+ inload: Blood Angels Terminators build +

+ Squad Redemptor, First Host +

The veins on Raphael's neck stood out as he tried to resist the Krell's psychic attack; but his limbs felt distant – oddly empty. His will was being displaced by a being of greater strength; balled-up and confined. The loss of agency was horrifying, humiliating. He retained all awareness his posthuman sensations could feed him; but his panicked mind had no way of acting upon them. Unable even to move his eyes, his peripheral vision nevertheless picked up the other members of the squad. They moved slowly, with the same jerky, alien motion as the Nai – and himself. He screamed impotently, wordlessly, as his arms rose, bringing his boltgun up to draw a bead on his brother, Barbarigo.

A heaviness, like that preceding a storm, permeated the air. Briefly he felt the Krell's domination waver and recede – just enough to jerk his hands and throw the shot off. In that moment, everything seemed to slow; and he heard a distant chittering at the edge of hearing. He strained to hear it, but it receded at the same moment the Terminators arrived. 

Teleportation folded its travellers back into existence in a way that Raphael could never describe; one that made his guts churn and teeth ache, even at a distance. Desperately trying to communicate with the veterans, he felt the iron will of the Krell assume control of his body once more. His head turned aside, he could no longer see his squadmates, but from the sounds of weapons fire, they were – like him – already firing upon their newly-arrived reinforcements.

The boltrounds flattened against the reinforced plate; or spanged off wildly. The Terminators raised their weapons, but not against their brethren. No; they targetted the Krell. Deafeningly heavy firepower lashed the creature, smashing into a luminous field of energy as the Terminators advanced upon it. 

It was then Raphael realised why the Terminators were unaffected. As the veterans marched past, ignoring their brethren's fire, they revealed a Librarian. Blue-clad below the waist, he clutched a glittering sword. His hand outraised, the Librarian's psychic hood was crackling with energy. Even a blunt like Raphael could feel the struggle build.

The Librarian leaned forward, as though into the wind; and Raphael struggled again to regain control as his weapon tracked inexorably towards the Librarian. 

One of the Terminators pushed through the Krell's psychic field, his helmet and shoulders alive with psychic fire, and seized hold of the bloated creature. Suddenly, with an audible and very final snap, the Krell collapsed to the dusty floor. 

Raphael felt the presence in his mind ebb away slowly, allowing him back into control of his post-human body. He was left with a sensation a little like pins-and-needles across his whole frame; and a furious, placeless urgency. He shuddered as he raised himself, muttering an imprecation to Sanguinius to suppress the nauseating urge that was their Chapter's curse. 

He breathed out heavily, attempting to balance his humours in the wake of such violation. The other members of the psy-dominated squad were clambering unsteadily to their feet; as were the surviving pair of Nai the Krell had impelled forward with it. 

El-Aster was first up. His knife was in his hand; then in the nearest Nai. Over and over again; desperately, violently.

+++

+ Squad Redemptor +

+ Very much enjoying building these embiggened Terminators for the Alien Wars – if you'd like a go yourself, there's a tutorial here [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. My only slight grumbles are the awkward poses of the stock Aquilon Terminators, and the limited variation is a bit frustrating – I was particularly dismayed to find the two different types (firepike and 'normal') are identical except for the weapons. Even the arms are resculpts from the same base, so the underlying way the arm is held are identical between kits, which I thought was a bit of a shame. Nothing that can't be fixed with a little knifework, so I'm not too choleric about it! +

+ Anyway, four down, one more to go. The torso of the final Terminator seems to have been moved by the household gods. I'm sure it'll turn up. +

Sinistro e Dexter:  Brother Martial (Agshekolah 2:09)
Brother Lucello the comely (Tiphareth 3:04)

Sergeant Redemptor (Pahaliah 2:01)
Brother Comeccino (Abacyel 2:02)

[Absent from pict-capture] Brother Lesandro (Caranial 6:18)

 + Sergeant Redemptor gets the traditional armament of the period for sergeants – power sword and stormbolter. Since yesterday, I've added a few decorations and a little sensor to the cowl. These targeters are useful. Not only do they add some visual interest, but they also help cover the slightly rough area left when the eagle is carved away. +

+ The side shot shows the replacement power sword. I've mated the forearm of a plastic Tartaros-pattern Terminator to the Aquilon upper arm, and replaced the distinctive blade with a power sword from the bits box (possibly available in the Blood Angels Death Company box?). The result is quite a bit shorter than the Tartaros blade, but I think the stubbier feel works well for the brutal tunnel-fighting Terminators are famed for. +

+  Brother Comeccino gets a stormbolter and power fist armament. Again, a few twiddly bits from the Space Hulk Terminators set add some Blood Angel character. I've kept this fairly stripped-back, in common with the rest of the project's aesthetic, but thought such storied veterans deserved some details. +

+ A rear shot shows that the backs of the torso and legs are unmodified. While I think the sculpted look works well for Blood Angels, part of me wants to give getting the back to look more like the original sculpts a go. Perhaps I'll order the bits and do one for my Ultramarines, Iron Hands or Iron Warriors? +

 + Yeaaaaaah. Who doesn't love an assault cannon? I wasn't happy with the original pose of Brother Lucello, so he got broken up and turned into the heavy weapon specialist. Very happy with the pose now, which looks alert but slightly ponderous – ideal for such bulky troops. +

+ Note the tilt shield on his pauldron. I'm tempted to add one to his gun, too, as the original inspiration does. +

+ The assault cannon itself, as the red colour probably gives away, is also from Space Hulk. It's got some nice details that required it to be posed in a certain way – otherwise the decorations would not hang properly. It's probably not something you'd notice at a casual glance, but missing details like this can give your models a slight sense of 'wrongness'. +

+ Breaking one of my usual guidelines for posing miniatures, Brother Martial's leading arm matches his leading leg – i.e. both are forward together – and the same is true of the trailing leg. +

+ Usually arms and legs alternate when walking (i.e. the arm swings backwards as the leg on the same side comes forward, as on Brother Comeccino above), and this tends to make for good naturalistic miniatures. +

+ Here, I've deliberately matched the angles in order to emphasise the weight of the chainfist, and make him look wary – as thought he's prowling slowly. I've added a damaged pad to reinforce the feeling of danger.+

+ I managed to salvage the chainfist's cabling, and attached it behind the large elbow joint protector. This is another detail that could be trimmed off in order to make the figure more like the original metal sculpes. As a little in-joke, his apotropaeic name means 'destroyer', which I thought was fitting for the chainfist-carrier! +

+ The final member of the squad is not yet ready, but as soon as I dig out that torso, I'll pop him up here. My plan is to make a particularly belligerent squad member. The only real distinguishing feature of the original model (from WD139) was that he had a bionic eye. I'm going to riff on that and experiment with a bionic arm and battle damage. +

+ inload: Bubbling under; and post CCIII +

+ It's not all terrain building round here, though it has occupied almost all of my hobby time recently. I've got a couple of little projects bubbling away, based on nothing more than – in the first case – really liking the models; and in the second, getting a rather fantastic bargain. +

+ Genestealers +

+ First up are these fellas; the first main release of metal genestealers (I think there were a couple of earlier prototypes, but these were the ones used for promotion of the first edition of Space Hulk. Perhaps an Oldhammerer could clear that up? I seem to remember there were metal arms for these at some point; but these ones have the plastic set. +

+ You'll also spot a Dark Emissary, a figure from a Warhammer campaign based around Albion. He's likely going to be the basis for a withered Genestealer Magos. +

+ I really like these models. The blue plastics are the ones I remember playing with – first from Space Crusade, and then the slightly different Space Hulk ones – but the metals have a charm of their own. They are more rounded and hunched than the plastics, and their features are more similar to humans than the plastic versions. This lends them a certain sinister feel. I'm sort of tempted to use them as first-generation hybrids by playing with the arms... nearly complete genestealers, but with a definite human heritage. +

+ I suspect the sculptor is Bob Olley; but am happy to be corrected. +

+ Solar Auxilia +

+ Secondly is a Solar Auxilia force, who will likely be appended to my Ultramarines or Iron Warriors (or if painted neutrally, both). This was a bit of a bargain. The picture and description was a little unclear, but I took a punt on what I thought was two squads of volkite-armed auxilia. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box to find the following:

+ Okay; so the two full squads I was expecting... which seem to be in good order – nicely assembled and cleanly primed *phew* – but there was more in the box. In addition to a big pile of 32mm bases:

+ What looks like a complete third squad – I'll double check, but any arms etc. missing will be perfect for conversion-fu. On top of the there's a command section, missing only the commander himself:

+ Quite the haul! +

+ inload CC +

+ In all the excitement I missed Death of a Rubricist's two hundredth-pot [+ auditory-phial exload: fanfare +]. Without making too much of a fuss, I'd like to thank you all for reading along and your comments. Here's to another 200 inloads! +

+ inload: A Helping Hand +

+ Space Marine casualties +

+ The black soil of Isstvan V claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Astartes; the single largest loss of Space Marine up to that point in history. Three loyal Legions – the Raven Guard, Salamanders and Iron Hands – suffered ruinous, catastrophic casualties. However, they did not sell their leaves cheaply. Even given the advantages of surprise, encirclement and foreknowledge, the Traitors were bloodied. After all, the enemy were Astartes, and they do not die easily. +

+ The bulk of the Iron Warriors fought on the Eastern part of the Urgall Depression, the low valley selected as the now-infamous drop site. Here they were met by the X Legion. Many thousands fell on both sides. The image above shows an Iron Warrior supporting an injured comrade. +

+++

+ Casualty markers +

+ While Astartes armour is good, there are plenty of things that can crack it open. It also strikes me as fairly unpleasant that Astartes have so many redundant organs and damage-mitigating alterations made to them that they're unable to fall into shock or pain-relieving unconsciousness at even the most horrendous wounds. War certainly is a grim affair, and in the darkness of the far future, sometimes in some surprising ways. +

+ I enjoy making casualty markers like those above, as they offer the chance to show another side of the Space Opera conflict we see; and add a sense of consequence and drama to the unfolding battles we play. +

+ They are perhaps a little morbid, but I find creating a convincingly injured figure a great exercise in posing and structuring. The slumped shoulders, staggering gait and similar postures are a world away from the combat-ready poise of most figures, and modelling battle damage is a great challenge. +

+ Because the armour is often badly damaged, it's a good opportunity to try out your sculpting work or new painting techniques. If it turns out a little rough, there's no harm – these figures are more for atmosphere and background than anything else. That said, they do make excellent objective markers; so you might like to think of them as terrain. I find that takes any pressure or expectation away from them. +

+ Work in progress +

+ I'm working on an unusual casualty type at the moment – walking wounded. 

+ The bulk of the structure is there, though some tweaks are still likely, particularly on the torsos. Both sets of legs are from the Space Hulk set, which provides for some unusual and dynamic poses. Oddly enough, I've found running poses often much better for converting into the slumped or resigned postures of the injured. In this instance, the injured marine is leaning on his comrade, so his trailing leg has little weight on it. As a result, the other marine has to have a strong centre of balance. +

Mark II 'Crusade' helmets

Mark III 'Armorum Ferrum' helmets

+ I'd love to put them on a combined base, as that'll give some space for some more interesting rubble and reinforce their connection. I'm in two minds about which heads to use. I've had a little play around with different heads (including bare heads), but I think I want to emphasise the similarities and should use as many bits which link the two as possible. Which do you think looks best? +