You’re reading a Night Lords blog, so hopefully you’re expecting this! However, I’m going to pop this in just in case…

 

Content warning: The following contains mature themes, including violence and execution. Reader discretion is advised…

 

Extract from the field journal of Guardsman Abel Stran

4th Company, 3rd Squad, 2nd Platoon

1st Altaran Infantry Regiment, “The Dominoes”

 

Text seized and declared as heretical propaganda by Inquisitor Drall Torque

Distributed under pain of death

 

As we moved into the quiet city, we couldn’t help but think about what the fleeing civilians had told our officers. About how at first it had been a few disappearances of high-ranking officials and then, as the weeks went on, how the bodies had started to appear.

 

They said that there had been no pattern to it that their security forces could see; dismembered body parts found scattered in the streets, crucified workers nailed to the walls of the factories they were allocated to. They said the fear was palpable by the time the real horror began.

 

It was hard to make sense of the reports of what had happened that night. The survivors we found seemed confused, terrified, and in shock.

 

From what we troopers could make out, they talked about monsters dropping from the dark skies and snatching men, women and children away, about fire trapping hundreds screaming in hab-blocks until you could smell them roasting and they fell silent. We didn’t know what to make of it, and we didn’t know whether to believe it, hysterical as they were.

 

Their stories still put a shake in our hands despite the commissar’s warning to “trust in the light of the Emperor” and to “act as the Imperium’s shield as we were ordered”.

 

Bloody commissars.

 

As we moved into the city there wasn’t any destruction, it was just… empty. Too empty considering the number of refugees we had seen fleeing on the roads. Our forward scouts gave us warning by the Vox link as to the first inhabitants we’d find.

 

The bodies lined the avenue at even intervals, each with hands and feet tied, swinging from nooses strung from the darkened street lights. The gentle wind moved them in unison and I swear that the only noise you could hear was the creak of the ropes.

 

Next we found the heads.

 

And I mean a mound of heads: maybe a hundred or more, tossed into a huge heap in the middle of the road, the decapitated bodies discarded in an adjacent building.

 

We were all starting to get twitchy, fingering the safety toggles and triggers of our lasguns, and wiping the sweat from our eyes, regardless of our platoon leader’s tepid encouragement or the stern looks of the commissar.

 

We were just moving out from this charnel house when another Vox came through from our scouts. They reported some kind of contact; they’d spotted movement and were investigating.

 

Then we heard those cries. Those inhuman cries, followed shortly by the screams of our scouts.

 

We didn’t need the Vox.

 

That’s when all hell broke loose.

 

⸻

 

Ave Dominus Nox brothers!

 

Welcome to The Midnight Storm — the chronicle, lore and showcase as I build my 40K Night Lords project.

 

A few of my finished models

The Midnight Storm is the name of a warband forged from one remnant of the fragmented XXII Company of the VIII Legion. Their battle doctrine is built around fear, disruption and the manipulation of the battlefield. Each Claw has its own role, identity and traditions, and the warband seeks to overwhelm its enemies not simply through violence, but through uncertainty and terror.

 

I’d always wanted to build a deep-cut narrative army and started work planning this project about 10 months ago. I’m in the process of very (and I mean very) slowly building and painting it up. The army is pretty much all going to be conversions and kitbashes and, as I’m not the most technical painter or modeller, I’m trying to push myself creatively.

 

I hope to showcase some of my models, cover some of the lore I’ve created around the warband, and give some flavour of their corner of the universe. I’ve started the blog as a way of not only sharing the project, but also to keep myself accountable and spur me on!

 

Will anyone read it? Who knows! Will anyone enjoy it? Who knows again!

 

But hopefully at least a few of you will join me, Midnight Clad, to delve into the world of The Midnight Storm.

 

“Judgement comes on Midnight Wings. The sentence is passed under a Midnight Storm.”

 

Motto of The Midnight Storm, a Night Lords warband forged from the remnants of the XXII Company of the VIII Legion.