Tuesday 18 July 2017

Heorulf, Albian, Legionary of the XIV. Terraformer.


This was the third time he had set out to conquer this god-forsaken sector. The first alongside Terrans and Barbarans, uniting all in their path. The second alongside Mutants and Plaguebearers, corrupting all in their path. The third, alongside stranger allies even than that...





This world had changed since last he was here. Gone were the boreal forests and rolling steppe, replaced by bleak desert and the skeletal tangle of dead boughs and branches. Glancing down, he noticed the foetid water bubbling up from beneath his feet, its touch bringing the desiccated grass a greenish hue.


He chuckled to himself, a bubbling wretched noise. As a youth in the wastes of Old Terra he had tried to grow weeds in the toxic earth, to little success. Now look at him. Terraforming planets, one step at a time.


I managed to make this guy in complete ignorance of the impending Death Guard kits, despite them being teased quite extensively!

I wanted this warband to be one of the few (and the only Eldar warband) to be comprised of multiple species. The 40k galaxy is by and large fantastically xenophobic. The Eldar just as much as the Imperium. So, I thought it fitted Nurgle's MO to have his twisted creature as the only Eldar in the galaxy preaching racial tolerance ;)

I'm not sure how well it comes across in the photos, but the little pools of water bubbling up beneath both Malariel and Heorulf's feet is based on another idea I had about the nature of the Gods in the 40k galaxy.

My thoughts are that the Chaos Gods (barring Slaanesh) were not always as they are now. I think they began their existence, way back before the War in Heaven, as relatively benevolent entities. A Protector, a Librarian and a Fertility God. It was through the unmatched torment unleashed during the War in Heaven that their forms were corrupted into the malevolent beings we know today. However, at their deepest core, these aspects of their former nature remain.

Wherever Nurgle treads, life flourishes. Disgusting, diseased, mutated life, but life nonetheless. Whatsmore, drive Nurgle from your lands and you find life ebb away. Sometimes, the cure is just as bad as the disease.

That's it for the Nurgle warband so far, but pending bits availability there will be plenty more :)

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