+ inload: Grave Stalker Legionary +

+ Grave Stalker Legionary +

+ The Bolter & Chainsword forum has a group that is developing an alternative universe Horus Heresy-style rebellion, called the Icarion Insurrection. The hobbyists are very enthusiastic and have come up with a lot of fun material for it; ranging from an entirely new range of Space Marine Legions to galactic maps and new campaigns. I was asked if I'd like to build a marine for the project, and thought it sounded like fun. +

+ This is the first of them, a Legionary from the Grave Stalkers Legion, by a poster called Grifftofer. Below is the brief summary blurb from the project:

+ The Grave Stalkers +

Numeration: The XVth LegionPrimogenitor: K'awil PakalCognomen (Prior): NoneAllegiance: Traitoris Perdita Appearing as wraiths of Old Night, this small legion of Pariahs use fear as their chosen weapon. Numbering the smallest of all legions due to unstable gene-seed, the Grave Stalkers make up for their lack of numbers by destroying the enemy's morale long before the battle is joined. Atrocities cling to the Grave Stalkers as they prosecute compliance as both soldier and civilian soon feel the knives of the XVth skinning them as a warning to others. At the head of this isolated army stoops K'awil the Soulless. Spurned by the Imperium due to the unnatural aura possessed by the Primarch and his sons, K'awil fought from the shadow of the grave before he was persuaded by Icarion to side with the Stormlord. 

+++

+ That's just a taster. The broader project has lots (really, lots) of written material (if I'm honest, an intimidating amount!) but I hope I've done justice to the concept and produced something the team – and Grifftofer – likes. +

+ Theoretical +

+ While the description suggested elements of the Night Lords and Alpha Legion to me, I was keen to make sure that the model wasn't simply a mishmash of the more familiar canonical Legions – I felt that would be selling the project short; so I cast my metaphorical net a little wider. When thinking about a figure like this, I tend to look for the iconic elements – if it were distilled down to a phrase, what would the Grave Stalkers be? +

+ At root, the Legion felt like it lived hand-to-mouth. They are few. The background suggests that their allies fear them as much as their enemies, and that they prefer to fight guerilla-style to make the most of their low numbers, lurking in the shadows. They have little support from the Mechanicum. They even ruthlessly cull their own Legion in order to ensure the survival of the next generation. To me, this suggested an uncompromising, fatalistic and nihilistic nature. +

+ There were also some hints at pop culture Mesoamerican culture – human sacrifice, trophies and warrior lodges – but I was keen not to overplay this as it's easy to over-egg the pudding and end up with Aztecs in spaaaace. It did, however, get me thinking about Astartes creeping through mist-shrouded jungles, which was a fun train of thought. I intend to bring this influence in a little more with the painting and symbology. +

+ With little resupply from the Mechanicum, I reasoned that the Ghost Stalkers would have to make do with older or non-standard equipment. Generally speaking, I felt that they would favour practicality over ornamentation – it's all very well having bat helms to scare people, but if your very nature is frightening, you can avoid things that might catch on low-hanging vegetation. +

+ Finally – and crucially – these needed to read as 'Space Marines'. It's easy to miss this core part, but first and foremost they have to feel like they fit in the (alternative) 30k universe. Taking them too far from the iconic silhouette would just result in a figure that looked like it had a load of stuff bolted on. +

+++

+ Practical +

+ The result takes some inspiration from pop culture Vietnam – traumatised soldiers doing abominable things – mixed in with a bit of Predator. +

+ Legionary Ahluic Xbalanque of the Grave Stalkers +

+ A sleek but brutal figure. The T-helm was suggested by the source image I was given. I toyed with a bare head (the Grave Stalkers have an unusual phenotype, with white skin and black eyes), but decided this would clash with the Mesoamerican feel. In any case, the T-helm is distinctly dehumanising, and that was at the core of the concept. His boltgun is a relatively clunky local variant (based on the SAW machine guns from countless Hollywood movies), and his only other armament is a blade, held downwards in a classic assassin's grip. + 

+ A few bones and other trophies dangle from his armour, which is essentially Mark II Crusade Armour with a few modifications. In particular, I chose a backpack with swept-back heat vents, reasoning that it would be better for movement through dense undergrowth and would also channel heat away in a narrower area, helping him remain hidden. +

+ The Grave Stalkers eventually fall to Chaos (Oops; spoilers?) and I wanted to get that across, so he had to look a little more 'evil'. I used a shoulder pad with raised trim and spiked bonding studs. Pleasingly, these look like little pyramids, suggestive of ziggurats and Mesoamerican weaponry. +

+ This final shot shows the dangling trophy, trimmed from a Grey Knight Terminator torso. I dropped it to his waist, where it makes for a rather sinister loincloth! Of final note is the belt buckle, which is an empty hoop. This is the Mayan symbol for zero – a little nod both to the Mesoamerican feel and a subtle hint at their soulless nature. +

+ inload: Ambush at Kalkriese – Ultramarines vs Orks part II +

+ The preamble and background for this battle can be found in the inload below. +
+ [+noospheric inload embedded+] +

+ Extracted from the post-action report of Brother Vispanion, squad Secundus. +

+ Practical: Deployment +

+ Mark -5.03: As with the majority of Kalkriese town, the Salters District was in ruins when we arrived, which made the sweep for evacuees and displaced personnel a slow task. The outskirts of the town had no power or water, but many smaller buildings here remained intact. +

+ Mark -1.14: The raised walkways from the town's mass-rail station were intact, and by this mark, the few civilians we had found had been safely shepherded aboard trains, accompanied by Brothers Taliman and Eos from Quartus. +

+ We continued moving cautiously from street to street, sweeping the town. The Lieutenant was clear that every area had to be confirmed visually; but we were also deploying a number of augury scanners. My brethren in the 190th were benefitting greatly from the Seeker squads detached from the 15th. +

+ I found the presence of our Dreadnoughts very welcome – their manoeuvrability is highly-prized in the dense streets, and their martial ability made them invaluable later. +

+ Mark -0.30: Satisfied that we had come to the last few intact buildings, Lieutenant Holion ordered evacuation vox-hails to be proclaimed from the Seekers' Rhino transports, but they echoed around the deserted market square. +

+ Mark -0.11: Lieutenant Pullo reported that his augmitters were hazed, something we attributed to ghost signals and dust-echo; but in hindsight was found to be vox-baffle by the greenskins. He drew the heavy support squad up one of the abandoned tenements, hoping to find a clearer signal. +

+ Mark -0.07[conjectured]: In the pre-dawn darkness, something began to stir. At first, we thought it might be a group of civilians, but the readings on the auguries were frustratingly vague. We moved out into the open to try to gain visuals in the darkness. +

+ Advance elements of the Teknorkracy forces must have been creeping about in the gloom at this point. Afterwards, we noted their blades were blackened were carbon-smut from campfires. I will never underestimate the orks – I have faced them three times since, and each time they have shown another face quite distinct from the caricature of a bellowing beast I had previously heard. +

+ Pouring from the mass-rail, the orks' numbers begin to swell and gather. I can only give thanks that the civilians's mass-train had reported in as secure by this point. +

+ Mark -0.04[conj.]: Marching in from the north, the greenskins' heavy armour rolled in, their engines masked by sonic-mockers. +

+ Mark -0.03[conj.]: A mighty bellow from the ork warlord [native ident: Gashbag] signalled his ambush. +

+++

+ Turn 1 +

+ Mark -0.02[conj.]: The orks surged forward simultaneously from the northern tenements and the southern mass-rail terminal, aiming to trap us between the groups. +

+ Mark 0: Brother Telcion, the Contemptor assigned to support Secundus, detected a surge in the spoor-signal we had picked up. With many years of experience under his belt, he ordered the Mark. Even as he made a brief report to Lieutenant Holion for confirmation, we began to seal the market square; as per general orders. None of us believed Telcion would have the jitters. +

+ The Land Raider Legacy of Armatura and the breachers of Viginti locked in place, sealing off the southern entrance of the Market square and protecting Holion behind a wall of ceramite. +

+ A post-battle enhanced sub-orbital pict capture shows the ork menace in the southern reaches clearly. +

+ Mark 0.02: Ork dreadnoughts began their advance, supported by heavy infantry. The darkness and dust shielded their advance, and we could pick virtually nothing out. Fortunately, the same was true for the greenskins – bullets and shells began whizzing into the market square, but none found their mark. +

+ Mark 0.05: Directed by Lieutenant Pullo, Heavy Support squad Corinthian opens up on a group of orks in the street as they advance from the north. Light casualties are inflicted. +

+ Legacy of Armatura, detecting little that could threaten its armour, moved to impose itself between the ork's looted heavy support weapons and Viginti. +

+ There were dozens of them – post battle estimates put their numbers at around 120; perhaps higher. +

+ Mark 0.07: It was at this point that I spotted the orks beneath the mass-rail walkways. The sergeant ordered us forward to engage. +

+ The orks surged forward to meet us. +

+++

+ inload: Hold fast! Ultramarine Breachers +

+ The Vigintii +

+ I've banged on a lot about Breachers over the past couple of inloads, so rather than repeating myself, I'll simply pop up some pictures of the squad as they currently stand. +

+ Sergeant and four marines. The banner was painted with the new Iyanden Darksun (apologies, I can't remember the name) then washed with sepia ink. While wet, I used my thumb to wipe off the excess ink from the raised areas. Once dry, I used slightly diluted Iyanden Darksun to clean it up a bit, then added Dheneb Stone to the mix for highlights. The detail is all moulded on – I think the backpack is a metal piece from the character Sicarius. +

+ Note the inclusion of an heraldic tilt shield – I'm really enjoying adding these to the occasional veteran. +

+ Squad leader and four marines. Being organised to a fault, the Ultramarines always have a chain of command in place. This fella doesn't have any in-game rules, but made a good excuse to have a bit more fun modelling – building lots of near-uniform models isn't the most exciting process, even if the end result is worth it. +

+...and all together, plus Brother Letas (in the red helm of censure). The bases aren't complete, and nor are the squad markings. The little circles you can see on the shields will have an eta (η) symbol. Rather annoyingly, despite spending [SCRAPSHUNTERRORABORT] ages last night carefully painting in the Breacher Squad symbol (an inverted omega with a gladius through the centre) on every right shoulderpad, I forgot to get a pict-capture of any of them. +

+ You can just about make one or two out in this rather gloomy WIP picture, but you'll probably have to use your imagination for now. Regarding the markings, I couldn't resist adding a few little personalising details – the occasional CXC (for the 190th), legion numeral or additional Legion symbol here and there – but I've deliberately left them fairly neutral. These are, after all, new Ultramarines. Not quite raw recruits, but only just beginning to write their legends... +

+++ AMEND +++

+ I've now secured a pict-capture of the Breacher squad details:

+++AMEND TERMINUS+++

+ What next? +

+ With the first ten (well, eleven) Vigintii requiring just some final weathering and basing, the next things on the painting table:

+ Ah, more Breachers. Well, that's not particularly exciting. +

+ Ah, an apothecary! That's a bit more fun. I've a solid preference for the visuals of a game, and one of the things that always slightly disheartens me is when one or other army isn't on the table. This is generally due to it being pretty much all in reserve, or all in flyers, or so forth. My army sits around looking daft and then getting shot from all angles as they pop up, with no opportunity to actually fight. Fortunately, my Iron Warriors army taught me the great pleasure of augury scanners and Explorator augury webs, which go a long way to disrupting reserves and generally making life a bit more difficult for infiltration/deep-strike heavy armies, and giving my Ultramarines a chance to shoot back before they're annihilated. Why's this relevant? Well, Apothecaries can have augury scanners, so that's what he's clutching in his left hand. +

+ The visuals bites both ways – I suspect my infantry-heavy army would benefit from having lots of apothecaries, but it just seems a bit off to me to have so many in an army. One apothecary to every forty or so men seems alright, though. +

+ inload: They Shall Know Fear +

+ Officers on deck +

+ Epulone Tiberial Highheart +

+ A fairly productive weekend of painting saw me finishing Chaplain Highheart who, like the Breachers of Viginti yesterday, has been lurking half-painted in a case. I rarely think it's a good idea to force myself to paint, preferring to work on something as the enthusiasm strikes. +

+ Not my best work, but I rather like him. He'll be leading the charge against the orks of the Teknorkracy this Thusrday... Keep an eye out for a report. +

+ inload: Squad Viginti WIP +

+ Squad Viginti WIP +

+ Theoretical – What's cooler than Space Romans with big tower shields? +

+ Practical – Space Romans with big tower shields and power gladii. +

Three Breachers, with markings and details to finish.

+ These poor chaps have been sat in a figures case while other projects – Court of the Sun King, Officia Monstrosa, May You Live Forever – have ticked over, and with a game coming up on Thursday, it's about time I got them painted. +

+ Below are some WIP shots of a Breacher squad; a new type of unit from the Age of Darkness expansion that gives space marines a shieldwall visual. +

+ There are currently three nigh-finished members – the sergeant, squad leader and a red-helmed rotter. They need a few minor tweaks and basing, but I'm happy with how they're looking; certainly good enough to plop on a table to be swiftly removed! +

Sergeant of Viginti (the squad designation is recorded on his banner – Viginitii)

Squad Leader

+ inload: Grubby Rankers +

+ The Ultramarines have a reputation for being upright, proud and strait-laced, which is certainly built on foundations of truth. However, none of those clad in cobalt and gold are identical in character. There is a great variety of imbalance in humours amongst the Legion; some erring towards a choleric disposition, while others are generally sanguine or bilious. Mostly, such imbalances are drilled out during training; but in some cases they prove intractable. +

+ Such warriors are tolerated if their deficiences or exuberances prove to be of no detriment to themselves or their comrades. Since the time of Gren Vosotho, the War-born had harboured a peculiar and unlikely mix that – perhaps owing to the influence of their geneseed – nevertheless came to prove more than the sum of its parts. Indeed, many officers even post-Guilliman show certain eccentricities – impulsiveness, bravado, or a peculiar sixth sense – that have proven to be a great benefit to the Legion and underscored their individual advancement. +

+ Whether the following troublemakers of the 190th prove to be future Officers or swiftly-cooling corpses is still to be played out... +

Brother Anandates, Corinthian (190th)

+ Part of the field-intake of replacements necessary for the Corinithians, who had suffered catastrophic casualties during a raid against greenskin pirates, Brother Anandates has proven both capable with a support weapon and insubordinate to a fault; indulging in non-standard kill markings and aesthetic vandalisation of his wargear. Not yet red-marked, he has skirted perilously close to the line on more than one occasion in his short field-life. +

Brother Spiriculus, Squad Secundus (190th)

+ In contrast, Brother Spiriculus is devoted, drilled and conscientious... and seemingly catastrophically unlucky. It seems the fates have a dark sense of humour for Spiriculus, and he has become something of an ill-luck totem for Squad Secundus. As a result, squad cohesion has been slow to materialise amongst the inexperienced 190th. +

+ inload: Ultramarine Master of Signal +

+ Upilio Constantine Pullo +

+ The XIIIth, perhaps more than any other Legion, relies on smoothly interlinking command and control, with orders percolating downwards for swift enactment. Some Ultramarines excel at particular roles – the strategic leadership of the Legion falls to those most able to command; while line sergeants provide staunch tactical direction. +

+ Being equal in ability does not necessitate heterogeneity, of course. While some Officers of Ultramar achieve their rank through skill at arms – we think of Tauro Nichodemus, or the glittering blade of Salvio Fenn – others, like Constantine Pullo, possess some of his gene-father's genius for organisation and administration. +

+ The post of Master of Signal is the official designation for the post known to the Iron Hands and Death Guard as Watchmaster, to the Raven Guard – unofficially at least – as Whisperchief, and to the Ultramarines as Upilio. The role varies slightly, but all who wish to master it must possess an ability to parse, sort and filter a tide of often conflicting information, acting both as filter and codifier of the ebbs and flows not just of battles; but of entire theatres of war. +

+ Owing to their multi-levelled thinking and superlative calculatory abilities, most Signal Officers excel at void warfare, and many are drawn from void-captains and Astartes fleet staff. They are commonly placed in charge of Expeditionary sub-fleets, a responsibility far above most Centurions' duties. +

+ Never the most fearsome in combat, nor the most charismatic, nor yet the most indomitable, Constantine Pullo is nevertheless a terrifying man to make your enemy; as he has the ten thousand arms and ten thousand eyes of the Ultramarines beneath his command to turn against you. +

+ Decked out in artificer-adapted Mark V hybrid (II/IV) plate with inbuilt cognitive-memhancer, arm-mounted augur-board and multi-spectrum vox-beading, Pullo is capable of directing an entire battlefront; as indeed he demonstrated during the Syrinx Annihilation, the closing events of the Hypon campaign, and the Nekuli void-war. In addition to this equipment, he carries an eminently practical boltpistol sidearm and the vitis, the short staff that serves as mark of office, as a visual directional tool when his high-tech equipment fails him or is impractical, and – in extremis – as a bludgeoning weapon. +

+ The Master of Signal is a role that sits at the heart of the Ultramarines' way of war. Serving in the 15th for nearly three decades, Constantine Pullo's experience and knowledge saw him promoted after the Nekuli campaign to a new role with the Evocati, overseeing the training of future Ultramarines on Armatura. This was a role he took on with characteristic seriousness. Redeployed to Calth alongside the final intake of Inductii before the Ghaslakh campaign muster, Pullo was caught alongside the warriors of the newly-created 190th when the Word Bearers attacked. He was lost on the surface prior to the Underworld War; just another of the 160,000 or so Legionary casualties of the Atrocity. +

+ inload: Officers of the 190th +

+ Chains of Command +

+ A couple of work-in-progress officers for the 190th today. First up, a Chaplain:

+ Epulone Tiberial Highheart +

+ Roboute Guilliman was famous for encouraging the close study of all the Legiones Astartes; with the intention of encapsulating and refining successful approaches within his own Legion. Several innovative tactical and strategic structures and squad types pioneered by their cousin-Legions were fielded – both broadly and in more limited test-bed structures – by the time of the Calth Atrocity. +

+ The Chaplaincy spearheaded by the Word Bearers was one such office. Lorgar and his closest advisors were zealous in the dissemination of the post across the Legions. Rejected by some, the post was taken up by the Ultramarines on a limited scale. In truth, the office sat poorly within the Ultramarines Legion, where zeal and passion were firmly subsumed beneath a structure of logic and analysis. As a result, some historians suggest that the adoption was a personal sop to Lorgar on Guilliman's part – an extended hand of reconciliation. +

+ Nevertheless, while not widespread in the XIIIth Legion, the Chaplaincy was no useless appendix. The post was stripped of duties distasteful to the ruthlessly sceptical and fact-focussed Ultramarines; and grew the morale-shoring role of inspiration through demonstration. Selected as exemplars of duty and honour, Chaplains operated across the Chapter command structure, such that any Legionary, from Aspirant to Tetrarch, could seek their advice and wisdom. They thus formed an underpinning web across the Chapter that bound the warriors together as brothers. +

WIP Chaplain

+ Tiberial Highheart holds the honorific of Epulone, a role whose duties extended to organising feasts, festivals and events of martial and physical competition within the Ultramarines, providing the Legionaries with a close focus for their peacetime role. +

+ The role of Chaplains fell under suspicion after the events of Calth, with many being withdrawn from front-line roles, but this was never a general rescindment. +

+++

+ Lieutenant Pullo, 190th Signals corps +

+ This model is built from a variety of unusual parts including a Space Hulk powerfist (from Brother Omnio), the helm from the FW Master of Signal and – probably my favourite bit – the rod of command from an Alpha Legion special character. +

+ Both figures are WIP. While the metallics are largely complete, the blue armour is midway through the process. I start from a midtone blue (Mordian blue) which gives me tonal range to both shade down and highlight up. At this point, you're seeing them with just the shading added (a variety of blue and purple washes applied topically, plus a glaze of Liche purple paint). The next stage is to add the highlights, and that's when they start to 'pop'. +