Hi folks,

Before entering into the details, it may be worth setting up a kind of background.

Let´s go back in time in a not so far past (relativity matters) when previous 40k Edtion allowed Allied Detachments in its Force Organization Charts

The scene is set.

I enjoyed this era that has been a perfect time to increase my SW force versatility adding small detachments of other stuff in order to get some tactical diversification. It is when I added Blood Angels proxies, Death watch and some Leman Russes, in an attempt to get some more armoured stuff. Whereas the first two allied detachments knew some success (the DW one even grew up enough to become a self sustained "drop-in" army (until 10th ruined it - see my Legalization blog entry)), the Russes stayed largely forgotten in my Pile-of-Shame. I only built them during Lock-down.

The whole plot with these Russes came from a sensitive case: I wanted to add some fire power with a Predator Executioner, but looking at the rules I ended up with a disturbing conclusion for a power armour fanboy (at the time) - it did not sustained the comparison with a Russ Executioner squad. From here came the idea to get an armoured fist company allied, as pdf, to my furry SW. As other Russes would have been welcome too, I started kit bashing some, adding extra variants such as a proxy Punisher and a proxy Exterminator (reminding me the oldest times when this beast had an entry in the SW codex HS category).

A nice overall hobbying project that can be seen in my Gallery.

Yet it missed some "sparks". It turned out to be unplayable. I shyly tried to add some boost with a kit bashed Kaserkin/Scion unit last year but I ended up with a predictible conclusion: I need troops and footsloggers plus other AM units to get something usable (now that Allied detachments are not a thing anymore). I have sometimes a slow understanding process.

How to add stuff? Buy kits. Easy as a well repleted wallet (so it will takes time to be completed). But having started with some kitbashed tanks modelled to imitate some SM vehicles features, I could not refrain myself about thinking that the same approach should be applied to the whole rest. And I ended up thinking about doing my very own regiment. Orlock bodies and SM weapons as initial idea. But it was not great looking (Thanx Photoshop precheck montage) and ended up as Neophytes with Skitarii head swaps and some partial weapon customization with SM bits.

And here starts the doom.

Just by adding a Patrol box to get 2 squads of  neophytes, a truck to be used as a proxy Taurox you get these stuff that do not fit in the plan:  aberrants, magus, and acolytes. I am not going to start any GSC cult army, but hey, I have these sprues, no-one looks interested into buying or swaping them, so, let´s paint them... I may eventually one day mix my proxy AM as brood brothers with these 4 armed atrocities. But I am not starting a cult. Nope. Even if these Purestrains Genestealers are damn attractive. And I still have some metal spore mines somewhere to do custom objective markers. Just in case..

Aberrants proved to be a nice kit to build and paint, even if I am a little bit disapointed by the way models number 4 and 5 share comon parts that limits the customization options. Also another point of disapointment is that all 5 models cannot be all fitted with 2 handed mining tools. Painted result is anyway as seen bellow:

See you in the next installement, when we will have a look on the kit bashed neophytes.