The Pustulent Soil - A Nurgle Army
I've been playing Warhammer long enough (since... '89 or '90?) that I've cycled through all the Chaos gods as my favorite. Like all red-blooded youths, I started with the blunt force of Khorne. Then it was Slaanesh, because my hormones said so. Then Nurgle, and finally Tzeentch, where I settled for the entirety of my adult life. I have a fat 4k or so of Tzeentch stuff for Warhammer Fantasy Battle and my expectation was that this would continue into Age of Sigmar.
But it didn't turn out that way. Nurgle was always a close second in my heart, and once the Maggotkin army came out I had to take the plunge. The new Great Unclean One was too cool, the new Beasts of Nurgle too lovable, the colors too varied and grotesque. Once I learned the game with my Ironjawz, I dove into Nurgle and didn't stop.
Below are pictures and lore. Some of it relates to our young Season of War: Firestorm campaign, which pits my Nurgle versus Peter's Tzeentch (no small irony that the younger brother attempts to usurp the older) versus Philip's Giant/Goblin list (we've shaped up the rules to make them a little more competitive, and may share them online) versus Scott's terrifying Undead.
This isn't quite everything. I have some Pestilens to paint and six Plague Drones I've been saving for last due to a creeping dread of how big and fragile they are. Also a note: Peter and I pine for the days when you could slap a specific Mark of Chaos on just about anything to put it in your army, and we've done that here. Minotaurs? Nurgle. The Dragon Ogres I have in the mail? Nurgle. All of it is Nurgle.
And thanks to this guy for making a name generator.
The army is kind of a hodgepodge of stuff. I love the miniatures so much that I'm going well over the max 2k points for campaign battles just to pick and choose what I think looks cool. Which has worked well so far, because after two game turns, I'm in the lead by about 4 Glory. I'm taking the aesthetics over effectiveness to its maximum extreme.
At the core is a 30 strong squad of Plaguebearers, which I plop on top of whatever the hell is the most important objective. They're more or less immovable, or at the least require a lot of firepower which could be better spent elsewhere. I've got two 5 man units of Putrid Blightkings, with another unit to be put together.
Finally, the core of my force is two units of 3 Plague Drones, which I send swooping around on the flanks. Beyond that, I rotate what I take and switch things out.
I'm not going to lie, this is maybe the best miniature I've painted in my life.
Vomitwhip found his chance to visit his blessings upon Remgarde in the form of a man whose name is lost to the mists of time. He is now known only as Le Flétri, The Withered. His body is wracked by a thousand venereal diseases, for he once knew only the pleasures of the flesh. Man, woman, it didn't matter. Slaanesh would've been pleased with such a rancid soul, had Le Flétri not already been a mewling syphilitic by the time she'd noticed him. None of Le Flétri's potions or spells could save his mind or body. And he withered.
Vomitwhip offered him a bargain. Poison the Variole Brothers with the Red Fever, and he could enter the service of Nurgle for as long as he wished. It was an easy decision, and Le Flétri has accompanied them ever since.
(This was my least favorite miniature to paint. The detail is shallow and parts of it feel really fragile. Not a fan.)
Wherever The Pustulent Soil may be found, Zamfir Mucusscratch is there, playing his pipes to the rhythms of the unholy, dancing widdershins around his master, while Nurglings birthed from pools of pus sway in his their wake.
When the Plaguebearers reach maturation, they are taken away by Heidegger Vomitwhip, in his role as emissary of Blessed Uncle. They are never seen again by their people, but they are not missed. They have ascended to heaven.
Zhiguc has begun to feel strange lately. Boils have risen on his flesh and his eyes are rheumy and tired. The same symptoms are apparent in his cousins. It could be the diseased flesh they feast upon nightly. Regardless, they find themselves sending prayers to Nurgle at night, where before they focused only on the slaughter.
(Zhiguc's miniature is from Avatars of War, a lovely Spanish company making really rad knockoffs for the unofficial 9th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Their plastics are really frustrating due to the type of material they use, but the character models are amazing and can vary your army quite a bit. The unit is made up of Oldhammer minotaurs; the middle guy with club is probably the oldest miniature I still have, while the other two are 6th edition era.)
*I just read a whole bunch of Heidegger. What struck me was how close Being-Toward-Death is to the old Nurgle fiction about the ways deathly illness give the afflicted vitality, a sort of lurching toward the end with renewed purpose now that you can see the end. It doesn't take much rejiggering to see it as the animating principle of Nurgle's entire unholy project. This has faded a bit in the new Nurgle's fixation on new life springing from death, a kind of fertilization and obsession with growth, but it's still there.
I admit to this not being at all the best takeaway from Heidegger, and several of my philosophy/theory friends think the best takeaway is actually "never read Heidegger", but here we are.
See also here:
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669653.001.0001/acprof-9780199669653
But it didn't turn out that way. Nurgle was always a close second in my heart, and once the Maggotkin army came out I had to take the plunge. The new Great Unclean One was too cool, the new Beasts of Nurgle too lovable, the colors too varied and grotesque. Once I learned the game with my Ironjawz, I dove into Nurgle and didn't stop.
Below are pictures and lore. Some of it relates to our young Season of War: Firestorm campaign, which pits my Nurgle versus Peter's Tzeentch (no small irony that the younger brother attempts to usurp the older) versus Philip's Giant/Goblin list (we've shaped up the rules to make them a little more competitive, and may share them online) versus Scott's terrifying Undead.
This isn't quite everything. I have some Pestilens to paint and six Plague Drones I've been saving for last due to a creeping dread of how big and fragile they are. Also a note: Peter and I pine for the days when you could slap a specific Mark of Chaos on just about anything to put it in your army, and we've done that here. Minotaurs? Nurgle. The Dragon Ogres I have in the mail? Nurgle. All of it is Nurgle.
And thanks to this guy for making a name generator.
The Pustulent Soil
The basic premise is that Heidegger* Vomitwhip has been obsessed with extinguishing the fires of Aqshy and so has arrived in the Realm of Fire to attempt to do just that. Fire cauterizes and purifies. It burns away new, sickly growth which grows from the old. It's fine and good to hate fire.The army is kind of a hodgepodge of stuff. I love the miniatures so much that I'm going well over the max 2k points for campaign battles just to pick and choose what I think looks cool. Which has worked well so far, because after two game turns, I'm in the lead by about 4 Glory. I'm taking the aesthetics over effectiveness to its maximum extreme.
At the core is a 30 strong squad of Plaguebearers, which I plop on top of whatever the hell is the most important objective. They're more or less immovable, or at the least require a lot of firepower which could be better spent elsewhere. I've got two 5 man units of Putrid Blightkings, with another unit to be put together.
Finally, the core of my force is two units of 3 Plague Drones, which I send swooping around on the flanks. Beyond that, I rotate what I take and switch things out.
Heidegger Vomitwhip
He hates fire and he wants to grant you the sense of purpose which can only come with the sickly embrace of impending death. He wants to grant the whole of the Mortal Realms this gift. Then he wants the cycle to renew once more, springing forth from boils, bites, and bodies, a billion corpseflowers of existential purpose, an eternal return of the damned.I'm not going to lie, this is maybe the best miniature I've painted in my life.
Les Frères Varioles
The Variole Brothers are Talebot Variole (the Lord of Blights) and Etienne Variole (the Lord of Plagues), two brothers in service to Vomitwhip for centuries. Snatched from a small village in the Realm of Shadow, they were injected with the Red Fever, a concoction of certain particularly nefarious servants of Nurgle. The disease bloats the body terribly with a pus which comes alive, granting the infected preternatural speed and strength. They twitch and tremble in distracting, sometimes terrifying fashion, but none can doubt the ruin they bring with them to a thousand battlefields across the Realms.
The Remnants of Remgarde
The Remnants of Remgarde are what happens when the Red Fever visits a village, in this case Remgarde, the village of the Variole Brothers. They brought their gift of pestilence to the village shortly after pledging themselves to the service of Heidegger Vomitwhip. Most died, but the strongest and heartiest lived on, animated just as the brothers were by a desire to share their newfound, plagueborn purpose.
Le Flétri
When Chaos wishes to capture the hearts of mortals, it does so by infiltration and enticement. Nurgle is no different from his siblings, Tzeenth and Slaanesh, in this regard. Rare, however, is the soul tempted by disease. More often, we wish to be hale and hearty forever, with no death or weakness on the horizon.Vomitwhip found his chance to visit his blessings upon Remgarde in the form of a man whose name is lost to the mists of time. He is now known only as Le Flétri, The Withered. His body is wracked by a thousand venereal diseases, for he once knew only the pleasures of the flesh. Man, woman, it didn't matter. Slaanesh would've been pleased with such a rancid soul, had Le Flétri not already been a mewling syphilitic by the time she'd noticed him. None of Le Flétri's potions or spells could save his mind or body. And he withered.
Vomitwhip offered him a bargain. Poison the Variole Brothers with the Red Fever, and he could enter the service of Nurgle for as long as he wished. It was an easy decision, and Le Flétri has accompanied them ever since.
Sharka Gristlespore
Sharka is Vomitwhip's right hand, a Poxbringer who specializes in all of the diseases which afflict plantlife. He particularly likes diseases which cause the ripest, most delicious of fruits to burst and rot on the branch. Nothing amuses Sharka more than the plight of the farmer and orchardist, and his gurgling laughter can be heard in the stillness of the night settling over a stricken field.(This was my least favorite miniature to paint. The detail is shallow and parts of it feel really fragile. Not a fan.)
Zamfir Mucusscratch
Heidegger Vomitwhip is, as it turns out, a music aficionado. He particularly loves the pipes, as do the countless Nurglings who dwell in the folds of his flesh. He infected two dozen musicians from settlements around the realms before he found someone who persevered through the ordeals to come through smiling. And playing the most wonderful music.Wherever The Pustulent Soil may be found, Zamfir Mucusscratch is there, playing his pipes to the rhythms of the unholy, dancing widdershins around his master, while Nurglings birthed from pools of pus sway in his their wake.
The Togboggers
Marching at the center of The Pustulent Soil's forces are The Bog Brothers, a horde of Plaguebearers born exclusively of the accursed Togboggers of Shyish. The Togboggers are a tribe of swamp-dwelling barbarians who live deep in the Miremurk of Shyish. The first son of every family are granted the gift of Nurgle's Rot upon the age of 12 by the priests of the one they worship as Blessed Uncle. As their bellies swell throughout adolescence and burst upon reaching adulthood, they see the transition from child to vessel of the Rot to Plaguebearer as something akin to the lifespan of the sacred maggots which the swamp people both worship and use as a food source.When the Plaguebearers reach maturation, they are taken away by Heidegger Vomitwhip, in his role as emissary of Blessed Uncle. They are never seen again by their people, but they are not missed. They have ascended to heaven.
Wormeat
Wormeat loves you. It wants to play with you and give you kisses.
Zhiguc's Kineband
A recent addition to The Pustulent Soil, Zhiguc is a powerful Doombull who began to follow the Nurgle warband as it laid waste to the towns and fortresses of Aqshy. It was, in a word, good eating, and minotaurs love to eat the flesh of mortals.Zhiguc has begun to feel strange lately. Boils have risen on his flesh and his eyes are rheumy and tired. The same symptoms are apparent in his cousins. It could be the diseased flesh they feast upon nightly. Regardless, they find themselves sending prayers to Nurgle at night, where before they focused only on the slaughter.
(Zhiguc's miniature is from Avatars of War, a lovely Spanish company making really rad knockoffs for the unofficial 9th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Their plastics are really frustrating due to the type of material they use, but the character models are amazing and can vary your army quite a bit. The unit is made up of Oldhammer minotaurs; the middle guy with club is probably the oldest miniature I still have, while the other two are 6th edition era.)
*I just read a whole bunch of Heidegger. What struck me was how close Being-Toward-Death is to the old Nurgle fiction about the ways deathly illness give the afflicted vitality, a sort of lurching toward the end with renewed purpose now that you can see the end. It doesn't take much rejiggering to see it as the animating principle of Nurgle's entire unholy project. This has faded a bit in the new Nurgle's fixation on new life springing from death, a kind of fertilization and obsession with growth, but it's still there.
I admit to this not being at all the best takeaway from Heidegger, and several of my philosophy/theory friends think the best takeaway is actually "never read Heidegger", but here we are.
See also here:
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669653.001.0001/acprof-9780199669653
Comments
Post a Comment