Diseased Sons

Over the years the Diseased Sons ranks have swelled. Starting out merely as allies to my original army. The Diseased Sons were originaly made up of figs that I'd gotten with the 2nd Edition box set bolsterd by a few blisters of metal Nurgle Chaos Renegades. Now the Diseased Sons of Nurgle are a force worthy of it's own webpage. After counting all the models I've painted, and it's only worth counting the painted models, I decided what I really needed was a picture of the entire force arrayed. So I cleaned off my grandma's old kitchen table and unpacked every last one.

With the then new Plague Marines not yet released and the old ones being in scarce supply, I decided to strip a few out of print models, knowing I could give them a better paint job at my leisure. Though I have plans to convert and paint more models, I'm not sure when I'll get them finished. So, as of April 4th 2003, this is the entire compliment of the Diseased Sons, Nurgle Space Marine force.

Diseased Sons Compliment in 2003

125 * Power Armoured Renegades
21 * Plaguebearers
11 * Terminator Armoured Renegades
7 * Nurgling Swarms
3 * Beasts of Nurgle
3 * Armoured Personal Carriers
2 * Dreadnoughts
1 * Predator
1 * Landraider
1 * Defiler
1 * Great Unclean One
1 * Daemon Prince

For those who would like a little more detail click on the images or try these close ups of: the left, the center, and the right.

Update One

The stripping and repainting of old cool models has begun. Some of the models will not be painted in Nurgle colors when all is said and done, they will likely end up as Chaos Undivided troops so I can make use of the heavy weapon models on the table top. I will also likely do up some bikes or obliterators or raptors far into the future, as this has always been forbidden to Nurgle. I still am only working on Nurgle and 21 of the better painted Plague Marines are now viewable in an online gallery. Most of these models were in the pictures above, but some are completely new. I'm hesitant to recount and re-photograph the entire army due to it being in a transitional state. I'm also extremely busy doing my MBA.

Update Two

With my Nurgle 3.0 Grand Tournament army basically converted and painted, and with time on my hands due to an extend period of unemployment, I finally stripped or touched up all my old models. The ones that were the poorest painted and most models armed with a heavy weapon are no longer Diseased Sons, they are bitz box fodder or awaiting a new paint job. In addition to adding models specifically for my GT army, I also started painting and converting enough Icon Bearers and intelligently armed aspiring champions so that no squad will be without.

During this whole extended process, I learned another Chaos Codex would becoming out. This 4th edition Chaos Codex perhaps would radically change how I'd be able to field and how I'd want to use my army on the tabletop. I began spending too much time on online forums and not enough time painting or playing actual games of Warhammer 40,000. There were dark days.

When I get the last dozen or so Diseased Sons done, plus finish touching up my remaining non-tiny line models I will have to take a few hours and carefully set them all up again and retake photos of this army. The compliment has definitely changed. I have another painted dreadnought, more plaguebearers, but given all the stripping I've done I probably have less Plague Marines but maybe more Terminators. Terminators are a prominent feature of my third GT army, because I wanted guns that shoot over 24 inches. If some of the new codex rumours are true I may be able to have them a lot easier in the future, I'm tired of painting tiny lines, or just tired of the status quo period. I think my new paint scheme as seen on some Night Goblins and the Phantom of the Rock Opera will be cool but hopefully a little quicker to paint. I've got to do less trim and finicky work on my rank and file. That seems to be the key to a quicker painted army that and a limited palette and less highlights and conversions.

Update Three

The 4th Chaos Codex came out and I've made some plans to paint both Diseased Sons and models to be in squads not worshipping Nurgle. I can't say I have big plans, but I've been kicking around a few ideas for another 1700 point tournament army. I plan to take it easy for the rest of the year as far as Warhammer 40,000 goes. Now that the Codex has been simplified it is easier to pick an army, so easy that I made an Excel spreadsheet for, which I will be updating along with this website as I paint more models. I've also come up with some squads that I either need to paint one or two additional models, or want to try out once I finally finish the Diseased Sons. I made an Excel template that you can use to make army lists by just cutting and pasting force org choice entries from the other spreadsheet. There are a lot less options especially for Chaos Space Marine characters and with my devotion to only using painted WYSIWYG models most of the obvious squads are already in the spreadsheet. Only one or two of my character models are unuseable in the new Codex. I did worse when they took away heavy weapon troopers. I had so many painted for 2nd Edition, eventually I got to use some of those models again.

Update Four

I keep updating my web empire when I should be applying for jobs. I badly need a new full time job. I've been unemployed way too much since I got the bright idea of doing an MBA at the Sauder School of Business. This website is maintained by hand and has grown very large over the years. I don't even remember some things I've made available online, but one thing I did do during this period of unemployment which will be of interest to people who have read down this far, is take a video tour of the painted miniatures in my three Ikea display cabinets.

I still have more painted minis not on display but not many. The first display is basically all Diseased Sons with the last case devoted to my original Rogue Trader era Ork army which may get dusted off and updated one of these days, but I'm not stripping and repainting a third of the models, especially with 100s of unpainted plastics and eBay usually having OOP unpainted models. The tour was originally for my Miniature Painting Blog.

Someday there will be a fifth update maybe in 2022 or 2023 or perhaps 2024. Despite no official updated army photo, I did a lot of updating of this webpage for the 9th Edition of Warhammer 40,000. I never played a single game of 8th edition nor did I use that Chaos Codex, but I did buy the Death Guard Codex, hoever by the time my life settled again and I had time for hobbies it was now the 9th edition and I would use that edition of the Death Guard Codex to do another major overhaul of the Diseased Sons so they could take part in a narrative campaign inexplicably called the Siege of Vanithros's Bastion.

Now the 10th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 has been released. I still haven't taken an new photo of my entire painted army as I just don't seem to paint very quickly and rebasing all the models is very time consuming. The next Chaos Space Marine Codex will soon be released and I will run this army as a Fellhammer Seige-Host, dubbing the Diseased Sons, the Irony Warriors of Nurgle. We'll see how much progress I can make painting and rebasing models, I recommend you follow along on my miniature painting blog as it is now over twenty years since I originally put this webpage online.