TheChirurgeon's Road Through 2025, Part 51: On the Nightmare Hunt

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing hobby and competitive progress series for 2025. Previously on Road Through 2025, I was doing some practice for the upcoming LVO Team Tournament in January, spending time with my team and getting in a practice game against Space Wolves with my Death Guard.

This week I'm prepping for an event again. Well, kinda. There's a GT this weekend - Rise of the Empire - but it's a bit far for me and a full weekend commitment is a bit too much for me right now so instead I'm going to another RTT at Asgard. That said, this is no cake walk, either - There are half a dozen people going to this RTT who were also at the World Championships, plus some people who didn't go but are very much good enough to attend and have beaten me before, like Scott Kocian and Andrew Corban. It's very likely that I'll play three games at this event which will be harder than my first three games would have been at Rise.

That's neat, I guess.

The Big Question

Do I bring my Death Guard list to practice for LVOTT or do I play Nightmare Hunt?

• Death Guard: Well, I like playing this army and they're fun and I could use more reps into good players. Seems like a no-brainer. But I probably won't win best painted. It'll depend on how Garrett feels about bringing a fully painted army of Space Wolves and a display board. Despite the fact that GW paint judges seem to hate his Space Wolves, they're painted very well, and will typically beat my Death Guard.
• Nightmare Hunt: These guys just seem like so much goddamn fun to play and I really want to try them. That said, I haven't finished painting them and I have a lot of work to do on the army to get them there. Plus it doesn't help me for January at all.

Ultimately, I think I'm going to run Death Guard at the event to get the reps, but I'm working on my Nightmare Hunt list and trying to get the army painted for some games early next year. Even if they aren't ready now they'll be ready for when that sick new Kill Team eventually drops and from all indications it looks like they'll get a second heavy melee weapon and finally be able to do some real damage in melee.

In terms of which Death Guard list I'm bringing, right now I'm still leaning toward Mortarion Vectorium Death Guard. I just really like the versatility of that list and the strength of the Detachment in a singles event, and I think singles lists play better in five man teams than they do in eights. This does mean I'll have to paint up a third unit of Poxwalkers for January, but I have a ton of those lying around already and they're really easy to paint so I'm not super concerned about that.

Here's what I ran in my last test game, and none of the points for it have changed so I expect I'm likely to run it this weekend:



I talked about playing this list last week. I like it, it's easy enough to play. Some opponents can't handle Mortarion. We'll see how well that holds when I go up against good opponents this weekend - in particular I think Sisters can destroy Mortarion quick with heavy bolters if I don't keep CP open for Disgustingly Resilient - but I like him in matchups into marines and Victrix Guard, where I think his two-damage swings can cause real problems.

Hobby Progress

I honestly wasn't planning on Nightmare Hunt when I started doing Night Lords Noise Marines, but I'm glad it all worked out. I finished building the set of them - they're just head and shoulder swaps from the Nemesis Claw kit (do not ask me how many of those I've purchased) - and the result looks great.



I've got them primed, but not painted. Well, mostly - I mostly finished the first of them last night, and I'm really happy with how the scheme looks on these models. It's pretty slick and I just replicated the light green (Deepkin Flesh) color I used on my Emperor's Children sonic weapons here.



Looking pretty good! He still has detail work I need to do on things like the vials and gemstones on his back but he's good enough to throw on a table as-is.

The next project is my Night Lords Plague Marines. I want at least one unit of these and possibly two - not entirely sure yet, to be honest - and I think I'm going to paint one first and test them out. I like that they have the extra -1 Ld aura inside 6" and play a bit better than Legionaries if you don't have a Lord supporting them. So I converted up a unit.



These have shoulder swaps and two headswaps but for two of them I cut the wings off Night Lords heads and glued them onto the sides of other helmets. I was able to make two heads go further by using the horned heads with a single wing to make it look like they lost a wing on their helmets when they sprouted a horn and it broke through the side of their helmets. These mostly went on clean but I used some liquid green stuff to clean up the spots where they attach a bit to make for a smoother transition.

Next Time: RTT Recap

That does it for this week's Road Through but check in with me next week when I'll be talking about the results of the RTT and showing off more hobby progress. After that it'll be Christmas Day and I'm 50/50 on whether I publish something on the 25th or not. It's probably better to do my year-end recap that week, so stay tuned for that one I guess.

See you next Thursday.

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