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It Is The 42nd Millennium ... and once more the Galaxy has become riven with strife. This time, the harsh divide is not merely the clear-cut schism between Loyalist and Traitor, Friend and Foe, or even Humanity with Dread Xenos. Rather, a far more insurmountable barrier now lies across the former swathe of the Imperium - the Cicatrix Maledictum. And even within the still-shedding light of Mankind's fraught bastion of hope in the Imperium Sanctus, there is no unity of vision - no clarity of purpose. At the the highest levels of the Imperium, and also amidst the coiling darkness which congeals about their glittering spires - the greedy, avaricious eyes of the powerful dart in all manner of directions; their gimlet gazes locked in pursuit of petty, personal agendas as well as grand, sweeping designs several millennia in the making. Some, to be sure, are altruistic in ethos and noble in scope; others seek to take advantage of the chaos to line their own pockets - or, worse, to settle old scores and indulge in the Great Games of the truly cardinal. Yet for the countless subsectors and hundreds of systems splayed out as trinkets or trifles it matters little. Upon the far-flung fringes of the Imperium's now greatly curtailed spanse, life proceeds much as it ever has: the Crowned Heads of the ultimate inceptors of their destinies seeming as inscrutable, uncaring, and distant as the Stars - or, when angered, as roiling, unforgiving, and inescapable as the coronal flarings of the nearest Sun. Such is to be the fate of Adamantia. Once a beacon of order and a bastion of the potential future for Humanity, it was brought low some four thousand years afore. The hidden truth which girded its prosperity dooming it also to desolation at the hands of its patrons' enemies elsewhere in the vicissitudinal Imperial power structure. A chapter - and an entire stellar domain - whose loyalty to the Emperor proved to be as unbreakable as their Adamantine namesake, cast unto oblivion by the envious plots and overzealous plans of their would-be domineers and despoilers. And yet ... Memory is a curious thing. It lingers on even after that which is recalled by it may have long since crumbled to dust - or been reduced to ash via the expurgation of flame. Thus it is with the unyielding legacy of the Adamanticores. For millennia following the Fall of their formerly living Lords, the folk of the Spoil - for such Adamantia is now called - have striven to keep alive the traditions, the recollections, the faith of their forebears. This has rendered the long-term pacification of the domain, and its re-tooling into a more productively integrated demesne at the hands of this or that petty outlander lord all but an impossibility. The past refuses to pass - it cannot be placated through the transparent papering-over on offer from without. Instead, the past lives on through glinting spikes suffusing the present - seemingly pointing back toward a not-quite-forgotten future. Amidst ruins and fanes and long-forgotten refuges scattered across the systems of the Spoil, more tangible remembrances of the glory that was Adamantia are to be found - prised free via unscrupulous treasure-seekers or shadowy reconquesta teams, clawed back and returned to their memorialized pride-of-place within them by bands of loyalists, resurrectionists, revanchists who still dream the Dream of Adamantia as She once was and as She might one day be again. Or who simply cannot abide to see the ghosts, the spirits of the past disturbed by outlanders motivated by the profits and the prophets of the worlds beyond the realm. Some of these sites are watched over by vengeful eyes - piercing green orbs who still would quietly weep for the fate of their fallen dreams and comrades if mere human tears were permitted to them. Out in the Deep between worlds, the Dragons have long coiled to strike; and the Dead Stars still burn with ancient fury. The barrows and the stasis-crypt which dot the Spoil shall soon prove to have protected not only the artefacts of ancient days - but the select few of their archaic bearers as well! Living legends now risen and returned as revenants. Ghost-Lords for a nearly-dead realm, heritage, and faith. Yet they shall not be the only ones to stride out onto the planes of the present from within the depths of both myth and memory. To be a man in such times, is to behold the distant glory of ruined splendour. Not merely of the former realm of Adamantia laid low around one; but the twisting violence which reaves out across the broader Imperium. A sundering amidst the hearts of men which divides even those notionally committed to His common purpose into internecine foes that hate with the bitterness - and strike with the underhandedness - more usually reserved for direst external adversaries and truly existential peril. All across Adamantia, the last guttering embers of the Old Flame of Heritage run the risk of becoming snuffed out - taking with them, the last sparks of hope for the future. Threats from the Past loom out of the darkness to do battle with Ancient Guardians for the Soul of the Present and the incipient promise of the Glories yet to come. The Worlds of the Spoil do not stand upon the Precipice - in truth, for Adamantia this point was reached and breached long eras ago; the only serious question being whether She shall Fall or Fly in consequence. Forget the promise of Unity in Strength, and the sure premise of progress toward Mankind's assured shared destiny amidst the Stars - for much has been Remembered, that cannot now easily become forgotten. Forsake the easy and clear battle-lines drawn in the sand between "friend" and "foe", "traitor" and "loyalist", or "heretic" and "zealot" - for all these are but the convenient caricatures of meaningful designations, deployed by cunning comptrollers stationed far from the front lines in the shadows of battle. And foreswear the convenient bonds of unthinking adherence - in favour of a more critical appraisal of just where one's loyalties and sense of duty must truly lie. It is said that in the Grim Darkness of Adamantia - there is only Memory. Yet here, Memory and Heritage form an active, tangible force. The Past does not Pass simply due to the mere inconvenience of being antiquated. It lies dormant, awaiting its shadowed opportunity to spring vital and resurrected back into present life. It is, in a sense, inalienable - and on the contrary, it is the Future which must be fought for. Out upon the Steppe of Stars, a powerful myriad of Futures ride for Adamantia - Waiting to be (Re)Born.

One of the first threads we did when I got back into the hobby some four years ago, was a pretty well-received effort entitled "Vox Stellarum: True-Scaled Horus Heresy". It's exactly what it says on the tin. An array of Horus Heresy Astartes , Auxilia , Agents of the Sigillite , and other more esoteric miniatures done by myself and my longstanding collaborator, Umbral. Now, since then, we've developed a whole lot. And I don't just mean my actual painting and conversion skills [umbral's were already pretty ace to begin with]. I also mean in terms of our ability to *actually present* our efforts in thread form, as well as the narrative for the area of space our efforts take place in - which now spans roughly eleven thousand years ... So it seemed high time to go back to the Heresy , and re-present for a hopefully broadened audience , some of our work in that light. With better photographs. With that in mind - here's the first few of my Heresy-era truescales . To begin , the four Space Wolves I've done relatively recently : Space Wolves were the first force I did even semi-properly as a young lad , and as with many people of Scandinavian heritage ... the Vikings In Space element has always had a strong appeal. Even though my professional area of expertise (Indo-European theologian , with rather strong Nordic incorporations ) means I occasionally wince a bit when GW art or official miniatures mix up various different Runic scripts etc :P With these Wolves, I was looking to convey a sense that they were 'hunters', 'trackers' - hence the pointing, the auspex, and the misericordia . And also the highly mobile look of what might otherwise be static-appearing gunners. In terms of truescaling method, we use terminator legs. *All* the terminator legs! Which occasionally presents a bit of a difficulty, because frankly ... some of them just aren't posed especially dynamically - or there's so many we've done with a particular set of five that it becomes a challenge to work out how to do a 'novel' pose rather than yet another repeat. The Grave Warden legs are a particular problem in this regard, because while many of them are really quite cool - and certinly help spice things up in the Mk.III department relative to more 'ordinary' looking Cataphractii .. there's one or two legs in there that are just standing still, in an excessively wide leg stance that's .. difficult to work with. Still, I like to think I've done a reasonable job even here. Detail shot - showing the Misericordia ... and also the Raptor Imperialis pad. I figured that as this particular Astates was acting as a direct agent of the Throne in hunting down whatever it was that these chaps were pursuing, it made a certain sense for him to be carrying a Custodes blade for the purposes of personally administering the Emperor's Sanction. And, given the pad, it really drives home the loyalties and the authority of the pack. The Headhunter bolter's also good for the 'stalker' theme. Next up .. the 'Oddballs' - which is not a designation, just a characterization. Umbral had an idea awhile back for a 'Dungeons of Terra' sort of campaign, wherein various Imperial forces would be fending off the undermining incursion salients of Traitor forces into the eponymous dungeons during the course of the Siege. The campaign never got off the drawing board ... but I nevertheless wound up building a few miniatures in general service of the concept. They may show up elsewhere in our storylines. I say 'oddballs', because each one was a bit of a twist or a subversion on the more usually expected characterizations of given Legions. This is partially because each one was suffering in some fashion from 'Post-Human Traumatic Stress Disorder' - that particular form of mental illness which appears to have afflicted many Astartes during the Heresy due to .. well .. their established and comfortable loyalties and allegiances and place in the universe going out the window in an immense way; and alongside that the particular traumas of betrayal, the witnessing of horrific spectacles of the mass-mortality of their brethren (in the case of the Shattered Legions), and in some cases even their Primarchs ; and, in the case of the loyalists from Traitor Legions, the losing of their brothers and their own former lives in an entirely different way. But on with the show - As applies the Night Lord - Indraj - this is one of those aforementioned loyalists of a traitor legion origin ... and is showing the 'subversion' theme by being an incredibly direct and pulverizing combatant rather than a 'strike-from-the-shadows' sort in terms of his armament. There's nothing subtle about a thunder hammer and a rather large shield; and I like to think that the posing, with the raised head and gaze indicates that he's going after something rather larger than himself - the direct opposite of what we usually see from the Night Lords deliberately choosing to prey upon those weaker than themselves. Now, in terms of the name ... Felt I should highlight the Raptor Imperialis . The Salamander, meanwhile, is a bit of a tribute / injoke to the third man of Vox Stellarum, who's also a longstanding collaborator with my academic / theological work . Hence the heavy flamer [due to the meme that's gone around for ages around getting the flamer .. no, brother, the *heavy* flamer] , and also the thunder hammer - which is a rather more ... curious theological reference. This brings us on to the next two ... First up, a *very angry bird* - an XIXth Legionnaire who's quite clearly rather furious. As in, has eschewed the more customary caution of the Raven Guard in order to be blatantly throwing himself at the enemy whilst wielding a rather large axe. It seemed the best way to get across that he's expressing his trauma through rather incautious rage ; as opposed to the more studious approach of some other XIXth forces post-Isstvan , who favour their Legion's own habitual modus operandi of stealth and conservation of force given their limited numbers. Next , a Son of the Emperor : Now, the idea with this chap is that he's a demolitions expert. Hence all the grenades and other explosives he's got on his person - as well as the hand-held gadget that seemed ideal for a detonator. Signal'll be broadcast via the comms antenna on his backpack. In the actual Dungeons game, I'd intended to have tonnes of the Necromunda sprue grenade-piles and suchlike, as traps that he could remotely detonate to frustate the advance of the Traitors. Hence also his pointing posture - he's gesturing to where something is about to become rather more heavily geographically distributed. The bionic leg may, perhaps, suggest that he's run afoul of ordnance in-the-flesh earlier in his career - and is a tangible mark of his own , i guess you could say .. imperfection. Both in terms of physical form, but also in likely terms of tradecraft to lead to the injury in the first place. The more interesting thing about him, however, is that he was a close friend of a now-deceased (blown apart, in fact) Xth Legionnaire ... and feels that loss quite keenly. So much so in fact that he's effectively absorbed and started expressing some of the dead Marine's personality traits - giving voice to the dead , almost as if the spirit of his former comrade had been blown into him during the detonation. Certainly, the rosary of prayer-beads about his wrist speaks towards an Astartes who has moved in a rather more overtly religious direction than many in response to his trauma. Meanwhile, the ballistic apron [from the Iron Warriors tyrant siege terminators] seemed apt for a marine with his combat specialization - as it would absorb shrapnel etc. from things going off in front of him etc., help protect his fellows. There is one nod to the more 'traditional' IIIrd legion vibe, however (other than the bejeweled shoulderpad) - these two paired master crafted power-blades, which he'll be fully capable of utilizing as a matched pair of dueling weapons. Perhaps that's how he got that fine scar across his face, Prussian style. Anyway, that's the first eight of my Heresy-era Truescales posted ... there's 22 Astartes to go , plus a whole range of other miniatures from the same period [the Auxilia , Agents of the Sigillite , a rather impressive truescale Custodes , etc. etc. ] . And then there's Umbral's various efforts ... I'm hoping that a fresh start log will help me get some motivation back to do more in this era. And perhaps do some writing a la what I've managed for the Adamanticores [ Hara Barazaiti ] and Haunting Harii of Hvergelmir . Really 'bring things to life' and tie up a few ends for your presentation and enjoyment.

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].

What follows is a somewhat lengthy post detailing a perhaps surprising pattern in the influences of the Crusade/Heresy era XXth Legion which I noticed awhile back. Namely ... that they're very heavily /Germanic/ inflected .. despite all the pseudo-Greek stylings and aesthetic. It was originally posted in one of my project-log threads on another forum; however, following the pretty positive reception which it [and uh .. a few other lengthy thoughts I was having in the same thread] received, I figured that it might also be of interest/use to the Age of Darkness frater of B&C. I haven't altered it from its original form, except in the form of the post-script addendum covering Hengist in England. ------------ Now as applies the XXth Legion ... You may be familiar with a certain Alpha Legion character by the name of Armillius Dynat. His namesake appears to be a German chieftain by the name of Arminius [funny that] who lead the Germanic tribes to a massacre victory over Augustus' legions at Teutoburg Forest [this basically causes Augustus to have a bit of a mental breakdown and start wandering his palace screaming "VARUS - GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!!!"] [cunning chap's subtly changed his name to "Armillius" to reference a certain figure from Jewish myth to throw us off the scent (wile also getting across an additional layer of connotation)! In true Alpha Legion fashion!] Now how this relates to our friendly Alphas ... is that the chap in question attained his stunning success against the Romans not simply through ambush ... but his application of the knowledge he'd picked up /while training as a Roman military commander/ in Imperial service. Or, in other words, while hie mgiht not have "infiltrated" in the conventional sense .. he still nevertheless managed to join Roman society, work his way up [being given citizenshp and Equestrian caste rank] ... and then "betray" his former side in a bloody manner by turning their own knowledge against them. It is *particularly* Alpha that the way in which Arminius was able to lure three entire legions into the forest in question through the production of a *fake* report suggesting a rebellion which required urgent putting down by Roman forces in order to lure Varrus into the trap. Now, the etymology of "Arminius" is itself rather intriguing for these purposes - the standard approach links it to the Her , the "warriors" .. so would simply be a "Her Man", a Fighting Man. However, as it's unlikley to have been his *actual* name amongst his own people, but rather one adopted for the purposes of his operation in Roman society at his citizenship ... i suppose you could look upon it as a Nom-De-Guerre in at least two senses of the term http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png [there's also, iirc, an "ermena" root in Proto-Germanic which owrks out as "universal" ... which while not directly relevant, amuses me because of the implication "I am everywhere!"] Although that's not the "intriguing" bit. Instead, I suspect that a linkage to the "Irmin" may also be in evidence - although this is my own theorizing rather than anything I'vve picked up from academic sources. Which, apart from being part of a cluster of words in Germanic that i've briefly mentioned above , relating to "great" or "large" [or, potentially, "Arya(n)"] , *also* turns up in connectoin to Germanic [particularly Saxon/Continental-Germanic more so htan Nordic, so much] figure connected to "Odin". More on that in a moment; as it's just re-entered my memory that the same root , in the form of "Jormunn" is the first half of the name "Jormungandr" [which uh ... well, it's a kenning - "Great Staff" , for .. well, you know] - which again has some rather interesting implications as applies the Alpha Legion. ANyway. Irmin is linked to Odin, like I said earlier. Which ... is often misinterpreted/misremembered in modern culture fo a number of reasons. Work we have done [and which, to be proper, has also beend one by a number of other academics over the decades, however it's fallen by the wayside a lot these days for a number of reasons] links Odin/Wotan and such ... to Vata [also known in Vedic Sanskrit as "Vayu" ] , with the Indo-European linguistics involved hinging around a "Va-" particle that works out as Wind. Why does this matter? Weeeelll .. the "winnowing wind" is a pretty apt descriptor for the Alpha Legion, imo - particularly in light of a quotation by a Scythian [there I go again...] leader during the course of a Persian invasion of his lands, taunting the latter that they were the wind .. and good luck attempting to catch the wind! Wind wanders, and as anybody who's spent awhile in an older house of wood or wicker will note .. it's interminably hard to keep out the wind... Further, and going back to Odin ... we see quite some emphasis upon Odin adopting various disguises, running under assumed names, cyphers, riddles - taking quite a delight in such, in fact [and we see in the i think third Black Book the Alpha Legion doing exacty this in rather amusing fashion to the Sons of Horus following Paramar V or whatever it was [thanks /tg/ for tracking down where the quote came from as well as its salience http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png ] . Literally a defining feature of the deity in question. It gets additionally intriguing when we consider how the Interpretatio Romanum attempted to account for Odin [i uh ... I won't go into a discursion around Greco-Roman religions being the Odd People Out as applies a conflation of Dumezilian 1st and 2nd function deities and hte folding of Sky Father into Storm Lord , in contrast to both Nordic and Vedic systems of belief ... but you get the idea] - by connecting Odin to Mercury/Hermes. After all, what's the Staff of Hermes look like http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/2.png [and c.f also what I said earlir about "Jormungandr" - a great staff, a staff being of potenetially magical import [as well as the whole 'staff of office' angle, ] .. a serpent-staff .. , although this is me being "poetic" so to speak" ... and leads me off in another direction with the Baltic/Slavic "Veles" ...] In addition ot the connotations of the possessoin of secret knowledge, the liminal, and psychopomp[ous] roles ands uch. [relating to Armin .. making a note to potentially incorporate an "Ariobarzanes" .. but again, side-issue] But anyway, lest I be accused of making far too much out of a single name and letting my imagination run wild [spoiler: I am http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png ] ... there are other points of coterminity which must be considered also. For a start, consider the Alpha Legion's use of the term "Harrow". This is, once again, a Germanic-origin term. And you can see a similar derivation in English in the term "harry" [also, potentially, "Harass" .. see where i'm going with this?]. Both have their partial origins in the word "Her" I've mentioned earlier [see, for example, th same word turning up in "Einherjar" - variously translated by scholars as "One Man Army" or a sort of army of one (purpose) from many, or possibly a force meant for a single purpose/time/combat .. but I digress] [antoher more modern example being the German word "Heer", that'll be familiar to our WWII-aware types]; but it goes bigger and deeper than that in terms of connotation. Specifically, the way in which it came to mean to "plunder", or to "overrun" - to subjugate, in other words, with overwhelming force or via other means, to the point that they'd be in ur supply-linez raidin ur stuffz. Hence the various mentions about the time [a thousand years ago or more] wherein you see mention of the Germanic peoples "harrying" as raiders and such http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png - finding weak-points, turning up, plundering, etc. then withdrawing before strong resistance could be organized. As a point of interest, "Herzog", today a German (sur)name, and in the Heresy the surname of at least one Alpha Legionnaire ... welllll, it originates from a Proto-Germanic "Harjatugo: which translates as "Harrow-Master" Now, [forgot what i was putting here] But back to Odin ... There is a figure by the name of Herla; again, with etymology tied up with "Her" , in the sense of "Warrior" or "host" - and if i recall, linking closelywith a Theonym of Odin as the "Lord of the Host" [Harjan] , as well as "Hari". I mention him for two reasons - first up, this is speculated t obe an etymological origin-point for "Harlequin" [yes, *those* Harlequins .. by way of Hellequin]. Or, phrased another way ... 'trickster' types .. wearing masks [or half-masks, in some tellings - potentially, and potentially also etymologically linking to "Hel" in the Germanic senses] .. who may be diabolic emissaries , actors [and in a dramatic context, often 'self-aware', dancing atop fourth wall, and with an intriguing linkage to "politics"]; but also, second, due to the suggestion that the figure in question may mythically speaking have been the Devil or Odin. [ther's also a few historical figures of the Hellequin and related names who may further be of use]. "Devil" and "Odin", well, you can see how that's relevant to the XXth. Particularly given, iirc, the connection to a certain "off-greenish colour" of this Hellequin figure. [although interestingly, in at least one of hte old Herle myths, it's *this* figure that is the victim of subterfuge and trickery rather htan other way around...] [as a brief side-note, there's a related set of Germanic terms which work out more as "Elf-King" and such .. and connect to, well, "Elf" spirits, which may or may not also be trickster, kidnapper, hidden, illusion-weaving etc. .. but I digress. It's Alpha Legion relevant but also Eldar relevant - just as Harlequins, i guess, should be. Hmm, i should probably look into "Alb" etc - the idea of Elves in Nordic myth being .. actually, i'll get on to that later. ONWARD!] Probably also worth noting the potential connection with the Wild Hunt - you know, ghostly apparitions in the sky sweeping with the force of the wind and supernatural import. But where I was *actually* going with the above was with the "Harii" talked about in Tacitus. Why? Well, take a look at how they're described in said work. We'll leave aside the fact they're literally described as [using] "black shields" , but n.b how they deliberately work to obscure their appearance by painting htemselves all-over in black - the better to avail their night-attacks and subterfuge [the better to facilitate their precision-strikes of significant force and such] .. quoth Tacitus - "in every battle, the eyes are the first to be conquered". But where it gets *particularly* intriguing is the description, also in Tacitus, of these guys as a "ghost army" [partially, iirc, in reference to their use of terror and the sowing of panic as weapons themselves and sudden apparitions and hte like from outta nowhere, to quot the meme]. Although I should probably mention at this juncture, an associate's pointing out that it's rather unlikely there was actually a Germanic tribe called the "Harii". Instead, what is possible to have happened is that Tacitus or some other Roman got the wrong end of the stick about some German he was talking to; and so we have this relic of a group of people who may very well have self-identified hwen asked as "warriors" [Herii] , being instead described as a tribe of the same name. [The uh .. the mind boggles as applies the Bastarnae acquiring *that* as an ethonym] Or, in true Alpha Legion style, it's a false-name deliberately given, perhaps because identifying *your entire people* as being warriors is an intimidation-factor. Particularly if they're, you know, GHOST-WARRIORS apparently. I would also note that in, i think it's in the Lay of Rig [Rigsthula] there's an attestation for Jarl having "eyes like a serpent shon" - the idea being both that he's in possession of much knowledge [consider dragons in, like Tolkien etc. ] and cunning. There is additionally, now that I look through my notes on the subject, an ancient Nordic kenning-ish "joke" which uh ... let me put it this way - it involves the strike of a serpent, and something like the modern ENglish idioms of being "caught with one's pants down" or "bite us in the arse". This connects with the Icelandic "Hoggormr" - a "serpent['s] strike", which iirc is a proscribed conduct in hte law-code in question as undignified, ungentlemanly etc. Oh, another side-note - the Ursinus character ... again, Germanic, despite Latinization. Both in terms of its use as a Germanic name in the (Post-)Medieval period; and its name relating to "Bears". Now, Bear-warriors, of course .. again, Ber-Serkers - Bear-Skinned [i wonder if the idea of Alpha Legion adopting the "skins" of others may be relevant ... ] . [although the Echion surname - well, take a quick google. Another few very apt connotations and connections http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/7.png ] Also, a *bit* of a loose one ... Autilon Skorr - weeell, you might have heard of one Otto Skorzeny http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png not least due to this chap's various conduct both during and after WWII that was straight-up XXth Legion. I mean, hwere to begin. Not just hte commando raids and stuff like Operation Longjump [the attempt to assassinate the Big Three Allied leaders all at once], the daring rescue of Mussolini or Operation Panzerfaust [the abduction of a Hungarian VIP to attempt to assert political leverage on the regime in question], the stuff around Operation Greif [skorzeny et co - comprised of volunteers capable of speaking excelleng [indeed, American-Idiomatic] English and wearing captured Allied uniforms, driving vehicles ['Panzer Brigade 150'] that had been "disguised' as American etc. hardware [somewhat .. haphazardly, admittedly] .... BUT ALSO , the post-War incident wherein he wound up working for Mossad, assassinating German targets in Egyptian etc. employ by using his reputation and familiarity with the high-value individuals in questiion t oget close and 'betray' [from their perspective] them in Israeli service. There's also, now that I think upon it, been a number of mentions in recent scholarship of Viking and other Germanic peoples making quite a point of employing "unconventional" for hte time military approaches, including outright deception or betrayal [of non-Germanics] as necessary. I'm trying to remember the Anglo-Saxon incidence of this which first got me thinking about "Harrow" in the first place. Will maybe write it up if/when I do. Oh, and finally ... what is a "German" - well, there are a number of etymologies .. but one which is rather directly relevant here is the implication of them being a "man of the spear" ['Ger' as 'Spear'] ... now what's Alpharius armed with http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png Anyway, there are no doubt more connections that could be made; and while I'm not for a moment claiming that the Alpha Legion are *exclusively* Germanic in origin ... I do think that there's quite some Germanic influence going on with them that gets a bit 'lost' under all the Classical/Greek aesthetic, the mythical serpents, and the Greco-Roman naming bits and pieces. I should probably tidy all this up and write it as a proper article rather than "here's a rant I penned in the last hour for some reason about a Crusade/Heresy era thing in the Unification Wars thread" http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png If you've made it this far, thanks for bearing with me. ---------------------------- Addendum: I went back and asked our research institute's resident Germanic expert about the Anglo-Saxon incident briefly mentioned above. His reply: "Hengist employed the original "Night of the Long Knives" in his conquering of Britain. The nutshell version is that he feigned peace with his enemies, married his daughter to the rival general and had his warriors sit around the campfire and feast with the soldiers. Except his daughter was in on it, promptly slit her new husbands throat and opened the gates to the complex, where the germanic feasters employed the use of the Sax Knives to kill their erstwhile allies."

[flash=250,210] "As for the Harii, quite apart from their strength, which exceeds that of the other tribes I have just listed, they pander to their innate savagery by skill and timing: with black shields and painted bodies, they choose dark nights to fight, and by means of terror and shadow of a ghostly army they cause panic, since no enemy can bear a sight so unexpected and hellish; in every battle the eyes are the first to be conquered." - Tacitus , Jermaniya ; M1 "No world shall be beyond my rule; no enemy shall be beyond my wrath." - The Emperor of Mankind upon the summit of Mount Vengeance on the world of Thor, circa M30, as quoted upon the first page of the Grimoire Assassinorum

Hello and welcome to yet another of me and Umbral's ongoing exercises in Hobby ADHD. This time, we step away from the grainy past of the Unification Wars and Horus Heresy - and, for that matter, recoil from the Inquisitorial goings-on of the Grim Shadows of the 41st Millennium - to present you something rather more straightforward. In this instance ... a chapter of Space Marines called the Adamanticores, depicted at their relative height in the early 38th Millennium. Now, a proper write-up of the fluff behind these absolute beauties will shortly be incoming [and the revelation for what might seem, at first, to be somewhat temporally inconsistent design-choices will arrive as part of that]; but for the moment, let's just enjoy the view. First up, a Veteran Sergeant equipped with a combi-plas bolter and power-sword; decked out in a composite hand-crafted armour which draws elements from an array of marks presently in Imperial service [note the Mk.III legs and hardened Mk.IV helm], plus a somewhat experimental power-pack not yet in common production... Next, one of his squadmates - a marksman by specialization, again adorned in a composite plate and with a longer make of bolter for additional range in his chosen battlefield role. [although he'll be no slouch in close assault, either - that chainblade bayonet looks rather nasty!] Third, is another weapon specialist - this time, another combi-plas wielder, who's steadying his main weapon whilst also holding his close combat blade ready for a swift employment. Of arguable interest is his choice of Mk.VI legs and power-pack for perhaps quieter operations than his comrades' predominant Mk.III stylings. Finally, we have a gallant captain for this small detachment - equipped with a fine artificer-developed plasma weapon and [potentially double-handed] power sword; as well as being clad in a most unusual and advanced pattern of power armour.. There'll be more along shortly [including a Truescale Terminator who absolutely has to be seen to be believed] ... but interested to see what you make of them :)

Back in mid-2018, I posted the following commentary to the Age of Darkness forum. It's recently come back up again somehow, and received some quite positive responses [as well as some understandable critiques], including a request [from Lucerne] that I cross-post it to this Alpha Legion sub-forum. I should probably emphasize that a) it's 'descriptive rather than prescriptive' - so should perhaps be approached more as a "here's some areas where I've found cool/inspirational/useful material for thinking about the XXth, as drawn out and then expanded upon from what I've observed in official publications", rather than a "this is the be-all and end-all final word on what's going on here"; and b) I wrote the OP, I think from memory, over a rather short period of time during a bit of a hypomanic phase. This ... partially explains why there's a lack of coherent formatting, and a certain array of rather wild hair-trigger associations made, all in some kind of mad stream-of-consciousness rapid-fire barrage of verbiage. I am frankly a little embarrassed that the prose and organization is not up to a better standard in the OP. For which I apologize. Anyway ... --- What follows is a somewhat lengthy post detailing a perhaps surprising pattern in the influences of the Crusade/Heresy era XXth Legion which I noticed awhile back. Namely ... that they're very heavily /Germanic/ inflected .. despite all the pseudo-Greek stylings and aesthetic. It was originally posted in one of my project-log threads on another forum; however, following the pretty positive reception which it [and uh .. a few other lengthy thoughts I was having in the same thread] received, I figured that it might also be of interest/use to the Age of Darkness frater of B&C. I haven't altered it from its original form, except in the form of the post-script addendum covering Hengist in England. ------------ Now as applies the XXth Legion ... You may be familiar with a certain Alpha Legion character by the name of Armillius Dynat. His namesake appears to be a German chieftain by the name of Arminius [funny that] who lead the Germanic tribes to a massacre victory over Augustus' legions at Teutoburg Forest [this basically causes Augustus to have a bit of a mental breakdown and start wandering his palace screaming "VARUS - GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!!!"] [cunning chap's subtly changed his name to "Armillius" to reference a certain figure from Jewish myth to throw us off the scent (wile also getting across an additional layer of connotation)! In true Alpha Legion fashion!] Now how this relates to our friendly Alphas ... is that the chap in question attained his stunning success against the Romans not simply through ambush ... but his application of the knowledge he'd picked up /while training as a Roman military commander/ in Imperial service. Or, in other words, while hie mgiht not have "infiltrated" in the conventional sense .. he still nevertheless managed to join Roman society, work his way up [being given citizenshp and Equestrian caste rank] ... and then "betray" his former side in a bloody manner by turning their own knowledge against them. It is *particularly* Alpha that the way in which Arminius was able to lure three entire legions into the forest in question through the production of a *fake* report suggesting a rebellion which required urgent putting down by Roman forces in order to lure Varrus into the trap. Now, the etymology of "Arminius" is itself rather intriguing for these purposes - the standard approach links it to the Her , the "warriors" .. so would simply be a "Her Man", a Fighting Man. However, as it's unlikley to have been his *actual* name amongst his own people, but rather one adopted for the purposes of his operation in Roman society at his citizenship ... i suppose you could look upon it as a Nom-De-Guerre in at least two senses of the term http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png [there's also, iirc, an "ermena" root in Proto-Germanic which owrks out as "universal" ... which while not directly relevant, amuses me because of the implication "I am everywhere!"] Although that's not the "intriguing" bit. Instead, I suspect that a linkage to the "Irmin" may also be in evidence - although this is my own theorizing rather than anything I'vve picked up from academic sources. Which, apart from being part of a cluster of words in Germanic that i've briefly mentioned above , relating to "great" or "large" [or, potentially, "Arya(n)"] , *also* turns up in connectoin to Germanic [particularly Saxon/Continental-Germanic more so htan Nordic, so much] figure connected to "Odin". More on that in a moment; as it's just re-entered my memory that the same root , in the form of "Jormunn" is the first half of the name "Jormungandr" [which uh ... well, it's a kenning - "Great Staff" , for .. well, you know] - which again has some rather interesting implications as applies the Alpha Legion. ANyway. Irmin is linked to Odin, like I said earlier. Which ... is often misinterpreted/misremembered in modern culture fo a number of reasons. Work we have done [and which, to be proper, has also beend one by a number of other academics over the decades, however it's fallen by the wayside a lot these days for a number of reasons] links Odin/Wotan and such ... to Vata [also known in Vedic Sanskrit as "Vayu" ] , with the Indo-European linguistics involved hinging around a "Va-" particle that works out as Wind. Why does this matter? Weeeelll .. the "winnowing wind" is a pretty apt descriptor for the Alpha Legion, imo - particularly in light of a quotation by a Scythian [there I go again...] leader during the course of a Persian invasion of his lands, taunting the latter that they were the wind .. and good luck attempting to catch the wind! Wind wanders, and as anybody who's spent awhile in an older house of wood or wicker will note .. it's interminably hard to keep out the wind... Further, and going back to Odin ... we see quite some emphasis upon Odin adopting various disguises, running under assumed names, cyphers, riddles - taking quite a delight in such, in fact [and we see in the i think third Black Book the Alpha Legion doing exacty this in rather amusing fashion to the Sons of Horus following Paramar V or whatever it was [thanks /tg/ for tracking down where the quote came from as well as its salience http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png ] . Literally a defining feature of the deity in question. It gets additionally intriguing when we consider how the Interpretatio Romanum attempted to account for Odin [i uh ... I won't go into a discursion around Greco-Roman religions being the Odd People Out as applies a conflation of Dumezilian 1st and 2nd function deities and hte folding of Sky Father into Storm Lord , in contrast to both Nordic and Vedic systems of belief ... but you get the idea] - by connecting Odin to Mercury/Hermes. After all, what's the Staff of Hermes look like http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/2.png [and c.f also what I said earlir about "Jormungandr" - a great staff, a staff being of potenetially magical import [as well as the whole 'staff of office' angle, ] .. a serpent-staff .. , although this is me being "poetic" so to speak" ... and leads me off in another direction with the Baltic/Slavic "Veles" ...] In addition ot the connotations of the possessoin of secret knowledge, the liminal, and psychopomp[ous] roles ands uch. [relating to Armin .. making a note to potentially incorporate an "Ariobarzanes" .. but again, side-issue] But anyway, lest I be accused of making far too much out of a single name and letting my imagination run wild [spoiler: I am http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png ] ... there are other points of coterminity which must be considered also. For a start, consider the Alpha Legion's use of the term "Harrow". This is, once again, a Germanic-origin term. And you can see a similar derivation in English in the term "harry" [also, potentially, "Harass" .. see where i'm going with this?]. Both have their partial origins in the word "Her" I've mentioned earlier [see, for example, th same word turning up in "Einherjar" - variously translated by scholars as "One Man Army" or a sort of army of one (purpose) from many, or possibly a force meant for a single purpose/time/combat .. but I digress] [antoher more modern example being the German word "Heer", that'll be familiar to our WWII-aware types]; but it goes bigger and deeper than that in terms of connotation. Specifically, the way in which it came to mean to "plunder", or to "overrun" - to subjugate, in other words, with overwhelming force or via other means, to the point that they'd be in ur supply-linez raidin ur stuffz. Hence the various mentions about the time [a thousand years ago or more] wherein you see mention of the Germanic peoples "harrying" as raiders and such http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png - finding weak-points, turning up, plundering, etc. then withdrawing before strong resistance could be organized. As a point of interest, "Herzog", today a German (sur)name, and in the Heresy the surname of at least one Alpha Legionnaire ... welllll, it originates from a Proto-Germanic "Harjatugo: which translates as "Harrow-Master" Now, [forgot what i was putting here] But back to Odin ... There is a figure by the name of Herla; again, with etymology tied up with "Her" , in the sense of "Warrior" or "host" - and if i recall, linking closelywith a Theonym of Odin as the "Lord of the Host" [Harjan] , as well as "Hari". I mention him for two reasons - first up, this is speculated t obe an etymological origin-point for "Harlequin" [yes, *those* Harlequins .. by way of Hellequin]. Or, phrased another way ... 'trickster' types .. wearing masks [or half-masks, in some tellings - potentially, and potentially also etymologically linking to "Hel" in the Germanic senses] .. who may be diabolic emissaries , actors [and in a dramatic context, often 'self-aware', dancing atop fourth wall, and with an intriguing linkage to "politics"]; but also, second, due to the suggestion that the figure in question may mythically speaking have been the Devil or Odin. [ther's also a few historical figures of the Hellequin and related names who may further be of use]. "Devil" and "Odin", well, you can see how that's relevant to the XXth. Particularly given, iirc, the connection to a certain "off-greenish colour" of this Hellequin figure. [although interestingly, in at least one of hte old Herle myths, it's *this* figure that is the victim of subterfuge and trickery rather htan other way around...] [as a brief side-note, there's a related set of Germanic terms which work out more as "Elf-King" and such .. and connect to, well, "Elf" spirits, which may or may not also be trickster, kidnapper, hidden, illusion-weaving etc. .. but I digress. It's Alpha Legion relevant but also Eldar relevant - just as Harlequins, i guess, should be. Hmm, i should probably look into "Alb" etc - the idea of Elves in Nordic myth being .. actually, i'll get on to that later. ONWARD!] Probably also worth noting the potential connection with the Wild Hunt - you know, ghostly apparitions in the sky sweeping with the force of the wind and supernatural import. But where I was *actually* going with the above was with the "Harii" talked about in Tacitus. Why? Well, take a look at how they're described in said work. We'll leave aside the fact they're literally described as [using] "black shields" , but n.b how they deliberately work to obscure their appearance by painting htemselves all-over in black - the better to avail their night-attacks and subterfuge [the better to facilitate their precision-strikes of significant force and such] .. quoth Tacitus - "in every battle, the eyes are the first to be conquered". But where it gets *particularly* intriguing is the description, also in Tacitus, of these guys as a "ghost army" [partially, iirc, in reference to their use of terror and the sowing of panic as weapons themselves and sudden apparitions and hte like from outta nowhere, to quot the meme]. Although I should probably mention at this juncture, an associate's pointing out that it's rather unlikely there was actually a Germanic tribe called the "Harii". Instead, what is possible to have happened is that Tacitus or some other Roman got the wrong end of the stick about some German he was talking to; and so we have this relic of a group of people who may very well have self-identified hwen asked as "warriors" [Herii] , being instead described as a tribe of the same name. [The uh .. the mind boggles as applies the Bastarnae acquiring *that* as an ethonym] Or, in true Alpha Legion style, it's a false-name deliberately given, perhaps because identifying *your entire people* as being warriors is an intimidation-factor. Particularly if they're, you know, GHOST-WARRIORS apparently. I would also note that in, i think it's in the Lay of Rig [Rigsthula] there's an attestation for Jarl having "eyes like a serpent shon" - the idea being both that he's in possession of much knowledge [consider dragons in, like Tolkien etc. ] and cunning. There is additionally, now that I look through my notes on the subject, an ancient Nordic kenning-ish "joke" which uh ... let me put it this way - it involves the strike of a serpent, and something like the modern ENglish idioms of being "caught with one's pants down" or "bite us in the arse". This connects with the Icelandic "Hoggormr" - a "serpent['s] strike", which iirc is a proscribed conduct in hte law-code in question as undignified, ungentlemanly etc. Oh, another side-note - the Ursinus character ... again, Germanic, despite Latinization. Both in terms of its use as a Germanic name in the (Post-)Medieval period; and its name relating to "Bears". Now, Bear-warriors, of course .. again, Ber-Serkers - Bear-Skinned [i wonder if the idea of Alpha Legion adopting the "skins" of others may be relevant ... ] . [although the Echion surname - well, take a quick google. Another few very apt connotations and connections http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/7.png ] Also, a *bit* of a loose one ... Autilon Skorr - weeell, you might have heard of one Otto Skorzeny http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png not least due to this chap's various conduct both during and after WWII that was straight-up XXth Legion. I mean, hwere to begin. Not just hte commando raids and stuff like Operation Longjump [the attempt to assassinate the Big Three Allied leaders all at once], the daring rescue of Mussolini or Operation Panzerfaust [the abduction of a Hungarian VIP to attempt to assert political leverage on the regime in question], the stuff around Operation Greif [skorzeny et co - comprised of volunteers capable of speaking excelleng [indeed, American-Idiomatic] English and wearing captured Allied uniforms, driving vehicles ['Panzer Brigade 150'] that had been "disguised' as American etc. hardware [somewhat .. haphazardly, admittedly] .... BUT ALSO , the post-War incident wherein he wound up working for Mossad, assassinating German targets in Egyptian etc. employ by using his reputation and familiarity with the high-value individuals in questiion t oget close and 'betray' [from their perspective] them in Israeli service. There's also, now that I think upon it, been a number of mentions in recent scholarship of Viking and other Germanic peoples making quite a point of employing "unconventional" for hte time military approaches, including outright deception or betrayal [of non-Germanics] as necessary. I'm trying to remember the Anglo-Saxon incidence of this which first got me thinking about "Harrow" in the first place. Will maybe write it up if/when I do. Oh, and finally ... what is a "German" - well, there are a number of etymologies .. but one which is rather directly relevant here is the implication of them being a "man of the spear" ['Ger' as 'Spear'] ... now what's Alpharius armed with http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png Anyway, there are no doubt more connections that could be made; and while I'm not for a moment claiming that the Alpha Legion are *exclusively* Germanic in origin ... I do think that there's quite some Germanic influence going on with them that gets a bit 'lost' under all the Classical/Greek aesthetic, the mythical serpents, and the Greco-Roman naming bits and pieces. I should probably tidy all this up and write it as a proper article rather than "here's a rant I penned in the last hour for some reason about a Crusade/Heresy era thing in the Unification Wars thread" http://b1.ifrm.com/static/emo/18.png If you've made it this far, thanks for bearing with me. ---------------------------- Addendum: I went back and asked our research institute's resident Germanic expert about the Anglo-Saxon incident briefly mentioned above. His reply: "Hengist employed the original "Night of the Long Knives" in his conquering of Britain. The nutshell version is that he feigned peace with his enemies, married his daughter to the rival general and had his warriors sit around the campfire and feast with the soldiers. Except his daughter was in on it, promptly slit her new husbands throat and opened the gates to the complex, where the germanic feasters employed the use of the Sax Knives to kill their erstwhile allies."

[Part 1: The Gathering Of The Clans] [Prologue: There was a high-pitched whistling sound beyond the door. Vaish muttered an inaudiable blasphemy. If he'd told the serving-boy once, he'd told him a thousand times - *don't* over-heat the samovar on the way up from the kitchens. Burning the milk would ruin the brew. Perhaps he needed to *remind* the lad of the lesson, by immersing his wretched hand in it. The scalding hopefully providing an instruction he'd not soon forget. Get lazy, cut corners, lose vigilance, lose focus upon what was important,- suffer pain, as the result. And as with all the *best* lessons, one delivered with more than a hint of directly configured irony. "Contrapasso", the ancients had called it. Two muffled bangs further increased Vaish's choler. The serving-boy must've run the trolley into the walls on his way down the corridor - no doubt besmirching the priceless antique Adamantine oak and gold furnishings in the process. Vaish scowled, and reached for the barbed quirt he kept under his desk for disciplinary matters. If the boy had scarred his irreplaceable hallway paneling, he'd do much the same right back at him. Force. Contrapasso. It was the only way they'd *learn*. The high-pitched whistling began again, louder and far closer this time. Somehow more immediate. That was odd, thought Vaish - even a truly incompetent thrall shouldn't be able to scald the milk *twice*. But there was something different about the high-pitched squealing noise this time; now that he could hear it more properly, it seemed ... off, wrong. As if the metal of the samovar was being heated *well* beyond its tolerance, like the tea-vessel were about to make ready to explode. And that was the other thing - it sounded like it was happening *inside the room with him*. Vaish's nose wrinkled. That wasn't right. The door hadn't even opened yet. He looked up, making ready to barrage the serving-boy with a fusillade of full-force rhetorical fury. Preparing the words of his tongue-lashing to serve as the prelude to the beating and burning that was about to ensue. His jaw dropped, went slack. His mind followed. There was a red-orange-yellow circle forming on the facing of his door, about the size of his hammish fist. His expensive, auric-plated security door. Right roughly where the security mechanism was located. Which should have engaged automatically if there had been a breach to the manor or its grounds. Vaish barely had time to begin to curse a .. very, very long list of people, when the transition of the heart of the spot in his door to an incandescent white caused instinct to take over. He flung himself down behind his desk, eyes squinted shut like boarded up windows against a hurricane; one arm over his head while the other hand still tightly gripped the quirt, with all the desperation one would expect if that were the only solid thing left in his universe. The hissing had reached a crescendo. And then, abruptly, stopped; replaced by the wailing noise of a recalcitrant door swinging torturously upon its hinges. Vaish opened one eye. The world hadn't (yet) fallen in, nor faded to black around him. He took this as a hopeful step upward. He got to one knee, and arched himself up - daring to set half his head above the parapet of his desk's edge. Had he not been suddenly overcome by *further* fear, he would have felt the stinging pangs of disappointment. Standing a short distance beyond the desk, looking down toward him with a sneer, as the smoke from the hallway billowed about him, was a coldly implacable man; with a face like the front-end of a glacier - ancient, icy, jagged, scarred, and surrounded by all the gravel it had ground down from mountain-spur-walls to dust just to be there. Vaish's fear turned to fury. This must be the work of a rival merkant house, attempting to usurp their privileged position as tithe-lords of the Adamantine Spoil. And, to add insult to injury ... that smoke - that *smoke* ! The bastards must have *set his walls on fire* on their way in! The paneling was nigh irreplaceable! Such an outrage demanded retribution! When the Palatinate were informed, *worlds would burn* in compensatory consequence, he'd swear to it! "WHO ARE YOU", he screeched - not so much a question, as an assertion as to their insignificance. The 'glacier man' did not answer. Vaish drew himself up to his full height, making ready to extirpate his intruders further, while his House Guards presumably converged upon his location. They should be thundering down the corridor, any second- Vaish stalled mid-thought. During a gap in the smoke, he'd caught sight of the scene beyond his door. The art was ruined, of course; canvas and framing that had previously adorned his hallways, hanging raggedly and limply down towards the floor. Yet that wasn't what drew his eye. Instead, it was the serving-boy. Crumpled backward into his broken trolley, a cheese-knife still held raised in one hand in an evidently futile gesture of defiance. Vaish felt a small pang. He'd died defending his master. "We are Old Men, who were Young Men, Once," came the reply. But it hadn't been delivered by the mouth of the glacier. Instead, the voice had come from his left. A slightly frail-faced - and, indeed, older - man in armoured robes; grey-and-white hair which seemed akin to snow on a mountain-top, cresting a face in which the ravages of time had left little that was unnecessary. No fat, no fear, and certainly no sympathy - only the jaggedness of an uncut diamond. Vaish had not noticed him come in. In fact, it was almost as if he'd appeared directly there *through* the wall, no door required. Not that these uninvited apparitions seemed much slowed by whether it was a wall or a door or one of the finest security systems in the subsector which sought to bar their way. Vaish made ready to shout again. Considerably uneasy now, and hoping it wouldn't show through his false-fronting of loudly-forced bravado. Because he needed to provide a distraction. Keep them engaged as his hand moved under the side of the desk to the silent alarum which would summons any surviving security; and the other which would record whatever happened next in front of him. If he were to die this day, he could at least take *some* solace in the fact that there would be an investigation. His House would find who had did this. Their Patrons in the Palatinate and the higher echelons of the wider Imperium would follow up. Would track the culprits, back to whatever serpent-pit they'd spawned from, and do to them what might be just about to be done to him. There would be JUSTICE! There HAD to be! "'Old Men'? You mean you're in the twilight hours of your lives; looking for a way to make them meaningful." Vaish drew in breath, prepared to take a gamble: "If it's money you want, material comforts - this can be arranged. We are a wealthy House!" "We know." "So what is it that you desire. Speak! I'll make it happen!" "To rewrite history." Vaish sneered, issuing a soft snort of derision. Idealists. People aaallways wanted to *matter*. That probably meant they weren't rational enough to reason with, then. "History? Carry this out, to its culmination, and you may as well be *erased* from history. Nobody will know who you were. Your sons will die unremarked upon and unremembered. Your legacy shall be papered over as if it had never even existed!-" The Glacier cut in. Vaish's flow of vitriol cut off, mid-tirade. "We already *have* been." Vaish sensed it wasn't just his shouting that had come to an end. He resolved to at least get some shred of meaning for his efforts. His seething anguish over what they'd done to his Adamantine oak-and-gold paneling demanded it! It hadn't been filched from *one* Final Fire only to be dashed up into kindling like this! "Then what *possible* reason could you have for this ... this vandalism!" The Glacier turned his head, slightly, and looked at the concealed pict-recorder hidden behind the eyepiece of one of the many artistic representations of Vaish's forebears painted into the friezework beneath the ceiling. Looked directly at it. Nodded an acknowledgement, one eye steely wide and lower lip pared back with a tooth bared in defiance. Vaish stared, shocked; mirroring in some ways, the expression of his ancestor. How had the intruder known it was there? "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! ANSWER ME!" There was an aching silence. It felt about the span of half an hour. Although it must have been more towards the space of half a second. The jagged-faced wizened-mountain figure in the robes spoke up again. It was a softer voice than the one he'd used previously. A little honeyed. Creaky, with a hint of age that hadn't been there when he was directly addressing this. It seemed the tone one would use to give a moral lesson to a wayward grandchild. "Because Dead Stars ..." - a purringly brief burst of bullets erased Vaish's anguished face of confusion - "... Still Burn." [flash=250,210]

I'll keep it brief. This is a bit of a spin-off from my Thorians, and the ongoing series of linked efforts that Umbral and I have been putting together. The basic idea is a force of Combat-Archaeologists, scouring tombs, abandoned facilities and buried labs for their Inquisitorial[ish] masters. , Chronologically, it'll be set after the Adamantia / Adamanticores efforts by at least several centuries (so maybe M.39?); perhaps roughly contemporaneous with the Worlds Wide Webway [although time flows .. differently there, so who knows]. From right to left, an entry team leader, a young devotee, and a servitor equipped with a mining laser. The entry team are, as the name implies, the first personnel into unexplored environments. Hence the pressure-suits more usually found amongst mining crews. Of course, given the nature of the sites being explored, it's occasionally wise to come 'prepared' for 'residents' or rivals. Hence the bolt pistol and chainsword. Not that it's pictured here, but he's also carrying a reliquae on his belt - as i wanted to tie him back to the overall religiosity of the Thorians i've done thus far. [Also, a brief note on heads: good *grief* I hadn't realized how hard it was to find regular human heads that fit into the neophyte hybrid neck aperatures. Rather annoying, as they're very cool torsos otherwise. But I digress] The young looking chap standing next to him, is a pious crusader-y type ; undecided as yet as to whether the arms are rather advanced bionics, or rather tight-hugging plated sleevery. Not pictured in this shot [but definitely tehre on the miniature] are a few other bits and pieces, including a boot-knife and ammunition bandolier. The servitor, meanwhile, should have been a far simpler conversion - a mining laser from the neophyte hybrids minus its extra hands, and then with an arm mounting handconstructed, plus cabling running from it to another neophyte hybrid heavy weapons backpack. I figured that it would be a logical way to get a piece of heavy equipment around the place which would be very useful for the kind of work this crew's engaged in; while also being a much more characterful heavy weapon for a servitor than the usual military-grade weapons. He'll probably need a controller ... which may come in the form of a tech-priest i'm working on. We'll see. Next up, another two 'entry team' members. One on the right's a team-leader, possibly under the one already pictured. Combi-Melta's there both for entry/breaching, and for dealing with whatever's encountered once in. Map's handy for suggesting localized "in charge", although X definitely doesn't mark the spot [to quote another professional in the field]. Delaque head partially because at least it fits in the neck-aperature, partially because the ocular augmetics and other such enhancements, and partially because, given my previous efforts with my Thorians featuring rather a lot of genehanced specialized operatives - it made potential sense for these to be likewise. Perhaps i'll go down the route of generally having the higher-tier leadership as actual humans, and their men as the altered strains. The one on the left's carrying a briefcase; possibly with something in it - possibly to leave *with* something in it. I've also , i guess, wound up utilizing Imperialis winged skulls from the Scions kit for the purposes of covering the genestealer cult icon removals on the base miniatures. Handily, they may also be signifying rank [ the overall team leader's got three on his chain, the team leader above has two, and the courier, one]. That Delaque autopistol's also rather legit - although even allowing for the size of the silencer, it's *still* huge for a pistol! We'll count it as sme sort of machine-pistol or SMG, i think. Lastly, for this round of uploads ... these four are still very much a work in progress. Ever since , i suppose, watching Prometheus [which, for obvious reasons, must have been going around my head with this project], i've had a thought about doing a recon-drone operator. Except with servo-skulls. Because *of course*. I've still got a few things to do to the operator himself - whether a slung rifle over the shoulder/back, or a skitarii backpack with antenna for range-boosted control of his skulls; and further alterations to some o the skulls themselves - a manipulator arm on at least one of the ones that lacks one, potentially something like a laspistol on another, and further specialized scanning/augury equipment. The concept's in-progress, anyway. They'll also come in rather handy with the style of game we've got in mind for this project. Which will have some 'dungeon-crawl' elements. And in the grandest tradition of sending the halfling [with or without the ten foot pole ... which they may or may not be at the *other end* of from the main-party, without much choice in the matter, so to speak] ahead to check for traps ... yeah, servo-skulls with scanners hovering forward and detecting the tripwires and pressure-plates and such. There's several other miniatures in partial stages of assembly atm - including a rhino with attached crane , a tech-priest, and a 'surveyor', to name a few [as well as, potentially, a *heavier* servitor built out of a centurion]; so we'll see how this shapes up going forward. Umbral also appears to be putting together some tomb-raiders/counter-raiders, which may turn up here shortly.

Figured this might be of interest to a few frater here - An Alpha Legion Chaplain based on the excellent concept-work done by IHF (if you haven't checked out his Heresy-era design thread, it's pretty amazing). Still could use accessorizing with a holstered pistol and grenades, etc. - but otherwise, pretty much done. The crozius is ... a bit odd, now that it's attached - but I couldn't think off-hand of any other serpentine parts I had about to use for it. [standard-topper from the Dark Elf Corsairs was an option .. but not one that was around where I could see it in the general bitz-hoard]. Here's IHF's original for comparative purposes: An XXth 'Redactor' Chaplain. [well, I'll possibly head my own direction with fluff considerations due to a somewhat heterodox approach that utilizes a lot more Germanic conceptry ... and in this particular case, certain points around Grimnir - 'Masked One' :P ; but the visual is most definitely aligned with IHF's production, at any rate] Now, he didn't go into much detail about wargear, so I made my own inferences. Could still use accessorizing with a holstered pistol, grenades and vials and pouches etc. And the Crozius piece ... goes with the Old Norse pun-value around 'hooded one' aforementioned, as well as a Jormungandr reference - large 'wand'/staff. I felt that a scoped bolter went with a hanging back and precision shots where required ranged engagement modus operandi; and while the Deathwatch Mk.VIII back-pack might be looked a bit in askance at for Heresy-era purposes ... the Alpha Legion have all sorts of technological resources at their disposal - and it can be said to be a modified Mk.VI or Mk.IV pattern; while the main reason I went for it, the armoured lense, seemed to connote the kind of officer who'd have the entire battlefield under surveillance etc. Oh, and I further 'tweaked' IHF's original design with a scaled cloak, because dapper. And also because it actually makes my method of truescaling [pun .. retroactively intended] rather easier . In terms of the truescaling, Primaris arms are great, but I couldn't find *quite* the right one for the other - so went with the nice thick knight-like armour ones from the Ravenwing Command. Hands are also often a bit of a pain, because full-size primaris arms .. go nicely with FW terminator gauntlets. So I think the hand holding the Crozius is ... either a Salamander or Iron Hands terminator hammer or axe gripper. Gosh, two actual Alpha Legion [other one's up on the Vox Stellarum Heresy-thread]. I might have to do a few more now ... ... and try out that contrast paint to see if i can finally do a scheme ...