The Start of a Dreadnought and a Nurgle Daemon Prince

Just a quick post to show you a few photos of two bigger projects that I’m working on: a Chaos Dreadnought converted from a Venerable Dreadnought that I picked up on eBay; and a Nurgle Daemon Prince made out of Finecast.

My converted Chaos Dreadnought, nicknamed “Zoidberg”

I wanted to field a Chaos Dreadnought (even though they used to be super-unpredictable in the rules but were recently fixed some) but the current model is terrible: it’s metal, so it weighs a ton; and it’s prohibitively ugly. Really, really ugly. So I figured I’d convert a loyalist Dreadnought and say that it was corrupted by Chaos, etc. I found a mostly built Venerable Dreadnought on eBay and picked it up. All it really took was a good deal of work with my Dremel to properly pit and corrode the model and then adding in the tentacles that are escaping from the inside of the vehicle, and boom: Chaos Dreadnought. Lastly, I primed and highlighted it with my airbrush and now I’m starting to lay down a very dark blue with Secret Weapon Miniature’s line of washes. Once that’s done, I’ll move onto metal details.

The Finecast Nurgle Daemon Prince, before priming and shading (left) and after (right)

The Nurgle Daemon Prince is something I was always interested in, but again, he was always metal and the last thing I want is a metal model that’s the size and weight of a baseball. However, he was recently re-released in Finecast (Games Workshop’s new resin line of models) which is lighter and a bit easier to work with, but the models are usually poorly cast and filled with pits, bubbles, and other surface imperfections. But, since he’s a Nurgle Daemon Prince (who’s already covered in boils and other horribleness) I figured that being a poorly-cast Finecast model wouldn’t matter. This was mostly true, but I did have to use my heat gun to straighten out his sword, which came to me pretty bendy. He went together pretty easily and I added some tiny little skeletal wings to his back, because a Daemon Prince without the Wings rule is like a day without sunshine. I’ve started to paint his skin a bright green color (using “Fallout” and “Green” washes from Secret Weapon Miniatures again) and look forward to trying some rust and corrosion techniques to his sword and armor.

I’m really looking forward to getting him and Zoidberg all finished up. After these guys are done, then I’ll either be moving on to some more Plague Marines or (more likely) some vehicles, like my two Vindicators. They need to be painted up so they start working better in my battles. Everyone knows that painted models work better, so once all my Chaos Space Marine force is finished, I’ll be nigh-invincible, I assume.

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Combat Patrol Tournament and Dreadnoughts and Princes

So I’ve been busy lately. Two Saturdays ago, my good friend Peter helped me get the old chest freezer and the very old (and very heavy) refrigerator out of the basement, freeing up more space for nerdery in the Nerd Bunker. I was able to get people to come and pick up both of these behemoths (free of charge!) by putting them up on CraigsList under the ‘Free’ category. It feels really good to have these things out of my hair and it allows me to progress with work in the basement.

This past Saturday I played in my first Warhammer 40k tournament. It was a 400-point Combat Patrol event at Chimera Hobbies and Games in Appleton, and I didn’t completely tank. I did bring a totally new list that I’ve never played before and even used units I’ve never played before (Plague Marines) because, why come to a tournament with all of those preconceived notions about what your list is like and how your units work? That’s for boring people, I assume. I did actually win two games and of the three that I lost, one was really close (only point point) from a draw, so I felt like it was a good showing. I got a terrible painting score because, well… my figures aren’t painted. So I need to fix that soon.

Speaking of figures: I’ve been working on some of the bigger figures in my army in prep for a potential 1000-point battle in a few weeks. You may recognize the dreadnought here from a post a few weeks ago. He’s been changed, however:

Chaos Dreadnought made from Venerable Dreadnought

He still needs a little more grunge and pitting on his legs, and a bit of baking soda corrosion, but he’s pretty close. The tentacles turned out pretty well, and the spikes and skull-chain accessories from the Chaos Rhino troop transport set fit this guy just about perfectly. While the spikes on top make the figure look a lot more interesting, it makes him a lot taller and might make him a bit more difficult to transport in a Battlefoam bag, so I’ll have to figure that out. I’m really looking forward to painting him, though I haven’t decided on a color scheme yet.

Then there’s this guy, who has been a bit of a pain:

The Daemon Prince

The kit goes together fine, even though the instructions are a bit difficult to decipher from time to time. However, I wanted to magnetize his wings, not so much to give me options (I’m not sure why you’d ever use a Daemon Prince without wings, duh) but for transport purposes: removable wings would make him easier to transport to games at other people’s houses, etc. After much screwing around, I finally got the rare earth magnets all set up and put in the right spots and the wings attached properly and everything about the model was great.

Unless you touched it. Or breathed. Or looked at it. Or thought. Or your heart was beating. If any of those things happened, then the wings would fall right the hell off.

So now I’ve glued the damn wings on, and I have to do a little work with some ‘green stuff’ putty to fill in the holes left over from my magnetic shenanigans (‘Magnetic Shenanigans’ is the name of my next band, by the way) and then I have to texture this guy’s base. There will be a new post about base texturing and painting coming here quite soon, as I’ve been doing preliminary work so I can get my whole army properly textured the same and then ready for priming. Then painting. Then I won’t get such a terrible painting score at the next Combat Patrol tourney. Hopefully.

Venerable Dreadnought Goes to Chaos: The Beginning

So yeah, John sorta convinced me that Chaos Space Marine Dreadnoughts (from now on referred to as ‘Chaos Dreads’) might be something to try out in my army. It helped to push me over the edge when I realized I could convert a regular Space Marines Venerable Dreadnought into a Chaos Dread without too much difficulty, and then I wouldn’t have to use the actual Chaos Dread model from Games Workshop, which sucks on levels heretofore unknown. This, of course, is just my personal opinion, man.

Anyway, I started scouring eBay as one does, and found this which arrived today:

I need to come up with a name for him

It was already put together so I didn’t get the full sprue with all the other cool crap, but that’s okay. It did come with an extra arm (autocannon) so that’s nice, and the price was excellent. Also, I did order a new Venerable Dreadnought kit from The War Store so I’ll have all the cool extra stuff on the sprue from that one if I need it.

My plan is to make both of these Chaos Dreads look as different from each other as possible, while still based off of the same chassis. One of them is going to end up with a mess of tentacles where the head should be, and they’re both going to be covered in the patented CSM spikes with skulls on them motif that the Chaos Space Marine fashion designers seem to be so fond of.

I can’t lie: I’m fond of that motif as well.

I’ll also be doing a bunch of greenstuff work and using my non-patented baking soda ‘corruption and filth’ technique and I’ll probably be adding extra power cables and all kinds of other cool stuff. Then there’ll be the painting, and all that entails. I’m looking forward to it, and I’ll try to document it here for you all to check out.