lord of contagion

“Sister Pestilencia” – My New Favorite Proxy

If I had doubts or misgivings about the way that my Lord of Contagion turned out, oh boy, is this model ever the opposite – but that might be just because of what a fantastic sculpt Artel W put together for this third-party model. KinpatsuSamurai picked me up one for Christmas and I was thrilled; from the moment I saw the concept art on the company’s Facebook I knew this was going to be one that I’d have to add to my Death Guard. (And it’s totally not like I’m also putting together a Sisters of Battle army with an emphasis on third-party miniatures. Definitely not that, too.)

Pictured: Lord Felthius and his soon-to-be replacement in one if not both of my Crusade games. No hard feelings here, it’s all in the service of Nurgle.

Sister Pestilencia did not disappoint in the least. The main sculpt is great and the model comes with some fantastic alternate head sculpts and an alternate weapon (which I worked into the Plague Marines I’ll be posting here down the road). The detail is great, the sculpt is clean, and the only drawback if there’s one to be found at all is that the model’s a little bit short for a Lord of Contagion, and the Nurgling is a little out of scale with other Nurgling models, but that’s not a dealbreaker for me. Both Sister Pestilencia and her Nurgling can be small but mighty.

Pictured: The world’s tiniest Nurgling. Truly, Artel W knows what we’re about here in the Plague God’s service.

Out of the color changes I made from my first Death Guard batch, changing from brownish cloth colors to a bright, bold red was absolutely the right choice, and it fits this model in particular brilliantly. While I’m still iffy on my other Lord of Contagion, this model will absolutely be on the tabletop as a new HQ proxy and fluff character, either in my running Crusade games with friends at my FLGS or in floorhammer games with my roommate – varnishing issues notwithstanding.

*Sister Pestilencia swore an oath of loyalty to the forces of Decay, Death and Infection. Now she is the Reaper of Souls, carrying the unholy gifts of her Master to the doomed worlds.*

Starting my Death Guard galleries in 2021 off with a classic! Does the Lord of Contagion count as a classic? I mean, it’s been four years since 8th Edition, and the Know No Fear box set, so…maybe? Regardless, this is the first part of my Know No Fear batch of Plague Marines and I went into this with a goal in mind: to try and unseat Lord Felthius. For whatever strange reason, Lord Felthius and the Tainted Cohort have become the most clicked gallery on my website. As cool as that is, I wanted to see if I could finally throw together a Lord of Contagion that would unseat him from that spot on the website, or maybe in my Crusade Army.

Pictured: Cruelty to Nurglings, shameful since Nurglings are my favorite part of any Death Guard army.

The model itself came together brilliantly, and everything went great on the process work up until the eleventh hour when I sloshed way too much varnish on. As always, a big shout-out to Spekd for the “sponge” method that’s become the bread and butter of my Death Guard army. I will say in terms of the comparisons between models that I like the overall color balance, palette, and scheme better from this batch of Plague Marines than the last, but have I succeeded in a model that will unseat Lord Felthius? The varnish issue puts a damper on that from a Crusade and visual perspective, I think, and as for the website we’ll just have to wait and see.

Pictured: The Lords of Contagion, side by side.

This week my galleries will be all Lord of Contagion stuff, and probably with my Malignant Plague Caster stuff the week after, then my Plague Marines the week after, and I have some other fun stuff planned down the pipeline. Might be slow for a while after these galleries all the same, where my funding as a grad student has run out and I am working on finding new work. But hopefully, somewhere in there, I’ll still be able to make time for painting and posting! (Especially since I want to get in on that new year’s contest Ann’s Immaterium suggested to kick off 2021.)

*Truly, Nurgle has blessed the Death Guard – their flesh bulging with corruption – and they wish to share these gifts of virulence across the galaxy.*

Merry Christmas from the Death Guard!

What could be more 2020 than finding Plague Marines of all things under the Christmas tree? When I started this batch I was going for an old Horus Heresy look but the longer I kept at it the more I felt like they were taking on a festive life of their own. I’m happy with how this batch turned out, though (in typical fashion) I tripped over the finish line and applied the varnish way too thick on the last couple steps and had to go back and fix a few resulting defects.

Pictured: You get an HQ, and you get an HQ, and look under your chair – it’s another HQ!

I wanted to post this to give a taste of what’s coming in 2021 for individual galleries – Death Guard, Death Guard, and lots of Death Guard, with battle reports and comparisons as well between what I’ve painted before and what I accomplished with this batch. All things considered I’m very happy with how they turned out and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how they do on the tabletop – and I’m very happy with my new Artel W proxy units, including a Sister Pestilencia model from kinpatsusamurai!

Pictured: Sister Pestilencia, who is…*definitely* the only Battle Sister I’ll own in the new year. Yup. Nothing to see here…

2020 has been…it’s been a year, alright. And while I think I weathered it okay, it leaves me in a pretty iffy space heading into the next year. My funding runs out at the end of this month, my Master’s is still incomplete, and I don’t have a stable job at the moment, but…all the same thankful for the friends, family, and all the other good things in my life. Here’s hoping that 2021 is a more gracious year than the one now past!

*We wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year!*

Lord Felthius and the Tainted Cohort

Pictured, Lord Felthius – a Lord of Contagion model with a lot of personality.

With Games Workshop recently removing most of the line of Easy to Build kits introduced in 8th edition, I’m glad that I got a hold of these models when I did! I hadn’t done much in terminator-sized models up to this point and initially I found the sheer number of details on these a little daunting, but each of the models in this set ended up looking really distinct with their own individual presence and personality.

Pictured, my favorite part of painting Death Guard – the Nurglings!

With recent Power Level updates I’m not altogether sure the Tainted Cohort can be fielded on its own anymore, which means it might be worth picking up the regular Blightlord Terminators at some point, but even once I do I think I’m going to find excuses to use these models as part of that squad because they just look so imposing. And, as always, I love Nurglings.