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Well, I started a thread on the 23rd of July but with the DB crash and roll back dogs ate it along with my homework. The beauty is you now will get a lot of WIP pictures like some rapid time lapse across a fortnight without my inane rambling. That won't last The downside is there will be lots of pictures in one post, but not much I can do about that as I am having to play catch up. The Wall of Bronze Beasts Printed scans from my copies of the IA books for inspiration and direction. The First Five Gotta start somewhere and as I want half in Mk VIII a squad in my take on that armour was the obvious starting point. At this point I was pleased. Mk VIII Chests How I did Mk VIII chest so the abdomen cables aren't exposed. I obviously could only do so many before I ran out so you'll start to see white bits as I lifted a cast of my modified chest plates. Losing Focus Rather than staying on point I wondered what the second squad in MK VIII would look like as I intend to give them Tigrus bolt guns. Great but still not one squad built Focus still lost... And what they would look like with a plasma gun, Ryza pattern of course. Second squad again, still off with the fairies... Standing on things is cool Lorenzen said so (at least I think he did long ago). And he is right. And he is doing Minotaurs too! Although I won't have bare flesh anywhere on mine, too page 3 exposing themselves and helms are more menacing. Note I went back to squad one again at this point. I was going to make this guy the combat squad leader but didn't which has led to problems (see later). Arguably you could say I'd regained my focus... Captain who became Sciron ...but you'd be wrong. An idea that escaped and broke focus. On the original thread the consensus was the name Sciron suited him more than Carcinus. When I say consensus like one person responded. Both are spare names from the FW brass etch sheet. I like him, pity I'll hardly ever use him. He is more progressed now and I will finish him for Grotsmasha;s challenge as a "funsies". Finally the Heavy I stopped procrastinating and prevaricating and finally built the squad heavy weapon. Quite happy with this, so I put all my avoidance energies into the special weapon bloke. Sons of Medusa No, really. Whilst avoiding doing the flamer I started fiddling with Sons of Medusa. I should write a book called Focus Lost or something. Flamers need bunkers to burn So, Armies on Parade and themed terrain is well important, more so than having an actual squad built, so I am doing this in tandem. Big, isn't it? Note I will be attacking this as Minotaurs so it'll be ouch time for me. Fits with them perfectly of course thus me doing it. And the fact I had the FW Siege of Vraks moduler resin trench stuff lying about gathering dust. More on this later but I'll be picking up the foam board and ply tomorrow. The gang is not all here Nine. Sort of like the Nazgul except not. Flamer guy all sinister on the right side. Missile launcher man strangely giving out quests. Sinister Close up of too many to be a combat squad and not remotely loaded right even if they where. Dexter And too few for a combat squad but at least a close up of elusive flamer chap. Note I cannot make my mind up on the last bolter man, who may also be squad leader, so I'll make another nine and then decide which one goes with these guys and then give the others Tigrus, then vacillate for ages over who gets to be Sergeant Aristophane, and then avoid building their plasma gunner and heavy bolterer for ages whilst building a full 6 ft. by 2 ft. trench system. However tonight is gym, then selling my FW Reaver on eBay, and then adding bulbs to all their ankles.

++ THIS ARTICLE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS ++ PREY FOR DEATH: ++ A MEDITATION AND REFLECTION UPON THE ORIGINS AND HUMOURS OF THE MANTIS WARRIORS ++ Order Origination: White Scars (primogenitor), Marauders (gene-foster) Founding: Unknown; alleged to be the 8th Founding (Mid-34th Millennium) Region of Control: Maelstrom Wilderness Zone Strength: Recovering (as current date, M.42) Affiliation: ...Complicated… 'I have always been equally fascinated and horrified by the terrible occurrences within the Maelstrom Zone at the time of the so-called Badab Schism, a consequence of staggering arrogance and foolishness. Several Space Marine Chapters drawn into heresy by the perfidy of the Astral Claws, who left the others to bear the burden, ensnaring them into misguided alliance. The true horror of these times cannot be understated: even in comparison to the Heresy, the differences are stark. In the perilous days when Horus rose in treachery, brother indeed fought brother, but under Huron’s banner, loyalist fought loyalist, in a different shade of damnation altogether. Appeals to honour that haunt it, command it, shackle everyone involved to the millstone, making the grim voyage into crushingly deep betrayal ever more the bitter. This is well evidenced by the petitions of clemency from some of those the Secessionists called adversary, who decried the forfeiture of worlds, who baulked at the demands of hot, perhaps even hard-headed dissenters. It is this then, a tragedy upon tragedy that sustains the once great Chapter Master of the Mantis Warriors, Khoisan Neotera in his deep incarceration, from whom whence this small treatise originates. It has been complied for completeness, for the official record, for the history and future of the Mantis Warriors.' - By Hyronimus Oberon Satii Esq, Interrogator First Class of the Ordo Hereticus, by the Emperor’s Divine Providence, at behest of his master, Lord Inquisitor Garrad Locke. +++++ Whenever I sign onto a Deathwatch Game RPG in the Nook, I go to Badab for inspiration, and judging by one of the Fantasy Flight Games splatbook supplements – Honour The Chapter – so did they. Roleplay, especially PBP is a strange medium and niche. In one instance, you’ve got the fact that everyone either knows or has access to, the lore of 40k, and yet in another, you may have picked a Chapter (or be running a homebrew) that has little known history. However sometimes you’ve got that weird twilight twixt recorded lore and general impressions of a faction, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Games Workshop are masters of this, painting with a broad enough brush to leave room for a Player to pick out what he wants, to tell his own story. The Mantis Warriors are one such Chapter, but that approach is not good enough for me, because the deeper you can go, the better and more realistic the character becomes, the more layers can be added. What language do they use? What are their customs? What spiritual paths lead them to the Emperor? There is just no concrete information besides some awful fluff about Mantisae Religiosa. We simply do not know them – which to be fair, is par for the course for an insular, isolated people. Or do we? +++ When I came to my man from Ootheca, thankfully, I had a starting point. The Endymion Cluster is right next door to Badab, and just as afflicted by the Maelstrom Zone. It is heavily suggested that the Astral Claws are (with a few exceptions) based on the ancient Sumerians/Babylonians/Akkadians, later becoming the country we recognise as Iraq. I had researched this already for a previous character, and other projects without the scope of this forum, and this avenue provided me with a lot of material. At the time, I knew very little of the Mantis Warriors outside the Imperial Armour IX/X books or the infamous WD 101, and would go on to consider their origins, modus operandi and naming conventions to place them further East. Indeed, there are several player-made articles and artworks which would suggest their propensity to make war via hit-and-run, proclivity to ambush, and Chapter credo placing them as either ninjas or samurai. Given their iconography looking suspiciously like Kamen Rider – a 1970’s TV series about a group of motorcycle riding superheroes with a Mantis-like insect motif, (and de rigueur exceptionally tight clothing), you can easily see the conflation. So, where do they hail from? "The winds of the desert care not whose bones they scour clean." — Endymion Cluster proverb. A solid compass heading for us to take! To be fair, my conclusions are nothing ground-breaking. Further research leads me to diminish Far Eastern influence/coincidence as a primary concept; however it is useful, as we will come to later. I now believe the Mantis Warriors are not so far flung, and are more at home in the ancient Parthian Empire, a major political and cultural power existing from 247 BC to 224 AD, initially spreading from the province of Parthia, to the Northeast of Iran. The Empire itself spanned many modern countries, reaching all the way from Greece to the Indonesian isles. Their battle methodology of shoot-and-scoot, so remeniscent of the dreaded Mongolian horsemen the White Scars are based on, is another hefty clue. That empire provides us with a lot of room to work in, and is quite a nice symmetry with the Endymion Cluster itself, with plenty of tropical haunts, and empty desert spaces, over which the Mantis Warriors provide their envelope of staunch protection. What further entrenched this idea was a snippet of the heroes fighting in the Badab War – in particular, a Hellfire-configuration dreadnought, the Venerable Secarssa, the Bow of Ma'Dan. (Imperial Armour Ten – The Badab War – Part 2, p.72). I submit that this likely refers to the Marsh Arabs, the inhabitants of the ancient Mesopotamian marshlands in the modern-day southern Iraq, these wetlands also straddling the Iraq-Iran border, and once again, the propensity of archery in both the name of the Honoured Brother and his devastating equipment loadout harken back to the Parthian Archers of so long ago, the bow a weapon with an unbroken lineage of over 5,000 years. +++ At some point in time, the Mantis Warriors, like most of the White Scars’ offspring must come to terms with the haunting dark side of the Khagan’s wildling power – because like every other Astartes in the Deathwatch RPG, they have something called the Primarch’s Curse, which is a psychosis lingering in the deep hollows of the Quintessence Sacred. How this manifests is tied firmly to their Primogenitor, and so, the terrible fury of Jagatai Khan flows thickly through a Mantis Warrior’s veins, bringing an echo of this potent Primarch into the present. So, how do they deal with it? This is a question we can answer now we have an idea of where our Character and the humour of his Chapter originate. Fervour and foresight play heavily into the mix with the Mantis Warriors, with the Chapter’s spiritual core ‘tempered by Dark Prophecy’. This isn’t a surprise considering the etymology of the Chapter name (Mantis, in Greek, means Prophet). Games Workshop love doing this, leaving little breadcrumbs for us to follow, and it would be rude not to. One of the main figures within the Badab setting is Ahazra Redth, the Dust Prophet, Guardian of the Endymion Cluster, and Chief Librarian of the Mantis Warriors, interestingly an incarnation who also bears a passing resemblance to Paul Atriedes (calm down, Stilgar!) from Frank Herbert’s Dune. I submit that his name also vaguely echoes the spiritual figure of Azura Mazda, the figurehead of the Zoroastrian religion – which again – was very common in the Parthian Empire, and Persia in particular. I make no other parallels; I just found the geographical and spiritual occurrences interesting in the context of the topic at hand. In a further coincidence, Zoroastrianism contains a figure which we recognise as Ahriman, who is reasonably board appropriate, so make of that what you will. Earlier, I mentioned that we should not entirely dismiss the Eastern or Oriental inflections of the Mantis Warriors’ origins. The ecological and geographical diversity of the Endymion Cluster is quite broad, and with training grounds on Tranquillity II and Tranquillity III we find the Mantidae Bellicosa hail also from a death world of deep jungles and mountainous, windswept crags. Indeed, the Mantis Warriors’ main established base outside of Ootheca, is placed within the Valley of The Nine Winds, which could be related to either the nine cuts of the sword as recognised by the ancient Celts, or the Nine Ryu Schools of Bujinkan Budō Taijutsu, which in turn are closely related to Ninjitsu. 'Kamen Rider! Henshin!' (Transform!) +++ The transformation of the Manga/Anime et al superhero mentioned above moves him into a battle-haze, with supernatural powers and speed. Here then, are those influences which interest us, loosely aligning with the particular condition of our eponymous Space Marines, the Mantisae Religiosa. Formed into a death cult within each Battle Company, it is a strange interaction between the Preomnor Implant and that quirky geneseed we mentioned before. The battle haze is a transformation wherein a brother finds himself with tunnel vision, ignorant of anything which is outside his immediate, murderous objective, but the condition provides him with uncanny agility and alacrity, not unlike the motorcycle warrior (and of course, the voracious predator). It is here, I think that GW beats us over the head with it, thankfully stopping shy of Mantis Missiles, Mantis-hawks, and Mantis Death Metal. Jagatai be praised. ‘To think is to do – to do; is to be.’ - The Principle of Alahk Geh. Given that the Far East has used the iconography of Mantids in many forms, and has some of the most beautiful living examples of the genus, it is easy to see where the influence bleeds in. One aspect of this connection we should not ignore is the prevalence of the spiritual married with the corporeal through Shintoism and Buddhism. The first honours the ancestors, the second we regard for the teachings of balance and atonement. Coupled with the desire to follow the path of enlightenment, and stand against the darkness from our Persian-planted roots; and we now have a powerful spiritual depth without contradiction, the press towards penitence in the contemplative pose of the prayerful supplicant. Obviously there is another martial exemplar here: the White Scars principle/performance of action-as-thought: Dreadful Perfection, Elemental Force. A broad scope you could call Zen Buddhist-led Bushido. The overriding tenet we are encouraged to take from this, then, should be as follows: that there is no disassociation between thought and action in the mind of the Khagan, there should be none in the locus of force exerted by the Mantis Warrior. How Inscrutable, mysterious and apropos. Perfect -and yet, as stated above, in my opinion, this should be considered a secondary theme, an overlay if you will, to the stronger evidence of Parthian heritage. +++

An ongoing project to knock up some kitbashed standalone minis from the chapters engaged in the Badab War, because Badab is cool and kitbashing is probably the part of the hobby I enjoy the most. I had intended to start out easy with just my idea of what a standard tactical marine from each chapter might look like and I did do a few of those already (pics to follow) but a particular combination of parts gave me an idea and so I went with it. Here's my rendition of Old Night himself, Thulsa Kane of the Executioners. The basis is Tortuga Bay Studio's Myroslav Kado mini, with arms and axe from their Fortress Destroyer model. The head is from the new GW Terminator Chaplain, tilt shield from Fafnir Rann. There's also a dagger in a skull-encrusted scabbard from one of the GW limited edition webstore minis because "needs more skulls" was a definite consideration i had while assembling him!

BELLIGERENTS of BADAB HOWLING GRIFFONS One wound of many. So, I'm not painting a lot of Space Marines these days, between my Tau Crusade Army and fun I've been having over in BFG. That didn't seem right. Now, I can't commit to a major project, but I can certainly muck around with single models, right? So begins BELLIGERENTS of BADAAAAAAAAAAB!! The crowd goes wild. Wanted to start out with something fiddly, so I've knocked out a Howling Griffon. Not just any Howling Griffon, however, this is a highly specific little conversion... You should see the other guy. Now, I'm not going to promise to do every model like this, being directly based on one of the original pictures, but some certainly will be. It's fun! I don't have a full army in someone else's scheme in me, I'm not built that way, but I can do a model in an existing style. Also, great excuse to try out some more freehanding! Now, I need to decide who's next...