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Yes, you read that right. Umbral and I are actually going to do a segment of the Unification Wars in [broadly] 28mm scale. And this isn't just a pipe-dream or a "we're planning on doing X wouldn't it be cool" ... we've actually already got half a dozen miniatures made, and another several already finely WIP; plus some reasonable setting-details to make it all make sense in. In terms of a bit of backstory for just *why* we're attempting to luridly illustrate one of the most exotically unknown parts of the 40k timeline ... some of you might have caught our various other Vox Stellarum logs either here or over on Ammobunker. The idea with these has always been to bring together the three things we love most about 40k [i.e. uniquely converted miniatures, well-crafted stories of narrative resonance and 4-dimensionality, and the fluff and setting we get to play with both in] as a sort of living novel or something. We have yet to play a game, despite spending almost a year on these projects thus far ... but with all of the incredible detail of characterization, background, and lovely LOVELY figures that we've racked up [cheers Umbral], it almost doesn't matter. It started out with an intent to run an Inq28/Inquisimunda campaign set somewhere proximate to the 'contemporary' 41st Millennium. That's still on-track. Then I said "wouldn't it be cool if..." [famous words of inspiration no doubt responsible for all manner of leaps both forward and backward apace in human history] "...we did Inq28 style gaming in the Horus Heresy - there's all SORTS of smaller-scale 'narrative' actions and plotlines we could explore in amidst the big battles!" - and so we started doing that as well [also still on-track, and progressing very nicely, if I do say so myself!]. And we briefly batted around a few ideas about Unification Wars stuff [because ever since reading Outcast Dead, and some part of Prospero Burns, as well as elements of the Black Books fluff, ti's been seriously prominent in my brain for some reason], although it always seemed a bit of an idyl day-dream reather than a serious miniatures project. Particularly with all the other stuff we get up to hobby-wise [we haven't even done a project-log for our other 'closer-to-40k' setting yet...]. But Umbral, bless him, had an idea one day and mocked up a few figures [which you'll be seeing shortly] using some Bretonnian Men A Arms I had sitting around mixed with some Cadian parts, and it instantly became apparent that he'd just made WW1 British Soldiers in a Lower-Tech Science Fiction Setting. "They're Albian Ironsides", he declared. And so they were, too! This naturally lead to two follow-up question: first up, what sort of setting could we plug them into ... and second, what would I be doing to go with them? The answer to the first, well you'll see a few elements of what we've come up with in due course. And as for the second ... THUNDER WARRIORS. I absolutely HAD to have Thunder Warriors. They're quite iconic for the Unification era obviously - but the concepts put together by most people thus far just don't quite 'do' it for us. Most of them are too small, or too 'clean' or too overtly "Marine-like". And fair enough. IT's an ill-fleshsed out area of fluff depiction [with even the otherwise wonderful Blanche illusrations basically having them in Mk.V Power Armour for some inexplicable reason], an dmost poeple can't be bothered to do truly 'original' things when playing around with a concept - so you get slightly converted plastic marines with Cadian HEavey Weapons Team sunglasses heads and plumes. We were wondering about usng some of th elarger Khorn Bloodbound heroes from Age of Sigmar, but were still umming and ahhing. Until in one of those totally 'meant to be' feats of serendipity, somebody screwed up a seriously bulk order we'd just done [which was supposed to include Horus Lupercal for an experiment in making a truescale Space Wolf Terminator for our Horus Heresy game ... but instead wound up with us getting most of a Leman Russ for some reason], thus leaading to Umbral having parts on his hands and a sudden flash of inspiration... You'll see the result of that particular happy 'accident' a little later. But the basic result was, we wound up realizing that the Primarch figures by Forge World were probably our best bet at doing Thunder Warriors - particularly as we already do everything else truescaled anyway, and they had lovely 'unique' armour-sets to them that quite clearly weren't ordianry Marine armour, and came handily with a lot of 'lower tech' elements [for example, Mortarion has what apppears to be CHAINMAIL in the gaps in his plate]. Now, some might disagree with our take on Thunder Warriors. THat's OK. It's your hobby after all. But after taking a look at their representation in The Outcast Dead, it became readily apparent that these guys were BIG. Bigger than Marines, in fact. Fully capable of taking on several of them at once AND WINNING [as proven by the incident related in the World Eaters/Warhounds fluff-piece from th relevant Black Book]. So with this in mind, we set out to create what I can only describe as table-top Demigods. Not the ordered, somewhat more 'predictable' and 'sanctified' Avataras or Aspects of the Emperor which the Primarchs are - but the sort of folk whom Babu Dhakal evokes in one's mind when one reads his bits in The Outcast Dead. Except in their PRIME rather than once they're cancer-ridden husks of their former selves once hte wars of Unification have already been won. Oh, and we also decided to give our Primarch-based Thunder Warriors an array of 'twists' based around the idea that they're not simple 'line' Thunder Warriors, but perhaps bespoke crafted [rather than 'off the rack'] creations for more 'particular' purposes. Kinda like forerunners to the actual Marine legions perhaps. Anyway, I'm rambling. On with the show!