No sooner did I manage to get back into the swing of things – a bit, at least – than my hobby butterfly affliction reared its ugly head again. And the insectile simile seems quite apt here, as I have been sidetracked by Grandfather Nurgle and his flyblown followers — but it’s ultimately all part of the Great Work, innit? So let me at least share what I have been up to:
The important thing to tell you before we tuck in is that I bought a box of the – then brand-new -plastic Plague Marines a couple of years ago. And I’ve been fiddling with the kit ever since, dryfitting and assembling these models, then taking them apart again – almost as a meditation, if you will – never settling on a finished build — in that sense, I’ve been getting A TON of bang for my buck out of the kit 
Now what provoked me into working on them again was the compulsion to build a Death Guard icon bearer, after seeing a fantastic inspiration on Death of a Rubricist (one of my favourite hobby blogs, itmust be said).
I’ve always chafed at the fact that you actually have to pick up a separate (and not too cheap) model if you want a Plague Marine icon bearer, for one. And I loved how Apologist came up with a cool idea that uses both one of the more awkward Plague Marine heads AND one of the SUPER-awkward snapfit Plague Marines. So I used his conversion as a starting point and made some adjustments, based on the bitz I had:
What I like about the model is that this guy looks as though he’s barely holding it together: At any moment now, something vile and monstrous could crack his armoured shell and emerge from it. Or he could have been teetering on the age of change for millennia, never quite succumbing — we will never know. But there’s a crookedness to the character that I quite enjoy. I will have to adjust some elements, like the little bells, though, putting them at a more correct angle — the icon itself has just been tacked together for now.
Now with that model mostly assembled, things started to cascade: I started browsing through Chris Wraight’s “The Lords of Silence” again — one of my favourite CSM Black Library books, and definitely an indispensable resource for those interested in the Death Guard, for the fascinating and believable way it characterises the members of that legion.
That, in turn, made me mess around with those Plague Marine bit more — only this time, I ended up with a configuration that I felt I could commit to. So here’s the squad I made, a mix of older and newer models, incidentally:
The overarching theme with them was to get them really close to the “classic” Jes Goodwin Death Guard concepts from the 2nd edition of 40k: Bloated, faceless and heavily armoured figures with an almost WWI-Trencher like brutality to them:
That’s why I used all of the spiked “Pickelhaube” helmets for the models, with a heavy focus on the classic early-to-mid 90s Death Guard template. I also dialed back the excess of the models in many bigger and smaller ways: The Plague Marines parts are so covered in gribbly detail that it gets a bit much at times. As I’ve done with my starter box Plague Marines before, I carefully shaved off a tentacle here or a horn there, or chose the less flashy parts for a more grounded, if still clearly Nurglite, look.
Let’s take a closer look at the models in turn:
First up, the champion and the aforementioned icon bearer. The icon bearer is new, as you know. The champion is a slightly older conversion, and was assembled to closely resemble an actual Jes Goodwin sketch from the early 90s (and the seminal Jes Goodwin metal Plague Marine shown further up in this post). My favourite part of the model is the area where I removed lots of tiny tentacles and replaced them with a cluster of ribbed pipes and cables — that makes the model far less goofy and brings it closer to the dilapidated horror of the Death Guard for me! It’s also a perfect match for the champions warped facemask.
The Plague Spewer guy on the left is an older conversion, based on one of the – rather dodgy – snapfit Plague Marines. I’ve recently replaced his head, though. The guy on the right was assembled using stock parts, but really channels the trench warfare look I mentioned above. He even has a raggedy half-cape, which I love.
Two more stock models. My proudest achievement on these is how the Plague Belcher and bloated breastplate shouldn’t quite fit together, but I managed to pull it off. That means the chest piece’s high gorget can work together really beautifully with the blunt Mk. II-ish helm. I am often to reluctant Astartes wielding two-handed guns, preferring to go for a CC weapon and sidearm (probably my World Eaters heritage), but for once, I have created a model that I really like! Regarding the guy on the right, I was debating with myself whether or not to turn his flail into an axe, but the flail seems so quintessentially Nurglite that I wanted it to stay. The only problem is that I didn’t use the body “intended” for these arms (more recent GW multipart kits can be pretty weird that way), so I’ll have to figure out the base (extend it a bit or use a bigger one). But I really like the overall look of the model!
Now the final model took ages to come together — mostly because, quite frankly, most of the coolest parts had already been used up, and the legs I had left had a slightly pidgeon-toed look. But in the end, I have found a cool angle, I believe: The final model for today works REALLY well as a re-imagination of the ancient easy-to-build plastic Plague Marines from the early 90s! Take a look:
Also, check out the amount of scale creep here — it is quite something, isn’t it?
And seeing how I was already working away, I also started improvising on a different Nurglite model:
As some of you will probably realise, this model is one of the smaller brothers from the WFB/AoS Glottkin kit. It was a pickup from a bitz exchange or an ebay lot (the details escape me at the moment), and felt like a great match for an older – pre new Death Guard – conversion project of mine that used the AoS Putrid Blightkings (old photo):
All of these look very bloated and more fantasy than 40k, obviously, so my common visual idea for them was to make them look as though they had all grown so bloated over the millennia that most of their armour had been cast off or distended beyond recognisability — but I wanted to feature hints of Astartes armour here and there, to hint at their origins as Death Guard Marines. So the new guy should make for a pretty cool addition to this squad, maybe even as its leader.
I am still thinking about adding a few more cracked piece of armour, broken cabling — stuff like that. In any case, he and his brethren will always look decidedly different from “standard” Plague Marines, but that is kind of their thing, seeing how the squad was originally assembled long before the new 40k Nurgle plastics were released.
As you can see, I’ve added the shroud/insect wing bit from the Malignant Plague Caster, and I think it makes for a cool little addition.
And here’s how the model looks with its – prospective – squadmates:
As I’ve said, the idea with these is that they should almost read like an entity unto themselves: These huge, bloated Leviathans, far removed from the Astartes they once were.
I may yet have a few more Nurglite bits and bobs to share with you in an upcoming update — as long as the fancy has taken me, that is.
Until then, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!