If you need or want an Printed Exorcist Chapter Shoulder pad, I have one I could donate to your project. 

I definitely appreciate that offer, but there won't be any Exorcists battle-brothers in this kill team. If I ever get around to a proper Exorcists army/kill team, however, I may take you up on that offer (since you and I both know that the Exorcists are the greatest Chapter ever ).

In other news, I've decided to move Chapters around a bit.

The Veteran Sergeant will be from the Khalkotouri Chapter since the thunder hammer is more in keeping with my concept of that DIY Chapter and less appropriate for the Fists of Purity Chapter. The Fists of Purity veteran, then, will become a Warrior.

I may swap one of the [Warrior] shotguns for a boltgun option (either the Deathwatch boltgun and power weapon or the Stalker pattern boltgun). I really wish the Deathwatch still had the boltgun/chainsword combination that was allowed when they first appeared in the Chapter Approved article back in 3rd edition.  That would be so much more in keeping with both our name and lore. I guess the Intercessors offer the next best thing, so I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever do a Primaris version of this kill team.

I keep spelling "Khalkotauroi" incorrectly. 

Another change - the Fist of Purity member will be the alternate sergeant (equipped with a Deathwatch boltgun and power weapon [sword]). So I'm changing the "fist" member in this initial group to some other Chapter, a new DIY that I have to work on. 

Assembly of the initial six members begins today. Since I've changed the Sergeants around and didn't assemble the storm bolter warrior's bits, I'll have to rearrange the bits and collect some new ones. I'll try to post pictures as soon as I get them all assembled.

Okay, I finally got the minis put together. I'll cover each as a separate category in this blog, however, so you'll be able to watch the progression from poorly assembled mini to poorly painted mini on each one individually.

The reason it took so long, other than there being a ton of squirrels in my vicinity, is that I made some changes after some agonized consideration.

First, I decided to not worry about the second squad. I'm only worried about a single squad now. Realistically, I'm not likely to ever reach the point where I'll collect a full 20-man squad, especially given the new Deathwatch release for the current edition of the Kill Team game. This speeds things up in the long run as now I only have to come up with 4 additional models (and their Chapters). Why is this important? Because I have plans for overachieving (first, though, I have to reach mediocre achieving ). I like to have the full roster of my kill team available for my opponent, with a checkbox for each member. It's laminated so I can identify each model that will appear on the table. This roster can be done after I get the miniatures painted, of course, but it serves as a plan for expansion.

Second, I changed some of the weapons. The fundamental reason for this is that this squad represents the Legio, which means it should be closer to a "normal" Adeptus Astartes unit. Yes, I'm using the Deathwatch rules, but it just didn't feel right to take too much advantage of the Deathwatchness. So I've swapped both of the shotguns for Stalker pattern boltguns and the Infernus heavy bolter is now a plain heavy bolter. This makes the squad even less curb-stompy. The four additional models will give me a bit of variety - probably two boltgun/power weapon guys, one storm bolter guy (so I can have two of them in the kill team if I want), and one gunner (I haven't decided between the flamer, meltagun, and plasmagun yet).

Along with those came a bit of rearranging of the Chapters. I re-thought my methodology a bit.

If we assume that there were about 1,000 Chapters prior to the Ultima Founding (my kill team is pre-Great Rift), there are about 300 known official Chapters. Yes, some of those no longer exist [as of 999.M41] such as the Wolf Brothers and the Fire Hawks. That means that about 1/3 of Chapters (slightly less than that, actually) have been officially named. So I figured I could have 2 or 3 members of the squad come from official Chapters to remain within the bounds of statistical likelihood.

So far, about 50 Chapters have been identified as belonging to the Second Founding, including the nine "First Founding" Chapters, but not including the Grey Knights or the Angels of Vigilance (the latter of which might not be of the Second Founding). Statistically, then 0-1 members of the squad might come from a First-/Second-Founding Chapter while remaining within the bounds of statistical likelihood.

As for the makeup of the Chapters of origin [and their lineage back to the Legions], we had an interesting discussion back in 2022. In that discussion, I presented my personal conclusions based on the data published by Games Workshop. You can see my conclusions here. Statistically, 6 or 7 members of a squad will be from Chapters descended from the Ultramarines Legion, 1 member of the squad will be from a Chapter descended from the Imperial Fists Legion, 1 member of the squad will be from a Chapter descended from the White Scars Legion, and the remaining 1 or 2 members will be from a Chapter descended from one of the other Legions, the order of likelihood there being, from highest to lowest, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, Unknown, Salamanders, and Space Wolves. Statistical likelihood isn't deterministic, however, so I'm willing to fudge things here and there, with a ±1 factored in (i.e., Ultramarines 5-8, everyone else 0-2). It's always possible that some squads might have vastly different compositions in terms of their lineage, but I'm using these guidelines for this squad. I'm going to stick with:

• 6 Ultramarines Legion Successors
• 1 White Scars Legion Successor
• 1 Imperial Fists Legion Successor
• 1 Iron Hands Legion Successor
• 1 Salamanders Legion Successor

At this point, the only Chapter known for certain is from an official Chapter, the Sons of Medusa (my sole Iron Hands Legion Successor). The reason I chose them is because the Novamarines Chapter badge is close enough (there are more points around the halo, but I'm not going to sweat that) and the Sons of Medusa aren't a First-/Second-Founding Successor (otherwise I was seriously considering the Novamarines). Beyond that, I haven't determining which Legions each of the other Chapters are descended from. Since I plan to write (mini-)articles for each, however, I'll have to make that decision eventually.

There's going to be a minor change to the Legio's color scheme. This doesn't invalidate anything that anyone has submitted previously (a key factor in making the change). Instead, it validates all of the varieties that have appeared in the past. Something else it does is give me red, white, and black as options for the parent Chapter shoulder pad colors. This is important because I want to enable my opponents to identify models by the Chapter badge shoulder pad color, calling a model simply "blue" or "purple" without having to identify a weapon or give a more in-depth description.

Here's the breakdown of the Chapters and their colors so far (just the first six models):

• Watch Sergeant - Khalkotauri Chapter - purple field with a bronze bull head
• Fighter - Emperor's Hounds Chapter - red field with silver hound (wolf) head
• Heavy Gunner - Storm Angels Chapter - yellow field with black Maltese cross
• Boltgun 1 - Sons of Medusa Chapter - green field with black skull on white field surrounded by black halo
• Boltgun 2 - Griffon Lords Chapter - blue field with white griffon rampant
• Storm Bolter - Paragon Knights Chapter - orange field with black crossed swords

The two official Chapters are the Griffon Lords (unknown lineage) and the Sons of Medusa (Iron Hands Legion Successor).

When (if?) I get around to the other four models, their parent Chapter shoulder pad colors will be black, white, gray, and something else (brown? split? quartered? special?). At best, only one of these will be from an officially named Chapter, but I could also make all four unofficial.

Here's a picture of the six models that currently exist (pictures help me to find all of the mould lines that I missed ):

From left to right: heavy gunner (heavy bolter), warrior A (Stalker pattern boltgun), fighter (grav-pistol and power maul), Watch Sergeant (thunder hammer and bolt pistol), warrior B, warrior C (storm bolter)

Using the Deathwatch rules, these guys represent a squad of veterans (Mentors) from the Legio Bolter & Chainsword. The Inquisitorial icon on their left shoulder pads (under the Legio skull icon) indicates that they have served on Inquisitorial teams in the past.

While I'll cover each model in separate categories and entries, it's worth noting that the Chapter badge shoulder pad on warrior C (storm bolter) is an old metal shoulder pad with an alternative icon for assault squads. They work perfectly for the Guardians of the Covenant and, in this case, a DIY Chapter with a similar icon. All of the other bits are from a variety of kits, including the Sternguard, Deathwatch, and a variety of basic firstborn kits like the Assault, Tactical, and Devastator squads. There may be a few bits from other kits.

I'll begin painting these guys, ideally starting tomorrow, but hopefully no later than Monday.