How to plan a 30k Horus Heresy campaign - the Cadox conflagration-

So there hasn't been a lot of activity at the blog for a while, from which one might infer that not a lot has been happening in regards to 30k as of lately. One might, but one would be inferring incorrectly. It's just that as usual, when posed with the choice of playing 30k, painting and building 30k or blogging about 30k, they tend to go pretty much in that order. 

But still, so what have i been doing as of lately? Well, quite a bit. 

• i have committed to the Age of darkness podcast's yearly challenge, my commitment is to do a mechanicum detachment for my alpha legion, approximately 1500 pts 
• I've signed up for my first two tournaments. One doubles team tournament, and for scandus prime. I am ridiculously tagged for both of these. And it feels good to have a tangible goal to go towards with my hobby. 
• I've joined a Game club (SLG gaming in Stockholm-sweden) where i get in some good games of 30k Horus heresy with some good people 
• and on that note, i have started a slow-grow narrative campaign for horus heresy 

So i figured that i would dedicate this post as to how to set up a simple Narrative campaign 

”And so it was that the warmaster's perfidy reached the distant system of Cadox, a far-flung system in the galactic reaches claimed by a garrison force of the Iron warriors. While the allegiance of the Iron warriors stationed in the Cadox system remains unclear, what is clear is that approach of the Twentieth legion came unexpected, and unwanted.

The hails of the Deep space orbitals went largely unanswered, but for the curt, immediate response codes necessary for further entry into Cadox proper. Remaining records of what has later been called the “cadox conflagration” seems to contain largely inconsistent records of the strength of the force deployed, while it seems probably that the subterfuge of the Alpha legion might account for this inconsistency, there is still no known explanation for the relatively dense amount of heavy vehicles deployed, no for the seemingly deviant troops of mechanicum fighting side by side of the Twentieth legion.

The Cadox system was an early conquest of the IV’th legion, and was now an important staging world for the iron fourth. However, the lack of general hails from the main body of grand crusade meant that at the moment of the Cadox conflagration, a large amount of troops, materials and tactically vital equipment remained at the ready. While by no means an easy conquest, as it was jealously guarded by the diligent attentions that the IV’th were known to bring to their given tasks, it’s relatively isolated location might go some way to explain why the Alpha legion chose Cadox as their main target.

The first blow of treachery came to the World of Cadox V, an important forge world and an arming ground for the “97” army of the IV’th and it was at the Catal spaceport that the first blow was struck for the battle of the Cadox system.

Provided that you are not keen on writing EVERYTHING from the ground up,i would heartily recommend that you use the Conquest system from Book 4 (conquest) of the horus heresy campaign, it has the basic structure needed for generating warzones, missions, character progression and what is needed to advance the games. It even has a breakdown on how many players are the maximum amount for the set number of missions. 

Now for this campaign there is a very simple narrative Alpha legion (my legion) is attacking a staging ground of the chief opponent (the iron warriors), while other legions are dragged into the cacophany of war in accordance to their own needs. 

For example we have one player who is an Emperors children player who has a Cults and militia detachment for slaanesh. Which i translated that the nobility of the Cadox system had a long suppressed pleasure cult issue. 

We also have a space wolf player that has expressed interest in joining, which will be folded into the narrative by having the rout being attracted to the emergency signals of the loyal Iron warriors, and arriving in force, suspiscious of all participants. 

Now, as the game master (sort of) i'd reccommend that you do the following 

- generate a simple hex-map with all warzones 

- put clear lines of what armies should scale and how, for example 

"instance 1/week 1/1500 pts"

"instance 2/week 4/1700 pts"

"instance 3/week 8 / 2000 pts"

- generate a simple narrative to accommodate most (if not all players) 

And also ask that your participants do the following 

- Generate three named characters, ask for a few lines of backstory, make them feel invested in these characters

- give feedback for each session and keep their themed armies suitable 

- bring clearly printed lists and keep a check on what their own character progressions do. 

Now, beyond having the conquest system in our games, i have chosen to have three "Core" areas

The residential area (centered around capturing the planetary governor, and attempting to legitimize/ keep the supremacy of the planet) 

The military district (military bases, armories and caches of supplies) 

now, for this part of the campaign i generated a simple D20 list, and when you hold an appropriate objective you get to roll on the D20. And carry that item over to the rest of the campaign 

The XX'th seize a vital asset of materiell

The last step of the campaign will be in the mechanicum controlled areas, where after the winner will be decided and the fate of the planet decided. 

Pretty uncomplicated and easy enough to follow. 

Alpha legion HQ conundrum and progress

So I've actually managed to do some more progress this year, will the everyday miracles ne'er end?

one of the first things i really wanted to get over and done with was doing some touch-up and finish the basing for my 2K points. Now this is the kind of thing that i usually put off forever, and it never get's done, but i recently had a couple of hours for myself, so i decided to touch up the the base rims with a black layer, and do some quick snow bases. below is the last veterans for my PoTL 2k list. I also got around to giving everyone a combat blade and pistol holster. So as to have WYSIWYG on them too. 

And with that in mind I've found a good way of really streamlining my snow basing, and i chose to put together a quick walkthrough.

Materials that you'll need 

So first up, try to get some cheap acryllic texture paint. I ised the "studio acryllics" brand from the closng sale of a crafts store, but you can use whatever. The concrete parts from Army painter and the GW mordheim work well so as to give the base some character when you spread the valhallan blizzard on it. But first things first. 

 Take the intended bases. Base them with a black color (whatever brand) to make sure that the texture paint sticks. Then liberally add the texture paint. You'll see why below

 This is when it dries up. As you can clearly see, it's pretty porous and as such you can see through it in places.

 After that you can just drybrush it what a grey colour. Do a light drybrush with the intended purpose of just showing some contrast. If you want to have a black sands base you can simply stop here.

Personally i did a light white drybrush. Then added some turf and or concrete with PVC. and when it dries, cover it with valhallan blizzard. And done. The end result is below

I have also gotten around to actually finish the Cataphractii i wanted for my army. They are intended to cruise around with my new Praetor in the land raider phobos i have since earlier. 

I decided to go with a pretty muted color scheme in contrast to the candy blue of the base layer from my airbrush. The black helmets gives a connection to the same scheme that i have on the veterans from the same detachment, which is my simple way of making sure that there is a coherent style for my army. And for the isolated 108'th Navigationary expedition. From there on out the scheme pretty much defined itself. I used mainly leadbelcher for rivets and details and silver highlight and some details. Since i was so happy with the basecoat i wanted to to use the details in dampened colors so as to draw attention to it, rather than detract from it. This was also why i went with the chain on the one pauldron and the double X on the other. I think the end result was pretty good actually.

and here is the entire squad in it's entirety. Three chainfists, one powerfist and one sword. As well as one combi-melta and a banner.

Since these are going to be a command squad i thought it best to have a mixed unit approach. So that i can chose what four models to use, and also have two "variants" of a sergeant or character, All in all i'm really satisfied with the way the squad worked out.

Mandatory pointy IC

Beyond that i also managed to finish up the contemptor mortis i had on the to do list. This will cover for my AA needs and also do support duty on light AV vechicles.

This is actually the first contemptor i ever assembled, and as such it was a rather static pose, so i tried to use the details and positioning of the head to get a hunting look to is, as if it was searching for targets. The shield is in place since it has a number of purity seals on it's left hand side, and i felt these were out of touch with the astethic of the army. lookign back i'm pretty happy wit the shield with the omega sign on it, it gives the models some character. That is actually the same reason as to why i had the cyclone missile launcher on top. Since the contemptor only get's a "havoc" launcher in Horus heresy, i doubt that it will do much but it did add to the look of the mini itself. 

And with that i now have a decent well rounded PoTL army that i can use in a couple of different configurations. The only issue remaining is sorting out my HQ's, which i'll cover next time. 

Commitment of 2016- Finished lessons and knowledge garnered

So here we are


i had originally hoped to conclude everything connected to 2016  before the actual end of the year, but still, one day late doesn't seem to bad.

Going into this the bet was that i would finish an "army" of approximately 1850 points before the end of 2016, the caveat being that if i did indeed NOT finish it, i had promised my significant other that i would purchase NO hobby supplies, minis or even paints for the remainder of 2017. for osme reason i had a knee jerk reaction of buying a metric crap ton of Gene stealer cults that i got a REALLY good deal on during the last days of December '16, so expect to see that pop up here rather soonish.

Anyway, getting back on track, The goalpost moved a bit since i realized that 1850 points isn't really an applicable points level for a "regular" 30k game so about August i decided to bump it up to a round two thousand. Now, by my humble calculations i hit 2000 points around Mid november. But with the predators i just finished up i have an actual playable army, that i have no doubt i will alter, reorganize or otherwise tweak. But now, at least, i have the models to do such alterations. It comes with getting multiple weapon options from Forge world, and the SEVERAL Calth boxes i have bought into. Without further ado. Here is my complete alpha legion thus far

getting everything into one single picture was nigh impossible with my crappy phone camera

and as such i split it into two separate sections, the left handed one has my two separate veteran sections, the one  with two heavy bolters in a rhino, and one with two meltaguns infiltrating. There is also a five man plasma squad in a Rhino with a Multi melta, just for some versatility, or in in case i want to give a group of veterans Machine killers and give it to the HB team.

There is also the sicarian, two preds and my landraider phobos.

The right hand side, containing most of my older models, has my ten man strong despoiler squad, and the ten man volite caliver squad and twenty boltermarines with a vox and and combi melta sergeant with melta bombs.  

And of course the rapiers and my ten man squad of recon marines. 

Now, by conservative estimates this puts me at around 2700 Pts taking into account that i cannot field all troops choices simultaneously, nor will i want to really field everything at the same time. But it does mean that i have tactical options available and can be used as i deem fit, it also gives me a couple of heavy support and elite options to play around with. Particularly as i can't decide on a couple of things at the moment

* are the Apothecaries viable in an outflanking Veteran squad, probably not
* do i want large groups of infiltrating AL legionarries?
* are the volkites really worth it?
* should i switch the Praetor for a Terminator clad one? and pop them all in the Land raider phobos?

The only one i have a clearcut answer to is the last one, where i feel like i really want to put my honoured Praetor, clad in all his honours, in a suit of cataphractii armor, swinging the paragon blade consilium this is of course the other part of the  Praetor pack you can buy from forgeworld, which is very evocative of the style of the heresy.



So, beyond these quandries, what lies ahead?

Let's count

• Leviathan siege dreadnought
• ten destroyers 
• a last predator to round out the squadron properly
• a twin kheres contemptor mortis with a havoc launcher (base coated) 
• five terminators with a praetor (basecoated) 
• a Shadowsword 
• and a final rhino, wherein i will need to get around to using an actual deimos kit 
• An assault squad (for versatility) 
• and a ten man squad of autocannons to use as iron havocs 

As noted above i am building up to using the coils of the hydra. Meaning that i need to have three solid troop choices that are either infiltrating, or all suited up in transports (which assault troops circumvent as they have no dedicated transport option). Alternatively, the Veterans used in a pride of the legion could outflank, but their punching power is far too dependent on their ability to come in from reserves, with which i would like to get a damocles command rhino to get that comfy +1 to reserves. 

Beyond the painting that is going on i actually got in my first two games of heresy this year, and i have to say it was really fun. But i'd like to find a group i can throw down with regularly, so i am on the cruise for dudes to play. 

my fifteen man tactical squad about to get REKKED by eidolon and his buddies

and my alpha legionairres advancing to charge a group of iron warriors. 

The games so far have taught me a couple of things 

• actually managing to infiltrate ten or more models is a real logistics issue if there are a lot of bodies on the board, as you need to take care of both distance, line of sight, and Equipment that just keeps you away
• Close combat without a clear advantage (like +1 ws or similar) is a drawn out and not particularly effective way. In the game above i had twelve marines, a praetor with a Pragon blade, digi lasers, power dagger and accompanied by a Apothecarie, and they stayed in combat for three turns and were locked towards the end of the game 
• There is no such thing as too much anti tank. as a rule of thumb. 
• Contemptors are good, but needs to tactically adapted to what you want them to do, or they will play second fiddle to both tanks and infantry. 
• Spartans are just.....hard to handle. I managed to wreck it with a lucky roll of 6, but the contents RUINED my day there after. There is a reason the spartan deathstar still lives. 
• Master of Signal bombardment is really good, like....REALLY good. I managed to get of two shots of ordnance S8 AP3. And took out three grav rapiers on turn one. Now,you can't expect consistent results on that, but still. 

I look forward to getting in more games, particularly now that i have an actual army to swing with. And hopefully '17 is the year i find a good gamegroup for Heresy. Or pull my real group into it. 

Also, for painting. it feel kind of good going from this 

on to this

and winding up with this

it kind of gives me a good clear progress picture of what i've accomplished, and i wonder what my army will look like in another year and change


Finally, a look at what is to come

The predator recovery project

Greeeetings non-existent readership!

In this post i figured i'd catalogue my efforts in recovering one of the very first vehicles i did.

This lil' beauty was one of my vehicles that suffered pretty noticeably from when i had an air leak on the compressor connecting hose, resulting in me needing to thin the color down quite a bit (mistake number one) and then using too high a pressure to compensate for the lack of an even flow (not the song, but misstake number two)

the result from this is a pretty regular occurence and is easy to identify, if you have a very runny color that pools in places and runs of other surfaces, you have simply thinned the paint too much and had too high a pressure, the problem was, for me, further amalgamated as my dark colors in the metallic scheme pooled rather extensive, leaving a mottled color, that i thought looked a bit reptilian in nature. Sleep addled as i was i let it dry and headed to bed, only when i woke up did i recognize my mistake.

However,  having as of late, gained some rudimentary skill with my airbrush i figured i'd try my dab hand at recovering the vehicles, and in so doing, getting a uniform scheme for all future vehicles.

Now most of what i am doing here is exactly what i did with my Sicarian tank. But in a couple of more turns, to properly use all the colors.

This is what i started with

As i mentioned you can see that the green and blue layers have pooled and gives a mottled effect, now had i gone for an overtly reptilian or draconian theme, like the 40k work that does, it might have looked good. But as it stands it just looks blotchy and haphazardly done, if not lazy.

Now, as with the sicarian i gave it a nice thin layer of the vallejo acrylic

As close as love comes in a bottle

 The first layer, great as it is for coverup (thusly eliminating entirely the need of doing black basecoats) will leave some colored spaces, if you want a good impression of what the light hitting it will be like, you can leave these areas untouched, and then have the lighter color (silver for metallics, for me at least) Now, after my two layers of acryllic metal, i move on to Vallejos "silver" not covering the entire tank, but rather where the light will hit it, like the front arc of the tank, the areas at the top front, and the edges to the side. Imagine sun filtering through a broken, twisted hab-block, and how the light would fall on your tank.

 it should leave you with something like this. , not a great picture, but the difference will be more tangible later, particularly in regards to the blocky turret for the Mars Autocannon (left) as opposed to the cupola shape of the plasma executioner, giving both different light 

while the quality isn't great, it gives a decent impression 

 Now, for me, this is pretty much what i was going for, lighter "patches" here and there that really looks great when you see it on the table.This is after only two light layers of Calth blue. A simplified FW recipe is

* Metals as before
* 1 layer calth blue
* 1 layer mortarion green
* 1 layer calth blue again

it gives a good AL scheme, with none of the tamiya hassle (if you consider it thus, that is)

 Kindly notice that this is a NEW tank, the "restored one" is below, with all the gubbinz i'm going to gush about

Forgeworld gushing in, 3,2,1.....

 i think that my love for Fw gubbbins is clearly documented at an earlier juncture. But the thing is, if you buy some plates for your legion, and a pintle mounted weaponry set (two of each netting you six weapons) and a tank commander set (you get three alternatives) you can EASILY make your transports, Deimos or Mars patterned, look unique. Which i know is something that a lot of people working on a budget for is worried about. Above is (in no particular order) a tank commander, two pintle sets, and two deimos turrets, that, in my opinion, works GREAT for the mars pattern. or the Deimos pattern brand of turret..... moving on!

Now we only have details left

* Stripes around the vents (see above) either black or white is good, i use white for command tank designations.
* all rivets in leadbelcher, all "steps" in leadbelcer, the chimney stacks in leadbelcer and drybrushed with a good copper, and whatever hatches you fancy
* i did the back vent (on the top) with copper, nuln oil, and an easy highlight of lighter metal (what-chu fancy) to get some variation.
* lenses. i did them in red, for matching the rest of my army, and did the whole "half moon with white dot" that you can find GOOD painters to describe better


Let dry

And move on decalling. Now, if you don't use microsol or similar, you can always use 'ardcoat under neath the decal, and the use another coat ON the decal to keep it down. It's passable.

This is my tank commander. the XX on the cupola is due to it being the ONLY iconography missing on the rest :)

Front pic, i'm pretty satisfied with the angle of his arm, he's scouting for targets

And here's a picture of the new one i did, the entire squadron will have the stylized" 3 on the right side, and an Omega on the left side, I magnetized the sponsoons, and with a wide variety of turrets each tank can be what i want it to be, the hydra way.


Final pic of everyone together

And there you are, two out of three done, and one extra turret for my last one, i think the command tank will be deimos patterned. Since i managed to get my mitts on one.

Thanks (if you did) for the read

keep stronk!

#powerfullsweden

Veteran rhinos for My alpha legion 108'th navigationary expedition

Phew 


This is a post for my Veterans rhinos, and just a quick note regarding color choices and alterations



Now something that is applicable for all my rhinos so far is that i've used Mars pattern Rhinos. Now i know that there is some confusion regarding the fact that the "40K main rhino" isn't allowed to be played /even fukken existed in the thirtieth millennium. But as a matter of fact these not only exists, but was used during the Great crusade, the only issue is that while it is an easy enough vehicle to mass-produce, it is not as wide-spread nor as commonly replicated during the Horus heresy, since Mars is in a bit of an uproar due to some Horus feller.

point in case. This is from Horus heresy extermination 

Meaning that depending on your fluff for "your guys" it might not make the most sense that they have ready access to a vehicle that is not really in production. Now for fluff reasons i'm relying heavily on the book three annotation mentioning that the AL had been in the field and actually doing undocumented work (assumed to be work that the emperor kept out of even the jaded annals of the great crusade) and as such would have had access to a lot of experimental/ not widely disseminated materials. 

Now, crunch reasons i would rather have used the Deimos pattern, as i think it looks a tad beter but also conveys the proper feeling of the HH experience. But, honestly, i had two Chaos rhinos lying around ,and i wanted to try out my scheme. 

Now for both of the rhinos so far (and planned for the upcoming ones as well) I am using Forgeworlds Pintel mounted weapons set  as well as the Alpha legion Rhino door as i think that they make even the humble mars pattern rhino look spectacular. I actually bought quite a few of the latter, as i will use the hatch on my Predators as well ,and the doors can go to Deimos rhinos in the future. 

I am also using the Alpha legion decal sheet which are, as i might have previously mentioned, simply. The shit. I will be using them to show squad= rhino markings as well as pimping the top hatches and the rear ramps. For no other reason than that i like it. 

I also tried doing some gentle sponge chipping for the first time, meaning that i took sponge blister and dipped the edge in Leadbelcher, and then gently traced areas with that. Something i quickly learned was that you want to follow natural edges (hatches, thread bottoms, doors) as it gives the best result there, and on larger surfaces it just looks splotchy. I can also say that the effect looks absolutely best on black. So IH players rejoice once more. Except....for the whole......Pricmarch thing *cough*

moving on! 

For front plates and doors I've intentionally gone for a darker color (with skipping silver and just doing black= leadbelcher= layers of clear blue) so as to get some contrast. This was actually also an experiment on my behalf, but i think it actually turned out pretty well. 

looking at the rhinos themselves 

So here i actually added a gunner for my HB sponsoon as i though it looked neat. And the VET squad itself will also have two HB, so i get a good narrative theme going immediately.  Further more this one has damage to the tracks, speaking of a shitty history in rolls....

really happy with the transfer. These look GREAT. Thanks FW- 

And here i want to document some mistakes i need to rectify. 

Looking above i want to point at the sponge chipping mistake i did. In my mind it looks pretty good at the edges and around the hatch, but looking at the smoke stack on the right, and the bottom of the same stack you can see some areas that just look like random sponging. So this is where i need to amend it.

like i was talking about the rear ramp

And on this one i simply had the sponson hatch be kept open, indicating someone coming to man the gun, or bailing from a vehicle soon to be abandon'd

So those are my rhinos so far, mainly for my vets, but i have another one for my destroyers about 50% done, and i want to get at least two more going.

Seriously, those FW gubbins are great, if you take something away from this look at them.

Hydra dominatus y'all

Elder Mieza of the 108'th navigationary expedition

Featured here is the elusive "elder Mieza" a former centurion of the 108'th, he has been registered as participating both in the "The stalwarts" actions in the Rangdan xenocides, as well as their subduing of the laputan technocracy, and the bloody withdrawal at the burning of balbibarbi. More vexing is his reputed destruction at all of these events, as well as his reported sighting at several other critical junctures for the 108'th.

Did some touch up in time for the group photo. 

Mieza, long before being formally acknowledged with the cognomen that in later parts of the great crusade came to define him as a teacher of the 108'th was a centurion assured with the great honor of infiltrating key positions long in advance of the main imperial force, lying in wait for weeks or months at an end, while still remaining at the ready to strike with a moments notice might seem like a natural parts of his particular legions modus operandi, but as he would be quick to point out it was, like all facets of war. An art that one either had the inclination for, or lacked. 

As a vigilator Mieza had a long and distinguished career for the 108'th, serving as a skirmishing and guerilla elements. Fading into the background white noise of combat, only to reappear at critical junctures to serve his legion with fist and plasma. 

long after his internment Mieza would still offer his wisdom and relish the possibility of once more serving in ambushades. Now showing a clear inclination for unorthodox warcraft and an unerring choice of weaponry particularly well suited for eliminating Astartes foes, we must in retrospect wonder at the accident that placed him in place to act with such unerring precision against his loyalist brethren. 

I have to say, of all the legion special sculpted units I've done so far( one) this jas to be my favorite. The iconic hydra and all the loving details shaped in this kit is just a wonder to bring out with silver, and the extra detail on the knee joints are a great chance to do some lifting out on. The pose is my attempt at trying to emulate the one on the FW homepage, and the base is snowed and bare, so that i can add  some trophies if he serves well. 

I actually used him in the two matches i've played, and so far, has served with distinction. He has a kill tally of 18 marines thus far (sweeping advancing a squad of IW) and the flamer and plasma cannon is expected to serve in ZM as well. I've no doubt that Mieza will rise again. 


Hydra dominatus y'all 

A ride worthy of a Herald of Nurgle/ How to do a quick palanquin of Nurgle

I wanna build a palanquin of nurgle

That was more or less how my discussion with my veteran friend went, now he was sure that there was a model available. I mean, there is one for a herald of Slaanesh ( a fiend) and one for a nurgle of tzeentech and Khorne ( disc and juggernaut respectively) so why isn't there one for Nurgle? he said that epidemicus is sufficient, but i pointed out that two out of four ( no naughty for nonnie Slaanesh) had Named characters (blue scribes and headtaker) where both easily done, and STILL had a riding model available. So this should be remedied. And that was why i took it upon myself to build one. And tell others of how i did it. 

Now, to start with, i am a better painter than modeller. And i am not a great painter. So if  you have better ideas, and know what to do. Shoo, out you go. But if you want some inspiration. Here we go. 

You will need 

1. 60 MM round base or equivalent (Since the modell is very bulky it seems sporting to me, but 40 is probably sufficient. As long as you don't droop over the edge) 
2. A razorback hatch (or an old Rhino RB combo hatch or pred hatch or whatever) preferably with the "middle" sprue still in the hole. Otherwise you can cut a sprue length to the bottom of the hole (flat with no detail) to straddle the hole. We'll get to the why later
3. some assorted nurglings, from either the nurgling pack. Or the plaguebearer pack, 
4. A rhino side door. 
5. Some nurgle decorations (plaguebearer kit or rotbearers) 
6. Leadbelcher, typhus corrosion and ryza rust. As well as some decent copper and Nikilakh oxide. 

And that is it. Assembled mostly below. 

disregard the top hatch in the top right corner.

Now, first off. Paint the Nurglings in the appropriate color and do some basing details. I know that is usually what we do last. But this is gonna be harder later. 

Then place the nurglings around the plate making sure that they are seen at the edges, but also have some in the middle so as to even out balance.

look at it from the side to make sure there is approximately an even height to them

Now, Paint all the rhino parts in leadbelcher, when dried add a LOT of typhus corrosion. Let dry. Seriously. Do that. Now, get out your dry-brush. And start dry-brushing Ryza rust all over it. The en-tropic presence of nurgle does it's magic work. 

NOTE: i know this is the "official" GW way of doing rust. But hot-diggity-damn! it looks real good with a minimum of effort. 

Now paint all the nurgle details and offerings in Copper. or leadbelcher and dry brush copper. Then add some nihilakh Oxide. Let pool around the three ringed details. And see hotdog comment above. 

Now. Take the rhino side door. And glue to one of the short sides of the hatch. Letting it stand up, reminding you of a particularly lonesome tombstone commemorating someone who felt the gleefull joy of papa nurgles bounty. Add the nurgle details around the Hatch. And attach glue to the hands, feet, and upward facing butts of the Nurglings. Then attach the hatch on top of them. 

As such

let it dry. TRUST ME.

Now. Here's the reason we had a cut off sprue in the hole. Provided you used the RB hatch, and the there is a sprue in there. Your herald will stand properly, without wobbling, and pointing with scorn at the enemies of the father. 

as such

To the right, no, the OTHER right. O for nurgles sake. Just go forward. 

Meaning that you have a quick and good Palanquin ready to play. It takes about an hour or two to do. Can be readily repeated. And costs less than five bucks.

here he is a with a squad of plaguebeareres and a rotting sergeant. 

SO there you are bob's you uncle. And now we have a good way of doing rust as well. 

How does anyone else do their palanquin?

Hydra dominatus y'all.