INQ28: Two Hired Guns....

 The Curst wear their sins writ upon their flesh, and undertake various tasks that they might be absolved of them.... 

Hunters come in many shapes and specialties, hailing even from the forge worlds of the Mechanicum.....

IN28: The Procession of St. Sebastian (Complete!)

Every year in the town of Bruegelburg on the planet Brabant Prime there is a festival to commemorate the victory of the Dark Angels and the 10th Belgic Fusiliers over the forces of the Great Enemy. The planet, long settled by the Fusiliers, has seen peace and prosperity until only recently, when a cult began to gnaw at the edges of society. Posing as immigrants, they had skulked their way into town in ones and twos, plying the foul beliefs to the weak minded and the perverse. Their foul worship would culminate in a profane summoning ritual to be held on the night of the festival, ushering in a new era of depravity. 

The Herald, the Child, and the Knight

Little Elsa, only nine, was praying in the garden of her modest home when a vision of the Emperor appeared to her.

"Elsa, thou shalt be a vessel of my light." He said in fatherly tones. "Take up the arms of the past and lead my people. Burn the foul heretics from the village." 

Young Bert, who favored her, became her knight, and took up his father's bayonet and pistol. Tom, who had practiced his horn for many an hour, now blew notes louder and clearer than any man twice his age. 

The more people she told, the more were filled with holy fervor. First, her playfellows, then her parents, then their friends (seasoned veterans of the Imperial Guard long since gone to seed). Their weapons slumbered behind the oaken doors of the provincial armory, but had been maintained day by day with care. On the night the procession was to take place, many revelers flocked to the structure to arm themselves without questioning why. 

Sister Hester, Willing Bess, and Old Gert

The Lamplighter's Guild set aside their customary candlepikes to take up the flamers they once used during the crusade. Roasting the heretics alive with blessed promethium, their high voices joined those of others in singing hymns to of illumination in His Holy Name. 

That they shirked their usual duty tonight was no matter. The lamps along the parade route burned brightly with the great flames of faith. 

Sire Flatley, Mister Goodfellow, and Tig the Midget

The Huntmaster's Guild took up arms as well, and with great voices voiced the Emperor's holy wrath. Like unto the assault marines of the Astartes they where, falling upon the evil ones in great leaps and bounds and cleaving them asunder.

"Who gives a child a chainpike?" "It's quite alright, old fellow.  You see, he's forty-six."

Their armor was wood and cardboard. Their horses, cloth. But the carnage they wrought would gladden the heart of any Astartes chaplain.

See now, the holy procession. Hear the hymns of victory, the horn of triumph!

At last the bones of the Saint were brought forth from the blessed reliquary, and the procession moved up the high street, swinging toward the ruined quarter with its profaned church, already teeming with heretics striving to dim the Emperor's light. A servo skull floated about the four bearers and their priceless charge, the sweet incense hedging out the foulness of the unbelievers and filling the air. 

The bearers represented the four Pillars of the Imperium. To the fore, the Astartes leading the way on their crusade through the lost worlds, bringing the Emperor's light. 

Following in their wake, the Adeptus Mechanicus, bringing inexorable progress with their industrial might.  

With them, the Ecclesiarchy, arming the people with the sword of Faith and girding them with the armor of Contempt.

Moving them ever forward, the might of the Imperial Guard, undaunted and unyielding to the last. 

The Saint himself was bedecked in the livery of his chapter; the green and bone of the Dark Angels. He bore the Lance of Atragon, a weapon that lay low a mighty demon of Chaos, even as the fell beast smote him down. As the revellers drew near their goal, the holy bolters roared to life, scything down the followers of darkness like so much rotten grass. The lance flared brightly with the Emperor's light as the reliquary and its bearers surged forwards, its pointing finding home in the reeking armor of the foul sorcerer. 

Since the events of that blessed night, a new victory is celebrated every year on the night of the revels, and pilgrims have since flocked to the town. A new church has been erected where the ruins of the old one stood, and voices therein are uplifted in thanks and praise to the God-Emperor of Mankind. 

And little Elsa? Well, that is another tale.....

Genestealer Cult Hunter.....

When the purple-skinned muties came for his mom and sister and killed his dad for fighting back, the kid decided to get even. 

He never said whether or not he enjoyed it, but boy, was he ever good at it. 

Vostroyan Trade Delegation

The Vostroyans sent a trade delegation to the Brabant system in order to open negotiations for access to the agri-world bounty. Little did they know that the placid town of Bruegelburg would see events that would reshape the sector.....

These lovelies are a combination of Lead Adventure's lovely characterful sculpts and GW's plastics, and went from inspiration to completion in no time. 

Lady Ksenia is a powerful psyker whose abilities are both enhanced and tempered by the psychic crown she wears. While Uncle Sergei (left) is nominally her Firstsworn Bodyman, his first duty is to kill her with that relic blade if something terrible tries to manifest through her. Uncle Mistislav, to the right, has the real business acumen in the family, but is nominally only an advisor. His servo skull has a plasma pistol built in to keep things honest.   

Servo skulls, while cool, are hard, as they generally have to be attached even though they float. Luckly Uncle Mistislav's hangs readily off of his hat and shoulder. I contemplated giving Ksenia her own skull, but opted to leave her unadorned.

Lady, Smoker, The Fat One, and Lincoln are from the Rogue Trader boxset, more specifically, the sprue purchased from eBay. I had some metal Vostroyans, but turned them into AdMech troops, so it was either turn them back or come up with new ones. 

I dig how GW went the extra mile and varied the body types with these. The way they cut the models to sprue them was weird, but they went together with little fuss. 

The Pack Ape is from Lead Adventure's Bruegelburg line, and, if you look closely, is a dude in a suit rather than a true servitor. It's a pretty awesome little model, and I cannot sing their praises enough as a minis company.

I added the baggage after the fact, of course, as the Vostroyans would want to bring silks and whatnot to show off at the trading table. 

Little Vanya, the standard bearer, was a fat-faced Bruegelburg kid with a miscast nub of a left hand, so I replaced it with a metal standard that used to belong to a Rackham Undertaker from their Cadwallon line. 

I like the way she turned out, and as I have lots of leftover kids from the Bruegelburg Fair Kickstarter, will definitely be making more of these. 

Also, if you know how to switch Blogger to Disqus commenting or something less stupid, I would love tips or a step-by-step.

First Mini of the Year!

A freelance biologis researcher equally at home in games of INQ-28 or Shadows of Brimstone, this fellow was a relatively simple conversion involving drilling out the metal elf head of a Reaper elf alchemist and attaching a Lead Adventure kickstarter reward head. I pondered giving him a servo-skull buddy or a handgun of some kind, but it would've limited his playability a bit. 

I really dig the step up in quality we've seen from Reaper lately, including in their Dreadmere line. I just wish they'd drop their Bones plastic. It's awful shit that bends like rubber and can't hold paint worth a damn. Don't be lured in by the low price, folks: avoid avoid AVOID. 

Gundam Vidar....

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans is worth watching not only for the amazing mechanical designs, but also for the fact that do a lot of things with the story an characters that turn Gundam tropes upside down. The Vidar is actually the (better looking, in my opinion) version of the Gundam Kimaris, a villain mobile suit gets a lot of neat battlefield moments in the series. This one is made from RAFM Heavy Gear parts, a Mekton, a Battletech Commando, a Marauder, and various other bits and bobs.

The actual Vidar has wing shields on extendable arms on its thruster backpack, but I just plain didn't have the bits, and so opted for sensor aerials. They look like vestigial wings, which is rather the point. 

Those big things on the hips are binder that hold replacement foils for the Vidar's close combat weapons; oversize armor-pierceing fencing foils. It's also meant to have a set of hidden handguns in the front armor panels, but there's only so much you can do at this scale. 

Those shoulders are from the Insane Kangaroo Hunchback model, which comes with parts for every variant and thus a wealth of conversion fodder. It has the wheelie heels for ground mobility, because it's meant to be a space unit adapted for ground combat. It still has the huge thrusters in its calves, knees and backpack, so it's more than capable of getting airborne in the lower gravity of Mars. 

Happy Cyber Monday, people. 

The O

Paptimus Scirocco's the O is one of the more recognizable mobile suits from the Zeta Gundam anime series, and is a really solid, iconic design. Boasting a large, overpowered beam cannon, heavy armor, and high mobility, the O was far from ponderous or slow, and boasted a set of sub-arms under its skirts, making it a formidable hand to hand opponent as well. 

So, having a bunch of spare parts in hand, I built it as a Heavy Gear. 

The legs are from a RAFM Grizzly that came in a sealed blister with no torso. The torso, backpack, and arms I had on-hand from a RAFM Spitting Cobra since the late 1990's. The skirts are missile pod doors from Alternative Armies. (as is the head bit)  You can actually order bits from them via email, and the AA staff is friendly and very easy to work with. I, of course, got more than just a few doors. More on that later. The sub-arm sticking out is from an old RAFM Stone Mason gear mini. RAFM's quality control was atrocious, so this blister, which was missing parts in the old days, became just spare parts. Those bits on the shoulders.... I forget where they came from, but they looked like folded-up sub-arms to me, and bulked up the shoulders satisfactorily.  

That backpack is from the Spitting Cobra as well. Those thrusters on the butt? A Silent Death fighter. As with all Heavy Gear minis of the period, it's really served well by bits broadening the shoulders so you can more solidly attach the arms to the torso. 

The O traditionally carries an enormous beam rifle, but this one turned into something slightly more mundane. That gun is two plastic heavy bolters mated together; I debated for a long time whether to include the clip and make it a machinegun, but as it has a port for ejecting spent casings, I found a suitable bit for one.

Happy Monday, people. 

Once Again to Space.....

Yes, the one on the left used to be a horrible pink. It was worth stripping and changing.

 I've posted the other two before, and you might remember the mecha in the middle from a post a while back when it looked like this: 

It's gone through a few changes, to be sure; different head, different backpack, new weapons, and now it looks like the machine the heroes get near the end of the series/third disc of the video game/etc: 

I was browsing around some different hobby sites for color ideas, and found a Gundam build I just had to emulate. The thing reminded me so much of the titular mecha from the  much-celebrated PS1 game Xenogears that I instantly wanted one (but didn't want to buy a bunch of Gundam kits). So, I changed the head a bit to resemble the old Jovian Chronicles sculpts, and added bits to resemble the Exia's GN-Sword and OO's GN-Rifle. The backpack comes from Mekton bits, Warmachine bits (thanks for continuing to sell bits, Privateer Press) and a Crimson Skies autogyro. 

While the metallic blues are a bit underwhelming, the golds really make this thing light up. The forms also lend a lot of forward thrust to the overall shape. 

I'm least satisfied with the build of the rifle, for some reason. The bayonet at the end doesn't feel exactly right to me, but the thing is at last done, so I'd rather not tear it down and rebuild it. 

As to what he's made to fight? Who knows. Maybe there's a giant mobile armor in the future. For now, he'll occupy a place of honor on the shelf.... when I can find one his outside frame will fit on. At the moment he hovers above my desk, being too big for the little cubbies in the printer's drawer hanging on my wall. 

Another Army for Sale: Undead Skaven

Veteran readers will recall this blast from the past, this undead army of skaven. Heavily converted, these beasties slouched across the table to menace my adversaries a few times. Alas, due to being my currently underemployed, they have to go. Ebay listing here.

You'll recall Skreinlich Skremmler, the Skavenmaster, and his hulking cohort, Skranfred von Karstein, the Skittering Terror of Mordeheim. 

They're accompanied by Skaverias the Everliving and his cybernetic mount, Snert.

Backing them up, of course, is their ever faithful horde of decaying clanrats. It took forever to whittle down all those skaven heads to make them into rat skulls. 

Some became zombie-ish by way of spare skaven parts. The skeleton bits came from a reasonably-priced metal blister of 20 skellies from a local game store. 

Perhaps the most labor-intensive bit, I reposed nine skeleton horses from the Reaper Miniatures Dark Heaven range into giant mounts for the cavalry. I thought they turned out rather well. 

I also ordered nine giant rats directly from the old Rackham range and mounted some metal Black Tree ratmen on them. You could have skeleton knights and Black Knight Wights in the same army at the time, and I liked the idea of having a cavalry-heavy undead army. 

Loping along at their side, ravenous dire wolfrats from the Reaper range. 

Although bats are kind of flying rats, I stuck to the theme and based some Reaper rat swarms to take their place. 

As I said, this army's now on the block, so if you were thinking of some undead action, get it while it's hot!