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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...

They are the Green Templar: hunters of forbidden relics, executioners of knowledge, and the hammer that keeps the Dark Age of Technology buried forever. Successors of the Salamanders, they strike where the Imperium dares not tread, leaving nothing alive that could betray what they hunt. FINAL COGITATOR ENTRY OF CAPTAIN SÉBASTIEN YORKE: They came aboard without ceremony. No warning chime. No challenge from the augur decks. One moment the Gloria Invictus drifted on idle in Imperial voidspace, her holds full and her ledgers clean. The next, the boarding alarms screamed like dying things. Green armor. Not Salamanders green—colder, somehow. Bone-white pauldrons marked with a templar cross. Two chapters merged into one impossible purpose. I could only guess who these Green Templar really were. I invoked my Warrant. “I am a Rogue Trader—Sébastien Yorke—of the Imperium,” I said, forcing steel into my voice. “By the authority of the High Lords of Terra—” They did not answer. They advanced, deck by deck, methodical, unhurried. Not butchers. Not raiders. Auditors. Sealing bulkheads, marking crates, tagging cogitator cores with red sigils that pulsed once and went dark. My armsmen fired. Some died screaming in fire that clung to flesh and armor alike. Others vanished under bolter fire so precise it felt personal. No warnings. No demands. Only collection. They found the vaults. I followed them, flanked by my Seneschal and what remained of my honor guard, shouting words like talismans: Warrant. Sanction. Cold Trade. I told them the artifacts were catalogued, secured, studied under Mechanicus charter. I told them I had saved worlds with the technologies they now sealed away. A warrior turned toward me. His helm lenses burned like coals. “You have saved nothing,” he said. That was the only sentence any of them spoke. They brought the seized relics to the docking bay—xenos engines wrapped in null-shrouds, crystalline cogitators older than the Imperium, weapons that hummed with sleeping suns. My life’s work. My legacy. And then Vulkan He’stan arrived. I recognized him at once. You don’t trade the stars for three centuries without learning the faces of legends. The Forgefather walked among my cargo in silence, the Primarch's Spear mag-locked at his side, his gauntlet brushing dust from devices that had cost me entire systems to acquire. Hope flared in my chest. Fool that I was. “Lord,” I said. “You see—this is sanctioned. This is lawful. This knowledge—” He stopped before a device I had never dared activate. He studied it for a long moment. Then he shook his head. Just once. No condemnation. No command. He turned and left my ship. I understood. The Green Templar waited until his vessel cleared the hangar before they began the purge. They did not destroy the artifacts first. They destroyed the records. My ledgers burned. My cogitator banks were slagged. Servitors dismantled into wet meat and scrap. I was seized, restrained, pulse-bound—not by mercy, but by necessity. The Apothecary moved among the wounded, scanning every survivor, preparing his tools. He would ensure no trace of forbidden knowledge survived. When he finally approached, I would've sworn I saw the disgust through his helmet as he recognized what was buried within me—the source of my long life. For the briefest of moments he studied it—buried, ancient, alien. The narthecium unfolded. Pressure. Heat. A wet shock. Gone. Four hundred years collapsed in seconds. The Apothecary crushed it in his gauntlet. Strength drained. Vision dimmed. The last thing I saw: green armor moving past me, methodical, unconcerned, as the charges finished counting down on the remaining vaults. I had thought the technology kept me alive. I was wrong. It only postponed the moment I became unacceptable. ☆☆☆ PERSONAL LOG: SEREN KORRAN, SALAMANDERS STORMRAVEN PILOT — DAY 47, ALPHA RIM PATROL I did not look at the ship as it burned. Hands steady on the Stormraven controls, the engine hum drowned out the void-detonations behind us. Auspex returns flared and died as Sébastien Yorke’s vessel came apart, compartment by compartment, exactly as planned. The Forgefather stood behind me, silent. I knew—everyone in the forge-clans knew—that he despised the Green Templar. Not for zeal, but for certainty. They were a tool he would never claim, only point toward the rim and loose like a blade. Because they were the best. No one hunted forbidden tech more thoroughly. No one left questions. I had seen the cargo. Xenos engines bound in prayer-chains. Devices whose light bent the air. Knowledge that could have fed worlds, healed atmospheres, ended wars I had already fought. Vulkan He’stan inspected only what he must. Human craft. Provenance traced. Lineage confirmed. Anything born of alien thought he did not touch. Anything that might have helped all mankind—destroyed. That was the limit of his mercy. The Promethean Creed teaches fire tempers. That what survives is stronger. I had repeated those words a thousand times on Nocturne. But there was no tempering here. Only selection. Only annihilation. As we cleared the blast radius, the ship’s death registered on my displays. A brief flare. Wreckage scattered. Then nothing. No life signs. No records. I said nothing. That is my shame. The Forgefather remained silent behind me, a presence like cooled steel. He had done what he could. The rest, he left to monsters. ☆☆☆ AFTER-ACTION RECORD: GT-RIM-4471 Subject: Void-vessel Gloria Invictus — Cold Trade contamination confirmed. Disposition: All artifacts, records, and biological carriers purged. Vessel expunged. No recoverable legacy remains. ☆☆☆ Somewhere in the void, as my life faded and the Green Templar disappeared into the dark, I thought I heard a whisper of my name—but no one would ever speak it again.

After a year and a bit of painting Guardsmen and starting not Squats (Wargames Atlantics Einherjar) for games of 1st ed I thought Id return to my one true love Chaos (not Kebabs, but they are a close second). After a bit of head scratching on what to do and all the retro feels bouncing about currently due to the 35 years of 40k I started thinking back to the glory days of my younger years and my first proper Chaos army (not including the mish mash of stuff I had from RoC). The army in question was inspired by this John Blanche army in the 2nd ed codex, but back then my idea of painting was literally throw paint at the mini and hope it looks ok, so it looked nothing like what I was trynna achieve. Now at least I understand shading and blending (even though I still throw paint at the minis) so I thought Id have another pop at trying to replicate (shamelessly copy) this army. I have even picked up a Mephiston and Vet Sgt Centurius for this project, and Im currently eyeing some Asmodais on ebay for the Icon Bearer (still trynna find the old Verminlord for the right price though). There are some other influences Ill be 'borrowing' ideas from, some are other Blanche minis shown in WD 150 and Fred Marcarini's minis (painted by some chap called Lorenzo) in WD199. Blanches stuff. Freds. As they are all Khorne marines I think that has dictated what God Ill be following this time around, but I dont want to be locked into World Eaters, so I have decided to combine them with younger me's other interest of Occultism, Demonology and the Esoteric (I used to play Dark Angels and the fact they named the characters after Demons amused me, clearly Traitors). So it looks like Khornate Word Bearers or a renegade chapter that used to have worryingly close ties to the Ecclesiarchy before they fell. I dont really have much in the way of 'lore' for these yet, and I dont remember what I wrote all those years ago other than they were super edgy and called themselves 'The Damned' (I went through a bit of a dodgy Goth phase before I discovered Black Metal) so I get the fun part of starting from scratch (name will be changed as well) so I guess its time for me to dig out all my old books that would have gotten my door kicked in my Matthew Hopkins back in the day and start bashing ideas together into some form of background.

So this week I have been working on something a little bit more clandestine for my Rogue Trader Oldhammer project! I have painted up the 1989 Imperial Assassin ... This guy is the venerabl ancestor of the Officio Assassinorum models/temples that came in 1996 and were later redone in Execution Force a couple of years back. The sculpt is very reminiscent of the time and whilst it is admittedly a little crude I found it a pleasure to paint. I have a few more Imperial Agents from the 1980s in my bitz box that might receive a lick of paint soon! There’s more photos on my blog at: https://classicastartes.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/so-to-keep-with-last-weeks-oldhammer.html?m=0

Back in 1st edition 40k, when we still called it Rogue Trader, the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines was a half-Eldar (who also was a Dark Angel at some point...we were still figuring stuff out back then). Don't take it too seriously, this was heresy that has since been retconned out a bit. In that spirit, he just showed up in one of those Warhammer Community strips: Just so people know, he or actually an Aeldari of the same known does show up in the last of the Dark Imperium trilogy, Godblight, but to his credit Guy Haley cleverly made him an Aeldari diplomat in the court of Roboute Guilliman. That explains that lore discrepancy a bit, like he's never really an Ultramarine, but is associated with them. That said...man, when we get those new plastic Mark VI Beakie Armour models, I do kinda want to do some sort of weird Narrative Play Crusade Patrol with him as my HQ. Not everyone plays this Crusade mode, but if you played the experience leveling stuff, you know how it's pretty easy to make a really powerful Psyker in particular? Anyway, just pointing this out because actually a new player in our local Warhammer Store pointed that guy out to me and I was like, "Actually, Brother...this guy was real." I thought it was pretty funny.

Greetings Brothers and Sisters, I need your assistance I finally got Rogue Trader (with the Game Master kit and Into the Storm) and I'm starting to create my first character. However I have few questions on character creation. 1. The standard procedure to generate characteristics requires to roll 2d10. However the rulebook suggest an alternative method: giving each player a number of characteristic points and let them to allocate them with the usual limitations. My question is: would be possible to use a different method like rolling 3d10 and choose the 2 highest value without unbalancing the game experience? I'd like to do it in order to make slighty more powerful characters in order to reflect the fact they are very expert individuals (It's mainly for fluff reasons ;) ) 2. How do I determine the number of starting wounds? I read the first pages and I saw no reference on how they are determined. I looked for "wounds" in the index and it sent me to pag 250 where it is described the "taking damage mechanics". Can you provide me the page where I can find the description on how starting wounds are generated? 3. Do you have any suggestion on the best Origin Path choices for making an effective Rogue Trader class character? As I said I have even Into the Storm 4. Do you have sugggestion on Starship creation? 5. About Profit Factor and Ship points: Is it better to have more ships points or a higher profit factor? Which choice will lead to a more fun/interesting game play? Thank you very much for your help.

From WarCom. Also the Legiones Astartes Battle Group, MKIII Tacticals, Deredeo and SoH Weapons are up for pre-order next week too, but the thread's locked for that.