Iron Lions: Project Log!

[Lemainus]

Smallish update, some more footsoldiers for Malice!

 

[The Traitor]

Great to see a fellow follower of Malal, you have some inspired conversions in here! Your paint scheme isn't the traditional black and white of the Renegade God, but I guess Malal wouldn't have much problem with his followers being golden while they bring enough destruction in his name!

[Naryn]

Wow, very clever conversions. I'm not sure about the Wood Elf (?) helms, but the Warp Talons heads on the two mêlée fighters look great. That first guy in particular is very Blanchian, I can't get enough of that look. What's next for these guys? I can't help but think that Autilon Skore's head would fit their aesthetic well.

[Lemainus]

Great to see a fellow follower of Malal, you have some inspired conversions in here! Your paint scheme isn't the traditional black and white of the Renegade God, but I guess Malal wouldn't have much problem with his followers being golden while they bring enough destruction in his name!

 

The gold will make sense as more fluff gets written, I promise! These guys are old - very old - and gold was all the rage back then. 

 

I do try to, instead of the quartered black and white, just do halves. White side definitely being all smashed to pieces and cracked, worn down, busted, ragged, more brown than anything anymore. 

[Lemainus]

Wow, very clever conversions. I'm not sure about the Wood Elf (?) helms, but the Warp Talons heads on the two mêlée fighters look great. That first guy in particular is very Blanchian, I can't get enough of that look. What's next for these guys? I can't help but think that Autilon Skore's head would fit their aesthetic well.

Thank you! I've had fun converting them. It started as an aesthetic but it's actually helping me build their story, which I find amusing. Form deciding function. I'm usually a rule of cool guy and these are no exception... and it led me down the correct path, I think. :]

 

As for the wood elf helms, I definitely chose them because they're 

 

A: weird

 

B: I've never seen them on marines before

 

and I very much wanted my Malice/Malal force to strike people as... not just chaos bits with black and white paint. I want them to look different. Feel different. Familiar but apart, somehow. Like, any loyalist that saw one would know in his bones it was both a force of evil, and also a warband he'd never seen or heard of before. 

Edited August 14, 2017 by Lemainus

[Lemainus]

 

Eye Guy Complete! His black robes photographed really matte. There's more depth to them than that. Couldn't figure it out.

 

I still think he's suitably creepy.

[Draakur]

Yaaayyyy

 

Still in love with this aesthetic - working on my own Sigmarines here. This new batch are looking lovely. Keep up the good work :tu:

[Lemainus]

Thanks for your kind words, as always!

 

Things are about to get weird... stay tuned!

[Lemainus]

I've been so stoked to finally paint this sculpt. I always looked at the price tag and said "...maybe later..." and I just bit the bullet a few months ago, ordered the sumbitch, and HE IS AMAZING. WOO! Usually I paint in the order in which I am constructing my narrative, but this month is HQ Month in Tale of Hobbyists... and I got super carried away and just... painted him immediately when the task was at hand. 9AM-2PM and I am pleased to say that I think he came out how I wanted him to!

 

  Adarhormazd, Chapter Master of the Iron Lions!

 

  

  Adarhormazd has served as Chapter Master for the Iron Lions for centuries. His armor pays homage to the Primarch of their Progenitors, the Lion himself, the namesake of the warriors under his command. He hunts the Fallen alongside his marines, striding into war and offering up Redemption and Deliverance for the traitors he leaves broken in his wake. Indeed, both were relics of the Dark Angels armory - the golden blade is Redemption, and the shotgun he wields is Deliverance. Gifts, on the day he ascended the dias and took his place as Chapter Master, having proven himself worthy over decades of hunting the Fallen, and leading several splinter Crusades against the forces of Chaos.

 

  Inscrutable, thoughtful, fiery, willful - these are words remembrancers will carve onto his rock. 

[Lemainus]

Annnnnd there's a cat hair on his sword. lmao can't unsee it

[Lemainus]

  The open portals hung in the air, bleeding fel energies into realspace. Through them, Vjka and those with him at the vanguard peered curiously through, gunline and shieldwalls at the ready, awaiting a forthcoming attack. None came. The visage of the realm beyond the thresholds of the portals was swathed in shimmering indigo, silent and still. Stillness. Stillness was the wrong word, somehow. It was still like the moments between lightning and hearing thunder - still like an assassin waiting to strike, still like death. The swirling purples faded to black along the horizon - looking deeper into the lands beyond, one saw no stars in the otherworldly sky. Only darkness.

 

  ++Auspex detects no incoming threats.++

 

  ++Seconded.++

 

  ++Aye.++

 

  Reports from Inquisitorial scouting teams that made planetfall during the last of our battle here are reporting mass suicides like the one we witnessed here. Vjka was inundated with psychic updates; he dissemenated the information amongst the Iron Lions as best he could, bionics clicking and cogitators whirring as he processed streams of data from all corners of the globe. These monsters did not simply drive a city to madness. They killed the populace of the planet. Coverage is nowhere near final, but every report and vision I am given from my fellows show the same thing. Psychic fire, residue, streets and courtyards choked with bodies, throats all slit. Only two survivors so far, and they are Blanks.

 

 ++Two survivors on the entirety of the Forgeworld?++

 

  ++Blanks are rare, but two in billions...++

 

  ++There must be others.++

 

  Ah. He's arrived.

 

 The sonic scream of drop pods couldn't be heard within the Hush; Vjka felt the mind of the Chapter Master, his determination, his confusion, his anger and guilt. He was making planetfall. The pods crashed into the courtyard at regular intervals, doors falling open to reveal 1st Company Terminators, the Chapter Master, his Apothecaries, personal retinue and command squad. Two dozen of the Emperor's finest, all told. Resplendent in traditional bone white armor of Dark Angels veterans, as was the custom of their proginetors, the Iron Lions wore bronze deathmasks instead of traditional Terminator helms. Vjka reached out, but could not immediately establish his voice in their minds - they were fiercely shrouded against psychic attack and the warp beyond. He gestured, instead, at his helmet and head, then the lips behind his mask - hoping to convey that one would have to communicate with minds instead of mouths.

 

+Inquisitor.+

 

Chapter Master.

 

+You were here for the battle, no? Apprise me. I wish to be briefed and strike fierce, whilst these portals remain open.+

 

 ...Are you sure that is wise, Adarhormazd? We know not what lies beyond.

 

+We know heretics that killed a Forgeworld lie beyond. All else is superfluous. Besides, you have touched these gates. They will persist. You feel it, no? The power in them? The otherness beyond? We cannot simply wait for them to close. They will not.+

 

I feel it, yes.

 

+So we must venture forth, strike this vile pocket realm down, and glean a way to return.+

 

Your files said you were a direct sort of man. 

 

+Direct is a vast understatement.+

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

As the troops reorganized and prepared to sally forth, the portals, too, adapted and changed. As if to be more accommodating. All Iron Lions able to be mustered were present; those seconded to the Dark Angels, or involved in ongoing crusades, were not summoned - for the future of the Chapter, in case none who went in came out. Six hundred Space Marines, an Inquisitorial cohort, a handful of Deathwatch. That's all that could be mustered to step through the gate. One hundred and fifty men for each portal.

 

  You're going to say you've faced worse odds, but it's a lie.

 

 +The Emperor Protects.+

 

NOT HERE. NOT ANYMORE.

 

 

[StormLion]

Where oh where did you get that lions head you placed on his gorgeous shoulder? I need it!

[Lemainus]

Believe it or not, that sculpt is 100% stock. I did nothing, bought nothing, converted nothing. It's just a hell of a marvelous mini.

 

http://www.sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?group=170

[Draakur]

Really cool seeing that mini made use of. Can understand putting it off because of the price tag, but it's one of those things where you just go all out as a once off I think. You did the mini a service - he's come up great :tu: Its a perfect choice for a Chapter Master.

 

While it's the Chaotic side of your project I'm most in love with, still a great update dude. I hold little hopes for the Iron Lions here, venturing into those portals is madness itself!

[StormLion]

Whelp, I know what I'm buying next

[Lemainus]

Right?! They have *so many cool sculpts*!! I saw the Lion Warrior motif and I knew that my most important IC would have to be one of their pieces. It was a blast to work with, and I was honestly so motivated by it that I sat down, and start to finish knocked him out in an afternoon. Because... it felt like I had something special in my hands. You know? It's a purchase you won't regret!

 

Small Update:

 

Ahvi protects the bridge leading to the Old King... but the Old King is no slouch himself:

 

 

The Old King sits atop a cursed throne, deep in the Killed City. A city not founded by him, built by the hands of creatures outside our cycle. The Truth invades the sight of all who would claim the throne - though it always begs to

question... does the throne change the sight of the man who sits upon it, or do Kings just see what they want to see?

 

 

A powerful man is nothing without foresight. Though the city he wrested from the clutches of Darkspace was laden with ancient secrets, that itself is not enough to save a kingdom built on the bones of madness.

 

 

Unraveling the mysteries of the Killed City gave him powers beyond any reckoning of this Age, or any other... but casting stones into the Silent Sea draws the attention of its only denizen. After guiding his pawn to the heights of strength and paranoia, the Renegade God swallowed the Killed City and all its lands, folding it into his territory, feeding himself with dark energies and the souls of its people.

 

It was his, after all. 

 

It always had been.

Ry'Chulyeh.

 

 

The Old King, empowered but enslaved, sits on the throne that gave him the power to break kingdoms... tethered forever to the city he discovered and should have left well enough alone. None have seen what lies beyond the door in the throne room - none but the Old King himself. But where else could the font of madness be? The first portal - or the last. Anyone looking to find out will have to unseat the monarch and look for themselves.

 

 

The mountain pass in the west is all razor-sharp crystal formations called Agony's March. Built into the geomtric teeth of the hellcast landscape is a tower - and the only way through the mountain pass is through the tower. The nightmare pocket dimension contained within is test, trial, and trap - only the strongest will emerge from the Crucible, bloody and worn thin by daemons and doubt. They step forth into a massive expanse of stricken, dead trees - a land of perpetual fog and moonlight. 

Only the strong survive the tower - Tarohta hunts only the strong.

 

[Lemainus]

Built in measureless eons behind Ages long past, the lost city twists in and around itself in broken fractals - loathsome architecture forged from the sadness of dead stars. Scaled hands had hewn the stone to lay the foundation of this place long ago, though it had been ruled over in the millions of lifetimes between now and then by men and monster long since forgotten, long since laid to rest, histories abandoned.

Over the mountains of crystal ash, through the Crucible of Strife, beyond the Fields of Unmaking and the Dead Forest, and it's mistwalking Huntsman... Through the Cathedral of Malice and her infinite truths, vulgar revelations and lips sealed with cursed wax, all paths in the Twilight converge upon the coliseum. Pilgrims enter, if they live long enough, and stand on a battlground of glassed sand and bloodied stone gravel.

Corpses, trinkets, hewn armor, tabards, iconography, all testaments to the broken souls that have never made it past the Champion of Malice that haunts this place - ripped from the clutches of Khorne and shown The Truth so long ago that the world he hailed from has entirely ceased to be. So long ago that Malal herself was awake.

The coliseum is walled high, gated with wards and wyrd markings, runes of no known origin. Not to keep mortals out - but to keep them from fleeing their fate after casting their lot in trial by combat. There be only twelve grand seats in the entirety of the construction - no massive crowds assemble here, no cheering masses encourage their favorites. The Yazad, Chosen Angels of Malice, alone, are the spectators here. Though, in the empty stands, floating eyes burn with the fury of familiar purple warpfire. Thousands upon thousands of eyes. Watching nothing. Waiting for the next challengers to step into the ring of sand and blood.

There is more power in the Champion than it would seem, however, though only a handful of souls have seen him release his mortal shell and show his truer face.

[Lemainus]

Also, Tarohta the Mistwalker is coming along.

 

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Are the models that of Daemon Princes your Iron Lions faced or will face in a campaign?

[Lemainus]

I'm working a narrative around the two forces, but haven't played out a campaign. I actually hadn't thought of that - I mostly paint and poke fluff with a stick, I haven't actually *played* in a long time. Something I'd enjoy exploring though, perhaps!

[Vairocanum]

The Mistwalker looks really cool, simple but nice use of bits!

[Draakur]

Agreed, the Mistwalker is looking good. I can't tell what it is though, he feels just the tiniest bit sparse somehow, like he's missing something? Just one thing to round him out. Dunno, could just be me...