Remnant Crusade Diary

[Smirnov]

Firstly a disclaimer. I'm starting this diary/log/whatever thing not only to show my awesome (like 'Grey Knights awesome' %) ) modeling skills, but also to get some advice and inspiration, so any and all comments are welcome, and not in the least to force myself to do something consistently. I hope that keeping a log, where I need to show new models, will keep me from slacking off as I tend to do now :cuss

 

So, on the weekend I'm moving in (at last!) back home, and I will be able to start working on my crusade. 6th edition is behind the corner, I imagine a very busy gaming summer, and it's hard to imagine a better time to start remaking my army.

 

I’ve been collecting, painting and playing Black Templars for quite some time already, and one major failing that I have (other than consistent lack of victories), was lacking any background on my crusade. I just bought new models, painted them in a way I liked, or gave them to my friends to paint, made up squads just before the game, consisting of the models that I needed at the moment. The army looked Templarish in general, but a closer look revealed that each model was essentially on its own.

 

Obviously, this couldn’t stay. But when I started thinking about a general crusade theme, I found it hard to pinpoint some grand idea, which would serve as a core for the whole army. Codex didn’t help much, because crusades generally form on spot, and after the aim of the crusade was fulfilled, the Templars move on, forming new crusades. As tempting an idea of repainting the army anew before every game is, I can hardly afford it. So I needed something that will stand. A grand crusade lasting a vast series of battles, or maybe some quest, like the quest for Grail of the knights of old. Not a simple %Name% Crusade to conquer %Name% world.

 

Then I realized that the answer I was looking for was right before my eyes. The thing is that as a collector, I just can’t pass an opportunity to get some new miniatures, even if I have no need of them. And over the course of a few years, I got myself quite a number of different hand-downs (some were gifted to me, some I bought from previous owners when they went on to another army). They were painted in their own way (sometimes a very bizarre way, I must add I’ll post photos as soon as I have a decent camera) and generally were a ready unit or a combination of units.

 

So I thought, what happens to the Templars, when their crusade gets destroyed? They may not necessary fail their vow, but what if after defending a city only a handful of marines are left standing? Or some folks get stranded on a planet, only to know later that their crusade was destroyed or moved on as a new crusade? Normally they would repaint their crusade markings and join some new crusade. But if that is not an option for some reason? If the said Templars can’t find a fighting company for themselves, or were considered dead and replaced, or feel that they still have some unfulfilled vow to bear? We get a number of left-overs who refuse to die or to melt into some greater crusade, but can’t fight on their own. What is their option? To die alone fighting some threat much like Slayers of Warhammer Fantasy, or they can team up together, fight under one banner bearing the memory of their former lives and still crusading in the name of the Emperor.

 

Enter the Remnant Crusade or Cruciata Residuum (I would be glad if someone corrects my rusty latin).

 

‘Remnant’ term comes from the Bible and suits the idea perfectly. The main theme and mood of the crusade is pretty close to the Legion of the Damned – those who were considered dead or lost return to fight once more, refusing to give up and die. There is place for endurance and fortitude, as those in the crusade defied death itself and they will never back down easily (or ever). Of course, penitence will play a great role, as the Templars of the crusade have failed, even if their only failure was to fail to die when the rest of their crusade did. I should be careful not to cross the Unforgiven territory here, so I imagine that this deep sense of guilt fuels the zeal of the Templars, forcing them to even greater heights of valor (if that’s possible), but not brooding, wearing hoods and hunting their own. And, of course, faith. As these remnants couldn’t have survived by luck or chance. There was some greater meaning to their survival, a role yet to play for each, devised by the Emperor, in whose name and by whose mercy they continue to fight on.

 

The core of the Crusade will be a Marshal and a short number of his surviving brethren, who suffered some grave defeat or sustained heavy casualties (I still have to come up with some equally tragic and heroic story, which will probably involve Space Wolves, as they are my regular opponent). Despite all odds, the said managed to survive, but when he returned to the chapter command, he found out, that he was considered dead and his crusade lost. He was offered the option of stepping down from marshaling crusades and joining some other crusade as an honored brethren (castellan maybe) or trying to rebuild his crusade. The Marshal chooses the latter for a multitude of reasons, some of which are his pride, some – knowing that the stigma of lost crusade will follow him, birthing superstition and mistrust, and some because he doesn’t want the memory of his fallen comrades to fade into history. Finding a new bunch of recruits fast enough to mount a crusade proves difficult, so the Marshal is forced to recruit those like himself – remnants of the lost crusades. At first he searches for them himself, but in time the news spread, and new remnants flow to his banner without Marshal’s intent. At this point the crusade takes up its name, as it is obvious that no single crusade name will be suitable for this force.

 

Now, leaving fluff behind, I want each squad to bear a distinct marking, so that it will be clear that ‘this plasmagunman is with this lascannonguy, and no other’. In a codex-compliant chapter that would be pretty easy, but Templars do not care for Codex, and a highly individualistic in my view. So each one will bear his own marks, his own vows, his own trophies. Still, I need some subtle but easily spotted marking, like the colour of the shoulder trim or squad number for the codex chapters. I’m a bit at a loss here, to be honest. Obviously, I need some colour-mark for each squad, but I can’t come up with a good addition. Not all models have knee-pads to paint them, and they are not always visible. What other parts of the armour can be painted so that the squad looks as a fighting unit?

 

I’ll be using red visors for melee units, and blue visors for fire support units, to make a distinction. Also I plan to have melee squads wear tabards, while bolter guys and weapon specialists will have none. That’s made for pure modeling reasons – I feel bad painting a cross on the tabard only to hide it behind a bolter.

 

Army-wide I’ll be using Terran Crusade banner and crusade markings, as I just like the irony of the story. Imperial Fists, first they build a fortress on Terra that no Traitor forced could conquer, and then they sieged and took it themselves centuries later. I’ll probably use different crusade marks on some units, to underline that these particular Templars hold the memory of their previous crusade, but I don’t want to make a habit of it.

 

I think that’s all for the intro. Hopefully I’ll be able to take some photos of the army on Sunday, and then I’ll start assembling the force in earnest.

[Arthanor]

Very cool idea, coming from way out in the left field but somehow still very relevant. I really like it! I'm looking forward to more development.

 

A few comments and thoughts about your questions:

 

Crusade name: It's a cool name and very humble but maybe a bit too humble? I could see templars from other crusades calling it that, proud of their crusade having a specific goal and achieving it. But the crusade calling itself the remnants? It's sounds a bit sad and unwanted. Have you considered vestige? It also is something left behind, but has a connotation of age instead. "The Vestigium Crusade" also has a good rythm to me. Then they could be more what is left after the crusade has ended, and less the unwanted ones. They are the vestiges, the only ones left to hold to their vows of vengeance for their brethren or death for their ennemies. They stand apart from other crusades because they decided to, not because they got rejected. The guilt aspect then can come solely from not having accomplished whatever they wanted to do yet, for taking so long that the crusade ended. But they don't give up, they are not weak. They will go down kicking and they will try until they die or accomplish their tasks. This way, it is far from the Unforgiven type of guilt of feeling dirty for failing.

 

Red/Blue visors: Are they necessary if you already have the distinction by who wears tabards and who doesn't? I'm not convinced on the look of colored visors beyond white and metal, but I'm more than willing to be surprised! Pics! :blush:

 

Crusade banner: You like the Terran Crusade, so that's a good argument for using its banner. That being said, it is one of the highlights of our chapter, they saved Terra from traitors along the IF, so I doubt any relic or banner from then would have been abandonned and made it to your crusade. It would likely be displayed with high honor in the recclusiam of the Eternal Crusader. Your crusade is very special, I think it deserves its own banner. Maybe one incorporating many different templar crosses, all with different edge and field colors, symbolizing that it is a collection of templars from other crusades, not a unified one. Maybe a banner that incorporates elements from multiple crusade banners. The tau head from Nimbosa, the ork skull from Armageddon, the skeleton in a cage of Lastrati, the fallen demon of Vinculus, (or other symbols for you to design) all heaped as a collection of marks from all the crusades that templars of your crusade used to belong to. Just a few ideas to make you stand out even more!

 

Squad identification/Crusade badges: It seems to me like the two could go together. How do you identify squads? These guys come from this crusade, those guys from that crusade, simple! If they feel too attached to their crusade to join another one, what is the difference with yours? Why would they erase their crusade badge and paint a new one over? Especially another old crusade. At least ongoing crusades give you a new purpose, an old one asks you to give up your markings and gives you nothing in return. Your crusade is different, it accepts them as the last brothers of their crusade, maybe it even fights to complete the vows that they have take and won't give up. That's why they come. Templars from a given crusade would be likely to band together on the battle field, from experience, the bond forged during their crusade and while traveling together after it. It would explain paint schemes similarities inside the squad if they all come from the same original owner too and the disparities between the squads, as they come from different crusades. You could make small squads who are the last survivors of a crusade, or larger ones who were left behind after their crusade got disbanded. Crusade badges are fairly easy to invent, so you could make some up after you run out of the main ones if you have many squads.

 

All suggestions, you have a great starting point! I hope I at least give you some "thought fuel", I know you gave me some B)

[Mystech1]

I also like the idea of your crusade as well as it's name, although to me the name indicates a crusade to seek out and find a place for the remnant brothers of fallen crusades. A noble cause in and of itself. To expand upon this theme, it would be entirely feasible to take up the causes of those remnant crusaders. In essence picking up the pieces of other crusades and banding together, using that combined strength to complete that which was left undone. Thus providing your brothers with a constant, self procreating, and endless crusade on which to embark.

 

I'm with Arthanor on the red and blue visors. Unusual, but I am curious to see how it will turn out.

 

As for squad identification, I use colored weapon casings to denote my squads. As the weapon is usually the most visible part of a model it makes for easy recognition. It also leaves room for the rest of the armor to incorporate the colors, markings, and badges of a previous crusade. Bolter and chainsword casings are also easy to paint should the need to be changed at any time.

 

A noble cause brother, I look forward to seeing more.

[Smirnov]

Moving in and unpacking took longer than I thought, so I was a bit late with taking first photos. Here they are at last.

 

I tried to catch the whole army in one shot, but that was tough. That was the best I could get (and sorry for the quality of the pics. I don't have a good camera now)

 

To be honest, that's not everything I got. There is one more disassembled Rhino, three speeders, one of them tempest, one more Predator still in it's box and Drop Pod somewhere, I couldn't find them now. Probably there are some marines too, I'm not sure. The last time I counted the points, it was around 6K points, but that was before the second 'Fellblade' and about a third part of the bodies were added. Didn't count any points now.

 

As I mentioned, there are some models bought, assembled and painted by me, my wife or my friends, but also quite a number of models that I 'inherited' or exchanged for something. I'll go into details about each squad or unit when I get to them, but for starters I'll give some highlights. general impressions so to say.

 

This is my Champion. One of the first painted model in the crusade and one of the first for us. I was very proud of him back in the time. Now he looks a bit shabby.

 

 

Still, he is the real hero of the crusade. He dies almost every game, but not before doing something heroic. In my first tournament game he killed a full squad of Space Wolves, their Wolf Lord on a bike and finally succumbed only to a dreadnought after a few rounds of combat. Afterwards he did equally heroic and deadly things. Between all Eldrads killed by him (eldar really hate his S6 power sword) his grandest move was to kill two Wraith Lords in a single round of combat. He was the last man standing at the moment, but that roll of double 6-s to wound was epic.

 

 

This dreadnought is also one of my first models, one that I'm still proud of. He's nothing fansy, but very solid, considering it was the first model I assembled and painted (got some help with crusade shields).

 

 

He is the proud veteran of Terran crusade as it's seen on his lascannon. I'm going to make all Dreadnoughts survivor of those turbulent days, their ancient visdom guiding the crusade to this day onward.

 

I have some finished squads, one of them being two terminator squads.

 

These are my veterans, first terminators to be painted, part of them are old, part were painted recently to match the vets. I really liked the blue look of the weapons despite not having anything else blue in my colour scheme.

(Unfortunately the focus on the camera was bitchy the day I took these photos. I'll redo them as soon as I get a decent camera)

 

 

This squad was painted as a command squad before the Cyclon patch, so they have assault cannons. The idea was to teleport on the field, unload all the shooting and hope that nothing survives. Note the kneeling terminator. It took me some hours to make the pose.

 

 

Speaking of terminators, here is one inherited squad, with chaos warriors' helmets from Fantasy. It's a common move. I know, but they really look good together. A squad ready to go. (They may be my next vow for ETL)

 

 

 

Now, these were good conversions, and then there are... strange ones. For example this guy:

 

 

Looks perfectly fine but the tabard. I'm pretty sure there are some talks in the crusade about him like

- Hey, brother, who is that guy in blue robe?

- Oh, we call him bob. He's not the talkative type. Never heard him talk actually. Or remove the helmet. Or eat for the matter. But he shoots that plasma damn good, so we are not asking any questions.

 

Personally I think his name is Alpharius.

 

Still, he IS really good at what he does. During the last game he survived the charge of fenrisian wolves (alone, which was a bit disturbing), got to the transport and moved to contest one of the counters, which in the end brought me victory, and on his way he shot dead an annoying Rune Priest, who's been teleporting on my nerves the whole game/

 

 

But he is not even close in bizarreness to some other models I found. Like this one squad of Captain Rainbow, no less:

(I can swear the murky focus is a good thing here)

 

 

Of course, there a other heroes in the crusade (Which is big story for me, as I'm really a rather bad player).

For example, this Neophyte:

 

This humble fellow went on top of two squads of fenrisian wolves, remaining the last man standing on the table, after which he scored my marker, which resulted in a draw in a three way game between my Templars, Space Wolves and Iron Hands (I was pretty much squished in that game from both sides. So not getting tabled by one model was success). I'm pretty sure He'll be a marshal one day.

 

 

That's the standard bearer. I really like the standard, courtesy of my friends. The model was painted for three years, so some parts are rough. The standard, of course, is the latest addition.

 

 

Getting back to colour scheme and distinguishing between squads.

Here are two marines, one melee guy and one shooty guy (don't mind the tabard). Red and blue visors together for comparison.

 

We experimented a lot on different markings, and this sword-happy fellow was one of the results:

He still need to get some purity seals on that trophy chainsword taken from some Iron Warrior.

 

I totally forgot to tell you about bases. Here is one good example:

 

The idea is Davin-style planet and fight. The crusade lands in a half-destroyed chapel on a marshy world. As soon as they land, undead start appearing right under the feet of marines. They fall to the chapel ready to make their final stand, but letting the abominations to get to the sacred and uncorrupted relics in the chapels.

So, Troop choices are standing in the nurglemarch (we paint the bases Rotting Flesh) with plague zombies and daemons coming from beneath. Elites and heroes are making a stand on the chapel floor, so there will be some crumbling stone and marsh. I wanted to make some models standing in the fog, but unfortunately all variants I found are good for dioramas, but not for gaming models.

 

 

Oh, and one last thing. I like to make real stroies of the models into their in-game history. For example, you may have noticed a vindicator with red dozers. Thу vehicle haв a long route to my crusade. It first it was an Iron Hands tank and painted as such. The player gifted it to the Blood Angels player, who immediately base-coloured it red. Of course the machine-spirit was furious with this, and the tank stopped shooting. It couldn't land a hit, it broke in difficult terrain, it didn't make cover saves and so on. At that point i was going to try a tri-vindicator list, and the Blood Angels player, my friend, gave that vindicator to me. At first to run for the game, but than he said i could keep it, as it's no good to him. I painted it black again, but left the door with the Hands sign red. It will be half red, half black with the heraldry of both Hands and Angels to honour the heritage of the tank and to please the machine spirit. I hope it'll soothe him enough so that it starts shooting straight.

 

That's all for the general look of the army. A starting point. I'll get to answering the post in short time, and also will start progress on the first squad as soon as possible.

[Arthanor]

What a collection!! I can't quite believe that that's "only" 6k!

 

Nice variety of models too. Smarties marines were funny, as was bob ;) Quite a storied vindicator too! I wish I had such "saga" for my models. Good luck with the machine spirit!

 

The visors (I would call them eye lenses, I thought you meant the whole faceplate) look quite good and the power weapon effect of that marine is sharp!

 

Very cool to see! (another 15 minutes distracted from my crusade expansion..!)

[Honda]

I just love the background of your crusade. It has all the elements for some excellent modeling and painting opportunities and the concept is very unique.

 

Crusade banner: You like the Terran Crusade, so that's a good argument for using its banner. That being said, it is one of the highlights of our chapter, they saved Terra from traitors along the IF, so I doubt any relic or banner from then would have been abandonned and made it to your crusade. It would likely be displayed with high honor in the recclusiam of the Eternal Crusader. Your crusade is very special, I think it deserves its own banner. Maybe one incorporating many different templar crosses, all with different edge and field colors, symbolizing that it is a collection of templars from other crusades, not a unified one. Maybe a banner that incorporates elements from multiple crusade banners. The tau head from Nimbosa, the ork skull from Armageddon, the skeleton in a cage of Lastrati, the fallen demon of Vinculus, (or other symbols for you to design) all heaped as a collection of marks from all the crusades that templars of your crusade used to belong to. Just a few ideas to make you stand out even more!

 

As far as the crusade banner goes, I thought Arthanor's idea was just brilliant and I do think you need your own banner.

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing your crusade develop.

 

Cheers,

[Arthanor]

I'll still stand by the idea of this crusade deserving it's own banner design but, having said that, the banner from the Terran crusade is something to be proud of, very nice of your friends to do that! so it makes a lot of sense to use that too. Maybe use two, since your crusade is a collection of crusaders?

[Smirnov]

Finally got myself some time to answer everyone in full thought. Thanks for all responses and feedback, I'm really grateful for that!

 

Crusade name: It's a cool name and very humble but maybe a bit too humble? I could see templars from other crusades calling it that, proud of their crusade having a specific goal and achieving it. But the crusade calling itself the remnants? It's sounds a bit sad and unwanted. Have you considered vestige? It also is something left behind, but has a connotation of age instead. "The Vestigium Crusade" also has a good rythm to me. Then they could be more what is left after the crusade has ended, and less the unwanted ones. They are the vestiges, the only ones left to hold to their vows of vengeance for their brethren or death for their ennemies. They stand apart from other crusades because they decided to, not because they got rejected. The guilt aspect then can come solely from not having accomplished whatever they wanted to do yet, for taking so long that the crusade ended. But they don't give up, they are not weak. They will go down kicking and they will try until they die or accomplish their tasks. This way, it is far from the Unforgiven type of guilt of feeling dirty for failing.

Names are my weak spot. It took me so much time to come up with the name 'Brennor' for my Marshal, and than I had to invent a cool-sounding crusade name.

I wanted something along the lines of revenant, crow-style, like someone coming back from the dead to end some unfinished business, minus the death stylistics (leave that to the legion of the damned). 'Remnants' came from the Bible as the literal 'what remains of a lost tribe', with a strong meaning that in due time those remnants will get what is theirs, they will see justice.

But 'Vestiges' sound good, I can't deny that. I'll think about it, will try to feel both variants on the tongue, so to say.

 

 

As for squad identification, I use colored weapon casings to denote my squads. As the weapon is usually the most visible part of a model it makes for easy recognition. It also leaves room for the rest of the armor to incorporate the colors, markings, and badges of a previous crusade. Bolter and chainsword casings are also easy to paint should the need to be changed at any time.

Great idea! Weapons are distinctive, playing with their colour will give me a lot of options.

 

 

Crusade banner: You like the Terran Crusade, so that's a good argument for using its banner. That being said, it is one of the highlights of our chapter, they saved Terra from traitors along the IF, so I doubt any relic or banner from then would have been abandonned and made it to your crusade. It would likely be displayed with high honor in the recclusiam of the Eternal Crusader. Your crusade is very special, I think it deserves its own banner. Maybe one incorporating many different templar crosses, all with different edge and field colors, symbolizing that it is a collection of templars from other crusades, not a unified one. Maybe a banner that incorporates elements from multiple crusade banners. The tau head from Nimbosa, the ork skull from Armageddon, the skeleton in a cage of Lastrati, the fallen demon of Vinculus, (or other symbols for you to design) all heaped as a collection of marks from all the crusades that templars of your crusade used to belong to. Just a few ideas to make you stand out even more!

 

Yes, I'm definitely getting my own crusade heraldry and iconography. I've been thinking about banners though. Those present in the Codex seem clearly post-crusade - for one thing, it depicts the enemy vanquished, and I'm sure that sometimes the crusade is not well aware whom they will be fighting against at the start of the crusade. So, my idea is that maybe crusade banners are made after the crusade, as a commemoration the former victories - after all, Templars scratch off previous crusade badges when they go on a new one, so having a banner depicting particular victory is reasonable. That's what I'm planning to do - I'll try to have some banners with different crusades depicted on them, first is Terran, the second will probably be Armageddon Crusade as it goes now.

 

As for my crusade, I need three different images. First one is big banner, namely 'Fighting Company Banner' or 'Crusade Banner'. Pretty much the regular banner we see in command squads. As for Crusade Banner, I'm still thinking about that, it should be like those banners depicted in Codex or like new Grey Knights banner. Haven't got any decent ideas yet, so it'll have to wait. Fighting Company banner is, as I understand it, the banner of Castellan leading the company. His personal coat, for example. I decided that I won't use a fancy banner for each company, these banners will be a variation of general crusade badge with added personal iconography of the castellan in question. Second type is the small banner that marines carry on their backpacks. Pretty easy here, it will be the same as Castellans' with some added symbols. The last one is the small shiled painted on the armour of each marine. It is small, so it has to be rather simple without elaborate images and lines.

 

First of all, I need the basic colours for the shield, and I also want the badge to look like a real coat of arms. That said, the first thing I did was to violate the main rule - no colour on colour or metal on metal. For the shield I took the arms of real-world Templars - per fess sable (black) and argent (silver/white), a cross gules (red), changing sable part to or (gold). That's what I got in the end:

 

 

This shield gives me four fields, where I can paint additional symbols, make it Castellans' one or give each squad their symbol, from the previous crusade, maybe.

For larger variants, one on banner, for example, I'll change regular cross for templar cross.

 

 

The visors (I would call them eye lenses, I thought you meant the whole faceplate) look quite good and the power weapon effect of that marine is sharp!

Eye lenses, of course. Sometimes not being native english-speaker takes it toll :)

[Sir_Isenhar]

What a collection I must say!

 

I really like the terminators as well...

 

I hope you have Time to paint the Cestus assault ram at some point.. Looks like a super nice model!

 

How has it performed for you?

[Smirnov]

Cestus is my bane. I have a lot of trouble assembling it (as you can notice, one wing is missing at the moment). I think i made mistakes during initial assembly, so i'll be stripping it down and assembling again before painting it.

 

And i haven't used it with the new rules (those from IAA2) - they made it too expensive for regular play. With the experimental rules it was very good against Marines.

[Smirnov]

With ETL coming to the end, I have some free time to concentrate on the army again. Can't say it will be a lot and fast - I'll probably be revisiting my CSM army as soon as the codex comes out, and also I'm kind of still undecided on what turn I should make with the new edition and should I wait for the new codex before I start a major rebuild of the force. So for the time being I'll be doing the parts of the force that will hardly change (like tanks, I may not use them as much, but they will stay the same) or those I'm going to use in the upcoming battles.

 

When I built my army first time, I had no plan or structure or even at least a semi-solid roster. I just took models I liked, model that were considered good and models that came with the previous two and got them together. This time I'm going to do everything right. It may slow me a little, but I'll get a consistent force, which is worth all the trouble.

 

So, where do I start? To me Space Marines in general and Black Templars in particular were always heroes. We are knights first and foremost, crusaders second and soldiers third. There is a certain heroic feel to it, each Templar is a hero in its own. Not every one gets to be a marshal, but every single one strives to be one. So the force starts with it's leaders. After all, the crusade - this crusade at least - started with a marshal, his brethren and spiritual leaders of the force to be. Then I'll be moving down the 'line' to the very last neophyte, but that's a long way from here. Now - the leaders.

 

I'm still undecided about my Marshal - I have quite a number of different commander miniatures, TDA and PA ones, but still can't find the one I'm happy with, especially with the changes 6th brought to power weapons. I don't want to give him a Hammer or Fist - it just doesn't look right. During the 5th I was using lightning claws - not so fluffy, but they were too good to pass by. Now I'm thinking of getting my Marshal a sword - a weapon as much as a symbol, but regular power swords are crap and we can't get relics now. So while I'm still looking for the best load-out for the Marshal, I turned to the other leaders, the spiritual leaders. Chaplains.

 

I'm already fielding my Master of Sanctity in a solo challenge on the forum, so starting with him is a good idea.

Behold, Master of Sanctity Albrecht Buxthoeven.

 

The name comes from bishop Albert of Riga, the one who founded the city as it is today, converted most of Baltic to Christianity and was one to found the order of Brothers of the Sword (or Sword Brethren). I tweaked the name a little, so that it's a homage, not direct copying, as many GW authors do, and he became Albrecht. Which instantly reminded me about Albrecht Durer. And from his surname came the nickname for Albrecht - The Gaunt.

 

As much as his historical counterpart, Master of Sanctity has a lot to do with the forming of the crusade, a story which I'll delve in when I'll be writing about the Marshal. He has the least to avenge of all the brothers in the crusade. If the crusade is a forgotten relic of the past, he is the bearer and the keeper of this relic. Virtually nothing is known about his past prior to becoming a chaplain first to the marshal and then to the crusade as a whole, and Albrecht intends to keep it this way - after all he is a symbol of Emperor, not a regular brother.

 

Being the head of the crusade's reclusiam and personal confessor to crusade's marshal, Albrecht has access to the finest arms and armour the crusade has. It includes the ancient suit of Terminator Armour, Master-Crafted Combi-plasma and a selection of power weapons to choose from in addition to his faithful crozius. In the wake of a battle he can don an adamantine mantle, which compliments the bionics replacing body parts lost in the eternal crusade.

 

Including all these item would make him cost hefty 235 points, so I'll be dropping some of the wargear for specific games, but I'm going to model everything, so I have the full wysiwyg. Also, the model looks so much better with all the stuff :(

 

That's what I got now:

 

The photo is bad, but there is really nothing to see now.

I'll model Albrecht with thunder hammer for now, while I'm getting an axe from Space Wolves box - still not decided what is a better option for him. I run solo challenge with hammer, but in a squad axe is probably better. Also, I have to cut a combi-plasma (I use my marshal's one as a reference) and put it somewhere, probably Helbrecht-style.

 

I also need to sculpt the mantle. I've seen quite a lot of self-made mantles for terminator characters, but liked none. Most of them he one flaw in common - the mantle is sculpted atop the armour and exhaust, which is just not rigth. The miniatures that come with a cloack have it under the power pack, power armor and terminator alike. Here are pictures of my first commander with mantle and Lysander who has a cloack:

 

 

 

Hopefully I'll get some further WiP pictures by the end of the week and we'll see if something good comes out of my sculpting skills ;)