Deathworld Flora and Fauna Episode 2; The Miral Catcher & Catachan Mantrap

Welcome To The Jungle!

We've got fun and games. So here I am with another collection of virtually finished foliage for your perusal. Like I said in my previous post, I love the idea of lethal plant life on alien planets. So I got some more inspiration from White Dwarf issue 242. I think I will put up the picture from the magazine then my attempt so you can judge how accurate/inaccurate I am.

Mangrovian Trees

The first non-lethal trees I made were these palm type trees. Simply made with twisted wire, masking tape and surgical bandages they are very easy to make. To make them a bit more 'alien' I tried to elongate the roots that go into the ground, a lot like mangrove trees here on blessed Terra but slightly different.

White Dwarf 242 a Prince of a magazine

At the surgical bandage stage.

Getting leafy. After making these I figure some walking plantlife shouldn't be too difficult. The Day Of The Triffids will come!

Avec Bases.

In all their glory! I sculpted a green grub type thing at the base of the second from left tree with a nifty pipe, tube and tentacle maker from Green Stuff World. I am sure an entire post devoted to the tool is on it's way. Be warned. 

Sergeant Cutter of the Catachan 79th regiment shows newly recruited trooper Terry some wildlife. "See these Mangrovians? Chop here, here and here. Careful no Eyebiter Grubs don't land on yer head, mind".

The second type of tree is made using exactly the same method, only with much longer and broader leaves. I also used the masking tape tree trunk method instead of the bandages. Although this tree is nicely different to the previous ones it is rather impractical as it takes up a lot of room without any great benefit. I also left the roots bare and applied pva to them to give a pretty gnarled look. Painted a fairly luminous green that will be washed with a darker shade to tone it down a bit.

"Now these Crusherleaf trees are a different story, chop here, here and here. While your at it give it a good hard kick to make sure any filthy xenos get dislodged and fall down for a good bayoneting.".

Miral Catcher

The Deathworld of Miral has to my knowledge two dangerous things the Miral Land Shark (just ask commander Stracken about those) and this nasty plant, the Miral Catcher. It has tentacles according to the WD article, Sadly stamen was used in the first entry so an alternative was searched for, inadequately found, so the T word was used even though they're not a fitting plant accessory. Anyway, the Miral Catcher's overly sensitive roots detect prey and it's 'tentacles' lash out trapping it with it's powerful paralyzing stings. Leaving it's victim to death by compost. Anyway My version is in some ways similar to the studio one. Not as good but there is a definite similarity.

The Miral Catcher shares a page with the Venus Mantrap

"So these Miral Catchers are tricky buggers. a few chops should do it, but it's always better to bring a couple of mates with heavy flamers. Just to make sure it won't sting you on the arse. This particular Catcher seems to have very bloody long appendages, someone is bound to trip over it. Better get health and safety down here".

Catachan Mantrap

The 'official' Catachan Mantrap in the magazine is very different to my attempt. It's sensory tendrills are far more discrete than my versions. The jawlike leaves on the one in the studio looks less like eyeless Kermit the frogs, than my one, but I think I captured the ethos of the original. According to the blurb the Catachan Mantrap moves it's leaves around actively seeking prey but GW's version, like mine doesn't show any evidence of how it is achieved. All I will say though, this one is newer! 

Catachan Mantrap and a Sucker Tree.

"As you well know, Catachan Mantraps are horrible bastards, with all that aggressively seeking it's prey with its jaw-like leaves. Just chop here, here and here and stick a frag grenade up it's hoo ha. That should do it. Careful it doesn't blind you with pollen though. There was that nasty business with that overly curious Butafucco 12th regiment over on Pseudo Earth 9 ". 

So there you have it, some jungle vegetation that my Catachan fighters can frolic through and kill the enemies of mankind. A member of our gaming group suggested a 'Get To The Chopper' scenario where my squad of Catachans try to escape the clutches of an evil Lictor, Predator style. There are also a couple of cool scenario's from the Rogue Trader rulebook involving jungles, dinosaurs and unfortunate Imperial employees trying to get home for Thanksgiving. So as my tables get a little bit more occupied here's to me getting some proper Oldhammer gaming going on!

Thanks For Reading.

Deathworld Flora and Fauna Episode 1 - The Strangleplant

The Rogue Trader rulebook contains many entries concerning dangerous plants and alien wildlife. A far better blog than mine has many examples of them. Now, hopefully you've clicking on the link, been enthralled then felt a bit guilty about being so fickle and returned here. Anyway since my earliest encounter with Rogue Trader, I dearly wanted to create some of the wondrous things to adorn my gaming table. Nearly thirty years later and my ability is approaching my ambition. I was looking around in my loft for some new endeavor when I found a White Dwarf with lots of Catachan Jungle Fighters on the cover looking like they've just walked of the set of 300; More Muscled Men With Oiled Torsos. I opened it up and found this page........

Back in the good old days when Paul Sawyer was editor.

Foule Ole Gron And Weak Eldar Stomachs

Following two previous skirmishes involving the disgusting minions of Nurgle, Farseer Gelladrill was once more forced to intercede on a minor Imperial planet, in High Gothic it was known as Triumphant Fanfare or something similar but in the common vernacular of the locals it was something far less inspirational. The planet itself was a small if somewhat heavily industrialized place filled with surly humans choking on the highly polluted atmosphere crushed by the monotonous drudgery of their short brutal lives. It made them ripe for the ruinous powers to subvert them. A cult had formed, dedicated to the Lord of Pestilence, and their saviors had landed. A small force of Death Guard marines led by a hideous Daemon Prince named Festerpuke . The rancid second in command; Foule Ole Gron had quickly attacked the main PDF garrison overwhelming them. Advancing into the main plaza of Gorgonplatz to consolidate was where the Ulthwe force met them. Failure here would mean disaster in the future for the Craftworld. Gelladrill vowed that would not happen!

The Moonkillers Plus Psychic Support

Greetings. Quite a while back, whilst I was playing Inquisimunda I decided to create an Eldar pirate band to  terrorise the galaxy with. I had for a long time been a keen Eldar collector (can't really say player as I only had a couple of games of 40K) and kept promising myself I'd stop buying models and paint up what I had. I converted* some Eldar Guardian models and hey presto! I had a warband. That was about 2 years ago and now the new 40K is here I have a renewed interest in painting. As regular readers of this blog might recall I've gotten a fair bit done (by my standards anyway) for my Astra Militarum. Then I discovered the three GW technical paints (Waystone Green, Spiritstone Red and Soulstone Blue) and my previous disinterest in painting Eldar was gone! So during a recent bought of snow I managed to get a lot of work done to these (and other) models. So without much more prattle here are my painted up preciouses;

Landing area 98

Just a quick post. Recently I finished the Mantic scenery below and thought I'd show it off. I bought a large box of Mantic  scenery about a year and a half ago and I'm only just getting round to finishing my first piece! It will fit in well with my ever increasing collection of things to clutter up my garage/loft. 

Landing area 98. It will use the same rules as the Skyshield Landing Pad only for a fraction of the cost!

Landing area 98 is the name of this terrain piece (for the sake of simplicity, it is the brand name of this type of landing pad as I'm sure it will be seen on many different Imperial planets). Cheaper than the Skyshield Landing Pad but more expensive than the Happy Guardsman Drop Hole®, this model is popular with Planetary Governors with large tithes to fulfill but also want somewhere their private shuttles can land in peace. Landing Area 98 was voted most cost efficient utility lander in What Governor's Orbital Dataslate - an interplanetary publication for those in power. 

Big Mek's Throzbog's Thermonuclear Morkanaut

Big Mek Throzbog and the rest of Warboss Bluddakka landed on the asteroid containing the human garrison. Not goin' to be much of a scrap as ders only a few 'umies der. Still he mused, since he'd upgradid the engine in da Morkanaut he was eager to give it a lash. As the Orks surrounded the garrison he grabbed Throzbog and warned him "Dis is my show, Throzbog. Don't try annyfink funny, just stay at the back wiv da Lootas an let me and the boyz get stuck in!". "OR ELSE!". Slightly annoyed he just nodded and said "annyfink yoo say boss.". Seemingly calm, a menacing glint in Throzbog's eyes was the only indication of displeasure. With the roar of "Waarrgh Bluddakka!!" the Ork force attacked the beleagered outpost.


Myself and Dylan played the second battle in the Scargill Cleansing, blurb is here. The only difference to the last post is Dylan decided that the Sustained Assault rules were a bit unfavorable to the Astra Militarum force. 2000 points of Orks vs 1000 of Astra Militarum (plus a Bastion) was the forces. If the Bastion was destroyed it was an Ork win otherwise humanity wins the day. A rather interesting result of the game was the winner gains D3+1 command points to be used in a future game to represent intelligence gained /destroyed during the engagement.

What I Did On My Snow Day (part one)

Being a devoted hobbyist, the idea of a snow day makes me happy. Generally though, if there is a snow day then there are probably a few things I can do DIYwise when my better half is around. Storm Emma 1 hit Ireland following "the Beast From The East" 2 and it gave me some free time to paint up some Catachans. Here is the results;

Sadly these guys will probably be the first removed from units as they are just armed with lasguns. My standard colours for the regiment is used with some light green vest tops for these.