Warhammer Eve 2020

The Nine, Host of Xer'at'chtelg'n

The Marines, their arms opened wide and heads tilted back, each stood at one of the nine corners marking the sacred symbol of the Architect of Fate. Marduk Fatebender recited from his grimoire, eldritch energies helding him aloft above the Marines.
"Xer'at'chtelg'n, I summon thee!"
In the centre of the sacred pattern, just below Marduk, energy congelead in the shape of Tzeentch's still shut Eye.
The daemon's name droned out of the Marines' mouths and vox-grilles.
Slowly, the Eye opened, tendrils of many-hued ectoplasm questing out and wrapping around the Marines.
"Xer'at'chtelg'n, I bind thee!" The Marines' droning turned into an anguished scream. It faded as their bodies melted and flowed towards the Eye.
The Eye swirled, lurid colours running through its iris, a cackling laughter filling the air.
The Eye opened wide, a sickly light filling the gloomy ritual chamber for a moment, then the Eye was gone.
A single figure stood below Marduk. It looked around, then it spoke.

"Made my home comfortable, master, if you don't mind", each word coming from one of nine different mouths.

Happy Warhammer Day everybody!

When last year Games Workshop announced the first official Warhammer Day, with Saul, David, Lee and the rest of our gaming group, we though it would be fun to celebrate with a kitbashing competition. Saul, an inveterate fan of all kind of Eves, suggested the models should be revealed the evening before. Warhammer Eve was thus added to our calendar of festivities.

Nearly one year later, in the middle of a global lockdown, we revived the idea. As the 9th edition of Warhammer 40,000 had just been announced, we gave ourself a month to convert and paint something around the theme of '9'. And so, even if there are no official celebrations this year, we menaged to have our own little one!

I had been thinking of adding a Possessed to my Heretic Astartes Kill Team for a while, and them being devoted to Tzeentch, that made for a perfect match with the '9' theme.

So The Nine, Host of Xer'at'chtelg'n was born in my mind.

I raided the bits box, putting together an old Forsaken body and arms, heads from Space Marines (both flavours), daemons and Chaos Warriors, a Chaos Marine backpack and a shoulder pad, Ghoul and Hormagaunt arms, a metal tentacle from the 1990s Beast of Nurgle and appendages from the Chaos Warhounds.

The heads were pinned to lengths of wire, then woven together, stuck to the body and covered in greenstuff. I also used Greenstuff to hide the spots where different bits joined, sculpting it as if stretched flesh, matching the design on Daemon Engines and Possessed.

The colours for the armour were already decided, and them being purple and magenta, that worked great with the recipe for Inflamed Flesh from the Citadel Paint app: washes of Carroburg Crimson and Druchii Violet over a base of Bugman's Glow, followed by Kislev Flesh.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, the paint job emphasises the sculpting work to create a smooth flow from the armour plates to the bruised flesh, as if the two have melted.

I just hope I can have some games with it before we get started on our Warhammer Eve 2021 kitbash!

And here are the other entries!

David Whitworth's The Disturbing Fat Boi

Lee Rawcliffe's Depp Grindlesparrow and His Artifact Emporium

Saul Painter's Bigrig, Cybork Mega-Mek

Of renegades... again!

After I converted some regular Space Marines into Renegades to add them to the models from Assassinorum: Execution Force I had promised myself to finish the work by adding five more Cultists so that I could deply two 10-men units. However, since I've been progressively loosing interest in large games, I kept postposing this work, even though I had a box of Cultists ready to go.
And then came Kill Team! The Chaos Marines and Cultists I had converted were perfect for it, but not enough to have a flexible Combat Roster. And the inspiration returned, leading to the addition of more Loreseekers to the followers of Marduk Fatebender.

I wanted to have a Gunner with Heavy Stubber and a Combat Specialist and change the heads to all models so they did not look identical to the others I had. Some Flaggelant heads and arms, Genestealer Cultist heads, a Palgue Monk sword, an Ork Heavy Shoota and ammo belt, a Scout Marine backpack and the axe head from the Chaos Terminator Lord and few touches of greenstuff were all that it took to get the look I wanted.

Since I was at it, I also put together some objective markers, mixing Chaos and Imperial bits.

Finally, I had an old metal Chaos Familiar and the miniature Lord of Change from Silver Tower going spare. Once put on some 40k resin bases they were perfect to act as markers for tactics effects or counters for Command Points.

In the meantime, Commanders has been released, giving me the opportunity to include Marduk Fatebender himself. However, the model I have is in Terminator armour. But guess what? In the bits box there was one of the metal Chaos Sorcerers released at the time of the 2nd edition Codex! It will soon get a lick of paint on itslef...

Of Renegades and Comm-link Stations

No, I haven't been super-productive and finished all these lovely models in the 5 days since I've finished Kalyustar. In fact, they were ready before I started working on him, but I hadn't the time to post them. You know, real life getting in the way of the hobby.

The Renegades known as Marduk's Heralds were a project I had in mind since painting the baddies from Assassinorum: Execution Force. I simply kept postposing it as Age of Sigmar was taking all of my the attention. But with the release of the new edition of WH40k and the beginning of our campaign in the Malfactus Rift I returned to it. I wanted to turn the three Chaos Sapce Marines from Assassinorum into a full squad, but I wanted to do it on a budget.

I had a couple of sprues of Tactical Marines left over from my Iron Hands army, all the unused bits from the Chaos Terminator Lord and Chaos backpacks kindly thrown into our commonal bits box by my gaming mates, which made for a really good starting point. However, I was still missing a few arms, heads and shoulder pads. After an afternoon rummaging in said commonal bits box, I fished out Chaos Warriors heads and arms, Chaos Forsaken shoulder pads and a Plague Monk banner giving me all the bits I needed. I didn't have enough weapons to give all the basic Marines the same equipment, but with the new rules mixing equipments is finally viable gamewise, so I didn't bothered at all!

The colour scheme was already set since I painted Marduk Fatebender, so I simply replicated the purple and magenta armour with green, yellow and brown as spot colours.

Marduk Fatebender

The ruined comm-link station, instead, was a new idea that emerged as we were planning scenarios for the Malfactus Rift campaign. In fact, in the narrative for that campaign, this terrain will represent a failing Astronomicon Repeater. Although, with Malign Portents and Dread Solstice having drawn us back into the Mortal Realms, we don't know when we are actually going to play that game!

I've combined a Thermic Plasma Regulator with Ryza Ruins, using an old movement tray (who said they became useless after Age of Sigmar release?) for the flooring. For the antenna I've used various Eldar and Imperium vehicles bits, again fished from the commonal bits box. The cooler (?) I cut to make room for the antenna ended up as some sort of control panel on the platform.

I painted the comm-link station to match my Mancunius Dome terrains, but going for reddish walls to distinguish it from the more hab-block like terrains I already had.

A corner of Mancunius Dome

The rusted metal was painted by stippling brown, orange and metail paints onto the model. In doing so, the antenna came of, but it was good as I then repositioned it, leaving more space on the platform so that taller models can be placed on it.

I'm not sure when they all will see the tabletop, but sure they will.

Assassinorum: The Renegades

It took me more than a year, as I dabbed into so many other projects, but finally I've finished painting the Renegades from Assassinorum: Execution Force. I decided to paint them in a colour scheme matching the Cult of Divine Illumination, a Delaque Gang/Astra Militarum force I've painted a while ago. The idea is to use the two forces as a single army of Chaos Cultists.

 

Marduk the Fatebender

Nobody really knows from which chapter the vile sorcerer known as Marduk the Fatebender hails from. Some in the Inquisition says he once was Epistolary Mordechai of the Executioners Chapter, recorded as missing in action during the Badad Wars. Others maintain he was a Blood Raven librarian that turned his back on his chapter during the Second Aurelian Crusade. What is sure is that Marduk will stop at nothing in his quest to piece together the lore and artefacts that will allow him to cross the Crystal Labyrinth, reach the Impossible Fortress and learn the secrets of true power from the voice of his master, Tzeentch itself.

The Loreseekers

Raised on Byzanthia II, these cultists were once the guards of the Sanctum Sapientia, a cathedral built during the Scouring to seal away the essence of the Lord of Change Aran'khilan the Wisperer. When Marduk's forces attacked the Sanctum and freed the daemon, the men fell to its maddening influence and ever since have joined Marduk's warband in the search for forbidden knowledge.

 The Cultists were the only models on which I did some conversions, so that they are slightly more flexible when playing 40k. I gave a shotgun and flamer, fished from my bitsbox, to two of them. Some cutting and shaving of plastic, a piece of wire and a little greenstuff and I was sorted.

The Fatebender's Heralds

The Heralds are utterly loyal to their master. Whether they hail from the same chapter or from another Renegade factions that joined him recognising his greatness in the eyes of Tzeentch, is unknown, but under Marduk's leadership they have scoured countless seats of knowledge across the Imperium.

I have some unassembled Space Marines ad all the leftover bits from the Terminator Lord sprue, so, at some point in the future I'll kit-bash another six Renegade Space Marines to have a proper congregation of servants of Tzeentch.