Death Guard: Nauseous Rotbone

Nauseous Rotbone, Plague surgeon to the Death Guard legion, is an accomplished plague surgeon who was chosen by the daemon primarch Mortarion to be his personal surgeon. Never far away from Mortarion, he was also entrusted with the primarchs demonic ichor, which is used to carry out his rituals. Mortarian also saw it fit to make Nauseous the keeper of his dungeons on the plague planet where the gene-seed is kept from taint.

Nauseous carries a Balesword, a demonic weapon of Nurgle and is kitted out with various corrupted medical instruments. He has, on his right arm, a Narthecium; a medical instrument designed to to aid adeptus Astartes through their armour. However Nauseous’s Narthecium contains horrific plagues to install in his fellow Death guards to aid them. Due to its drill-like design, it is the perfect tool for stealing gene-seeds from fallen space marines of the imperium; these gene-seeds are then used to make new Death guard for his master.

Much of his armour is concealed by a cowl and cloak, but the armour that is visible is covered in the pits, rusted and corroded just as we expect from such a devotee of the Death Guard. His right shoulder has a vile plaguebearer’s head imbued into it and the device on his back… well what happens there is not for the faint hearted.

Nauseous Rotbone is a Model of the Death Guard of the Warhammer 40000 Series by Games Workshop. I eyed this model up several times over the course of a month as I wanted a new challenge and let’s face it, he looks super cool and plaguey! So let’s get into it…

Nauseous Rotbone is produced by Games Workshop using their polystyrene plastic recipe to create this model on a singular sprue. Nauseous was a fairly easy model to cut from the sprue and clean the mould lines, however, some proved a challenge due to the size. There are a couple of small parts that need cutting and cleaning and applying to the model. When checking through the parts after cutting and cleaning, all parts were highly detailed as we expect from Games Workshop.

Nauseous was easy to assemble apart from his small narthecium vials and the head. It was a little challenging to line up his head correctly into the slot it was meant to go in and the vials, well, that’s just down to size still. There wasn’t a grove to slot them in and you had to apply glue and place it and hope… once you get past this, he’s ready to rock onto the painting table.

I would say Nauseous isn’t a beginner friendly model to paint, however, I think he’s a great model for those wishing to challenge themselves and try out some techniques. He’s a good step up. He is very detailed with lots going on; horns, power armour, cloak, chaos weaponry, vials (painting glass is somewhat an experience) and maggots! Even with all this going on, the details are well placed to ensure it is visible but not overwhelming – but the size of some elements can be difficult. Getting underneath the hood or to the right part of his face is a challenge but with some patience, it’s doable.

The Narthecium and Balesword are the big focus points of Nauseous model, it deserves attention when painting it, because his face is hidden via the hood, the face is no longer one of the main attractions at a glance, but a hand drill and daemonic sword is! I also found the apron and the front quite a neat feature. Make him more of a doctor! Plague doctor anyway. Nauseous is fun to paint, he has lots of areas where you can get technical and release your inner painter, and a few areas to challenge you but not make you want to throw him in a drawer for the next few years! The vials, for instance; painting glass is difficult but if you don’t get the right effect, you can easily change it and it still look good. I enjoyed painting the Balesword as it was something different than painting just a regular sword.

Being a Death Guard, they usually have a colour scheme that follows with the lore, the desaturated green, and I think for a lot of painters they may feel they are bound to lore specific colours. But for me, Nauseous gave me that feeling that I could break that mould and use an alternate scheme. Perhaps because he’s unique and has a unique role? Anyway, it allowed me to get creative and use different colours across the entire miniature, some bright, some less so. I think however you look at it you’ll have a great time painting Nauseous.

For me, I would change the basing. He’s supplied with a basic round base and I haven’t got to that point in my painting hobby to get creative with it. I would say now I would give him some elevation with a rock and use some technical plague paint to give him a very cool, plague ridden base. For me, if Games workshop gave him a small rock base, it would have been the cherry on top of the cake.

To sum up, Nauseous is a splendid model with so much going on – he is a great project to dive into over a course of several days. Don’t rush him. I think due to his complexity he’s a one off paint job but saying that he has so much potential and should be in every miniature painters display cabinet! Maybe, I will revisit him again in the future.