Diseased Sons

Entire Army array on table

Over the years the Diseased Sons ranks have swelled. Starting out merely as allies to my original army and made up of figs that I'd gotten with the box set or from friends, to 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 table and unpacked every last one.

With the then new Plague Marines not yet released and the old ones being in scarce supply as well I decided that I might even 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 some more models, I'm not sure when I'll get them done. So, as of April 4th 2003, this is the entire compliment of the Diseased Sons, Nurgle Space Marine force.

April 14th 2003 Compliment

Entire Army from the Side

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 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 at some distant point in the future, as this has always been forbidden to Nurgle. I still am only working on Nurgle though and 21 of the better painted Plague Marines are viewable closer up in a gallery now. Most of these models were in the pictures on this page, 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 though I'm currently on winter vacation.

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 a then new Chaos Codex would becoming out, but few websites maintain content as long as me. This new circa Chaos Codex was apparently the 4th edition perhaps would radically change how I'd be able and how I'd want to use my army. I began spending too much time on online forums and not enough time painting. I've spent too much time online and painting and not enough time playing 40K, all you have to do is look at this webpage and the relatively few battle reports I've put up since it has been online. Not every single game I've played in the last few years has been mentioned on nurgle.muschamp.ca but most of them have. I still probably have "cool models" that have never been photographed, appeared online, or even been seen by another human being. I gotta get out more.

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 and retake this photo. The compliment for the entire army has 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. Plague Terminators is 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 new 4th Chaos Codex was now 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 40K goes. I have many, many, problems that just don't seem to go away. Now that the Codex has been simplified it is easier to pick an army, so easy that I made an Excel spreadsheet which I will be updating along with nurgle.muschamp.ca as I paint more models. I've also come up with some squads that I either need to paint one or two 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. I think the way 40K or at least my army is going is I tend to use the same squad or character for an extended period of time. There are a lot less options especially for Chaos characters and with my devotion to only using painted WYSIWYG figs 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. Look how many I had painted for second edition. My chaos army will one day have even more than that perhaps...

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 my MBA at the Sauder School of Business. This website is maintained by hand and is 100s of pages big in all likelihood. 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 will get dusted off and updated one of these days, but I'm not stripping and repainting a third of the models, that is for the birds, especially with 100s of unpainted plastics and eBay usually having OOP unpainted models. The tour was originally for my Miniature Painting Blog, but the video is on YouTube so I can include it inline and eventually added it to homepage of this website. So if you want to see the latest models I've painted you should visit Musk's Miniatures if you just want to see a video of models I had painted up until a certain point in time you can watch the video below. Someday there will be an Update Five maybe in 2022 or 2023 or perhaps 2024, regardless 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 used that Chaos Codex, but I did buy the Death Guard Codex but 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 which is currently ongoing as they take part in a narrative campaign which is inexplicably called the Siege of Vanithros's Bastion.

Words and Images © Andrew "Muskie" McKay.
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