Sacred orchid

I completed another piece of scenery for my Lustria collection recently.  It's another piece of large scatter terrain, based on an old CD - the same recipe as these previous ones. 

I started with the idea of an ancient flagstone path leading into the jungle, but ending mysteriously amidst the foliage, but as I was fitting the jungle plants, I decided to have the path lead to a sacred orchid, perhaps greatly valued by the Amaxon tribeswomen of Lustria (maybe it has significance in their rumoured immortality?)

I used some of the techniques for smaller plants that I picked up from Frances's jungle base - they really help layer & enhance the scenery!

Unaligned Daemon

This weekend I finished painting this scratch-built Daemon that I put together a while ago.  It's a Daemon of Chaos Undivided - unaligned to any specific Chaos god, or perhaps aligned to a more minor deity.  The 'internal fire' colour scheme is nicked from a great set of Daemons that I stumbled upon online, where the painter had been collecting the official Games Workshop figures for the four Chaos powers, but painting them all with ash-black flesh & lava or fire from within their mouths & eyes etc.  Unfortunately I've been unable to find the post again, so can't credit or link to my inspiration.

I constructed this miniature from various spare bits, including an old metal Tyranid hormagaunt scythe-arm, Beastman horns, a Lizardman leg, a Warhammer zombie scythe & torso, Kroot legs, a Ork head, & plenty of Green Stuff putty.

It's very tall compared to Human-sized figures (pin-mounted on a Ø32mm base), & I think it's suitably creepy-looking.  I'll be using it in my long-planned adventure-skirmish Inquisition games (set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, either using the original expanded Necromunda rules, or a different set of rules, possibly a modification of Osprey Wargames Black Ops).

Small Chaos spawn

Yesterday I painted this small Chaos spawn.  It's a very gribbly miniature from Black Cat Bases, mounted on a Games Workshop Ø32mm base.  Puts me in mind of John Carpenter's 'The Thing'.  It's a pulp of entrails being re-shaped by evil, writhing with newly-grown appendages, eyeballs, & toothy maws!  I've based it for my Underhive / ruined urban W40K setting.

Black Cat Bases have some wonderfully esoteric (& affordable!) miniatures, especially in their 'Cthulu' ranges.  I had in mind all four Chaos gods when painting this spawn - as if the unfortunate Human who is being reformed by a Daemonic entity is ever-shifting, caught between the different aspects of Chaos.  I finished the miniature with a coat of gloss varnish, to emphasize it's gory, disgusting nature.

28 Dice Later game: Fatal Collision

Frances & I recently tried the tweaked rules that I'd been working on for 15mm zombie apocalypse skirmishes.  These are essentially Osprey Wargames Black Ops by Guy Bowers, but with a few changes to suit the setting of a modern-day UK caught-up in a terrifying zombie pandemic.  This initial trial scenario was of my own devising, & as it was for testing the basics like card activation & turn structure, it didn't make use of the main feature of Black Ops that attracted me - that of the stealth rules.  I call my tweaked zombie survival version of these rules 28 Dice Later...

For this scenario, set during the initial hours of the apocalypse, I played the Infected, & Frances played the Uninfected.  In this setting, freshly-infected victims are known as 'Ragers' (28 Days Later-style zombies), while injured or decaying victims are known as 'Shamblers' & 'Crawlers' depending on their state (classic Romero-style zombies).

The story was that a speeding 4x4 had crashed into a tree in a narrow country lane.  Farmer Giles Scrumpy & his sheepdog Patch had got out of their tractor to help, & he had called an ambulance, as well his wife Rosie back at the farm to tell her about the collision.  The driver was badly injured, with a suspicious neck wound, while a passenger who had not been wearing a seat belt appeared to have been thrown through the windscreen & bisected (gruesomely, only their legs remained inside the 4x4).