From SamuliS: The Pestilent Horde (Death Star) (132 points)

A short hiatus from painting for the challenge and finishing up quite a lot of half painted minis I had lying around, but I'm back and with somewhat of a horde. Our club has been bitten by a Warmaster bug last year and new armies have been popping up everywhere since the start of last year. There's quite a big hype going around with us and also elsewhere in Finland and we've actually had some Warmaster events with around 20 players playing in a single mega battle. Probably more than there ever were when Warmaster was actually being produced by Games Workshop.

 

A lot of the hype has been coming from the vast quantity of quality 3D files for Warmaster that starting popping up in the wake of Forest Dragons popularity. The first army I did when we started building armies was Forest Dragons Vampire Counts. Lovely models, but it was quite a chore building that up. I wanted to do another army, but this time instead of hordes of skeletons and zombies something much more elite. When I saw the first pictures of Varus Miniatures Demons I immediately knew that I wanted to paint them. Nurgle has always been my favorite of the Chaos  Gods and these models really look the part and are pretty faithful to the GW originals (some could even say almost direct copies...) The copying ties nicely into the Death Star quadrant theme of Hubris. With the inspiration being so clear it is only a matter of time before GW lawyers strike with a cease & desist letter like actually happened with Forest Dragon at the start. And of course you could argue that Nurgle's cures are of quite a questionable design at least if you are not a demon yourself. It might cure your pains, but there are quite a few side effects.

Before the challenge I had mostly tackled the elite part with cavalry, monsters and greater demons so now it was time to start building up the bulk of the army. This is the first three units of  Plaguebearers to the army. Three basic demonic infantry units are needed per 1000 points so I still need to do another  set to bring the army up to full size. I also painted up some more heroes in the form of a Demon Overlord to act as a general and two sorcerers to spice up the magic game. 

These are quite fast to paint with a violet brown and white zenithal followed by mostly contrast paints and some tactical highlights to bring out certain details. I find that the coloured zenithal basecoat really helps define the details as it forces some shadows and increases contrast between different areas. Really makes the contrast paints function much better.

Taking photos was a pain as I my mobile phone just doesn't seem to be capable of getting any decent photos of such tiny models. I really need to get my DSLR back in use so I can take better pictures. I'm unfortunately just unable to locate the battery and charger after our house move. Probably have to just give up soon and go buy a new set.

I also got around to building a proper gaming table for myself at our newish house. I have the attic mostly for my hobby and remote working space so there was plenty of room for gaming. I ended up building a slightly larger table with storage space below. Coming in at 240cm x 120cm it allows for plenty of space on the sides for beers and snacks when playing on a regular sized gaming area and I can extend it at least a bit for larger games. My joinery won't win any contests, but the goal was anyways more to do a sturdy table that would be fairly fast to put together. My wife has already taken over one end for puzzle building, but luckily there is still enough space to game on the other end!

Overall there are 108 Plaguebearers, two sorcerers and one larger demon. I'm going to count the big guy as a mounted figure so 112 points for them and a further 20 points for the Death Star quadrant "planet"

Those are lovely purulent prints! I'm enjoying this resurgence of 10mm fantasy and am sensing I will have to resist the siren call myself... I haven't mastered a consistent zenithal application myself, but yours works very well. I like your take on 'hubris' as the rebels take on the evil empire...

Barks