Hi everyone, sorry we haven’t posted in a while, but I was busy painting up a load of Ork vehicles after I changed my list for the Great Crusade event last minute. I finished them at 7am the day of the event!
With my Orks done, I’m moving back to the Emperor’s Children to finish what I currently have on the paint station: a deredeo, 5 volkite support troops, 5 tacticals and 5 palatine blades. The deredeo will come in handy as our meta is fairly flier heavy.
I’ve been listening to Angel Exterminatus as I’ve been painting for motivation. It has made me realise that whilst my Emperors Children are perfect for pre and early heresy games, by the mid-heresy they’re very different and a lot more corrupted. I thought I would try converting up a more heretical army, built around the 3rd Company rite of war.
The core of the army will be two big squads of kakophoni with an apothecary in each, and then I’m going to be converting up some of the named characters in the book and run them as a squad of (very crazy) corrupted palatine blades. Here are the characters I’m thinking of converting up with how they are described in the book:
Krysander of the Blades ‘his hooked tongue licked cracked lips… the daggers thrust through the flesh sheaths of his bear chest and thighs… the cloak of razor thorns.’ (pg123). This will be tricky to represent as I don’t really want a bare-chested marine. I like the cloak idea, so I could just say that when he went to battle he put on full armour.
Kalimos ‘the hooks and rings piercing the face of Kalimos were linked by taut chains that would prick and tear at the flesh in new and exotic ways with each word he spoke’ (pg123) and ‘the warrior gripped the barbed haft of a whip that lay coiled beside him’ (pg 251). The important features with this model will be his whip, which I may use 40k Lucius’ whip and his bare head with chains and hooks on. That may be tricky to represent at 28mm scale, but I will try green stuffing some small hooks on a suitably bear head.
Lonomia Ruen ‘Ruen’s armour was festooned with daggers and razor spikes, each coated in one of his man amusingly lethal toxins’ (pg123) and ‘Ruen fought with his hollow daggers, slender bladed poniards that drooled hissing tears of venom’ (pg213). It should be fairly easy to equip a model with two daggers, though I will have to have a hunt for suitably lethal looking ones. With regards to the daggers and spikes on his armour, care will have to be taken to make sure he doesn’t look like a porcupine! I think less will be more, and I should just go for effect.
Bastarnae Abranxe ‘Abranxe wore his twin swords in imitation of Lucius … the scar Lucius had given him … was now hidden beneath a tattoo.’ (pg123). This guy should be fairly easy to make as all he needs is a bare head on which to paint the tattoo and two swords.
The force was going to be led by Marius Vairosean, but I can’t work out how to run him rules wise. Having him as just a Kakophoni orchestrator seems too weak, so I have a couple of ideas:
- Run him as a praetor with a combi-plasma, sonic shriekers and probably a paragon blade. This isn’t super fluffy really, but would let him lead my force with the combi-plasma representing his sonic blaster.
- Run him as a forge lord with a conversion beamer. This would allow him to be a character, and still emphasise his shooting ability. I could say that his sonic weapon is enhanced, hence why it is deadlier than a normal kakophoni gun.
If I go with option 2 I could have Lucius or Kaeseron as a praetor or just run Eidolon.
I’m also considering running an allied cults and militia list with Fabius Bile as the force commander (explaining the weaker profile as the effects of the blight). I’d use cult horde and tainted flesh to represent the crazed followers and possibly some Terata (using spawn rules). What do you think of that? What figures do you think would be best to represent the mortal followers? I can’t decide between Dark Eldar Wracks or Kairic Acolytes with different heads.
So that’s my plans for the army, I’ll upload some photos once I’ve got some models to show!
J
Mutant Snake Eyes 