Now that I had all the models from Chaos Cultist range I was going to have to look a little further afield to grow my Nurglite horde any further. Fortunately the Necromunda line is chock full of grubby vagrants. The Cawdor gang are basically grubby Emperor worshipping cultists, thus making their conversion to grubby Nurgle worshipping cultists that much easier.  

To get things started I got each of the ten bodies and legs assembled and out of the gate I was a little disappointed to find there were only five sculpts, and they’re fairly mono-pose at that. So the first task was to address some of these duplicates. For example, for one of the models that has their foot up on a skull I carefully clipped away the skull and junk pile, replacing it with some cork board. On two of the miniatures in which one of the legs are complete pieces, rather than being part of the body, I replaced them with tentacles made with my Greenstuff World tentacle maker. I’m not sure how I feel about the ribbed texture, it kind of makes my cultists look like they are part vacuum cleaner, but they did the job of changing the silhouette of the models slightly.

Moving onto the arms and heads I had more options for conversions, mostly as I had picked up a bunch of bits from Anvil Industries and I had a few odds and ends leftover from the Cultists. Specifically, I had the Renegade and Wasteland weapon sets along with the Female Cultist and Hooded Cultist with Gas Masks sets. For the bits that had an arm attached it was just a case of trimming down the shoulder so that it fit snugly under the Cawdor shawls. And for the Anvil Industries bits that are just hands I cut the hand off a Cawdor arm and superglued the new part to the stump. The alternate heads were a simple swap although some of the cultist hoods needed to be trimmed down due to the high Cawdor collars. Little by little the religious zealots became plague cultists, I didn’t go overboard with the conversion bits but I did make sure that each model had at least one non-standard part on them. Ordinarily, at this point I add some boils and pustules to the skin but the Cawdor don’t have a lot of skin showing and a few of them already have boils so I didn’t bother on this occasion. 

With all that done I primed the models with Colour Forge Standard Grey. I started the painting by picking out the skin with Two Thin Coats Dwarven Skin, tidying up with Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. Next I gave the models a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink through my airbrush, setting up all the lights and shadows on the models. 

As these fellows will be joining my filth horde I painted them in a similar scheme to my existing cultists. With that in mind I painted their hoods and trousers with Army Painter Desolate Brown. Their tunics I painted with Garaghak’s Sewer and their boots with Black Templar. The various cloth wraps on their limbs and guns I painted with Snakebite Leather, and while I had it out I also used this paint for the rope nooses that they all wear. The weapons themselves and any gas masks I painted with Army Painter Broadsword Silver. The chains of bullets I went oddly hard on considering this is a speedpainting project, painting the cases with Snakebite Leather, the tips with Gore-Grunta Fur and the links with Basilicanum Grey. Lastly I painted the bottle grenade with Creed Camo.

With the main colours done I moved onto the finer details. I picked out all the boils with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown and gave them a wash with Guilliman Flesh to make them look inflamed. At this stage I also basecoated the bone details, teeth and candles with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. Some of the heads have some well defined eyes so I decided to be a little brave and have a go painting them. To do this I painted a line of Army Painter Matt Black in the eyes and then added a dot of Matt White to either end of the line. The results were a little mixed but not terrible, no one ended up looking too cross-eyed. To darken the mouths and shade any of the teeth I dabbed some Athonian Camoshade into their open maws. Similarly, to make the eyes look more sunken I added some Scale75 Instant Colours Arcane Purple into the eye sockets. To make the weapons look more grimy and to shade the candles I gave both a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. Any lenses I picked out with Warp Stone Glow and the flames on the candles with Warp Lightning. Lastly, any stitches on the clothing I painted with Skrag Brown. 

At this point the models were almost done and they just needed some quick highlights to finish them off. For this I highlighted the edges of the green clothing with AK Interactive Pastel Green and the brown clothing with Army Painter Buffed Hide. 

All that was left to do were the bases, which will be the same scheme as the rest of my Nurgle army. I started off by giving the tactical cork a coat of Basilicanum Grey. For the bases proper I covered the bases with Vallejo Thick Brown Mud, which was then given a wash of Athonian Camoshade followed by a drybrush with Tyrant Skull. I then dabbed on some PVA glue and sprinkled on Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Forest Floor. I then repeated the process with static grass. For the pools of slime I carefully painted on some very thin layers of AK Interactive Swamp Green Water Gel, keeping it thin means it stays transparent. As the bases are quite small I decided against putting any tufts on them, so I finished them off by painting the rims with a couple thin coats of Warboss Green. 

Aside from dropping a guy and snapping his club off I’m pretty pleased with how these have turned out. I could have probably used a few more conversion bits, especially heads, as some look a little more Cawdor than Nurgle. Although taken as a whole the unit does look firmly Nurgle. 

As mentioned near the start of the article I was a little disappointed with the Cawdor kit. I had assumed that with Necromunda being such a narrative game that I would have considerably more freedom with the kit than I actually did. I made it work though and it hasn’t deterred me from picking up more Necromunda kits to turn into even more cultists.