Hastur, Hastur, Halteres...

It was birthday around two weeks ago, and those of my co-workers that share my miniature addiction bought me a present! Oh goody!

Mmmm... a box of luuurv.

I've always been fond of Nurgle and I had been oogling the new Nurgle Plague Drones for some time, which my co-workers noticed. So they bought me a box of mutated bloated giant flies carrying Plaguebearers on their back. Nice.

The first one assembled.

I assembled one of the flies, and while the models are very nice there was something odd about the whole thing. I realised I didn't like the legs hanging down, as if the fly was dragging them along when flying. So I pried the legs loose and turned the two back legs around. Still not quite satisfied I got thinking about the wings. One picture I found on the net showed one guy assembling his Plague Drones with alternating wings, one pair up, one pair down. I asked my co-worker Mats who knows more about insects than I do if he knew how flies flies. If they beat their wing pairs simultanously or alternating while flying. The reply I got was that some insects, like butterflies hooked their wings together while others didn't. Flies on the other hand only have ONE PAIR OF WINGS!!!

Look! Only one pair of wings!

A quick googling confirmed it. At first I was going to let it slide, I mean it's fantasy. But my fantasy has to have some internal consistency. In my mind Father Nurgle either has mutated and grown the Plague Drones from normal flies, or they are Daemons that have taken the shape of flies. So, they then have to function and fly like normal flies, even though they are rotten and bloated with disease. Because the corruption of chaos is what keeps them alive, not what makes them fly. Mats then told me that flies (and some other insects) had small remnants of the rear wings called Halteres (sing. Haltere or Halter, svängkolvar in Swedish) that they use to steer and keep balance with.

Who said you don't learn anything from playing miniature games?

Looks kinda kinky...

All that googling also told me what was wrong with the legs; they are jointed the wrong way. All the joints fold in the same way, while the joints on a real fly bend in different directions, just like the knee and ankle of a human leg. Only the front legs were jointed correctly. So time to cut off the legs once more, I cut off the lowest part (can't tell if it's a foot or a claw) at the joint and reglued it at another angle. I also then removed the rear wings and made Halteres from brass rod and green stuff.

Now with Halteres and properly shaped legs.

Ok, I know I'm probably a bit too obsessed with details like this. But it's my hobby and I will build my figures like I want. I want my plague flies to be flies, not butterflies! Besides, I now have three pairs of very cool wings to use for conversions. I already have a plan for them, but I'm not going to tell you yet.

Happy gaming!