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Welcome to my little project log for House Jötnar & Legio Orcus I'm a casual painter and I'd been away from the hobby for 10 years when I began painting my first knight. So I am learning as I go, trying out some things and basically just enjoying my evenings pretending to be an inquisitor commanding a forgeworld, a titan legion and colony of a knight household out in the Ghoul Stars. I'll keep this first post as my "notice board" for any info on what I'm doing now and post links to new knights and pictures of finished models. Current WIP (23 June 2017): 1. Cleaning my Warhound Titan! 2. First Knight Lancer "Hræsvelgur" (Corpse Eater): Finished painting armor plate base color/shading and 3 flags. Next up: try out rusting effects on his shins and toes 3. First Warden "Gangur" (He Who Goes Berserk): Finished! ...just need to gloss varnish his armor plates 4. Improve fluff History of House Jötnar, Forgeworld Tigrus and Legio Orcus (to be updated) The Threat from Beyond our Borders For thousands of years there have been members within the Inquisition that believe that there are horrors lying beyond the Imperial borders that might be of greater threat than any known xenos race or the Ruinous Powers. This lead for example to the Apocryphon Conclave of Orphite IV, where the Deathwatch was formed. Although this may have been the largest and most noticable event, many more precautions have been made by the Inquisition. One of the lesser known precautions is the establishment of a hidden base of operations far out in the Ghoul Stars, further beyond even than the Imperial planet of Desperation. The Ghoul Stars Watch The Ghoul Stars have been since ages past, and continue today, to be a wellspring of diverse xenos activities. The ancient tales of the Pale Wastings, whose nightmare-engines destroyed 11 Astartes chapters; The Bone Kingdom of Drazak, orks, the Cythor Fiends and then their mysterious vanishing, the entrance to Commorragh and other unearthly threats. The Inquisition has been aware of the threat of the Ghoul Stars for a long time and since the Pale Wastings in M34 has recognized it as an area of priority interest. The Recruitment of a Forgeworld In M35 the Inquisition saw an opportunity when the forgeworld of Tigrus was attacked by Warboss Arrgard the Defiler. The war was doomed from the start so the Inquisition made a deal with the Fabricator-General of Tigrus to evacuate en masse as many of their STC fragments, vital tech-priests and machinery as possible to allow them to rebuild their forgeworld anew, rather than let it all perish. In return the new forgeworld would supply the Inquisition for their war in the Ghoul Stars. Tigrus was an ancient forgeworld which developed both the Vanquisher cannon as well as the Fellblade Accelerator Cannon. After the flight from Tigrus, the Fabricator-General and his forces were relocated to a system of six planets orbiting a sun, deep in the Ghoul Stars. The system was named Precipice and a forgeworld was established on the world of Precipice II, which had several mineral rich moons orbiting it. Since M35 the Forgeworld of Precipice II has in secret, with the sponsorship of the Inquisition, rebuilt itself into a sizable forgeworld and has supplied the Inquisition for millennia with weapons, vehicles and has lent their own rebuilt titan legion, Legio Orcos, to the war effort in the Ghoul Stars. The Roving Knights The Inquisition had heard reports of groups of what sounded like imperial knights operating throughout the Ghoul Stars and beyond their borders. These reports were sporadic and not until late M36 did the Inquisition manage to piece together fragmentary stories to predict the next appearance of these roving knights. On the world of Rhidhol the Inquisition was finally able to make contact with these knights, discovering that they were the remaining fragments of several knight worlds destroyed around the time of the Pale Wastings. They had lived a nomadic life as a collection of various clans since then; travelling between worlds beyond the Ghoul Stars, raiding, bargaining, foraging or warring for supplies to keep their clans alive. The Inquisition offered them a world of their own with support from an in-system forgeworld in addition to Inquisitional backing, should they form under one house in service to the Inquisition. The roving clans accepted the offer and established their new house, House Jötnar, on the planet of Precipice III. House Jötnar The clans had been made up of several old knight houses which had settled on several planets in the Ghoul Stars during the Age of Technology. They had been relatively friendly towards each other and helped each other fight off larger alien invasions when there was need. Their worlds however were either destroyed or overrun in M34 during the time of the Pale Wastings. A mass evacuation saved thousands of people from each planet and many of their knights as well. The people referred to themselves as “clans”, each clan representing a planet and the knights of the old houses did so too. They banded together and set off in their fleet eking a nomadic existence, never staying too long on any world they visited, preferring to gather supplies or launching temporary mining operations. They also bartered and traded when possible, raiding or warring when not. The old houses had been cut off from the rest of humanity for many millenniums and had always relied on themselves to repair and maintain their own knights and training their own Sacristans. Each Scion was required to train as a Sacristan before being allowed to pilot a knight. This served them well in the over two millenniums they were without a home world. Hierarchy has never been as rigid as in other houses, House Jötnar values merit over any lineage and they only have two ranks within the house “Chieftain”, or a regular knight: “Jötunn”. The Chieftain is the lord of the house and their battle commander, there are no set barons or ‘second-in-command’, but battlefield roles such as ‘Arbalester’ or ‘Preceptor’ might be assigned for the duration of an engagement. Veterans are listened to and obeyed on the merit of their accomplishments, not because they hold any specific ranks. The name chosen for the house “Jötnar” refers to the ancient stories they brought with them from Terra about large ogre-like beasts called jötnar, they often had ties with the land, sometimes being made of stone. The symbol of the house is the letter “J” in the ancient runic alphabet they brought from Terra. House Jötnar does not have any house colors, each Scion may have his knight armor painted and decorated in any colors he likes, but too much ostentation by a younger knight is usually met with jeering and mocking comments by veterans. Battle honors and markings are often added over time to the knight as well as their banners in any way a Scion sees fit. The house however does ask Scions to add the emblem of the house on their armor, where the back of the left shoulder has been seen as the traditional place to put it. Additionally they are required to add the symbol of the Inquisition to their armors, in honor of them saving their people and uniting the clans. Forgeworld Precipice II keeps House Jötnar stocked with a large variety of knight armor patterns and the house has become larger than any of their individual houses have ever been. The house is enormously grateful to the forgeworld and has vowed to them that they will let their own world fall before the forgeworld. The close friendship and respect between the two worlds has resulted in House Jötnar maintaining a permanent garrison within the main city of the planet. House Jötnar has also fought in countless engagements alongside the Legio Orcus, which has come to be nicknamed “Þursar” by the knights, which are mythological giants and cousins to Jötnar. The Legio has welcomed this nickname and their titans now all wear a “Þ” rune to symbolize this fraternity. House Jötnar fights to this day alongside the Inquisition and their allies, with Legio Orcus and Forgeworld Precipice II around and beyond the Ghoul Stars. Their wars have raged for over 5000 years, but while the enemies of mankind are at the gates, they will not falter, they will not fail. TLDR: It's a Nordic themed Imperial Knight and Titan army in service to the Inquisition in the Ghoul Stars. Lots of runes, =][= symbols and skulls and each knight has his own color scheme.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've found that one of the benefits of lockdown and working from home has been the [ chance to / lack of excuses not to / opportunity to ] finally get around to many of those little side projects and distractions I've thought about. Admittedly, work has been pretty busy so I've been focused on small single-figure projects, rather than some of the vast armies I've seen others create. This Inquisitor kitbash is one such project. I am a huge obsessive fan of the Ciaphas Cain series, and this initially began as my attempt at creating a miniature of Inquisitor Amberley Vail. It was also a convenient excuse to try my hand at painting colours and techniques I don't normally do with my Iron Hands forces. However, due to a lack of official character art, my limited scultping talent, and a upcoming Crusade campaign, she became my own Inquisitor, Amalyn Trevelian. An inquisitor who tries to go about her duty discretely, rather than all-guns-blazing. So yeah, basically an unoriginal copy-paste clone "We don't all charge about like a grox in a china emporium. Some of us think it best that the enemies of mankind don't know that we're looking for them..." Enough waffling, picture time - My starting point was the female GSC Magus model - ever since it was released I'd thought it had the underpinnings of an excellent Inquisitor model. I initially thought about replacing the head altogether, but couldn't find any that I liked. So, out came the scalpel and fine sandpaper, and after some very careful surgery I'd managed to get the forehead looking a little less 'genestealer-y'. Sculpting the hair was a bit of an issue - Amberley's hair is described many times, but with no official art I had no idea what to go for. It was fairly academic in the end, as I can't sculpt hair - I was left with this.... 'look'. Not terrible, but definitely not Vail. With my group starting a narrative campaign it became easy to quickly change her from Amberley to Amalyn. Let's just call it a popular hair style amongst the nobility of the planet she's infiltrating... The GSC neck/shoulder armour was the next to go, replaced with my attempt at painting a fur stole. Again, not the greatest, but given my GS skills, it'll do. It does look better in person - for some reason the photos make it look far worse than it is. Weapon choice I went with a bolt pistol (as per Amberley) and the big staff (icon taken from the new plastic Canoness model). No idea how useful either will be in a campaign crawling with Orks, Tau and Death Guard, but we'll see. When it came to painting her, I decided to stick with the blue of Amerley Vail. Partly because I'd started painting the body before I sculpted the head, and partly because I don't normally paint such bright colours and fancied a challenge. The orange seemed like a nice spot colour to contrast with the blue and grey. For the head, I followed Darren Latham's excellent video. I'm far from perfect, but I honesty believe his tutorials have massively improved my painting. Anyway, that's enough from me. Cheers for looking!