My ten or so readers may have noticed that Comrade’s Wargames has gone silent since my last, epic, end-of-the-year post about our Apoc-Luck game at the Girl Scout center.

In truth, that game was intended as a temporary swan song for me, as I welcomed a new baby boy in early January and will be consumed with fatherhood for at least a few months, before sleeping and eating schedules settle down a bit.

In the last few days before the baby arrived, I knocked out a handful of last-minute miniatures: Typhus, the Herald of Nurgle, three Death Guard Plague Marines, and the Foul Blightspawn — all intended as reinforcements for my burgeoning Death Guard army.

Here’s Typhus. I always liked the old metal version of him, particularly after the debut of the new, slightly silly plastic model last year. Once I decided the new model didn’t suit me, it wasn’t to find a poorly painted metal Typhus for $10 in an online buy/sell group that I could strip and repaint.

Up next are the three Plague Marines from the easy-to-build set. These models are designed to go together easily, without glue so beginners can get started in the hobby. They’re also nice sculpts to complement the other Plague Marines from the Dark Imperium starter set.

These guys got my typical Death Guard paint job — sloppy block colors followed by a magic dip of Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut, which imparted a rich rusty shade to the armor and details. The end result is passable and shaved hours off my time working on these guys. Most of the painting groups I follow on Facebook would never dream of using the magic dip, but I’ve employed it for many years and gotten really satisfactory results. Your mileage may vary.

The last figure I finished was the Foul Blightspawn. I wasn’t initially planning to include this model in my Death Guard army, but I started hearing stories about how totally brutal he was on the battlefield, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

(Sidenote: This is a very rare example of me painting up a model based solely on how well it performs in the game of Warhammer 40,000. It doesn’t happen often — more commonly, you’ll find me painting up figures that I simply *wanted to paint*, only to find out later that the 40k hive mind has determined that they’re not worth the points, or ineffective versus the current meta, or whatever. Pish posh — paint what you like, I say!)

I literally finished basing this guy the night before my new baby was born! Talk about down to the wire!

As I mentioned at the outset, I’ll be taking a break from gaming for a couple months. I’ll still be puttering away at a few projects in the meantime, so this blog may see some updates, but no promises. Until we game again!