We are kicking off a new series of occasional articles featuring the armies belonging to the many headed hydra that is Corehammer. Over the coming months I’ll be asking various members of our motley crew to talk us through some of their ongoing projects and answer a few questions regarding technique, method and inspiration. First upon the Inquisitors rack is Tony Maher talking us through his Death Guard army and Ork Kill Team. Tony is stoic a Northern lad, exiled to the ninth circle of Croydon and is the Author of Miasma Of Pestilence blog, curry enthusiast, disciple of Nurgle and sporadic contributer to this website.
How Long have you been working on this Death Guard army Tony?.
Since October / November 2011, around the time I got married.
What was it that attracted you to Mortarions Legion? Was it simply a case of appealing aesthetics or fluff?
The idea of the pinnacle of mankind’s achievements in genetics being brought low by corruption and disease was particularly appealing. I love the image of these hulking warriors relentlessly plodding up the battlefield into the teeth of heavy gunfire, just not giving a shit. Slowly rotting and corroding away over 10,000 years in the warp…
The Forge World kits and the general scope for conversions were also a big selling point for me. I’m hoping to achieve a nice looking, well converted army. Something that’s going to look unique, and good on the table.
Why have you selected these specific units?
The models and/or modelling scope offered by certain unit choices. There’s definitely better unit choices in the book than some of the one’s I’ve gone for. I’ll likely build in more options as time goes by, as I either dream up my own conversions or build variations on other people’s cool conversion ideas.
Can you talk us through your approach to painting these guys? Any interesting techniques applied?
In my vision of the 41st millennium, everything should look like it’s seen at least some battlefield action. None of this fresh from the forges or Mars type look. It doesn’t really go too well fluff-wise or visually for an original traitor legion. I wanted my guys to look like they’d been living and campaigning in their armour for a serious amount of time, but I also wanted the more defined Heresy-era white and green colour scheme. It seems a bit more exciting to paint than just whacking a load of green over the top of everything. With the paler contrasting colours, the grimy look I’ve been trying to work in to my painting seems to have more of a visual impact than perhaps it otherwise would have done.
Moving on to your Orks, how Long have you been collecting this Kill Team and why?
About a year or so. It was something that I decided to put together for a specific weekend of gaming.
Me and an old mate decided we wanted to try out a hybrid of the 4th Ed. Kill Team rules and the mini rule pack that GW produced for a 6th Ed. Special event last year.
What is it that appealed to you about Orks? Style of play? Back story? Or do you simply just the models?
We wanted to build small, compact forces with a fair bit of character. Think the Dirty Dozen, Apocalypse Now or Predator for the type of groups we wanted to put together. I spent ages browsing the GW site looking for something that I felt had lots of character to offer from a painting and modelling perspective. I wanted to avoid power armour, and Tom had opted to go for Imperial Guard… I kind of like the natural belligerence and gung-ho attitude of the green-skins. Bare shit at shooting though. BS2. Fuck me.
What was the selection process for the models in your unit?
With the small games we were playing, and the hybrid rule set we’d gone for, it came down to choosing models that we thought looked cool, rather than full units. I based most of mine around the Ork Nobs kit because the models are burlier and more initimidating, and also bunged in a couple of the Kommando models and a couple of the special character models too. I rounded it out with some models Kromlech make that have a WWII type theme. I got an Ork Commissar, and a field surgeon to use as a pain boy, and some simpleton looking dude in a trench coat with a remote controlled skip full of hand grenades. He’s being used as a tankbusta.
How did you approach painting these models?
I’m not too into the way GW paint the ork models for their site, so I’ve tended to give mine quite dark green skins. Think it makes them look more serious, rather than a bit whacky. Hate whackiness. I’ve only painted 5 or 6 of them at this point, so I’ve got about 50% done. I usually paint one or two of them as a break from the chaos stuff.
