, a chaos marine arm (I found that the hand was shaped well for grasping the support strut), a metal grill for the basis of the rusted platform (I picked this item up at a train hobby exhibition), and a number of paperclips for pinning the bits together.

The picture below shows the model and base being assembled in various stages of completion. The first step was to chop off one of the necron's legs at the knee (don't worry - the part will go to good use as a bionic leg on a chaos space marine) and glue the torso on to the legs. The sprue "strut" was glued in to a hole made in the base and the metal grill was glued horizontally to the strut (a small horizontal incision was made in the strut to better hold the grill in place).

The second leg of the necron was also cut at the knee, hip and the ankle, but this time the parts were kept and simply repositioned. I spent some time figuring out a number of positions until I settled on the foot being placed flat on the grill with the leg coming up behind it. It is still a relatively natural pose (for a necron). I realized at this stage that the model would require some greenstuff (or in my case, milliput - standard yellow) to fix up the joints that I had earlier chopped.

The hand of the chaos marine was chopped from its arm and positioned to grasp the strut. The necron arm (that already ended in a stump) was then glued close to the hand. Again, milliput was then used to create (and disguise) the join at the wrist between the necron stump and marine hand. The gauss weapon needed some filing to remove the remnant of the necron hand (that the stump should insert into!) and fingers that were on it and make it look right. Finally, a liberal amount of milliput was used to create wave effects on the base of the model.

After a suitable time curing (24hrs), the miniature was painted. The paint work followed the Verdus Prime necron scheme that I devised earlier with one critical exception. Instead of using pure skill white everywhere as the base coat, I worked up to skull white using grey as the basecoat. It has given the miniature much more depth and allowed a proper highlighting of the ridges on the model to be done. The strut and the grill were painted to look rusted. Meanwhile, the milliput on the base used various shades of blue with drybrushings of lighter blues and whites to make it look like waves breaking in the shallows. The pictures below were taken on blue bathroom tiles to accentuate the watery theme of the miniature. This miniature took a long time to assemble and paint up, but was rather fun to create. Hope that you enjoy the final result.

Narrowing it down

In my first post of the New Year, I was thinking about which army I wanted to take to GT2009. I narrowed it down from 5 to 4 quite rapidly. Today, I'm going to narrow it down to two.

Adam's article on which army to choose a few days back made for very interesting reading for me (thanks mate!). I'm ticking all the three main boxes with my choices - I like them, I believe they're competitive, and I enjoy painting them.

So, I had two Daemons choices and two Chaos Space Marine choices. I think it's fair to eliminate at least two. Looking at the Chaos Marine choices first, I had thought about generic marines and Death Guard. Generic Chaos Space Marines might(?!) be the best troops in the game at the moment. But with apologies to the Warp Hornets, I think I've had enough of them for the time being. If I'm going to take Chaos Marines, then I'm going to take Death Guard. They're themed, they offer a plethora of conversion opportunities and they look good on the battlefield. Death Guard are also more challenging to master given their higher points cost per model; and I like that - they're like Death Wing in that respect. (side topic: I'd be interested in hearing from Death Guard and Death Wing players as to how they go about tackling horde armies... orks, tyranids and so forth).

For the daemons, I was deciding between a mixed list versus a mono-Nurgle Epidemius list. The downside for the Nurglesque list is the (dollar) cost involved - i.e. I'd probably have to purchase a good load more plaguebearers. Plus, I really don't have a good feeling as to what is a solid build, or what might constitute an obvious concession. Do Beasts of Nurgle have a place? Or are points better spent on more daemon princes, plaguebearers and nurglings? Probably the latter, but that's only a knee-jerk reaction. To crystallize that thought: I don't have the gaming experience with a mono-Nurgle list yet. Whereas I do with mixed daemons.

Mono-Nurgle is still on my list of army builds that I want to create and play with, though. I'll be working on it more during the year and maybe next year too.

So, my choice for GT2009 is now between Death Guard and mixed daemons.

(Aside, it looks like GT2009 will be in mid-September if held at GenCon Oz, Qld, like last year - so I've got more time on my hands than I previously thought... perhaps Epidemius isn't totally ruled out?!? Hmmmm, choices choices....).

Warp Hornets Terminator Champion

My Warp Hornets renegade chapter contains many older style miniatures and, admittedly, they're not as well painted as my newer collection. The picture below shows a terminator champion of the Warp Hornets. In the language of the old Chaos Marine Codex, he had daemonic visage and a daemonic mutation. In the new codex, I simply field him as baseline terminator champion.

Model.
In the days before the release of the chaos terminator plastic boxed set, I purchased the loyalist marines and set about converting them. This is in keeping with the background of this chapter - they've only recently turned to chaos so it is understandable that there may well be a number of imperial markings that have not fully been got rid of.

For the daemonic visage, I simply did a head swap and stuck one of the heads from the daemonic mutations sprue in to place. For the daemonic mutation, his left arm has also been replaced with a different component from the same mutations sprue - an arm that branches in to two. For the lower arm, I chopped off the hand and replaced it with a power sword from a standard chaos marine. The shoulder pad for this arm is from the standard chaos marine sprue, rather than a terminator shoulder pad. The other added bits include a scabbard and a cloak from the warhammer fantasy chaos warriors range. I also added a number of spines coming out from the shoulder pads - these were cut from unused chaos marine helmets.
Painting.
The model follows the standard approach for my Warp Hornets chapter: predominantly yellow with black in the recessed and blue (or red) for the contrast colour. In addition, I used gold here to highlight a number of areas around the miniature including the shoulder pad and rear of the legs.

Base.
A square base!?! Yes - it wouldn't be tournament legal these days without permission, but its okay in friendly games. The base is covered in a random array of green flock, woodland scenics clump foliage and stones intended for a fishtank.

Evaluation.
This model's heyday was years ago. Its highlight was in GT2007, but I haven't used it outside Apocalypse games since. Despite that, I'm still fond of this model and get it out for friendly games occasionally along with its cohort of other terminators.

Warp Hornets Background

The Warp Hornets renegade chapter were first introduced to this blog whilst talking of the problems that I had had with bright yellow in the FtW weekly round table discussion. In this posting, I'm going to outline some thoughts I had as to their background.

Firstly and foremost, I wanted a infantry-heavy chaos space marine force to game with (GT2007 and earlier games). Large squads already provide a deviation from standard codex space marines. So, I imagined that the transition from loyalist chapter to renegades happened over an extended time period during which the chapter regularly fielded larger troop squads.

Why would they do that? Well, the idea is that they got stuck. Isolated. Cut-off from the astronomican and the imperium at large. The cause? A warp storm on a remote planetary system.

Why were they there? Their purpose was to suppress an insurrection by a significant part of the populace across multiple planets and small moons and artificial satellites against imperial rule. Answering the call from the local imperial governor, the entire chapter re-deployed to orbit the planetary system and set about returning the system to imperial rule. Although it went well at first, the warp storm came along soon after arrival.

Trapped without reinforcements, their positions were compromised through attrition, and their librarians corrupted by the local populace's machinations. Whilst it took years, the warp hornets turned to chaos fully as a means of bringing the populace under control. As much of the populace were already chaos worshipping, it didn't take a lot for the locals to then accept them.

When the warp storms broke, the hornets set forth once more aboard captured hulks to spread the word of chaos. I still field squads of warp hornets from time to time as I still like the idea of a zero-vehicles force. In the next posting, I'll talk about a Warp Hornet Terminator Champion that regularly comes out of the woodwork.

The Changeling and the Glamour of Tzeentch

An unusual thing happened over the holiday period: in one of my games, I successfully used the Changeling's glamour ability on a large squad of tyranid gaunts. They shot up a trio of tyranid warriors, softening them up before a daemon prince came along to finish them off.

What the Changeling does.
The Changeling is a pink horror special character upgrade, in much the same way a Karanak is for flesh hounds. His special ability is to force an opponent to shoot at their own troops if they fail a Ld test. The opponent may choose not to shoot after being targeted by the Changeling.

How can it work against tyranids in synapse range?
A valid objection to the scenario that was stated at the start of this posting is that any tyranid brood within synapse range of a synapse creature automatically passes any leadership test required of it. However, reading the tyranid rules this is true apart from two instances: (1) psychic tests, and (2) target selection. Instance (2) is why the Changeling can affect tyranid gaunt broods - the Changeling is trying to get them to select other targets, presumably by daemonically impersonating a hive tyrant. This will in all likelihood be re-written in any new tyranid codex, as it is a relic of 4th edition.

The Double Hit.
There is an added bonus for if and when the Changeling successfully uses its ability - particularly against targets like gaunts who want to get in to close combat as quickly as possible. Since they've shot at their own targets, they cannot charge the target that they originally wanted and intended to shoot at. So not only has the Changeling inflicted damage on the enemy from fire that would have been heading toward the daemons lines, it has also averted a charge and a melee.

Changeling Issues.
(1) It is very hard to remember to use the Changeling.
(2) It is very hard to remember to use the Changeling.
(3) Point (1) was so good, it merited repetition.

Why is it so hard to remember? Simply because it is your opponents shooting phase and all you're usually used to doing is rolling saving throws.

Why take the Changeling?
(1) Fun
(2) You can use ANY miniature from your collection to represent it - not even the Changeling can recall its own proper morphology any longer!
(3) Cheap (points wise)

Just don't expect it to work - there aren't too many low Ld troops out there. You'll have to play a good number of games for it to happen in all likelihood.

Daemon Prince of Nurgle Project - Part I: The Plan

Dear Santa,

Thank you very much for the goodies that you gave me this Christmas. I promise to cook more for me wife in return.

---

I was a very lucky boy for Christmas: my wife gave me the plague ogryns of Nurgle set from Forge World. I'm intending on converting one of them in to a Daemon Prince of Nurgle to lead forth plague marines on their never-ending quest to sow the seeds of fear amongst the mortal realms. Either that, or be a unique heavy support choice in a daemons cohort. Or even a Herald of Nurgle at a stretch of the imagination and use of the "counts as" rule.

Here's the picture of the bits directly from Forge World. Also included are a massive pair of dragon wings. Yep - this is going to be a flying Daemon Prince of Nurgle.

The plan is broadly straight forward: assemble the plague ogryn as normal. Then attach the dragon wings to its back. I need to figure out where on the back to attach the wings - perhaps about the shoulders, or slightly back from them. The rear of the torso is detailed with various Nurglesque sculptings, so I don't want to obscure too much of them either. I'll have to have a think.

I am also tempted to make the wings themselves look more Nurglesque. This could be achieved through the use of greenstuff as well as a hobby knife to put some holes in the wings and generally make them more tattered looking and pus ridden. On the other hand, they look grand as is and a decent pain job could render them suitable looking for Nurgle regardless.

More posts on this project as it progresses!

Bloodletter Painting Scheme

When I first started painting bloodletters in the 1980's, they were bright red and frankly not very well done. My painting style has improved since I was a young lad (I hope!), and I'm getting much better outcomes for my miniatures, including bloodletters. Today, I want to present to you my painting scheme for the modern bloodletter, as pictured.

The model is a standard plastic one from the new daemons range. As I've already discussed, I'm very fond of the look of these daemons - they're very true to the original realms of chaos depiction. The only thing that bothers me is that the front of the head doesn't meet up with the rear of the head too well. Had I had more time, I might have used some green stuff to smooth over the crack. The more observant amongst you might also notice that the base is a back-2-basix resin base to which the bloodletter is pinned.

The picture below shows the stages that I go through to get the my plastic bloodletters painted up. This is not the only way to paint bloodletters, but just my preferred style. Codex: Daemons and recent white dwarf articles give more examples of how to accomplish a good finish.

Painting.
Step 1: Black undercoat. Straight forward and let to dry before proceeding.

Step 2: Basecoat of mechrite red. This is applied sloppily to all the fleshy parts of the model, and a small amount on the horns. The sword, tongue (etc.) are left black for the moment. An uneven coating is not such a bad thing - it gives the miniature a unique look and any imperfections that you're unhappy with can be touched up later and even corrected entirely by steps 3 and 4.

Step 3: Inking. I use a blend of 1 part black to 3 parts red. The inking gives a depth to the flesh that is important to a good finish.

Step 4: Blazing orange drybrush. The blazing orange is blended up from the red to increase the brightness of the model and contrast the depth of the inking layer.
Step 5: Using almost pure blazing orange, I carefully pick out the bumps on the flesh along the back, shoulders, chest and hips of the model. On other bloodletters, I've experimented with dheneb stone and bleached bone for these bumps. I think blazing orange, or orange mixed with bleached bone is just about right for these bumps.

Step 6: Some more detail here - I lighten the flesh a little more and pick out ridged parts and highlights using a mixtured of blazing orange and dheneb stone. The horns and nails are also coated in near-pure dheneb stone near the tips and drybrushed to blend in with the red of the main head.

Step 7: Ah, the hellblade! In Codex: Daemons, they're portrayed in a number of ways, but where they are painted as a blend of colours, the cooler colours are toward the tip. I personally don't like this - I think the hotter colours should be nearer to the tip: why would a hellblade be heated near the middle?! Anyhow, I rather enjoy painting these hellblades. I start with blood red and red gore near the hilt and apply a liberal blob to either side of the blade. Before it dries, I apply another good blob of blazing orange and blend it together with the reds. Then, sunburst yellow. Finally skull white at the tip. Just remember to do it relatively quickly (especially if the temperatures are >30 deg C as they are in Australia where I am).

Step 8: Finishing off. I've painted the tongue in a couple of shades of blue. It makes the miniature look unusual and I like it. I think technically it should be black to be in keeping with the old Realms of Chaos books. One other thing to keep in mind is that by painting the tongues in different colours it becomes obvious which miniatures belong to you if you're up against other daemons (cf. squad markings of space marines). The eyes, teeth, toenails and fingernails are highlighted in white, along with the very tips of the horns. I've also taken care of the base at this stage as well.

Evaluation:
The bloodletters positively bellow Khorne to the observer with their red flesh and striking molten-looking hellblades. The only thing I might change is the way in which I approach the horns. Otherwise, I'm broadly happy with the end result.

Apocalypse Datasheet: Host of Malal

To add to the growing collection of rules and articles about generic daemons on Warpstone Flux, today is presented an experimental apocalypse datasheet for a host of Malal. For those of you blessed with a younger age than myself, Malal is a chaos power that fights to overthrow all of the other chaos powers. As such, it hates them! Therefore the "preferred enemy" universal rule is going to be applied to these daemons of Malal - they hate all other daemons.

As with other apocalypse datasheets, it is appropriate to give a bonus for this formation chosen from the available strategic assets. I considered inventing my own based on Malal's hatred for the other chaos powers, but couldn't come up with anything that was highly workable. Then I reminded myself of the extra assets presented in Apocalypse: Reload. The obvious one is "Trophy Kill". But how much does that cost? Certainly creating a new objective could be a game-changing stratagem for the Host of Malal. But it is not as easy to cost as something like a barrage weapons or orbital strike. I eventually decided on a modest 50 points which is about the same as four generic lesser daemons. Moreover, the trophy kill must be the most expensive opposing daemon. If there are no daemons to select from, then the trophy kill is assigned in the normal manner.

Here's the final version:

Typhus: Tactics and Evaluation

Points-wise, Typhus is one of the most expensive HQ choices that a chaos space marine player can select, coming in third place behind Ahriman of the Thousand Sons and Abaddon the Despoiler himself in top place. Are these well-invested points? How does Typhus perform on the battlefield and what role does / should he have?

Points comparison.
Typhus is somewhat akin to a chaos sorcerer in the statistics department, but with an extra wound. In the old chaos marine codex, an extra wound is worth about 15 points, so the base cost for a sorcerer with 4 wounds should be circa 115. We'll add on to the sorcerer a Mark of Nurgle (20pts), Nurgle's rot (15pts) and Wind of Chaos (30pts). Already Typhus breaks the standard rules by being able to take 2 sorcerous powers, so we'll have to give the sorcerer a familiar (5pts) to enable him to select the second power. The chaos sorcerer analogue is already coming in at an impressive 185 points!

To make the sorcerer more like Typhus, we'll give him terminator armour (15pts) with a force weapon, and a personal icon (5pts). But the manreaper wielded by Typhus is a daemon weapon in addition to being a force weapon, so we'll also give the sorcerer a daemon weapon (40pts) - which in reality a chaos sorcerer cannot select as an option. That takes the cost up to 245 points, which makes Typhus look like a bargain at 225 points.

But in addition, Typhus also has the feel no pain special rule (just like plague marines do, but unlike any lord given the mark of Nurgle). He also has the destroyer hive (frag and blight grenades - much like plague marines) and is a herald of Nurgle (automatically passes all psychic tests like a daemon and never suffers perils of the warp)! Brutal.

Yet, Typhus is still very costly compared to even Kharn of the World Eaters or a generic chaos lord. In 4th edition, it was often said that HQ choices shouldn't amount to more than about 10 per cent of the total army cost. Even if 5th edition, I think this yard-stick isn't a bad rule of thumb. So, my knee-jerk reaction is to only use Typhus in a 2000+ points game. I might consider using him at 1750 points, but I'd have to have a darn good reason to. At 1500 points, 15% of your points being locked up in a single miniature that can suffer instant death is highly problematic and not recommended - get a land raider for 5 points less instead.

The question can be asked as to whether I actually have ever played with Typhus? The answer is "yes" - but only in Apocalypse! Maybe I'll use him in a 1500 points army one day for fun and fluff. He takes a whopping 216 standard bolter shots from a loyalist marine to kill, afterall (see also the Advantages of a Death Guard Marine).

Role and Tactics.
To be clear: Typhus can be deadly when used right ... and with a little luck. As a terminator independent character, we can play the usual tricks of placing him in a squad of death guard terminators and deep-striking in to play, or rolling up the battlefield aboard a land raider. Either way, being among other death guard is a good way to go with Typhus.

With a personal icon, he can very effectively become the tip of a "plague spear" and lead the charge to the enemy whilst simultaneously summoning down hordes of lesser daemons. This requires a very tuned army list and represents a big gamble by the player - it either works very well, or not at all. With more terminators and obliterators held in reserve, Typhus can prove a big obstacle to any foe.

The manreaper makes Typhus excellent as a monstrous creature slayer, or independent characters killer. So long as the daemon weapon doesn't roll a 1 for the number of attacks, Typhus can take out other characters very efficiently and deal with small infantry with near impunity. Combined with his ranged psychic attacks that can also be used in close combat (Nurgle's Rot), Typhus is a force to be reckoned with. But he must avoid instant death at all costs. This means being wary of ordnance (vindicators) and other powerful incoming barrages and can also mean permanently attaching him to a larger squad.

I feel Typhus is most valuable in Apocalypse where I don't mind having so many points in a single characters, screened by masses of other troops or deep-striking in behind enemy lines. The big weapons (ordnance; las cannons) usually have better targets than Typhus. Hence he can rely on his high toughness and terminator armour more to get around. The zombie plague special formation is an interesting one and can be played with Typhus for a very fluffy depiction of what he likes to do.

The Fermi Paradox and Necrons

The Nobel prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi is rather famous in quantum science circles. He is also less well known for asking the question "Where are they?" in relation to the non-detection of aliens in the Universe at large. I'm going to go a little off topic today and suggest that necrons are one possible solution to Fermi's paradox!

What's this Fermi's paradox thing?
There's two aspects here. Firstly, we might suppose that life in the Universe is common. This can be deduced from something called the "Drake Equation". One form of the Drake equations looks like the following:

N(c) = N(Star) x f(p) x N(LZ) x f(L) x f(I) x F(s)

where:
N(c) = the number of communicative civilizations in the Galaxy (the Milky Way);
N(Star) = the number of stars in the Milky Way;
f(p) = the fraction of stars that have planets orbiting them;
N(LZ) = the number of planets per star in the "Life Zone" - defined as where water is in a liquid phase;
f(L) = fraction of planets where life begins;
f(I) = fraction of life that evolves to intelligence;
F(s) = fraction of the parent star's lifetime during which a technological civilization survives.

Now, some of these factors are better known than others. N(Star) is the best know - it is in the region of 10^11 (ten to the power of eleven). f(p) is becoming better known - it certainly isn't zero and could be rather high! For our own solar system, N(LZ)=1 since the Earth is the only planet where water is in a liquid state given its distance from the Sun. As for the rest of the factors, you can plug in numbers between 0 and 1 till you're content.

If you plug in even some improbable values (e.g. f(L)<0.01), you might end up computing that N(c) is non-negligible. If so, then we've got to ask ourselves where the rest of these civilizations have got to. (okay - you might get a number below 1 as well...).

The second line of reasoning goes something like this. Let's suppose that somewhere, a technological civilization wants to spread itself out across the Milky Way and colonize everywhere. How long would it take to colonize the entire Galaxy? To answer this, let's also suppose that inter-stellar travel is tricky and said species only ever figures out how to travel at a fraction of the speed of light (current human-made craft travel at about less than 1/10000th of the speed of light). We'll assume these imaginary aliens manage to get this up to 1/100th the speed of light. It would only take them of the order millions of years to colonize every planet in the Galaxy. Compared to the age of the Universe (14ish billion years or 14 Gigayears), this is small. Hence if there were a civilization that had some inclination to colonize and managed to travel on spacecraft moving at 1 per cent of the speed of light (no wormholes or the like), then they would have already had ample time to do. More of this theory can be read about on wikipedia if you're interested in reading more about these concepts.

How do necrons resolve the paradox?
All of the above is standard scientific analysis that is taught at a good number of universities and colleges across the globe in undergraduate courses. Now, how do necrons impact on the Fermi Paradox?

Well, it occurs to me that necrons did colonize much of the Galaxy (by conquering and eliminating all other life encountered) in the background fluff before retreating to their tombs and sleeping away the millenia. The necron tombs are not necessarily located on every single large terrestrial planet, they could certainly be tucked away on asteroids and other debris from solar system formation or be floating in inter-stellar space. There would be no signs of life in the Universe (a "Great Silence") since the dominant species - necrons - are asleep elsewhere and not necessarily within reach of humans or their detection devices; QED.

Horror of Tzeentch Icon Bearer

A dedicated miniature for an Icon Bearing Horror of Tzeentch is probably in the pipeline from Games Workshop. In the mean time, here's one representation of this miniature.

As can be seen, the icon is simply the from the plastic chaos space marine sprue and glued on to one of the horror's outstretched limbs -- a good use for an icon that would otherwise lay in the bits box for some time given the lack of Thousand Sons in my chaos marine collection.

The paint paint scheme follows the standard blue-in-pink approach that I worked out some time ago.

The blue horror on the inside of this miniature is probably one of the larger ones of the horror range. The outer portions of the blue horror fade in the the black recesses of the pink horror's mouth to provide additional definition and contrast to the pink's nearly white stretched lips. One of the arms sports flames licking the digits which have been picked out in sunburst yellow, but retaining redder portions in the recessed areas.

The base is unremarkable and simply has green flock mixed in with small white load stones scattered across it.

Related postings:
Pink Horror Tactics
Burnt-out horror: I, II
Blue Horror from Pink
Blue-in-pink Painting Approach

Forward Planning

Happy New Year! Warpstone Flux is back. Over the vacation, I got in a good few games (mostly with codex: daemons), got a few miniatures from Santa (via my wife!), and entered a conversion contest (with the reconsitituted Keeper of Secrets) (didn't win, but had a good showing!). More on those topics at a later point in time perhaps.

It's now 2009, and I think I need to consider what army (or armies?) I'm going to be working on this year. Ideally, I want to build up to GT2009 ... which I'm guessing will be around the end of June or start of July locally. The points cost I'm aiming for is 1500.

The choices - and the dilemma - that I have in front of me are:
(1) Generic Chaos Space Marines (with or without vehicles; with or without daemons; with or without Cult Troops Squads).
(2) Death Guard (with or without vehicles; with or without daemons).
(3) Daemons (mixed, or most combinations of the Big Four).
(4) Nurgle Daemons (an Epidemius focused army list).

There is a fifth choice as well:
(5) something new. I've no idea what that could be, but I suspect either tyranids or genestealer-ork hybrids (using codex: orks). Undoubtably, genestealer-ork hybrids appeal to me greatly since they're an uncommon idea.

Options 1 and 2 give me a lot of flexibility. It means I probably won't have to paint up all that many models (beyond what I decide to paint-strip) or purchase many new ones either. They are what I'm used to and what I enjoy playing. A revised mechanized (i.e. >3 vehicles) Death Guard list is something I'm edging toward as I had a very enjoyable GT2008 with them. I do wonder if they stack up favourably in the modern metagame though, but that is of less concern to me.

Option 3 will require some more painting compared to the previous options, but similarly I'm used to playing daemons, I have a reasonable feel for them, and I probably won't have to purchase too many more.

Option 4 might be interesting and is something I've not done before. It is probably the only mono-chaos power list I'm in a decent position to create without a good outlay of more cash. I have the model for Epidemius, but I'd need to purchase some more plaguebearers in all likelihood.

Option 5 honestly fills me with dread. How many orks (or tyranids) would I need to purchase and paint over 6 months? Probably too many. I think I'm happy just making up a few ork hybrids from the bits box for small (200 odd point) skirmishes. So, I'm going to safely rule out option 5 right here and now. Perhaps it is something for GT2010 or later this year, perhaps not. At least writing this posting up has helped me eliminate that thought, if nothing else. However, as and when I model a new ork hybrid (or complete a small squad of them), I will post the results here.

Resolutions.
I'm going to aim to write a minimum of 1 post per fortnight on my progress to GT2009 for the next 5 months or so.

For other posts, my resolution is to maintain my usual level of postings on painting, conversions, tactics, FtW group articles, and other w40k related items as in 2008. The (non-exclusive) focus will still be on Chaos in its myriad forms. Of course, some weeks are going to be less intense than others, but my resolution is to aim for a long-term average of 3 postings per week, at minimum.

One of my other aims for Warpstone Flux in 2009 is to follow up on the "Daemons of Lesser Powers" series and move toward scripting a minidex on lesser powers and gaming on daemon-worlds.

Is there anything else that readers would like to see from Warpstone Flux in 2009 that is not covered by the above? Or would you like more of a particular type of posting (tactics?; monstrous creature conversions?; etc?).
As always, your opinions & feedback are welcome! (Please remember to be polite as minors read this blog regularly!)