WHFB Dwarf Bolt Thrower Crew (sans Bolt Thrower!) (Colin Dixon, 1998) (Squaddie September ’19)

WHFB Dwarf Bolt Thrower Crew, Colin Dixon, 1998

Here’s what are my final trio of models for Squaddie September ’19 (Yesterday’s Zombies were October-completed, post-queue-jumpers because of the post time requirements of Zomtober). Not nearly as much as I’d planned to get through (yet again), but I had a shitload of work at work, and a shitload of other stressful shit to deal with (other peoples shit, of course!) When going to work is your respite, you know that something’s seriously fucked up in your life.

Anyway, enough venting for the moment. These three modes have a sort-of-interesting story on how they got to be completed. Basically, I got them out, primed and based them about 2-3 years ago right after painting all those WHFB Dwarves. The normal ones, not the Slayers. The thought was to do something a bit different and a bit more fun after slogging through all those infantry. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way, so they’ve sat on a tray on my desk ever since, pretty much being ignored…

WHFB Dwarf Bolt Thrower Crew, Colin Dixon, 1998

…that is, until a few weeks ago. I used some of the same blue as I’d previously used on my dwarfs whole repainting the cable on the Necromunda Bounty Hunter. It didn’t take much paint, and because it was a Vallejo Dropper bottle, there was some leftover on my palette. Now I hate to waste paint, so I looked frantically all over my desk for something to use it on (I do this sort of thing often) and spied these three dorfs. So they got their tunics and pants done. Same thing happened shortly afterwards with some off-white, so the loader’s shirt got basecoated. A couple of days ago, while painting the street lines on the Zombicide Abominations to finish them off, I was left with a bunch of yellow, so their belts got it.

After completing the Abominations, I took a look at the three dwarves. Now I really like Colin Dixon’s sculpts from this particular line of WHFB Dwarves, so I decided that they were pretty straightforward sculpts and thought that with a bit of effort, I could get them done in the final three days before the end of September. So I put my nose to the grindstone as much as I could within other time committments, and I got them done.

Of course, I still do need to paint their Bolt Thrower (sculpted by Norman Swales), but that’ll have to wait for a month beyond September. It qualifies for October’s Neglected Model Challenge, as well as November’s upcoming “Mechanovember” Challenge as it’s a mechanical device, albeit a simple one. This means chances are better than 50% that I’ll have it done before the end of the year. Or before the end of next year. Wish me luck…

Realm of Chaos – The Death Guard #1: Poxwalkers #1-3 (Zomtober ’19) (Contrast Paint Experiment #12)

Nurgle Poxwalkers

And with this trio of figures, my force of modern Death Guard officially begins! Initiated as part of my Contrast Paint Experiment series after seeing and being inspired to get started on them by what Krautscientist did with his GW sample models, not to mention seeing painters like Wudugast and Ann pound them out for month after month – but even so, they kind of stalled a bit on the desk – I’d planned to finish these in August, then September as part of Squaddie September, but they missed both marks. Now, thanks to the Zomtober Painting Challenge over on Brummie’s Wargaming Blog, I’ve got the first three of my initial half-dozen of the suckers finished this afternoon. For those who are unaware, the Zomtober Challenge is to paint up a Zombie or a Survivor each week and have them posted up by the Sunday.

Nurgle Poxwalkers

Thankfully, there appears to be enough flexibility to allow people like me who are more likely to get the zeds (or poxies) painted up in a single or pair of batches to participate as well as allow non-standard Zombies like these Poxwalkers to contribute. So I’ve been able to leverage that into some painted models. Of course, “Poxwalkers” and the new, “horny” design tweak is simply GW’s slight reworking of the previous “Plague Zombie” concept into something more trademark-friendly for their own purposes. So it’s all the same, pretty much.

On the Contrast Paint front, these models are pretty much perfect for the stuff – organic, mutated, discoloured, not-quite-right, and highly detailed. All factors that make the Contrast Paints work perfectly with them while being quite forgiving of the colours looking a bit off or improper here and there. It’s pretty much guaranteed that once the other half of the six I started are done, I’ll be starting on some more, regardles sof whether they get finished during Zomtober or not.

And yeah, since these things aren’t Nurgle Daemons but are instead part of the chaff from the Death Guard, they officially mark my beginning to paint the 40k-Mortal half of my Nurgle forces…