+ THE CLAWS IN OUR STARS +

+ A REFLECTION ON PAST GLORIES AND MY JOURNEY WITH THE ASTRAL CLAWS INTO THIER DARK FUTURE +

[THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS]

In my last post, I mentioned I was a long time Astral Claws afficionado. It all started with White Dwarf 101 and the two-page pull of the Badab War, and Lugft Huron and his Tiger Claws. It was that nascent time for 40K, when things were just kicking off, and everything was still punk-struck and the grimdark hadn't bleached my bones white with the careless aeons of the darkness between stars. It was the age of tiger-stripe-clad Whiteshields, of a Goff Rock Band, of RTB 001.

We fast-forward many years to Imperial Armour, and the heady products of the Specialist Games Team, and the notable Alan Bligh. They took it seriously, they improved on 99% of the source materiel and expanded it over and above what could be expected from such short snippets regarding the Imperial Commander who would become the best Villain of 40k (IMHO) and most serious threat to the Imperium outside Ol' Armless himself.

I've been fascinated with this for decades, but never went forward with it in all my years of throwing dice on the tabletop, I had seven Space Marine armies, 1st and 2nd Ed were Blood Angels, which continued into 3rd Edition and joined then by the Black Templars, Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists and Salamanders. Scythes of the Emperor in 5th, and finally Space Wolves in the back end of 5th to the mid 6th, which is when I left the Tabletop.

It was about that time (possibly into 7th Ed?) I happened on a thread by Noctus Cornix, called 'The Bitter End' in which he began to detail and build a small force around a host of characters, complete with IA-style vignettes about their last actions of the war, their defiance and desperation as the Palace crumbled around them, just like their world. I had most of a Space Marine Battle Company (when you could buy it from GW) on a sprue, and, with the release of Primaris, I realised these Firstborn, as they were newly dubbed were pretty much for the chop.

I'm not going to get into the argument here, it's a dead horse I'd rather no-one beat.

I decided on one last charge of the Astral Claws, one last steel and sapphire charge to coalesce my collection into one solid force, instead of dribs and drabs of different Chapters. I kept most of the models I was proud of, but the rest got a makeover - or cut to pieces and binned if they couldn't be salvaged. I continued to read Noctus' snippets, I immersed myself in the character of the Badabians and Imperial Armour IX/X, and I worked.

In six weeks, I had a fully assembled battle company, 111 infantry models, and 11 tanks mostly built, mostly painted and mostly based, with Lugft Huron and a TDA bodyguard at their head, Silver isn't hard to paint, so I was happy enough with that. I'm not a great painter. I tried to do some flourishes how the IA/FW boys did them, and some weathering to scuff everything up. I think I did ok.

Them I ran them over the tabletop for one last time, against a WAAC dude who literally erased them as the Imperium did.

Then they went into boxes or case-foam and that was the end of them.

With the release of the new Red Corsairs, that infatuation was rekindled. I am not a Chaos player, never really have been despite a couple of dalliances with it in 3rd and 4th Ed. I just couldn't get on with it. Maybe I don't like playing the villain - even if sometimes people tell me I'm good at it. These though, were Renegades. They weren't just acceptable, they were almost permission. I began building, converting (you can see that in a previous Blog entry) and now, I have 40 models built awaiting my terrible painting skills. Not bad for a couple of weeks.

I broke out the old models, the Astral Claws of yesterday's Imperium, and looked at them with a strange, divorced, fondness. The Tiger Claws still had their hooks into me, and it merely feels now like two acts of the same play. This new version of the Astral Claws will likely never grace a tabletop, but at a time of my life when I'm having a spot of trouble, building my pirates and making terrible use of the Giria from even worse films and stories, has certainly helped.

The war for Badab is over.

The war of vengeance begins.

All hail the Tyrant.