Oscar Lars is no stranger to this site, having shown off his Nurgle army in the past. Today he's back with even most beautifully painted Maggotkin models, as well as his thoughts on the new Battletome, and the future of the faction and his collection in particular!
Tyler: We last caught up with you and your Maggotkin of Nurgle army back in 2019. Have you been able to play with them much since then?
Oscar: Maggotkin of Nurgle’s first book is probably the book I played with the most in Age of Sigmar 2.0. So yes, between 2019 and now I have actually played quite a lot. Once the pandemic hit, unfortunately it has made it harder to get games in, but I am part of a team that hosts the local AoS tournaments here in Richmond, so once we figured out the way to run safe tournaments, we sure started up again. I get to play as the TO army whenever we end up with an odd number of players, which happens surprisingly often!
I became less inclined to play Nurgle in AoS 3.0 as our previous book was so old and the mortal side just wasn’t running well anymore, even with FAQ updates. I then decided to play some other armies instead. I am very excited that we finally got a new book and I am now able to return to fielding Nurgle as my number one army.
Tyler: What have you added to the army and what among it did you particularly like working on?
Oscar: Before the new book was rumored and released, I added a Sloppety Bilepiper to the force. It felt like a natural way to run a decent list in the old book. The model was also such a blast to paint that it would have been worth it either way. I created a little pile of skulls to elevate him above the other plague demons and give him a pedestal of sorts. He is a performer after all!
Additionally, I wanted to add at least one of the Maggoth Lords. Orgotths Daemonspew spoke to me the most so I went ahead and started painting him. The sculpt’s “movement” was a bit lackluster (it’s an older model…), so I used some of the extra bits and greenstuff to turn Orgotth’s head to the left, and the beast's neck to the right. I also twisted the tongue a little, which did help to make the model less stagnant.
I managed to get a good head start on him before the rumors came out that the Maggoth Lords would become quite powerful in the new book, and boy was that true! The new rules for the Maggoth Lords have had me quite excited to add Bloab Rotspawn to the list now as well.
Tyler: What’s it like for you to revisit an older army? Do you want to update some of your paint recipes, or do you stick with how you did it in the past?
Oscar: Anytime I revisit an army I painted years past, it is a challenge to completely match the vibe of the army aesthetics. I always strive to hone my skills technically, so I hope I have improved since the army was painted. This was a project on which I experimented and challenged myself to step outside of my comfort zone. Some of the tricks that were new to me then have now become part of my arsenal of techniques, and I’ve spent more time perfecting them. So the challenge really becomes whether or not to paint the new models to the new standard, or “dumb it down” and try to match the less confident approach I took back then.
Ultimately, I decided to update some recipes to enhance certain areas but I kept it fairly modest. At the end of the day, it’s an army that is meant to be played, so I didn't want to go overboard on the extra bells and whistles.
Tyler: What are you most excited about with the new battletome?
Oscar: The old allegiance abilities just weren't Nurgle. It felt like what a Khorne army should play like. Fast and with exploding attacks. In the new book, we get a much better feel for how Nurgle is supposed to be, slow and resilient. So that's very exciting.
From a competitive perspective, I really like the 5+ ward save across the entire army because it is amazingly powerful. Even just a single Blightking unit will be very annoying for my opponents to deal with - 21 wounds at 4+ save and 5+ ward requires a lot of damage output to shift.
However, if I think about it from a lore perspective, I feel most drawn to the disease rules. I love the concept that the army is spreading this awful gross sickness on their foe, which increasingly erodes armor and corrupts flesh throughout the battle. It’s exactly who the Maggotkin are. I can’t wait to see how these rules perform on the actual tabletop!
Tyler: Any plan on future additions based off of the new rules and lore?
Oscar: Definitely going to add Bloab Rotspawn as the second Maggoth Lord once I have finished Orgotths Daemonspew. But I am also keen to add at least 2 Pusgoyle Blightlords to the army. They will go nicely with my Lord of Afflictions that I converted quite heavily into a spider-like scorpion creature. So I will give those two Blightlord steeds the same treatment. It'll make them fun and more unique as I am fairly sure we’ll see the Blightlords in almost every Maggotkin army for the next year.
Tyler: Demons or mortals?
Oscar: Absolutely Mortals. The Demons were merely an afterthought to my army. I don’t mind the mixed force, and the Great Unclean One is a really nice model, but the regular Plaguebearers are a bit stale and the Plaguedrones are definitely not my cup of tea. So I am quite happy to see the Mortals taking the lead in the new book with the highest performing units. Even though I am a sucker for underdogs, I do like to win sometimes, haha!
Tyler: Any plans to convert/paint up any coalition units for them? (Beasts/Slaves/Skaven)
Oscar: No, I don’t see any use for them in the new book. I think Games Workshop made it clear that they didn’t want the allegiance abilities to be used by too many variations of units in an attempt to make the book more balanced. Because let's face it, the disease spreading allegiance ability would be absolutely bonkers with certain coalition units. To me, the best games are the ones that are played on a leveled playing field. To see this book being powerful but not overly crazy is very good, it reminds me a bit of the Soulblight book in that regard.
Tyler: Can we expect to see them on the table top at any future events?
Oscar: Yes, I have plans to make it to Adepticon 2022. Since this army didn’t get the chance to compete in the Best Army competition at the event in 2020, I am eager to get out and see if I can impress Vince and my peers with the new units I’ll be adding to the army. However, I am also quite excited to see how well I could perform in the actual tournament with this army. That’s why I am a bit picky about the units I am adding to the army to make sure the list is good enough to hold up against higher tier armies out there.
Tyler: If you could add one unit to the Maggotkin army that’s not already there, what would it be?
Oscar: I think Pestigors would be super cool if they got new sculpts and were added to work with the Maggotkin keywords. But I feel like they would be too similar to either Blightkings or Plaguebearers, so I’m not sure I see the point there. What would be awesome though, is if we got to take a Mega Gargant and add it with the Maggotkin keyword. That would be so cool, but likely way too good.
Tyler: Any final thoughts and what is next for you in terms of projects?
Oscar: As a big Nurgle fan, I have to say it’s been a great pleasure to work on this army. The guys designing the sculpts did such a fantastic job and the concept really allowed me to go in and do some of my own conversions. I am excited to add a few units to the project but after those are done, I will be eager to move on to the next army project.
During the pandemic, I bounced back and forth between a few armies, not really knowing where to put my focus. So I have four projects that I am currently working on. The two most notable ones are a Squig army and a wolf-based Soulblight army. Both very fast and squishy, so essentially the opposite of the new Maggotkin of Nurgle book.
Thanks again to Oscar for taking the time to share his awesome looking Maggotkin army! You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram to keep up with all of his amazing looking work.
Until next time,
Tyler M.
No comments:
Post a Comment