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Hello Fraters! Having lurked and occasionally posted over the last few months I have decided to create a WIP log to document my re-entry to the hobby. This was going to be a Raven Guard-based log as I have a Strikeforce to build but I have already paused that plan, bought Kill Team Octarius and started some terrain painting. This is very much WIP as I test out washes and contrast paints and basically learn to paint. I only painted a few minis when I was at school, I think it must have been around 1989/1990. Edit: title updated to reflect that I have now bought two KT boxes and have been painting Genestealers to refresh my v.1 Space Hulk game.

Long, long time since I've posted on the B&C. I used to play and collect 40k about a decade ago, some might remember my old Sons of Tyr log and "A Lesser Son of Greater Fathers", my Heresy Ultramarines log. I've been enticed back in to doing something in the 41st millennium again by the advent of the Astartes short (and its sequel), the Secret Level episode and Space Marine II. Absolutely wild growing up with a hobby as niche as Warhammer and now seeing it in the proverbial mainstream. Anyway, without much ado I've been looking at jumping into some narrative games set in the modern 40k setting. I don't know yet what my group is going to use for a ruleset - we're pretty narrative-heavy and focussed largely on non-GW games - but Kill Team has gathered some interest, not least of all for the smaller scale and the chance to tell some character-focussed stories. My offering will be focussed around a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes bearing suspiciously familiar heraldry who find themselves on the wrong side of the Cicatrix Maledictum...and more than likely, facing the very real prospect of their own mortality as a host of existential threats pile on their doorstep. So rage, rage against the dying of the light, and let fly the Sons of the Condor...

The Valkyrie bucked hard in the crosswinds, warning runes screaming across the cockpit bulkhead. MASON heard the pilots arguing over the vox—too much flak, too much turbulence, too much everything. “Ghost Lead, negative drop. Repeat, negative drop,” the pilot barked. “You jump now, you die before the chute arms.” MASON keyed his helm mic. “Open the ramp.” “Absolutely not—” He didn’t wait. Manual override hissed beneath his hand. The ramp locks clanked. Red light still burning overhead. SPECTRE looked at him once. Just once. “Go,” he said. She walked past the panic-stricken crew chief, the green light still stubbornly dark, and dove into the storm. The pilot shrieked over the vox, “What the—?! We are not cleared for—” MASON cut the channel. “Vultures,” he said, “follow your Lead.” They did. The sky swallowed them whole. Wind shredded their descent patterns; flak lit the clouds below with ugly veins of orange. Grav-chutes bucked and snarled. This was a bad drop—one of the worst. Perfect. Their quarry wouldn’t expect anyone insane enough to follow him through this. MASON hit last, knees slamming into broken concrete, breath ripping from his lungs. He rose fast, scanning— A body lay on the street. A rag-wrapped, skeletal hive vagrant, the kind who slept wherever the ash didn’t choke him. Throat severed in a clean line. SPECTRE hadn’t waited. She’d cleared the witness the moment she hit dirt. MASON didn’t waste breath mourning the bastard. Wrong corner, wrong hour. The hive ate people like him every night. “Red Hours,” he murmured to the squad, and they fanned out, shadows seeking deeper shadow.

THE 164TH: Team Dossier AQUILON TEMPESTOR MASON Role: Squad Lead Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger MASON never traded up for the traditional officer’s pistol and sabre. He sticks with the same lascarbine he’s carried since his first drop, and the squad trusts him for that. He keeps a sealed relic-vial of Armageddon ash under his chestplate—grainy grey dirt Yarrick himself once trod on. MASON’s leadership style is brutally simple: “land hard, move fast, die later.” He handpicked every member of the 164th Ash Vultures after a disastrous, op that killed 80% of his previous squad at Hive Secundus. Since then, he’s shown an almost religious intolerance for incompetence and an equally religious patience for trauma. AQUILON TROOPER VESPER Role: Rifleman Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger VESPER refuses every promotion thrown at him, convinced dying starts the moment you get noticed. He blends into any formation like smoke—quiet, unobtrusive, impossible to remember until everything’s already gone to hell. Among the Ash Vultures, VESPER is the steady center. Nobody knows how old he is, but his instincts in a firefight are flawless. He and MASON share a long, unspoken history from the early Harakoni days, something involving a failed drop and a crashed Valkyrie whose crew didn’t make it. AQUILON TROOPER ECHO Role: Rifleman Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger ECHO claims her memories were wiped, that she once fought alongside silver-armoured warriors carrying halberds. The others laugh it off—mostly to hide that they believe she might be right. She’s brilliant at pattern analysis and movement prediction, often calling threats seconds before they appear. Off-mission she watches the sky like something’s going to come back for her. AQUILON TROOPER THORN Role: Rifleman Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger The sole non-Harakoni in the team, THORN survived an Ork overrunning of his Steel Legion company by sheer stubborn refusal to die. MASON dragged him into the Ash Vultures not out of pity but respect: THORN kept firing long after his gas mask cracked and his squad was gone. The others treat him like a younger cousin—respectful but merciless in hazing. THORN takes it in stride, absorbing Harakoni doctrine with frightening speed. AQUILON GRENADIER KILN Role: Demolitions Weapons: Hotshot Laspistol, Melta Bombs and a Tempestus Dagger KILN is a walking arsenal. He carries more grenade varieties than most supply officers have manifest slips for. His favorites are a pair of Krak Grenades, sizes for an Astartes. They came from a trade with a Black Templar neophyte; the reliquary he gave away in return almost certainly wasn’t authentic, but no one questions it. KILN treats explosives like fine wines—classified by vintage, flavour, and ideal occasion. AQUILON GUNFIGHTER SABLE Role: Dual-Pistol Specialist Weapons: 2× Hotshot Laspistols and a Tempestus Dagger SABLE solves problems with gunfire and is annoyed when other solutions work. Her reputation for dead spouses follows her around; the squad jokes she marries for fun and “widows” for stress relief. She and VESPER have an odd sibling rivalry: he avoids notice, she demands it. On missions, their paired advance is devastating. AQUILON GUNNER HEMLOCK Role: Melta Support Weapons: Melta Carbine and a Tempestus Dagger HEMLOCK hides his intelligence behind a slackjaw façade. In truth he’s a meticulous thinker, designing a wargame about grot submarines and Ork naval tactics. He’s terrified the others will find out—not because they’ll laugh, but because they’ll ask to play. In battle, HEMLOCK’s melta work is clinical. Anything that needs to stop existing, he deletes. AQUILON GUNNER PRAXIS Role: Plasma Support Weapons: Plasma Carbine and a Tempestus Dagger PRAXIS was raised to be a dentist, then discovered he hated teeth and loved falling out of aircraft. He took to plasma like an addict to his vice: he knows it’s killing him a little at a time, but Throne does it feel righteous. He and HEMLOCK often run paired deep-strike insertions—one melts armour, one melts everything inside it. AQUILON MARKSMAN TANGENT Role: Sniper Weapons: Hotshot Long-Las and a Tempestus Dagger TANGENT’s auditory implant plays constant choirs whenever it detects blasphemy. Given the Imperium’s general level of profanity, she’s lived in a private cathedral for four straight years. Her silence unnerves new recruits, but the Vultures consider it comforting. If TANGENT is listening to what you have to say, it means you’re not damned… yet. AQUILON PRECURSOR SPECTRE Role: Pathfinder/Forward Drop Weapons: Hotshot Laspistol and a Tempestus Dagger Youngest in the squad, SPECTRE hates aircraft with a religious intensity and prefers to free-fall whenever regulations allow. First down, first gone, he marks drop zones with burning white phosphorus—his way of telling the enemy the sky belongs to the Ash Vultures. He hero-worships MASON and distrusts ECHO, claiming ECHO “falls like she’s being watched.” SERVO-SENTRY ARGONAUT Role: Automated Support Weapons: Hotshot Volley Gun and a Tempestus Dagger The regimental Enginseer insists ARGONAUT is a standard-pattern servo-sentry. The 164th insists he’s the reassembled skull of Trooper Argus Naught, whose grav-chute failed and who crushed an Ork Big Mek on impact. The team issued the Servo-Sentry with a Tempestus Dagger, and while no one has ever seen the servitor draw the weapon (or wonder how such a miracle could occur), they find its mere presence comforting.

Ordo Maledictum: 164th Detachment "Ash Vultures" Affiliation: Ordo Maledictum Role: Rapid Retrieval and Purification Unit Doctrine: Grav-chute insertions into rift-proximate warzones to recover warp-tainted artifacts, terminate psy-reactive entities, or destroy evidence of corruption. Motto: “By any means necessary.” Symbol: A black shoulder pad or knee guard bearing a red Inquisitorial “I” pierced by a downward silver sword — the blade representing “containment from above.” Uniform: • Fatigues: Smoke-grey and dust-tan mix, worn and scorched. • Carapace Armor: faded olive. • Markings: Red wiring, faded purity seals, patches of melted paint. Lore: Once part of the Harakoni Warhawks, the 164th were deployed for 11 years on the planet Armageddon. 16 months after the fall of Cadia, the 164th were transferred to the Vigilus Sector. Officially “lost during transit,” they were instead redirected for special duties: retrieval of warp-tainted relics, purging of psychic outbreaks, and sterilization of contaminated outposts, by the Ordo Maledictum. The Ordo Maledictum emerged after the birth of the Great Rift, and were given a near impossible task: Close the Great Rift. The 164th operate without backup, without oversight, and without limits. Each Grav Chute descent is a death sentence delayed by discipline. They’ve fought daemons, foul xenos, cultists, rogue Guardsmen, and even loyalist Astartes who impede the Ordos mission to save the Imperium of Mankind. The 164th's orders are simple: Save Humanity from Chaos... by any means necessary.

With the Wrecka Crew completed its time to move onto what's next, and since Call to Arms is still going on and I've got more kill teams to paint, its time for the Vespids! A few years ago I painted up the tau pathfinder kill team in a comic-book/cell-shaded style. I was very happy with the results and love the way they look...unfortunately I don't particularly enjoy playing them so they rarely hit the table. As the new "season" of kill-team approaches and pathfinders are getting ready to be declassified I wanted a new team with a similar style, and wouldn't you know it I happen to have a Tau Auxiliary unit sitting on my shelf that seems like it would suit the style well. My 7 year old loves all things Pokemon right now, and so the Scyther/SliphCo theme came pretty easily. Tau have so many Pokeball looking icons stamped all over their equipment I'm surprised I haven't seen a deluge of these kinds of themes before. Admittedly I don't look to hard so it may be that I'm walking well tread ground on this one. Green was an airbrush built up in a few passes, off-white was a quick pass to get it blocked in, and since I'm really only using 3 other colors for the rest of the model getting the rest blocked in didn't take too long at all. Tried out a new white...it was terrible. If anyone has a white they'd recommend for use outside of an airbrush please let me know, because my search is still ongoing. After I got them blocked in I hit them with a thick gloss coat, because I decided I wanted to try and use a panel liner to "ink" the recess spaces. Not entirely sure how I feel about this step yet, on one hand I think it makes the recesses pop more, but it also looks sloppy up close, and I'm not sure how much it will clash with my lining work later...we will see I suppose! I've got two models to finish lining, then I'll need to go back and hit my missed spots, get the bases blocked in (was debating using different "tactical rocks" for them, but decided against it recently) and start my "chunky" highlights. Then they'll go live at my office desk for a week or two so I can line them out during breaks/lunch. Trying to move quickly on this one both because of Call to Arms and because I've got a lot of backlog to burn through before Kill-Team: Tombworld drops and fills it back up again

Quick WiP post to keep my momentum going Been picking up details and missed base-colors the last couple of days when I have time. I was going to use waterslides for a lot of these details, but they seemed like more work than Free-Handing them so I just went for that. Better practice anyway. I decided I wasn't happy with the yellow tone so I went back through and made it deeper on them. I'm hopeful that I'll have time tonight to get an oil wash done, then its basing and done !

My color scheme/test model for Vespid Stingwings from Hivestorm. Leadbelcher covered with Luxion Purple for the carapace, Drukhari Violet for the wings, and Trollslayer Orange for the armor and weapons. This was my first attempt at an ‘Eavy Metal style edge highlight and I’m not sure I love it, but I’ll keep it for the other 7 and see if it grows on me.

Question. For those who own the kill team annual 2023. What lore is included in the book? Or is it strickly just kill team stats?