21 Pestigor (220pts)

 This unit has taken me a little longer than expected to complete, even though half of the models were already painted. The other half needed to either have their conversions completed or, started from scratch, so it was quite the involved process. But it had reminded me of of how much fun it is is to make multiple, themed kitbashes, as I always prefer this to the painting stage. 

The theme here is clearly a Nurgle Pestigor unit, so I've rotted these models up by including elements of plaguebearer models and also through adding the usual green-stuffed bloated bellies, sores and postules from water filter beads. Adding lots of additional horns was important too. But I also wanted to explore the part beast part man aspect more deeply and not just go down the goatman route that GW has developed. Therefore I've really tried to use a wide range of bestial parts from my bitzbox to make each of these chaotic creatures; from horse heads, to spiders legs, to cow torsos there's quite an eclectic mix. I've generally used the regular beastman torso to have some unity to the conversions and also because I had a load of them to use. Here's the completed unit:

And now you'll have to excuse my exhaustive photos, as (for me) it's quite nice to see each of my creations individually:

This was one of the first conversions for the project and is more man than beast. I like the idea that some have evolved less fully from man to beast, or the other way round in that the beast has only started showing more human physiognomy. This one has a zombie torso and flagellant head and of course some extra horns and a belly.

A Lizardman is a beast man. A cold one head and tail merged with a plaguebearer body and a clawed hand. The legs are left over from the classic Palanquin rider

Flyman. One of the Nurgle sprues includes this fly head and it's been added to an old metal savage orc torso. Nice big sword. I considered adding wings to enhance the fly aspect.

More of a traditional GW beastman, here I wanted to play with a more dynamic pose. The plaguebearer body, zombie arm and extra horns help create a mutated character.

Ratman. of course a Skaven head was added to the plaguebearer torso and a foot to the beastman legs. He's a musician (of sorts)

Again a traditional beastman where I was focusing on pose and creating that Nurgle appearance through mixing familiar kits.

More man than beast, I thought he might have the skill to use a blunderbuss. His hat hints at a former life as a soldier before mutation changed his facial features and his gut.

Here I wanted to experiment with a different type of head, I think its a Mantic ghouls(?) and a different pose with the raised spear. A grisly collection of heads and a Nurgling friend are present.

I've had this troll torso in my box for a while and quite liked the idea of using it as the basis for an enlarged beastman to add some height and bulk. To contrast with that a small warrior's head was simply added and of course an additional horn.

Birdman. The usual combo of legs and torso, but the head I believe os from an old Bretonnian helmet. In retrospect I'm not so keen on the shield, I prefer the simplicity of a wooden shield for these creatures.

The banner bearer. The creature is mostly cow from the Giant sprue, with a zombie torso and a warriors head. The banner design is one that I freehanded from a Fighting Fantasy book.

This one I actually rolled up on the Lost and the Damned attributes table for some competition some years ago. Extra arm, sorcerer and flaming skull head were three such attributes and here's my response to that. I do love the scythe and hour glass combo.

The leader. Simply because the conversion gives such an imposing presence. Beastman, zombie, deamonette and chaos warrior bits were used and quite a bit of greenstuff to bulk him up. I like horns and scythes it would seem.

The next few are the more recent conversions that I made from scratch to complete the unit:

A metal horror's legs, beastman torso and some Mantic ghoul pieces make this little fella.

Mostly beastman bits, but I wanted him to be a skull collector, you can see his collection around his waist.

Orc, Gnoblar and Kroot bits fused together makes a pretty unique character. Extra hand weapon always seem to equate to extra cool.

I think the base of this model is from the Foresaken sprue and I've just added a plaguebearer arm and some horns. This one is more spawn like but I do like the contortion of change that he seems to be showing.

Horse man. Why not use a horse head, especially when I seem to have more than I need. I've tried to blend it into the model by green-stuffing decaying skin over part of it's face and into the torso. The arm is a metal orcs.

A personal favourite - cowman. Using the head pointing up from the banner bearers body and then creating a double handed weapon stance I can almost hear the braying.

An old minotaur head with a tentacle and extra horns, chaos does let you experiment with different scale when kitbashing, so the enlarged head is an option.

The kroot head makes an appearance as does a spider leg for an arm. This one has quite the dynamic pose.

So the army continues to grow, here's a current group shot. If I add the 220pts of this unit to the army, we're now looking at 4625 points. 

Some chariots next (although there will be a short Orctober interlude)

Kit-bashing Beastmen

I don't often show many Wips, so I thought I'd change that as of now as a break from painting all 21 Beastmen for my Nurgle army. These are the last 6 for the unit (the others are all painted) and are all kit-bashed / bitz boxed from my stash. One of my favourite aspects of the hobby is a good rummage for different parts and working out ways of combining them into a unique mini. Here's my most recent endeavours:

There's a bit of greenstuffing to fill the gaps and add some texture and you might notice some small poxes which are super glued balls from a water filter (also useful for sci-fi rivets). 

Most of these are plastic based parts which are of course the easiest to join together with a bit of poly cement but the challenge of pinning and joining metal to metal or plastic is also a satisfying moment. 

I think my favourite one is the first, with his little metal legs, multiple toes and shrunken head, but I've tried to add a bit of detail and interest to each. Let me know your thoughts, I'm intrigued to know your favourites and why. 

Cheers! 

Classic Chaos Beastmen (150pts).

This blog was originally set up, some years ago, to chart my progress in creating a Nurgle army from the classic Lost and the Damned tome. Along the way I have been easily, inevitably and enjoyably sidetracked by a plethora of new ideas, miniatures, games systems and competitions, but for now I've decided to come back to the project and try and complete it! Ive finished my Warhammer 3rd Edition Chaos Allies Contingent, which have the same basing, so I looked back at my many incomplete Lost and the Damned units and decided to tackle the unit which needed the least amount of work.

I had painted half of these classic Chaos Beastmen some time ago, and I remembered collecting them so that they were a disparate, ragtag bunch (certainly not just goats), of different shapes, sizes and races and of course choosing some of my favourite sculpts from this era along the way.

Here’s the now completed unit:

I've painted their skin with a variety of tones, trying to unify them slighlty by keeping the colours slightly drab and pastel like, and as always allowing the basing to tie them together further. 

The banner is painted from an image in Fighting Fantasy's Army of Death and is held by a Beastman that was regularly headswapped in Dale Hurst's iconic Tzeentch warband from White Dwarf 135, something I had always wanted to do since I first saw the article in 1991 and here I've done so with a new, plastic plaguebearer head added to the Citadel lead body. 

Here’s the original illustration  by Nick Williams, as found in Fighting Fantasy: Armies of Death:

The last part was to construct a movement tray, which is really more of a display tray to hold the unit together. More on how I do this in a future post.

So then that’s 14 Beastmen, with standard, making a total of 150pts.

BitzBox Warband Characters

To continue the slow work of finishing my bitzbox warband, I can now introduce the two lesser characters to accompany the previously showcased minions; 

Darn the Veiled (Marauder, Mark of Nurgle, Horns, Heavy Armour and Shield)

Araf (Level 5 Beastman, Mark of Nurgle, Bestial Face (dog) limb loss (leg), Demonic Steed (Skull Face, Horn)

As you can see I've rolled up the Chaos Attributes from the great Lost and the Damned tome and gone about converting them to match the rolls. I've now finally got around to painting them too:

You may recognise a few of the multitude of bitz used here (go on play the game, you know you want to), and you may also identify with where my inspiration came from for Aruf; namely the Groot character below, which I believe was modelled and painted by Mike Mcvey.

His steed is a direct copy of this Tony Ackland illustration from the Chaos Spawn section from the LatD. Originally I was going to sculpt on the scaly skin (I forgot), then I remembered and was going to use crackle medium (I forgot again) so in the end I painted a furry kind of texture to break up the large, flat areas of horse body. I wished I had sculpted the scales on though, it would have looked better and more in keeping with the original illustration.

Darn is a simpler conversion, using a Chaos Warrior body, with a Knight of Nurgle head and some greenstuffing to the new addition of a shield.

And the two of them gallivanting through some quite familiar territory. 

The next and final piece of my Bitzbox Warband is the leader mounted onto a palanquin; I'm slightly daunted by the size and intricacy of it, so it may take some time. I plan to finish a few other quick projects alongside it to break up such a large project.

BitzBox Beastmen

I like my beastmen to be a proper combination of beasts and men, so for this stage of my bitzbox warband challenge, I kitbashed a load of (mostly) plastic and (some) metal parts to create a range of characters that showed a range of hybrids between man and different beasts. I also wanted to have lesser and greater hybrids - the greater hybrids can look far removed from the man and more bestial (but are probably more fun to convert) yet actually I prefer the subtle mutations/changes that you may find on a more human like figure with a few mutations that can almost be hidden. These are mostly greater mutations/hybrids:

So each conversion stuck to the theme of one animal, but with greater or lesser mutations. First up is a more typical beastman - goat head and hoof and an extended belly, but otherwise still retaining much of his soldier background with his uniform and blunderbuss. Not so far down the path to damnation and he can probably function pretty normally:

Here I've again gone for a head swap, adding a fly mutation to an otherwise humanoid body (which is actually a metal savage orc that I found headless in my bitz-box). A heavier mutation - can he speak? Has his brain retained any human elements?

The third beastman is relating to the avian, but with some Nurgleesque gut spillage. A cold-one claw has been added to his feet and I think the head is from a Bretonnian helmet? The arms are from a plaguebearer and have nice talon like fingers to them. I tried to paint the fur of the beastman body to match the feathers on the bird head. I was tempted to give him wings, but realised I needed them for my upcoming harpies. So he's flightless, which must be quite irritating for him:

Next up is my lizardman. Again utilising the head of a cold-one but I tried to position it in a way that made it look dynamic, almost as if he is contorted with pain and rage due to his heavily mutated self. A cold one was again raided for the tail, an old chaos warrior mutated arm was stuck to a plaguebearer body and a metal leg from the Nurgle palanquin champion was added. I think his left arm and axe are orcish. He's more lizard than man now (say this with an Alec Guinness voice):

And finally the cow-centaur. Cow body from the giant sprue, torso from a zombie, head from the chaos warriors mutation sprue, skaven left arm and banner pole and right arm/spear from a goblin. The banner design is straight outta Fighting Fantasy - see the link for the other ones I've completed. Much more heavily mootated than some of the udder beastmen on show here:

And here they all are looking perfectly mutated, chaotic, lost and very damned.

A few more characters need to be painted to complete this warband - I'm determined to stay focused on one project at a time, until it's completion... but I'd really like to kitbash some subtly mutated, robed and diseased flagellants next. They'll have to wait.