(Lead) Mountain Musings - "General's Handbook" September 2017

Nurgle WIPs - The Great Unclean One and Herald of Nurgle have been primed, washed and dry-brushed

This month's randomly themed attempt to try and reduce my overwhelming collection of metal, plastic and resin miniatures has been superseded by the release of the "General's Handbook 2017" by "Games Workshop", and my subsequent desire to field 1,000 points of (pure) Nurgle for "Age Of Sigmar". Fortunately, the latest version of the "essential resource for all warlords of the Mortal Realms" doesn't appear to have greatly affected the previous Matched Play cost of my Host, and as a result my horde of twenty Plague Bearers of Nurgle (200 points), Herald of Nurgle (100 points), two Beasts of Nurgle (120 points), three stands of Nurglings (80 points), Rotbringers Sorcerer (100 points) and Lord of Plagues (100 points) still totals 700 points.

This means I only need to paint a humble 300 points of miniatures over the next few weeks, and when one of them, a large "Finecast" Great Unclean One, tallies a whopping 240 points on his own, it should be an easily achievable goal. Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, I have somewhat raised the difficulty of this particular mini-project by adding a partially-pigmented Herald of Nurgle (100 points) to my painting queue, alongside an almost obligatory (third) Beast of Nurgle (60 points).

Beast Of Nurgle WIPs - The Chaos Daemon has been undercoated and heavily shaded

I have 'dusted off' my towering Greater Daemon of Nurgle before, but am so determined to finish the "Behemoth" this time round that I have already started work layering, washing and dry-brushing his large Plague Flail with "Vallejo" Gunmetal Grey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil. The sculpt's "Corpulent Mass" is simply packed full of open sores, wriggling worms, and cherub-faced Nurglings, so I have no doubt I'll be spending a fair few hours elbow deep painting pustules, pimples and festering boils...

My (second) Herald of Nurgle is equally as distressed physically, and has actually been converted using a large scythe from the Blight Kings "Age Of Sigmar" plastic boxed set. Having previously painted one of these 'mortals who somehow resists the ravages of Nurgle’s Rot', I'm hoping to get this miniature finished in short order, and thus be able to buttress my unruly formation of Plaguebearers with a herald at either end.

Plague Guard WIPs - The Heretic Astartes has been primed and then layered

Finally, I have assembled a third "truly horrendous aberration". These "Finecast" pallid slugs are one of my all-time favourite "Games Workshop" sculpts, and I have had to wait quite a while to secure another model after the company's webstore 'ran out of stock' earlier in the year. In the past I have painted these 'writhing tentacled' horrors with a predominantly green and tan palette. This time round I thought I'd try a more poisonously pus-like colour scheme.

In addition to increasing my Host of Nurgle's size, I have been unable to resist 'dipping my toe' into the Eighth Edition of "Warhammer 40k" as well. This is largely due to the fact that my "Age Of Sigmar" warband is perfectly capable of being fielded on the "41st millennium" battlefield without any problems whatsoever. Indeed, simply using the eligible models I already own I can readily put 572 points of Chaos Daemons onto the tabletop.

Faramir battles Lurtz and a band of Uruk-Hai for the glory of Gondor

Sadly however, so 'unshooty' a force is not going to survive long up against any opposition armed with even the simplest of ranged weapons, so at some point I am going to need to add some much needed firepower to my army. A contingent of Heretic Astartes would fit that bill rather nicely, especially Plague Guard, so I have assembled a single plastic miniature from the "Dark Imperium" boxed set to use as a 'test piece'.