IHF's Archive: Sketching the Heresy - The Manufactorum

[talos402000]

You know Lheor was originally an Apothecary, right?

[Sandlemad]

You know Lheor was originally an Apothecary, right?

 

Are you thinking of Kargos Bloodspitter? Lheor has only ever been mentioned as a former heavy support officer.

 

Great rules though, nice and understated.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

You know Lheor was originally an Apothecary, right?

 

Yeah, like Sandlemad said, pretty sure you're thinking of Kargus, Lheor was only ever a Heavy Support Centurion during the Heresy

 

 

You know Lheor was originally an Apothecary, right?

 

Are you thinking of Kargos Bloodspitter? Lheor has only ever been mentioned as a former heavy support officer.

 

Great rules though, nice and understated.

 

 

Thanks! I kinda wanted to give him a couple of cool tricks (to justify giving him a ruleset) while emphasising that during the Heresy, he's really just some guy

[talos402000]

Sandlemad, IHF, it appears you are both correct. My apologies, I misremembered  something from Talon of Horus.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

You folks remember my ideas for Knight House 'Yeomanry' a couple years back? Me too.

Large Version

[Ekim_Trub]

Love the Yeomanry idea. Instead of creating an Astra Militarum force, I had thought it would be cool to instead create a Knight House that operates as a small self-contained army.

[Dagoth Ur]

I quite like the design, particularly how well it meshes with established Imperial Knight design, but the collar/half-helmet thingy that the Claviger wears is just way too high in my opinion. It feels like the wearer would not be able to even slightly look down unless they significantly angled their torso.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Some variant concepts on yesterday's designs:

Large Version

Love the Yeomanry idea. Instead of creating an Astra Militarum force, I had thought it would be cool to instead create a Knight House that operates as a small self-contained army.

Thanks! It's certainly not unique, I've seen a few men-at-arms/ retainer forces for Knight houses springing up, I just wanted to suggest a template force

I quite like the design, particularly how well it meshes with established Imperial Knight design, but the collar/half-helmet thingy that the Claviger wears is just way too high in my opinion. It feels like the wearer would not be able to even slightly look down unless they significantly angled their torso.

Yeah it's purposefully kinda absurd, being inspired by frog-mouthed helms - I thought the baroque styling and impracticality was perfectly 40k, and in-universe, the Clavigers are armed with greatswords, so I figured having amazing visibility wouldn't be as huge a hindrance for a melee unit

[bluntblade]

I like it. I'd be curious if you had any ideas for alternative Knight heads too.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Here's the Mechanicum-aligned house iteration:

Large Version

I like it. I'd be curious if you had any ideas for alternative Knight heads too.

Honestly, FW released so many variant heads I don't really think they're necessary, although I do have quite a few unique Knight designs planned (current count is 7) and they'll all have their own style of heads?

Edited November 22, 2019 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[bluntblade]

Colour me intrigued.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Colour me intrigued.

 

Some of them are detailed in this post over on my vehicle design thread, although they are subject to change

[bluntblade]

I like those. Was a little worried you might have stolen a march on my ideas (though I doubt you've seen those) but it looks like you've been more adventurous than me. I like that Cerastus especially.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

I like those. Was a little worried you might have stolen a march on my ideas (though I doubt you've seen those) but it looks like you've been more adventurous than me. I like that Cerastus especially.

 

Thanks, the biggest changes are probably the Balescythe being jettisoned for a shield-bearing & up-armoured Armiger variant, as well as additions for a Mechanicum precursor to the Renegade Knight Desecrator (I'm also figuring out the best way to incorporate the Preceptor's las-pulsar into the Questoris range)

 

Yeah, I generally avoid other folks' homebrew stuff 'cause hobby ideas can converge in weird ways even without any cross-pollination of ideas, and I don't want to risk subconsciously appropriating other peoples' concepts

[bluntblade]

Whereas my process was "I want to give a Dominus a whacking big axe."

[Charlo]

Big love to the malinax ones

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Just a fun little tidbit - for any of you interested in my Emperor's Children sun-killers ideas a few pages back (I've spoiler tagged them below), I spotted a design that looks to be an icon for them on the new Emperor's Children transfer sheet, and I wasn't too far off (admittedly, a skull over a sun isn't much of a reach)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQMzJUuX0AM6a5u?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Picture courtesy of @TheForgeofMars on Twitter

Accidentally did some concept sketches when i was bereft of my graphics tablet & therefore had to do some traditional art - idle doodles ended up as some designs for the Emperor's Children Sun-Killer Devastators I did rules / background for a while back, really just 'cause EC armour is pretty fun to draw and it was cool to apply their styling to some MkII:

Big love to the malinax ones

Thanks! I actually gave Malinax some more love with one of the knight designs discussed above over on my other thread

Edited February 7, 2020 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Went back and did another variant of the Knight Yeomanry design for Renegade/Chaos Houses:

[Ryltar Thamior]

As has become a bit of a tradition ... I've taken a stab at bringing one of your concepts to plastic-and-resin life - and so felt it only right to post a picture of my efforts in yer thread.



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 your production, at any rate] 

Now, you 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 ... I didn't really have any other easily available 'serpentine' parts for it [the Dark Elf Corsair banner-topper is around here *somewhere*] , so in the lack of one in the art you produced, I just went with the rather obvious cobra [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' your original design with a scaled cloak, because dapper. And also because it actually makes my method of truescaling [pun .. retroactively intended] rather easier . 

Anyway ... you produced that fine piece of conceptry some five and a half years ago. It's aged really well, and I'm surprised nobody - that I could find - had taken a stab at a 'Redactor' or a 'Censor' sooner. 

I felt like after all the work you've done bringing life to various corners of the 30k milieu that it'd be cool to join the ranks of those who've come back to show that it's ... well, it's had a real-world impact, so to speak. 

I might actually go through some of your old work [would be cool if you could make it easier to access and browse by putting it all up on your blog] and try a few more things like this. The fact you explicitly based the most iconic part [the mask] off an established range part and prominently signposted what it was .. made this a lot easier, too. 

Churr! 

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Wow Ryltar, that's really neat to see, bit of a blast from the past too!

 

Regarding compiling designs, the blog's pretty much defunct now, I can't imagine I'll really be using it a whole lot going forwards, and even though I wanted it to be a place to showcase stuff that had been completely finalised, there's even content on there now that I don't consider part of my current design portfolio.

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

So I'm currently working on a proof-of-concept supplement, and as I've already got rules and art for Lheor, it's for the World Eaters! Anyway, remember this?

On 7/28/2016 at 8:16 PM, Iron Hands Fanatic said:

WORLD EATERS MARAUDER SUPPORT SQUAD & DIMACHAERI TERMINATORS:

The marauders are the re-named subjugators from earlier in the thread, the idea being they're anti-infantry specialists, responsible for 'mopping up' after the main Legion charge - they can have flamers / plasma guns / volkite calivers / sarum-pattern rotor cannon (shoulder fired rotor cannon with pinning & rending). The Dimachaeri are the tip of the spear for the WE, they form part of the first wave responsible for causing enough damage for slower elements to arrive - weapons wise, I remembered that Calgar's fists of maccrage were supposed to be from a khorne champion, and I loved the idea that the WE armoury modified tartaros power fists / lightning claws with bolter weapons integrated to suit their need for melee combat (plus there was some artwork of a tartaros termie with such weapons I love but have been utterly incapable of finding again). They'll be normal twin LCs with a twin-linked 18" assault 1 boltgun, with options being swapping the bolters for TL hand flamers / inferno pistols, or exchanging one LC for a power fist / chain fist.

Apologies for the quality of the scan, the paper had a slight tea stain which is fine for sketching, but makes greyscale scanning go crazy apparently.

They're in the midst of a *slight* update:

And to give you an idea of the kind of standards I want to meet with the artwork for this project, here's a recent portrait commission I just finished:

Edited October 23, 2022 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

So I've finalised the Dimachaerii art & profile as a sort of 'proof of concept' for the kind of work I'd like to do with this stuff moving forward:

 

You can grab the rules PDF here

 

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

So I mentioned over on the vehicle design thread that I'm going through the process of breaking down my unit concepts into 'supplements' of thematically linked units that can be compiled together alongside some custom stuff like generic wargear upgrades, Rites of War, Warlord Traits, etc.

 

For the Legion specific stuff, this looks like each Legion getting a supplement that contains 5 Legion-specific units, a Consul (if they don't already have one), a new Rite of War, a named Character, a Warlord Trait table and additional wargear/ generic unit upgrades.

 

So as part of this process I've also been collating my various ruleset ideas for each unit, so I thought I'd come and share a rough outline of an odd unit here and there as I go, so to start off:

 

 

ALPHA LEGION HIERARCH COHORT:

 

• These are extremely ornately armoured 'honour guards', with carved armour in a similar style to Autillon Skorr's helm/ breastplate, but all over - their general purpose is as a diversionary elite, they conduct highly visible attacks/ defend key positions to allow other Alpha Legion units to enact surprise attacks/ flanking manoeuvres - also operate as a 'public face' of the Legion in honour guards for high-ranking officers, many known Alpha Legion commanders bear components of Hierarch plate indicating they were once a member of such units
• (0-1) Elites choice, can be taken in place of a command squad (one Hierarch gets a Legion Standard in this case)
• 5-15 Hierarchs, each has 2 Attacks and comes with Artificer Armour, Boarding Shield, Krak Grenades & Venom Spheres, a Volkite Serpenta and a Phase Spear
• Phase Spear is based off Alpharius' weapon/ Xenos tech - profile is S: User, AP: 3, Type: Melee, Murderous Strike, Rending, Specialist Weapon, Heft (-1 Initiative)
• The entire squad can swap their Boarding shield for a Combat Shield and Power Dagger (relatively pricey upgrade)
• The squad Leader (Hierarch Primus?) can swap their Phase Spear for a Thunder Hammer & their Serpenta for a Plasma/ Archaeotech Pistol
• Entire squad has Fearless and Implacable Advance, can take a Nuncio-Vox
• Unit gets an additional special rule where shooting attacks made at other Legiones Astartes: Alpha Legion units with at least one model within 12" of the Hierarchs require a Leadership test or are reduced to Snap Shots (as long as shooting unit has LoS to Hierarchs)

Edited September 11, 2020 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Ryltar Thamior]

Excellent call viz. the Hierarch Cohort. 

I've often had people say that XXth legion units or characters that are clearly, obviously Alpha Legion are a contradiction in terms - as in, that if you can see them, and see they're Alpha Legion, that somebody's doing something wrong ... To which I've generally replied that if you can see them, and see they're Alpha Legion, that probably means *they want you to*. And that they're there as a seriously shiny distraction (carnifex) for drawing your attention from all the Alpha Legion you *can't* see, who are probably elsewhere. 

I see where you're going with the Phase Spear concept - one possibility (that might make it easier on those of us who occasionally attempt to model your creations :P ) may be to go instead of down the direct visual recollection of Alpharius' Pale Spear .. to make the 'phase' element more prominent by drawing from the Necron-style Xenophase blade on the Deathwatch sprue. After all - we know from The Serpent Beneath (as well as various subsequent outings of a more contemporary nature) that the Alpha Legion have some curious command over Necron-origin technology (and are in the process of Constructing Additional Pylons). 

Also, something cool which just occurred to me is regarding the Shields - if you were going down the Greek path, a logical thing here would be a Gorgoneion device. Not just coz snakey symbolism, but also because of what a Gorgoneion actually represented in the ancient world. Both 'warding'/'protection' - and also Royal/Imperial Power. [article I wrote earlier this year touching upon the subject] , hence why ti's so frequently found on coins and such. This would go with the symbolic role of the unit as guarding Lords. 

Such a device would also obviously draw the eye , especially if it were crackling with lightning in the manner of that 'Gorgos' 'Storm-Face' IE concept. And this may help to reflect the special rule you've got in mind around reducing the shooting attacks of the foe against other Alpha Legion units to snap shots. Perhaps the serpents upon the shield-facing writhe and twist in manners that throw off the concentration and the depth-perception etc. of people looking upon them without adequate filtering [a bit of a 'petrification' in terms of psychological effect maybe] and look rather  terrifying all up.

Now whenever the Alpha Legion come up, there's always a bit of a 'contest' - in my mind at least - between the Greek aesthetics and conceptry that they're more obviously visually associated with, and the Germanic elements that Alan Bligh cunningly wove into their Black Book presentation [i have a rant about this elsewhere]. 

As applies your concept ... I did wonder whether the equipment - spears and shields - was going for a Greek style hypaspists sort of vibe. I think there's a definite thematic resonancy there. 

Although it did also occur to me that there may be potential for drawing more from the 'Germanic' style of thing - we often find Classical rulers (as well as those who sought to imitate them - King Herod is one perhaps surprising example, as of course are the later Byzantine Emperors) starting with Caesar making use of Germanic bodyguards (occasionally, specifically to guard them *from* their guards - backstabbing from the Praetorian guard etc. As the Alpha Legion fragments into infighting as the Heresy grinds on, this may become a somewhat relevant consideration for the Hierarch Cohort - protection of their Lord from their own Legion and its divided loyalties). 

If going down that route of potential inspiration to draw from, they'd keep the shields - the helmets would incorporate similarly ornate metalwork, perhaps drawing from the prominent golden brows of some Saxon helms with accompanying chainmail veil or something - or the bared teeth approach (some of the Varangians appear to have had rather impressive bearded-and-moustached faceplates); and while it would be plausible to have the spears, perhaps an option to instead equip them with hand-axes and shields as some of these latter body-guard units tended to be? 

The reasoning for this - in my head anyway - is that while a Spear is, indeed, a pretty great weapon for keeping people at arm's length and co-operating with a shield ... in tight confines and close quarters, it can become a bit cumbersome - as they require more room to maneuver, and it's possible to get inside its reach and therefore inside the wielder's guard. Which, I presume, is where the power dagger comes in. 

An axe, meanwhile, has shorter reach and arc and greater percussive force behind it; and may be more useful in cramped, close fighting (it also has some precedency in terms of Skorr's weaponry - although his is, of course, a two-handed one; the Lernaean terminator axes might also be relevant - as may be their helms/the praetor one). In terms of the Xenos phase-bade visual element - the Necron Hyperphase Sword might be a viable approach (the main point of distinction between that weapon and an axe being the significant length of the blade - something which could certainly be carried over here). 

Although on the other hand, there are already at least two axe-and-shield equipped Legion special units - Invictarus Suzerains and Phalanx Warders - so you may want to just keep to spears for the novelty/distinctiveness. 

Anyway, just a few ideas I happened to have upon reading your concept. Look forward, as ever, to see what you come up with. 

I may have to try doing one en truescale to go with the Alpha Legion chaplain-ish sort you inspired me to do awhile back; utilizing Lernaean terminator legs/bodies in order to get that 'ornate' armour look for the artificer plate. 

Keep up the good work. 
 

[The Scorpion]

 

 

 

Yeah, like Sandlemad said, pretty sure you're thinking of Kargus, Lheor was only ever a Heavy Support Centurion during the Heresy

 

 

So, an Armistos?