Black Death

The Plague Marines join my Black Legion!

You can blame Aaron Dembski-Bowden for this.

I've wanted to sprinkle some god-specific marines into my Black Legion for a while now. The Khorne Berserkers were the first in, for practical reasons (back then, they were the last word in melee). The Rubric Marines were added for pure whimsey. The Plague Marines fall somewhere between the two. They're not exactly essential to a battle plan, but a squad of Plague Marines is never not useful.

Also, I love the models.

These seven (of course they are seven) are a mix of the monopose Dark Imperium kits and the multi-pose plague marines (I had a building spree in the early throes of the pandemic). All of them are great fun to paint: more than another rank and file unit, every plague marine tells a story.

As these are (for the moment) 8th Edition codex plague marines (who still get to enjoy a 5++ Disgustingly Resilient!), I could double up on special weapons like flails of corruption or blight launchers. But I can sense the way the wind is blowing, so opted for one of each. 

Also, as this will be the only plague marines in the Black Legion (I have others in The Purge and the Death Guard), I wanted them to reflect a bit of everything they can bring.

It's something of an annoyance that there are no flat panels on the pauldrons for legion sigils (I know smooth surfaces aren't exactly plague marine style). They all have embossed Death Guard shoulder pads, but if you want them to be part of any other legion (as they can be), you have to search around. Luckily I found one shoulder pad to bear Abaddon's black and gold.

The fun part about painting these was that I already had recipes for both Black Legion and Death Guard, so a bit of alchemy was called for.

The black armour is usually edge highlighted, but aside from being very time consuming with armour this detailed, it seemed to neat for plague marines. So I switched to the 'overbrushing' style of my Death Guard, but switching out the greens for greys. This gave me a muted black armour that I could work with.

• Armour: Black primer, Dark Charcoal overbrush, Skavenblight Dinge overbrush, Dawnstone drybrush, Nuln Oil wash
• Armour trim: Retributor Armour base, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Weapons: Mourngfang brown, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Metal: Leadbelcher, Agrax Earthshade wash, Typhus Corrosion wash, Reza Rust drybrush
• Mutated flesh: Screamer Pink, Agrax Earthshade wash, Kislev Flesh highlights, Druchii Violet wash
• Horns: Dryad Bark, Zandri Dust drybrush
• Nurgle's Rot effects

I was glad to find this Icon Bearer in Imperium magazine (the usual cost of £17.50 seemed a bit much for one plague marine, no matter how nice his stick is), since most of my Black Legion units have standards (the show offs).

And that's the unit done - a nice little refresher to get back to some heretics (and I now have enough plague marines painted for a small Death Guard force, which may be handy).