Monday, December 8, 2008

Death Guard Plasma Gunner

Usually plasma guns can be a potentially dangerous piece of kit: not least of all to the user! Blowing up your own trooper with a plasma gun can give away vital members of a squad. On the other hand, they've got a bolter-matching range (unlike melta-guns) and decent armour piercing.

A squad of infiltrating chosen chaos space marines all kitted out with plasma guns can be a bit of a shock to the enemy at the start of the game. Especially if supported with an icon that's primed to summon lesser daemons, terminators and obliterators. But rapid firing those plasma guns at close range increases the odds of a terrible plasma backfire.

Death Guard plague marines, conversely, are not as bothered by a little bit of plasma singeing a hole through their thigh. Although they cost more points-wise than standard chaos marines (meaning that the loss of one is more significant), they are also much more resilient to little plasma mishaps thanks to a lack of properly wired nervous systems (a.k.a. feel no pain). But rather than using them as chosen marines, I like to field a squad of 7 with two plasma guns and sit them near an objective (preferably in cover). I then don't move them for virtually the whole game. They're more than capable of taking care of themselves and are able to cause a headache to many opponents.

This particular miniature comes as part of the plague marines boxed set and is painted in a typical Death Guard fashion: greens, browns (etc.) with bleached bone trimmings, leaking joints, red sores and fleshy bits, a hand-painted "decay" on the shoulder pad, and blue plasma.

At first, I didn't know what colour the plasma gun should be: I've seen greens, reds, blues and many other shades. I decided on blue in the end as it provides a nice contrast to the greens and browns on the majority of the miniature. Red would have clashed a little but with the sores and green wouldn't stand out. Yellow might have worked, but I'm glad I selected blue.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Facebook

Sequestered Industries