Resurrecting my Plague Marines I: The Painted

Well, well, well. A new Chaos Space Marines codex sees the light of days. Four years ago (or something to that effect) I was just getting back into 40k. I had harboured a fondness for the followers of Nurgle for a long time, and made the commitment to start a Nurgle army. My idea was to theme the force around a Chaos Sorcerer and his immediate retinue, supported by a horde of plague animate zombies brought back to life by the Sorcerer's will.

By the time I had got my shit together and bought a couple of CSM boxes, the new simplified codex wa released and my plans were in tatters. The best they could do was vary my zombies as Lesser Daemons, which didn't really work thematically. They (and my chaos lord) didn't have Feel No Pain damn it! I love my FNP. I built that force up to around 1200 points, before my "el cheapo" Crimson Fists force started to dominate my hobby time.


But now the time of the zombie is at hand, and I find myself digging up my old minis and reconsidering their potential in the light of the new codex. I've photographed everything in stock to share with you the reader. In this article i'll go though all the painted minis.the next article in this series will cover the unpainted and unassembled forces I have managed to gather. In the final article I will consider future purchases to round out my force, and post a couple of potential lists covering both my current army and potential future builds.

As always, apologies for my appalling photography - although I suspect that it is getting better. In reality these models look grimey with a contrasting slick shines slime effect. It doesn't come out right in the photos.

Starting off I have 14 plain old Plague Marines, armed with a variety of weapons including bolters, bolt pistols, swords and knives. Each of these models takes me a long time to build, with guitar wire and lots of battle damage - usually about 2 hours each! I have also worked to ensure that each model has a unique pose. Some of them have a great, natural looking dynamic pose, others are more average, but overall I am very happy with the core of my forces.

Accompanying the above we have Plague Marines equipped with the latest in special weapon technology: 2 flamers, 4 plasma and 2 meltas.

To lead my marines I have a couple of Aspiring Champions. They are both armed with power fists, but neither are awesomely posed. Not sure what the optimum armament is in this edition, it will require further study :) I have some Possessed bits that could be used to fancy them up.

My Chaos Lord with a Plague Reaper daemon weapon. The weapon fell off, but apparently thats OK because he can't take the reaper anymore :( Lords are nice, but Typhus is crying out to be taken with his new awesome rules. Perhaps this guy is destined for a Chaos Sorcerer conversion?

My custom built Nurgle Obliterators. I love these guys - they look way more awesome than the picture lets on. And now we actually have rules for marking Oblits, so T5 will take care of being doubled out by nasty lascannons.

Plague Marines love a ride as much as the next marine, and this pimped out Rhino is all ready to do the job. I love the spray paint effect applied to the log on the door. Just not sure here to put the combi weapons - are they even still allowed?

Everyone loves a "Hellbrute", and here is one I prepared earlier. Armed with an autocannon which I believe is the business in the edition :) Now won't destroy your own vehicles, so what's not to love?

Finally, I have a couple of zombie objectives that do a good enough job of being objectivey. Not sure if they will be appropriate however if I add actual Plague Zombies to the army, as there might be some confusion.