Early '90s Deathguard

While getting my new painting station set up, and getting my chaos marines gathered for some more painting action, I found myself admiring these really old Deathguard. These are the original models released for use with the army lists that were presented in Realm of Chaos: Lost and the Damned, one of the single finest books GW ever published (and if I may be so bold, this isn't an opinion, it is a measured, weighed and studied scientific fact!).

During my 2nd year in art school my room mates and I played an all chaos campaign per the rules in the chaos books. and I played the Nurgle faction. One of my roomies, Ron, sold these models to me, along with a few others he gave me, and thus my chaos force was started. I thoroughly enjoyed those games, and my experience with Chaos has been nothing nearly as awesome of those early games. I still consider myself an 'nurgle player' even though I haven't fielded an all-nurgle faction since the early
90s, as I feel that with the current rules that fighting against that might not be too fun, and I sort of like the smorgasbord mix of unit types that make up the current chaos warbands that raid the worlds around the Eye of Terror.

These are the painted ones, that I have yet to strip down. I did not paint these, in fact, I don
t think Ron did either as I believe these might have been 2nd hand to him as well.

I think these models have so much character compared to the Deathguard that would follow. Also, I always thought that nurgle worked better as a long-range fire-support role than an assault option, as their added Toughness made them annoying to deal with. Also, as the next pic will support, they were sort of intention for a more long range mode. The original Deathguard list could have 2 las cannons per squad!

I already stripped the really badly painted model. 

These are some pretty rare models actually, especially these las cannon guys. So I wanted to share these with you while I consider stripping these models and repainting them. However, I also want an opinion on the red trim from you all. This was a legit paint scheme back in the RT days, but faded away with 2nd edition. I like the contrast, but I might go for a rusted-red look as opposed to a painted one.

I have seen some amazing paint jobs on nurgle models throughout the years, starting with the first issues of WD I ever saw to the more recent Golden Demon awards, and have always thought that my nurgle models would be my ultimate challenge as mini-painter. While I tinker with the World Eaters, Orks, Orcs and Space Wolves, I am thinking of these guys and how I want them to ultimately look.

I hope you enjoyed this!