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Act I: He Who Roams the Ruins "Who the Lost One is? Depends on who you ask, I suppose. A daemon wearing the skin of the Emperor's holy warriors. A relic, birthed of betrayal. The child of a forgotten father. Many things and yet none of 'em. We fear and rever him, like heathens worshipping the lightning-born inferno. Sometimes he kills, yet other times he protects us. Such is the nature of fires, they do not chose, they simply burn." -Elder Grawh, Scryer of Clan Taurach "You have seen him, haven't you? The ashen black and blood red armour of the demi-god? Yes, yes, he is as ancient as the oldest of the Emperor's children. True, he does not wear any of the eighteen legions livery, but you seem to forget: They came as twenty." -Lord Ulrat, Scribe of the Rusted Coven "Once he might have been a hero. Now he is naught more than cinder. A relic of an age long past and best left forgotten." -Hag Elana, Fateteller of Numo's Inn http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp194/hodoalmir/truescale20shot201_zpsnjgeq05d.jpg Beneath golden towers, amongst the dry and ashen wastes of Terra's true face, there roam relics of a hundred ages past. Ages of peace, Ages of blood. Disorder and Unity, back to back, face to face. Fabled tales and vaunted saga's are buried beneath the macropoles. Broken corpses, clad in sea-green and blood red, dark iron and proud yellow, have long since rotten away in their mass-graves, only leaving back bleached bones. Deep within these ruins walk schemes, wraiths and ghosts of the past, perhaps better forgotten. Or are they, perhaps, an eldritch omen of sorts? Those who would know might already be dead or not yet born, not that it would change a thing in the world. There is still one, roaming all of Terra, aimless yet with such a grim determination, that he still might have some purpose. He, known only as the Lost One, wanders on hidden paths and speaks forbidden words. The man is as old as the legions of yore, a remnant of those once forgotten by grandfather and kin alike. http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp194/hodoalmir/truescale20shot202_zps4gbzgstu.jpg Rare are the sightings, yet all confirm the same. The giant is clad in ashen black, like blood-wet cinders left after a battle. He sports a giant cleaver, orkoid in appereance, yet too refined to be such in nature. Chains scratch against his swordarm's wrist, perhaps reminders of an existence sworn to war? Many tales are woven into his being, making him out to be a god, a devil or perhaps something inbetween the two. Some, a rare few, say that he is a harbinger, that he screams out into the void, calling for those that abandoned him. Perhaps, if I dare say so, he wasn't abandoned at all. Perhaps he was left back as a reminder. http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp194/hodoalmir/truescale20shot203_zpsqdynzib7.jpg There was once a girl, born somewhere in the slums of lower B'gdalesh, who claimed having seen the Lost One. She spoke of hearing only whispers, like the crackling of a dying flame, untainted by vox yet still warped by age. The ancient giant apparently had spoken three words to her. "The Fire Fades." She died a short while after, having deteriorated like a fruit exposed to the sun. Her skin dried out like parchment and her flesh had all but atrophied. Her bones as frail as glass and her frame shivering and jittering with every step. The eyes I had found most unsettling. Pitch black pits, not like the eyes of the Rex Noctis or the Custodis Corvus, but actual pits. As if someone had dug out the pearly orbs of organic matter with spoons and replaced them with seeping, wailing darkness. I have seen many things in my life, dear friends, have bested daemon, heretic and xenos alike for almost three centuries, but never have I felt such dread as I do now, writing down these words. May the God-Emperor protect us all. Lord-Inquisitor Laurenz Kotophardi -------------------------------- Hello everyone! I'd like to welcome you to my very own Inquisimunda project. Perhaps some of you know this feeling, but sometimes I just get burnt out painting all the Horus Heresy stuff. Then I like to just build a character or two, completely unrelated, and muse upon the finer and deeper nooks and crannies of this universe we all love and share. This has spawned quite a sizeable collection of characters, cults and more. To this end, I have decided to start writing some more fluff to all the stuff I've built and actually expand on some more mysterious and eldritch stuff. I've been playing Dark Souls lately, so please do excuse the influences but I think that some of the stuff might intermingle quite well with the more metaphysical implications of the 41st millenium. Hope you like it, stay around, have a chat and I'd like to hear your opinions!

G'day fellow hobbyists, 2PlusEasy here. I'm a long time viewer of the Bolter & Chainsword and was a former contributor back in antiquity. Bolter & Chainsword has always been a great and inspiring hobby community. After a break from GW systems, I figured I'd start start fresh with a new hobby blog to get me back in touch with what got me into the hobby in the first place. A bit of an introduction about me and my history in the hobby: Now, I'll elaborate why I got out of 40k so that its out of the way: Why I'm getting back into Necromunda and other "niche" aspects of the 40k hobby, and what I like about it: What I don't like about Necromunda: So, now that's all out of the way, we can get to the meat of this topic: The Hobby! My local gaming group in Australia's tropical north use the the Terror-Australis Hive as its current setting. I intend to work within that setting. This is my (intended) hobby schedule for 2022 - 2023: Finish my Delaque Gang to a tabletop ready standard (completed) Continue work on my Slaaneshi Chaos Helot Cults Gang to a higher then tabletop standard (in progress.) Commence my Squats Gang who counts-as Orlocks (in progress) Commence my rival Ork Gang (counts-as Goliaths) to my Squats Commence my Outcast / Chaos Helot Cult gang based off the Corvus Cabal (not an original idea but it works really well) Commence my Cawdor Gang themed around Witchhunters, repentants and Crusaders (again, not an original idea but different enough from Cawdor's established identity as a house of poor, faithful souls) Anyways, thanks for stopping by. You're an inspiring community and I hope to contribute to it. Here's a picture of my semi-completed Delaque Gang for your perusal:

Have their ever been any rules for Orks in either Inquisitor or Inquisimunda, official or homebrew?

A recent discussion in the Other Games forum about the systems used for Inquisimunda/Inq28 (link) got me thinking. I was part of a group that developed some homegrown rules for using both inquisitors and rogue traders in Kill Team. We had a lot of fun and I think there was considerable enthusiasm among the members because a lot of us recalled the Inquisitor game and the freedom it gave in terms of warbands and game play (despite some of the balance problems - it was a "narrative" game that had much less emphasis on balance). With Inquisimunda/Inq28 I think that a lot of the attraction, other than Blanchitsu, is the freedom to delve into darker parts of the setting that don't see as much representation in the war-focused WH40K game. Players are free to express their creativity. For many, I think, gaming mostly comes down to whatever rules the main group is comfortable with. Those that enjoyed the Inquisitor game might simply scale it down for 28mm miniatures. Those that are familiar with Necromunda might instead choose that game. Still other players like to use any number of third party options. Osprey recently published the Stargrave game, which is Frostgrave in space. I was exposed to it after watching Ash from Guerilla Miniature Games use it to play his old Rogue Trader era minis (using tables from that edition of WH40K to define the story). So I recently bought the game and found it to be enjoyable. However, I really like what we did with the unchained versions of the Kill Team faction rules that we came up with for inquisitors and rogue traders. I think we can build on that to create a variant of Kill Team for players wanting to scratch that Inquisimunda/Inq28 itch. I've seen some similar rules sets adapting Necromunda to this purpose, and I think those are great for players that enjoy that game. This effort is intended to provide a similar solution for players that like Kill Team. At this point I'm just brainstorming and looking for feedback. Most of the standard Kill Team rules would remain unchanged, hopefully reducing the learning curve. The Combat Roster would be replaced with a similar concept, but hopefully improved and tailored to the Inquisimunda/Inq28 concepts. My working title is "Warband" for obvious reasons. Brother Tyler brought up his concerns about the Command Roster rules in this discussion. I'm thinking about taking that concept and adapting it to the Warbands (instead of being based on a Space Marine Tactical squad, it would be based on something else appropriate to Inquisimunda). The concepts of commanders would change, too, though I'm not quite certain of specific changes. The net result would be that we would be much more likely to see the commander characters in games since they're the leaders of the warbands. I liked the mechanisms that we built into our unchained rules for promoting models to replace commanders that were killed (and for creating custom versions of the commanders); and I think that we can incorporate these concepts into a dedicated Inquisimunda/Inq28 variant. Aside from that, the bulk of the work would be in taking the model choices that we developed for the unchained versions of inquisitors and rogue traders, expanding on them to cover a broader range of choices such as the Adeptus Mechanicus, Ecclesiarchy, Chaos cultists, and maybe Genestealer cults (and others?) to give players freedom. I think that heavy use of keywords would be necessary so that it's not a total free-for-all, but I would want players to have considerable freedom to represent the possibilities of the lore. Instead of multiple faction books/sections, there would be a single section with all model choices (minus the warband leaders). With regard to the factions, I basically see the commander as the essential step that imposes certain restrictions and allows certain options. Many model options would be available to every faction. These might be added to, restricted, or adjusted based on the commander choice. For example, a basic fighter type (Armsman in the linked rogue trader and inquisitor files) would be available to everyone. If you take an Adeptus Mechanicus Adept as your commander, the Armsman might be replaced by a Skitarii (which isn't available to other commanders). Another example is the daemonhost who would only be available to radical Ordo Malleus inquisitors and the Lost and the Damned. I foresee the outcome being two files. The first would be a smaller file identifying the basic rules changes (as changed from Kill Team). The second would be a larger file that includes basic lore on the factions as well as the model choices. What I'm looking for now is feedback on the concept, as well as ideas for factions and model choices. The current faction choices in my mind are: Inquisition Rogue Traders Adeptus Mechanicus Ecclesiarchy Lost and the Damned Genestealer Cults These choices elevate the struggle beyond combat between gangs and the law as represented in Necromunda, depicting the shadow warfare that takes place between the different factions of the Imperium. The Genestealer Cults and Lost and the Damned are in there as foils to the Imperium. I definitely want to avoid the war-based factions and most other xenos, confining the conflict to what we might encounter within the shadows of the Imperium. I'm moving forward on this, though my current efforts are exploratory. As I saw in the inquisitor/rogue trader projects, though, other players have lots of interesting ideas so I'd like to incorporate what I can into this. I'm trying to come up with a sexy name for this, too. "Shadow War" would be great, but it's too close to Shadow War: Armageddon and will probably create confusion. Another name that occurred to me was In the Shadow of the Throne. I'm certain someone has a better idea.

Inq28/Inquisimunda are terms that refer to a number of fan-made systems for adapting the Inquisitor game, which was a 54mm system, to 28mm models. Inquisitor was a narrative wargame where players would collect small warbands, generally 4-8 models, and pit them against their opponent's warband. Unlike most other Games Workshop games, there were no points values - overall character potency had to be evaluated and was generally conducted under the supervision of a referee. Players had a lot of freedom in creating their characters, however, and the game encouraged creativity and personality. In many ways, the Inquisitor game harkened back to the original concepts of 1st edition Warhammer 40,000 (the so-called "Rogue Trader" edition). For many players, transitioning from 54mm to 28mm was natural and desirable. The range of 54mm miniatures was quite limited, though there were also many suitable 54mm miniatures from a variety of other manufacturers. Also, all of the miniatures and conversion kits were in metal, which can be difficult to convert. Conversely, the range of 28mm miniatures as vast; and modern technology has allowed GW to release their modern kits in plastic and resin, both of which are much easier to convert than metal. Most hobbyists already have a wide selection of 28mm miniatures suitable for the Inquisitor setting. When GW stopped supporting Inquisitor and the 54mm miniatures line, the 28mm miniatures, which continues to grow, were an obvious substitute. As a game that focused on the warband, what is commonly called a "skirmish" level wargame*, Inquisitor had a low barrier to entry. Shifting to 28mm miniatures lowers that barrier even further, especially when you consider both the range of games and models that GW has released in that scale as well as the myriad third party games and models that might be adapted to that use. However, there is no single authoritative way to play “Inq28” or “Inquisimunda” – people use a variety of alternative systems. For the purposes of this poll, the various systems are defined as follows (and if I’m mistaken in any, please let me know): Inq28 - Using the normal Inquisitor rules, but scaling everything down from 54mm to 28mm, which can be done by either chopping all ranges in half or switching from inches to centimeters (neither of which is a perfect solution, but they are easy). Inquisimunda - Using the Necromunda rules and adding rules for the additional factions. In this, Inquisimunda started with 2nd edition Necromunda rules, but players have also taken the more recent 3rd edition Necromunda rules (also called “N17” since it was released in 2017) and adapted them. Kill Team - Simply adding the Inquisition faction to that game, such as has been done for the Inquisition and Rogue Traders here at the B&C. Mordheim – This was a skirmish level* game set in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Old World setting. It shared many things in common with the 1st and 2nd edition versions of Necromunda. In many ways, this is a just a variant of Inquisimunda. Shadow War: Armageddon – This short-lived game adapted the 2nd edition Necromunda rules to the forces of the larger WH40K setting. In many ways, this is just a variant of Inquisimunda. Third Party – Using some non-GW game system such as Reality’s Edge, Rogue Stars, and others; or using a fan-made system. Other – Games Workshop released a number of other skirmish level* systems, including Legends of the Old West, Legends of the High Seas, and The Great War. These were all based on the basic Warhammer system, which can be represented by 2nd edition Necromunda and are in many ways just a variant of Inquisimunda. Note that we're not trying to say what anyone "should" use for playing Inq28/Inquisimunda. We're simply trying to gauge what people have used or are interested in using. Note that players can find resources for both the Inquisitor game and a variety of systems used for Necromunda at sites linked in the Other Games Resources topic (and anyone with any savvy at using Internet search engines can find more ). * “Skirmish level” means a number of different things in the tabletop miniatures wargaming hobby: One meaning was a type of wargame in which each miniature represented an individual. This stemmed from the practice in many historical wargames where each miniature represented multiple individuals, allowing hobbyists to collect armies without breaking the bank or requiring too large of a playing area. Another meaning is the game itself, where the game represents a small portion of a larger battle that is taking place. The meaning used here is where a force represents a small number of individuals, generally no more than 20 models, rather than a larger “army.”

So awhile ago, Umbral and I started doing some Adeptus Mechanicus bits and pieces for my Adamanticores project. We'd pretty much filled out a surprisingly diverse complement of tech-priests, various armed laity [the Data-Recovery team], and even some hulking brute 'praetorian'-alikes; and then put all this to the side as other projects of more pressing immediacy came once more to the fore. And then part-way through last week, we both kinda wound up - completely independently of each other - playing around to do a few more, of evidently rather *different* feel to what'd come before. So with that in mind ... behold, our latest exercise in Hobby ADHD. Not quite sure what we're going to do with them - or which of our various projects they'll fit into as yet. So they'll no doubt continue to expland slooooowly as one or more warbands of more 'traditional' AdMech flavouring than the stuff we've done thus far. The three chaps in the back are quite likely heavily armoured and hulking 'elite' Skitarii - with an obvious Warlord in the person of the middle chap with the axe and skull, and two escorts for him. These're largely [but not entirely] Umbral's handiwork - we had a few spare Sigmarines and had been wondering what to do with them... The two in front are all my own. I decided I wanted to try and put the "priest" back in "Tech-Priest" and assemble a pretty standard [if low-ranking] member of the Clergy that really brought back that 'classic' 3rd ed AdMech kinda vibe [don't get me wrong, I've loved the 'offbeat' ones we've done for the Adamanticores, and the modern GW AM range is pretty cool ... but I want to see more Medieval sometiimes!]. Hence the chap on the left, who's evidently been captured mid-rite - what with the swinging incense censer, and the illuminating torch. Also quite a contrast [and a welcome one, I feel] for him to be comparatively unarmed [with hte exception of the pistol at his side - this *is* the 41st millennium, after all!]. That's kinda what i meant by bringing it back to "Priests" rather than militants. [Partsmix is a Bretonnian Men-At-Arms body, Skitarii head, Censer from the Scions' servo-skull plus a miscellaneous bit of sprue, arms also from the Scions kit, and hte torch is made out of the lower half of a Scions banner with the staff-topper from the Empire Wizard kit, and a pistol from the Cadian Command] The chap on the right , the Machine Cultist, i didn't really set out ot make *at all*. He just kinda came together spontaneously when i was looking at some Skitarii arms and a flagellant body that I happened to have sitting around. From there, a large bald head to possibly suggest some vat-grown or otherwise not-entirely-organic-human [kinda like the Hitmen iwth hte red ties and abominable movie franchise you may have seen around], and some long dangling cables were all that was needed to 'complete' the look - a data-tether that runs directly into his spine, and a more 'generic' cable into his side [which'll hopefully hep to convey a sense of 'motion']. The bionic arm won't be out of place, either! [Partsmix is Flagellant body, Cadian Command head, Skitarii arms & weapon, cabling from a Cadian Command servo-skull and a Skitarii backpack] Now as for the three warriors, from left to right ... On the left we have a mixed close-assault and ranged warrior - a heavily modded chain-fist and lightning claw for the former, with a hellpistol and MIU grenade launcher for the latter. [Partsmix: left hand fist is from Tyberos [plus a servo-thing from a scyllax and a pistol from the Scions kit], head from Sicarans, Sigmarine body, and Marine lightning claw. The backpack .. which was my contribution to proceedings, is a Cadian Command vox-caster, parts from a Marine arm, a Guard grenade launcher and magnoculars, Grey Knights purity seal, Guard HQ gas-mask and banner topper, and I thnk the cabling might be from a Skitarii special weapon? hard to remember. The grenade-launcher WAS aligned with his ocular unit - but after a breakage and reattachment, haven't been able to get it back *quite* to the same positioning. Oh well. Close enough. ] Middle is the Skitarii Warlord. He gets across vibe of a battle-hungry, highly experienced, and heavily modded mortal frame in immortal armoured shell quite nicely, I reckon. [Partsmix: Head and surrounding area from a Scyllax, axe-head from a Tech-priest Enginseer; Volkite [*CHOOM!* *CHOOM!*] from the Magos Dominus with a resin barrel [umbral has a thing about actually having barrels that have space in 'em, you see]; and Sigmarine body] On the right, a much more exclusively close-assault oriented warrior - twin lightning claws, but also a servo-arm that may indicate this particular soldier has been pursuing with some success an ordination and greater technical competency. [Partsmix: Marine lghtning-claws, Sicaran head, Enginseer backpack, and Sicaran taser-goad thing].

=][= Various members of the most holy and exalted Velsian Ordos of the Emperor’s Inquisition and their affiliates as well as some of their enemies, dastardly recidivists and heretics, all. Hey everyone, time for yet another thread! :) Those of you who have been following my ongoing World Eaters thread might already have read my thoughts about opening a dedicated thread for my INQ28 models here on the board, and now it's finally time for that: Ever since getting back into the hobby in 2010, after a longer hobby hiatus, creating models and characters for Inquisitor (or Inquisimunda or INQ28 or whatever you want to call it) has been the second big pillar of my hobby, along with my World Eaters. I still remember being drawn into the whole INQ28 cosmos by places like Commissar Molotov's INQ28 blog or the Ammobunker's INQ28 board, and I've never looked back since: INQ28 has become such a fascinating way for me to explore the world of Warhammer 40k away from the battlefield: The kind of setting jokingly referred to as "domestic 40k" by Dan Abnett: The world in-between the cracks, where a shadow war is being fought for the soul of the Emperor. A world equally informed by Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels and by the grimdark and gothic madness epistomised by artists like John Blanche or Wayne England. So yeah, I have been building INQ28 models for quite some time now, and seeing how The Bolter & Chainsword remains such a vibrant and alive community - even at a time when so many hobbyists seem content to leave forums and blogs behind for the (presumptively) greener pastures of social media, it seemed like the right time to finally show off my stuff over here as well. I have amassed quite a collection at this point: Exactly 50 models as of yesterday ;) To me, INQ28 is not so much a ruleset as a state of mind: A way of exploring the setting and the lore behind the 40k universe and a way of building and creating characters in that setting. It's also a great way of dipping my toes into dozens of different smaller projects at the same time: Building retinues and warbands instead of entire armies not only allows for lots and lots of variety, it also provides the breathing space to turn every model into an actual character, instead of a mere playing piece. While the collection of models shown above may seem haphazard and utterly chaotic at first glance, there is an overarching method to the madness: For our shared INQ28 activities, fellow hobbyist DexterKong and I have come up with a joint adventurescape, the Velsen Sector, our very own little corner of the Warhammer 40k universe: And while Dexter is on the opposite side of the planet from me, we keep exchanging ideas, both about our characters and about the overarching lore behind our setting, on a regular basis. This has proven to be wonderfully inspiring, and there's more than one case of models (and characters) being informed by the greater setting we have come up with. So even if we should never get together for an actual game of INQ28 ( I shouldn't hope so, but it's possible), the characters we come up still draw from the world building we have put into the setting. And there are also several big and small narrative arcs that already define the Velsen Sector: The Rise and Fall of the Lamtron Trading Conglomerate and the derring-do of Karis Lamtron, the scion of the House. The political machinations by powerful nobles and the Mandelholtz House of Imperial Finance to gain political leverage in the light of the sector governor's failing health. The pursuit of that most devious and dangerous splinter sect of radical Thorians, "The Fragmentarians". And, of course, the terrible truth behind the life - and death - of Velsen's own sacred martyr, Sabasto the Sword-Saint. All of this may or may not be revealed in the future. In any case, there's a lot going on that informs my creation of new characters for this setting. So allow me to begin by sharing some of the warbands I have come up with so far. Let's start with my first ever INQ28 warband: =][= The retinue of Inquisitor Lazarus Antrecht, Ordo Malleus Velsen: From left to right: Arco-flagellants Molotov XXVIII and Enoch 451 | The Mandalorian (a bounty hunter and blatant shout out to Star Wars) | The Daemonhost Zalambur | Inquisitor Lazarus Antrecht | His servo-skull familiar, Mercutio | Elias Cobb, diminuitive twist sniper | Magos Explorator Hiram Zeiss | Operative Sigma, a former Ordo Assassinorum Operative turned around by Antrecht | Klytus, Chrono-Gladiator. Back when I first built this warband, I really wanted to create a radical Inquisitor, and Antrecht's merry collection of freaks reflects that: Antrecht has gone very far in his pursuit of a possible sector-wide conspiracy of a shadowy faction know as "The Fragmentarians", and he has few lines left to cross and even fewer friends left to lose (think the late-era Eisenhorn, and you're not far off the mark). Which is why Antrecht's warband mostly consists of freaks and monsters: There really aren't too many respectable characters still prepared to throw in their lot with the rogue Inquisitor. Antrecht was inspired both by Eisenhorn (obviously) and by Phil Kelly's old warband for Inquisitor Liechtenstein (who, in turn, was an Eisenhorn expy, so yeah): In hindsight, it feels like I may have tried to hard with some of the radicalism in Antrecht's warband: His retinue seems a bit too extreme, with few proper characters. I am still fairly happy with the old rascal, though, and some of his operatives still seem rather interesting: Speaking of which, you can always take a closer look at the detailed backstory of my INQ28 characters here on my blog, as long as you don't mind reading through huge walls of text Always remember, though: Everything you have been told is a lie. [inquistor Antrecht by DexterKong] For now, Antrecht and his retinue are a good place as any to start this thread. So please let me know what you think and stay tuned for more!

The Imperium Below – Neverwhere inspired Inquisimunda So, I’ll start with a quick plug for the book in case anyone hasn’t read it. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is set in London, or more specifically in London Below, a strange fantasy landscape that exists beneath, beside, around and through the dark nooks and crannies of the city. The book is about an average bloke who gets drawn into this underworld and the odd characters he meets and the adventures they have. For me, Neverwhere shares so much with 40k in general and Necromunda/Inquisitor in particular. The sense of gothic grandeur coexisting with dank squalor, the mixture of the modern with medieval magic and superstition, the slightly random nature of space and time within the setting, not to mention all the weird, wonderful, monstrous and/or macabre characters that inhabit London Below! These people, whether lunatic or simply lost, who have ‘fallen through the cracks’ of society, compare (IMHO) really nicely with the lower levels of humanity in the Imperium’s Hives and cities. So, hopefully that might encourage people to read the book if they hadn’t already, but the long and short of it is that I read the novel* again recently and it struck me how cool it would be to adapt some of the characters into the 40k universe and build an Inq28/Inquisimunda warband around them. Anyway, that’ll do for an introduction, next post I’ll highlight some of my ideas for which characters I’m hoping to adapt. In the meantime, any ideas or C+C are very welcome, especially if you’re a fellow fan of Neverwhere! (I did try to search Neverwhere + 40k/Warhammer/Inquisition, etc, but I couldn’t find anything, but if anyone knows of someone having already done a similar thing, I’d love to see it?) *I have seen the original BBC TV series and will be using a few visual cues etc, but the book apparently just gets that bit closer to what Gaiman wanted and so I’ll be working primarily from that.

This may seem something of a diversion from the Horus Heresy narrative wargaming project I'm presently working on; but in truth, rather than being a dire manifestation of Hobby ADHD, it's actually a return to something that's been bubbling away at the back of my head since somewhen late in 2012/early 2013. InquisiNecronMunda. A basic fluff rundown for this is that after reading Fall of Orpheus (IA:12 - which did the wonderful job of putting the almost lovecraftian Terror back into Necrons following the ... controversial rework they got with the second 'Newcron' codex) , I had the idea for exploring a similar event from a vastly different perspective. Instead of witnessing an entire Imperial Sector falling to massed armed force, this narrative would follow a pair of rival inquisitors (one Ordo Xenos, one Ordo Hereticus) as one of them attempted to first piece together the pattern of dark events engulfing the region ... while the other became steadily more and more convinced that the first was some sort of dangerous, dire radical in need of a swift purging. The miniature pictured above (with a guardsman and a truescaled Astartes for scale comparison) is my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (my associate's running the Hereticus). Planned additions to the warband include the usual stock characters (sanctioned psyker; grizzled Imperial Guard veteran; lexmechanic; xenoarchaeologist ... that sort of thing) ... as well as some perhaps less well-worn numbers (Kroot warrior sanctioned xenos; an Eldar guide - either a Ranger or a Warlock; and other dramatis personae that would swiftly raise eyebrows (followed by bolters/handflamers) in more Orthodox circles). But we'll go into those later http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/2.png As you can see, the base-miniature for this character is the rather excellent plastic Fantasy Chaos Lord figure, with all the obvious chaos iconography filed off. I seriously liked the roaring ram-daemon shoulderpad, so that stayed; as did some of the armour-detailing. The rationale behind this was that I wanted an Inquisitor in some form of powered armour (or potentially even terminator armour) - but without going for the 'lazy' approach of simply using regular Astartes power armour. The Chaos Lord seemed to have the requisite imposing bulk and baroqueness to suit a well-equipped inquisitor (albeit in a much more 'dark ages'/medieval flavouring than, say, the Renaissance-inflected Inquisitor Tyrus [the visual concept of which I absolutely love]). The head's drawn from the superlatively useful Empire Flagellant kit - I felt it was the most 'dignified' yet 'stern' cranium in the kit, and radiated a sense of both zealous piety, as well as steadfast determination. It's the sort of head which one could easily see silhouetted against blood-red boiling skies such as those we saw on the classic 3rd ed Daemonhunters codex. Possibly because Shouty. And with a definite level of "worried". But also, "powerful". And with a strong sense of aged wisdom conveyed by the beard (remembering one of the classic 'inversions' from the original Inquisitor game being the tendency of *older* Inquisitors to be more radical than young orthodox puritans). Now as for the armament ... that gave me pause for thought. I did initially toy around with the idea of keeping somewhat converted versions of the model's original weaponry. There's a multitude of potential staff-based weapons one could conceive for an Imperial servant; and the left gauntlet poised upon the pommel of a rather massive sword looked pretty intimidating. It would, no doubt, have looked even MORE intimidating if I went with my initial inclination and added a vambrace-mounted plasma-pistol to the top of it. But something just didn't feel quite right. So we kept playing around with the contents of the almighty bits-box ... until some unused arms from Forgeworld's excellent Hector Rex model stumbled into view. I was initially a bit lukewarm about this outfitting - not least because I was still struggling to see how to work in a ranged weapon (because in a game with the occasional rampaging inhuman monstrosity, it's always seemed a bit of an OSH violation for an old man - even one in power armour - to get up close and personal with the gribblies); however after thinking about it some more, and with some chopping to reposition the sword-arm, it just seemed to *click*. There's something delightfully barbaric about the image of a trusted agent of the Emperor clad in somewhat primitive-looking (powered) plate-mail, and armed with a great hacky sword and shield. I did contemplate adding a pistol-sized weapon (or potentially one of the old 2nd edition metal Legion of the Damned bolters I have lying around - we've decided these are perhaps more 'carbine' weapons than the much larger modern Astartes bolters) hung on his belt ... but this would probably have just overcomplicated the miniature. Besides, parrt of the background I'd worked out ofr him was that he's a psyker of some ability - so perhaps mortal-material ranged weapons are unnecessary due to the Inquisitor's demonstrable facility with MIND BULLETS. About the only thing that's still niggling me about him (other than the fact that the sword's broken in two twice now) is the back of the miniature. I felt that he might require some obvious up-techenning in order to more properly bring the miniature into the 41st millennium, in the form of a power-back for his armour ... but nothing seemed to visually work. I tried a 2nd ed metal Legion of the Damned backpack for that baroque skull-look, an older plastic Chaos marine backpack, a Kasrkin's powerpack - and even the backpack from an Eversor Assassin. All of it distorted the silhouette and just looked 'tacked on'. So eventually, he was just left as-is. Fluffwise, I rationalized the lack of an overt power-pack by looking at the back of the Hector Rex model - which, Terminator armour style, appears to have an internal reactor.

As the title implies, this is a log to chronicle our progress as a mate and I navigate our way through the conflagration of the Horus Heresy. We're both on fairly limited budgets, and much more interested in constructing narratives (and highly individualized miniatures) - so rather than go with the conventional route of building up massive forces of dozens of Marines and thousands of points a side in order to take to the tabletop, we're doing something different. Inspired by the chronic success of Inq28 and Inquisimunda logs which have proliferated across the more .. artistically inclined boards and blogs over the last few years (and in particular this EXCELLENT B&C log by a chap running under the moniker 'EdT') ... we decided to give a small corner of the Heresy the 28mm narrative-skirmish-wargaming-everything-must-be-converted treatment. At the moment, I'm working my way through a small unit of Loyalist Iron Warriors equipped in slightly ramshackle patch-jobbed Mk.VI armour. The idea is that they're a bunch of hard-bitten Terran-dominated legion veterans who've gotten decidedly on the wrong side of Perturabo - and been sent off to earn themselves an inglorious and ignoble end somewhere out among the stars (thus explaining, in part, why they weren't with the Legion for events like the purging of Olympia or the Betrayal at Isstvan V). This quite nicely plays into why they're clad in Mk.VI - as some of the first runs of 'prototype' Mk.VI were in fact delivered to the Iron Warriors for field-testing and evaluation. Perturabo wanted the design scrapped in favour of another heavy assault armour, so seems to have basically set it up for failure where possible. This unit remaining equipped with it even by the period just prior to the outbreak of the Heresy would both represent an ongoing mark of his disfavour, and presumably ensure them quicker, messier deaths. And Tartaros legs were what I had to hand, so yee. Alongside this initial deployment (which currently numbers three Iron Warriors in various stages of completion), I'm also adding a small group of Vlka Fenryka - to act as the local equivalent of a 'watch pack' in the unlikely event our protagonists wind up feeling more philosophical affinity for their gene-sire than the Imperium. There will also be the usual assortment of less-augmented humans you'd customarily expect to see trailing behind a Crusade-era Astartes force, including an Imperial Army veteran turned Remembrancer who's taken it upon himself to chronicle these otherwise forgotten sons.