“Born From Sickness And Despair…”

"As the Nurgling matures it feeds upon the filth of the Great Unclean One and pops out."

These two 28mm multi-part plastic swarms of Nurglings are made by “Games Workshop” and are two of the three such “stacks” that can be created using the “variety of characterful” components found within the “Gleeful Castoffs” "Age Of Sigmar" set. Indeed the company boasts that “you can actually make twenty-seven combinations of Nurgling towers” using their sprues should you purchase enough boxes of the “wriggling little horned beasts”, and that number doesn’t include the additional “individual Nurglings” the kit comes with “for using on bases for the rest of your army.”

"Sometimes Nurglings are gifted to Heralds or other powerful Chaos Champions to act as a living litter for him."

As a result of the complexity of these 'builds' I decided to paint the front, middle and back rows of each 40mm circular base separately and then later superglue the towers together after they had been varnished. This meant that, having placed each line of Khan’gurani’I on an individual stand, they were all initially undercoated with “Vallejo” Heavy Khaki and washed with “Citadel” Thrakka Green. The tiny toothed daemons were then dry-brushed with more “Vallejo” Heavy Khaki before having details such as their horns, “sores, cuts, lumps and opened orifices” coated with “Citadel” Abaddon Black.

With all the miniatures’ groundwork completed, I started painting the Nurglings’ internal organs with either “Vallejo” Heavy Red or Heavy Warmgrey, and washed the grisly sculpts with a combination of “Citadel” Thrakka Green, Agrax Earthshade and Carroburg Crimson. As a final touch their numerous zits were ‘picked out’ with a dollop of “Vallejo” Heavy Ochre and given a heavy covering of “Citadel” Reikland Fleshshade.

"A unit of Nurglings has three or more models."

Wonderfully timed to coincide with Zomtober 2016, I have taken possession of my pledge from “Studio Miniatures” and their “Hollywood Havoc” Kickstarter. These “highly detailed” 28mm models are part of their zombie horror range “Z-Clipz” and supposedly depict “the unlucky staff dressed as Hollywood’s greatest stars” who were devoured whilst working at the Funland Theme Park during the zed apocalypse.

The first three brain-eating cadavers I plan to work on are Zombie Lee, Zombie Charlie and Zombie Norma Jean; undeniably characterful undead versions of Bruce Lee, Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe. My collection also contains the survivor versions of these silver screen personalities, alongside the company’s four “Monster Madness Haunted House” figures. However as I’m currently painting a number of other walking dead miniatures as part of my "Mongoose Publishing" Mega-City One Zombie Horde I thought I’d start with the infected versions first.

"Hollwood Havoc" WIPs - Bruce Lee, Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe

What is somewhat disappointing about these models though is their seemingly slender size when compared to other zombie models I own. The Kickstarter was keen to emphasise that “all of these new miniatures are fully compatible with our existing modern zombies and survivors” and highlighted you could “mix them together for some movie madness” if you wanted. I don’t actually own any other “Studio Miniatures” sculpts to compare them against, but have found these latest acquisitions to be slightly diminutive when placed alongside even my slender “Zombicide” plastic zeds…