Warhounds 2 Warmasters

Working title for a Nurgle-infused Titan force.

I’ll be doing a post about my Four Powers Titan project sooner or later – the short of it being that I’ve had in mind for some time an urge to create four battleforces, each devoted to a different Chaos God.

Unbidden Pox is my working title for the Nurgle segment of this august endeavour.

The ‘plan’ has evolved and taken a life of it’s own, not unlike a plague. My starting position was to do a corrupted maniple for my Mortis, showing signs of corruption and the encroaching sway of Papa Nurgle.

This position shifted – as much as I wanted the daemonic titans to be more than showing signs of corruption, I wanted them to barely be recognisable as being Titans. Also I intend to game with them now and then and Mortis’ rules are so dull and lacklustre (to my tastes and playstyles) I’d frankly rather play Legio-less – which is no longer an option since the Matched Play Guide.

The next position was a Legio Mordaxis force. Whilst it wasn’t explicitly stated that the virus that brought low the Princeps and Moderati of that Legio belonged to Nurgle, I’d feel safe in putting my money on it.

However, having recently made the acquaintance of a nice chap called Baz that plays Mordaxis and has a beautiful Legio in their colours, I felt that I would like to take a stab at those colours myself at some point in the future. I’ll see if I can get some pictures of his titans to insert here – they are definitely worth a guest spot.

So, my position evolved once more: I now wanted a corrupted and clearly Nurgle force, but I wanted to be able to play them as more than one Legio. A logical way to do this was to have them so corrupted that their point of origin was entirely obscured by the corruption – thereby allowing me to play them as Mordaxis with corruptions one game, Mortis with corruptions another and even as an alternate take on my Khornate Vulpa, should I fancy it. The more this line of reasoning developed, the more interested I was: Why wouldn’t I want to field a Rage-Virus-esque Zombie-Titan force, running pell-mell across the table without a care for their own safety in one match, and then as a stoic, immovable Fortis comprised of virus-torn post-princeps Mordaxis titans for the next game?

Allowing myself flexibility to field these disgusting abominations was something new to me and as often happens, I was somewhat overtaken by the impetus – this project quickly and firmly pushed my other, Slaaneshi themed Audax force (with Loyalist alternate models), to one side.

Taking my Twisted Titanicus 2.0 winnings, I ordered myself a Glotkin model. This would have a variety of Warlord titan elements added (of which I have more than a sufficiency to hand) and blended in with greenstuff sculpting (something I have a complete lack of skill at). I initially wanted a trio of Maggoth Lords models with Reaver parts to stand alongside this magnificent beast but the insane price of Maggoths – even eBay rescues – put that firmly to rest. I looked at the rest of the Nurgle range and eventually decided a few Blight Haulers (and whatever the flying version is called) might work well as the torso for a Nurgle Corrupted Reaver titan. The real issue was going to be something I had encountered before with my Vulpa Reaver, Sanguis Dux: how to allow for the carapace weapon…

As of right now, whilst I type, I haven’t actually decided on a colour scheme. I’m hopping between:

‘Blackened machinery elements, pallid fleshy areas with purpled recesses’ kinda vibe to tip a hat towards the Mordaxis colourings.

Aged metal, verdigris and then putrescent fleshy areas with a more greeny-mottled ‘Here Be Nurgle’ take.

Or, finally, a hugely rusted and corroded smash-up of flaking paint, rust effects and verdigris and focus on the metallic elements completely with only neutral tones for any fleshy-happenings.

For Warhounds, I managed to get four Nurgle Pox Drone fly models in need of some TLC from eBay at about half of nothing. After clipping those wings that remained and most of the legs, again: those that remained, and removing a plaguebearer and fat-guy rider, I was left with a good starting place.

Two of the models had saddles – which initially caused me some consternation but ultimately, I figure this will be cured with a hacksaw, greenstuff and elevation to Direwolf status for those lucky two. I would be adding Warhound parts (a shattered carapace here, a twisted Warhound head there, some gun-mounts there and of course some Warhound legs to each of these – this will either look amazing or insane… I hope for both.

I now had the base materials and models planned, en route or in hand to get to work. Hopefully my next post can cover the Reavers builds and some WIPs.

For now, a teaser: