The Bloodworks
On its way from the Sanguinal Refineries to the Cranic Furnaces the mixture of promethium, blood and daemonic ichor travels and is stored and stabilised in a network of Haematic Plasma Regulators and Condutis. Much like the other Belochian structures claimed by the servants of Khorne, this machinery is slowly turning into organic structures, the conduits ever more resembling blood vessels while the plasma coils contract and beat like cardiac muscles. The tanks and heat vents' sides bleed from never-healing wounds on their flanks and skulls are tossed around, often piled into impromptu altars to the Red God. The reek of blood clings to the air, as does the faint echo of a laughter coming from the Skull Throne.
Recently I've started playing Kill Team relatively regularly and that motivated me to get back to this terrain project. These are all relatively small pieces made with a combination of bits from the Sector Mechanicus kits I assembled in the past, plastic piping and even a plastic container for toothpicks.
The strainght pipes are cut to the same length as the gantries of the Hanging Ways, just like the original Thermic Plasma Conduits. The curved one is only a few centimetres smaller than the angled walkways I stil have to assemble, but I couldn't find anything of the exact same size. The veins crisscrossing them are sculpted with greenstuff.
The ladder going up the vent is made using cleaned up sprues.
The Thermic Plasm Regulator is converted exactly like the Sanguinal Refinery, with bone spurs from the Ogor Mawtribes range, Khornate symbols and trophies and also the horns with dangling skulls from the Black Orcs banner.
Finally I had the hatches from the STC Ryza-pattern Ruins to which I simply glued some skulls. They're the only pieces that have not been smeared with my home-made texture (coffe grounds and PVA) to represent the wounds on the sides of the structures.
The palette is essentially the same as the other pieces. However, this time I've used an iron mica effect enamel spray for the undercoat rather than Leadbelcher spray, resulting in slightly darker tones.
As always, every piece is perfectly sized to match the others, either to join at ground level or to sit on top of larger pieces.
Tor Megiddo: The Wanderer
They call themselves Wanderers. Tribeless Yaike Yaike, outcast Golden Spirers, rogue Flesh Barons. Dogs without a master. Drifting through Tor Megiddo ash wastes and blasted badlands, just like another meaningless grain of red sand. Scraping a living through the work of their blades and guns, through morcels of knowledge of man and machine bodies. Killing and fixing, as asked by those that toss them a bone. But that is good for them. They live, they fight, they have no master. For that is all that matters on the Red Sands of Tor Megiddo.
I normally don't join painting and modelling challenges or invitationals, for the simple reason that I can never really meet the deadlines. This year, however, I have some models built but laying unpainted on my hobby desk. When the Inqtober22 prompt list was released I saw they could fit in and that motivated me to paint them.
The first is this Mercenary Scum I built around the front body of a Chaos Warrior and that I will use for Tor Megiddo games, if we ever get back to that setting.
I trimmed away the fur and claws decorating the shoulders and then glued the back of a Space Marine vehicle gunner to complete the torso. The arms with bolter are from the Space Marine scouts while the head is from the Genestealer Cult accessory sprues. From the same sprue I took two daggers with grenades and used them to hide the sides of the gap between the Chaos Warrior legs and the Space Marine back. To hide the central part of that gap, I used the track links from an Imperial vehicle, worn as if additional armour plating.
Since he is not a Purebred but a tribeless mercenary, I totally avoided the red I used on them and kept the yellow only on the bandana and the black on the boots, gloves and fatigue arms.
The rest of the model is painted in worn and dusty metal, with some touches of green on the cables, granades and gogle lenses to further distinguish him from the Purebred.
The "Hot Heads", 5th Irregulars Platoon
New Drekport's tithe regiments, the New Drekport Corps, sustained heavy casualties in the early stages of the Noctis Aeterna. The fall of Duskhurn and Beloch and the open rebellion of Morrdragor also robbed them of vital supplies. Constantly under siege from both Chaos and Xenos forces, and still cut off from the Imperium Sanctus, Imperial command has resorted to press ganging any civilian owning any sort of fire weapon and forming them into the Irregular company, together with veteran survivors of disbanded units.
Command of the Irregulars has been assigned to Lexar 'Angel Eye' Harrak, a former Commissar that had retired to Finis Sidera and embarked on a successfull career as bounty hunter. Years of fighting alongside Rogue Trader crews and even less savoury companions have though him the value of flexibility in interpeting Imperial rules, though he still thinks that a bolter round in the head is the best way to ensure combat efficiency. Angel Eye's nearly complete disregard for the Commissariat procedures is most notable in his choice of advisor: the extremely skilled but unsanctioned Pyromancer known simply as Yago, one of the dozen or so survivors of the daemonic incursion on Beloch.
As the duo has turned a motley assortment of scumbags into a viable fighting force, Imperial command has systematically overlooked their disregard for military discipline and even went as far as granting Yago a temporary pardon for his unsanctioned use of psychic powers. The Irrregulars, the argument goes, are a key asset in the defence of New Drekport, one that could not be compromised by removing their questionable but effective leaders.
The most recent addition to the Irregulars are the 5th Platoon, led by Izark Denk, a firebrand missionary whose procession of Frateris Militia was stranded from their pilgrimage to Imeria as the Noctis Aeterna descended upon the New Drekport system. Frateris Militia thus form the core of the 5th, reinforced by a few well placed veterans responsible for passing on some military training. Despite those veterans' best efforts, the other members of the 5th Irregulars have not lost their fanatical tendencies, earning themselves the "Hot Heads" moniker for their nearly suicidal attacks.
Rather than trying to curb such tendencies, Angel Eye and Yago exploit them, regularly assigning the Hot Heads to the reclamation of mining and production facilities on New Drekport, so that they could be rebuilt to support the planet defence. This has led them to often fight alongside the Wreckers, a crew working on the rebuilding of reclaimed facilities. To the horror of Enginseers and the tacit approval of Angel Eye, they fit their industrial machinery with heavy weaponry, lending mobile fire support and scouting ahead of the Hot Heads.
This 25 Power Level force of Astra Militarum started life in 2011 or so as a 2nd edition Necromunda gang. They were painted in the same colours as the Fatebenders, my Heretic Astartes Kill Team. After seeing some action in 2017, I kind of forgot about them. Now, with the release of the new Kill Team rules and the Book of the Outcast for Necromunda, I decided to revisit them.
The first thing I did was scratch-building three barricades to complement the objective markers I did in 2011 and have everything needed for Kill Team games. They are pieces of cardboard glued on old square cavalry bases and decorated with etched brass and resin details from an old Urban Combat basing kit. I've painted them to match my urban ruins, which like them were originally imagined as locations on Necromunda, but are now part of the New Drekport System.
I haven't still worked out a gang for Necromunda, but since that was their original function, I'm sure it will be really easy to put one together. The picture above, is the selection of models I will use in games of Kill Team: two well equiped Fire Teams of Astra Militarum Guardsmen.
Like the rest of the models, I've repainted their robes using Contrast paint and some edge highlight over the previous paint job. The originally purple areas were coated in Black Templar and highlighted Eshin Grey. The originally magenta areas were coated in Talassar Blue and highlighted Alaitoc Blue.
Since I was at it, I've also given a wash of Agrax Earthshade to their weapons and Reikland Fleshshade to their skin, which were admitedly badly painted.
They now look a lot better than they did previously and, most importantly, I can now field them against my Heretic Astartes in some solo games. Let's face it, as getting together with friends to play is still hard, I better find other ways of getting my gaming fix.
Stay tuned to see them in action in the new year!
The Hanging Ways
On Beloch, walkways and pulleys serve more purposes than simply moving slaves and goods between the hellish facilities. The raised platforms see many a warlord marching across them, hundreds of slaves behind them, to celebrate their triumphs in plain sight of followers and rivals alike. Tattered banners and trophies hanging from the railings stand as testament to their glory and that of the Dark Gods. Underneath them hang the bodies of slaves that tried to rebel or failed to fullfil their quotas. Fresh victims are constantly spiked on hooks and hoisted up, the previous bodies unceremoniously piled at the walkways feet. Everything is left there, flesh quickly consumed by the acidic vapours filling the air, to remind everybody else of the price paid for displeasing Beloch's masters.
I've kept the conversion work on the straight walkways rather minimal, only repositioning three old Khemri skeletons to represent the dead slaves. I then used a few more chopped up skeleton and zombie bits, some skulls and the Necromancer base topper for the piles of broken bodies on the bases of the models. On all of them, I've added some texture created by sprinkling bicarbonate of soda on blobs of superglue.
The bestial skulls were perfect to add a macabre touch to the railings while also subtly altering their silhouette. The flag poles on the railings are the bottom part of the banner staff from the ogor kits. Once they were bonded to the railings, I dropped some superglue along them and placed the centre of strips of cloth on top. Before folding the cloth, I smeared liquid greenstuff on it, pressed the two halves together until they were stuck and then gently brushed them with a wet brush to ensure the greenstuf spread to the whole cloth. The weight of the cloth itself and the angle at which it was hanging ensured that it folded in a natural way which was fixed as the greenstuff cured.
The painting followed the same palette and techniques I've used on the Warp Foundries while the skeletons and body parts were painted like the skulls and texture on the Sanguinal Refinery, with the subtle difference that this time I wet-blended God for the Blood God with Typhus Corrosion.
The skull on the pulley is in painted in brass and the banners in black to further link the Hanging Ways to the cranic Furnace anbd the Sanguinal Refinery.
Like the Sanguinal Refinery, the Hanging Ways comprise two smaller pieces to give me more set up options and add variety between games.
This would already be enough for an average Kill Team board, but I still have a pair of angled walkways, one Thermic Plasma Regulator and plans for a few scratch-built scatter terrain pieces that will bring Beloch to a densly packed, single Kill Team board (the ones I prefer!) or for a regular multi-player board.
