My Deadzone Plague faction, which is my favourite, has been waiting to be painted until I finally worked out what colours I wanted to paint them. There is the “old school” pink plague monsters:

And the new blue painting scheme which is significantly better.

Neither of these really fitted the planetary system of “Ascalabotes” which I wanted to use as my setting for Xenos Rampart games. The system consists of a major planet with a number of moons all habitable, covered with jungles and large waterways.

I needed something that was going to fit with this type of terrain.

First encountered in the so-called ‘Death Arc’, an area in the Fifth Sphere of the GCPS, the Plague is one of the greatest threats to all sentient life in the galaxy. Whether the Plague is natural in origin or was, in fact, engineered by some ancient alien civilisation is just one of the many questions surrounding this horrific disease. Its link to artefacts of alien origin is established, though their purpose and provenance remains mysterious.

Wherever it comes from, the Plague seems able to mutate and adapt to new hosts at a remarkable rate. Infected creatures exhibit symptoms within an extremely short space of time, though the exact manifestation of symptoms varies for reasons not entirely clear. Some humans infected by Plague become hideous monsters the size of a combat walker. These beasts seem to act as the control hub of Plague forces, directing lesser creatures which range from razor taloned, leaping hunters to simple, slow moving drones which seem to retain some sense of their former identity and may even be seen operating machinery, weapons and vehicles. In spite of the best efforts of the Council and the Enforcers, every instance of Plague infestation to date has ended in massive losses. The effort to study and understand it continues, but for now, extreme measures like Containment Protocol are the only available response.

Mantic Games.

I was painting some more of my Lizardmen and then it dawned on me. If this species developed a form of jungle camouflage surely the plague monsters would mutate with something similar. Problem solved. A couple of hours was spent putting them together and getting this first prototype painted. This figure was chose as it was assembled, based and undercoated ready to go.

Plague ‘Aberrations” (the model in the pics) are errors of the Plague’s forced restructure of a host body. Twisted beyond recognition from their original form, this colossal monster’s overwhelming urge is to kill all living beings on sight.

Taking on some mercenaries.

I will fit these in between other figures already in the production line, but who knows I might just get the urge to concentrate on them. Tomorrow, a Plague Lord.