Officia Monstrosa – Iron Warriors

[Commissar Molotov]

Lovely stuff, as ever. I certainly found our chats really inspirational, and you're showing just how the older methods of true-scaling can work alongside newer ones. I need to try to get back to plastic terminator legs! Space Marines with kneepads are a bit of a novelty for me at the moment. Your new guys are looking very cool. I particularly like your newest, having thrown his lot in entirely with the Warmaster, and all that follows. I wondered about adding a Word Bearer diabolist with these guys, someone who had corrupted them...

 

I really do need to talk to you about shoulder pads at some stage - I sent a couple of emails to you, by the way! 

[Doctor Perils]

These are brilliant, nice brooding and menacing Iron Warriors ! I really like the tutorial and will likely use it when I get round to starting the 93rd Grand Battalion, so thanks very muchely !

[apologist]

Lovely stuff, as ever. I certainly found our chats really inspirational, and you're showing just how the older methods of true-scaling can work alongside newer ones. I need to try to get back to plastic terminator legs! Space Marines with kneepads are a bit of a novelty for me at the moment. Your new guys are looking very cool. I particularly like your newest, having thrown his lot in entirely with the Warmaster, and all that follows. I wondered about adding a Word Bearer diabolist with these guys, someone who had corrupted them...

 

I really do need to talk to you about shoulder pads at some stage - I sent a couple of emails to you, by the way! 

Cheers – and apologies for the delay in replying. Luckily (and off-topic), it's looking like I'll be able to head up to Warhammer World for All Hallow's gaming. Very cool background so far

 

Regarding the Diabolist, I have got a few Word Bearers in the painting queue... They'll wait for the moment, though; and probably be limited to appearing as narrative devices more than anything.

 

 

 

 

 

A bit more obviously Chaosy than the Iron Warriors!

 

 

These are brilliant, nice brooding and menacing Iron Warriors ! I really like the tutorial and will likely use it when I get round to starting the 93rd Grand Battalion, so thanks very muchely !

Great, glad it's helpful. Let us know when you start 'em

Edited August 24, 2015 by Apologist

[Kriegriss]

holy cow batman these look amazing man WOW

[apologist]

Ta!

More WIPs

 

I have a game coming up on Wednesday; a Space Hulk-based game with Bob Hunk's Imperial Fists rudely attempting to board an Iron Warriors ship – so I'm aiming to get ten complete in order to show them how the Pitiless Fourth deal with the self-aggrandising blaggards of the Seventh.

 

Chugging through assembly-line painting, while very good for getting into the drudge work mindset of the Iron Warriors, isn't very exciting. I rewarded myself with painting a marine's face:

 

Once I'd finished him, I sat back and thought '+SCRAPSHUNTERROROABORT+, that's a terrible haircut for an Iron Warrior.'

 

So I gave him a trim:

 

(Apologies for the colour balance on these; a mix of artificial and natural light.)

Edited August 25, 2015 by Apologist

[apologist]

 

'Adtactus! Hostica!'

Radoslav was on his feet, heavy footfalls slamming and skewing on the treacherous dusty marble. he dashed a dozen yards or so, then threw himself down, his dull iron armour skidding him along into the dubious cover of a statue. The pediment was shattered irrecoverably, almost as though it had burst, and the statue itself – a titanic figure, twenty foot or more high – had fallen lengthways. His boltgun tucked firmly in one hand, Radoslav began crawling quickly along the length towards the head.

 

Alongside the sudden roars and heavy crack-boom of boltguns, and beneath the steady high-pitched rattle of rotor cannon fire, there were the smaller sounds of war. The drizzle of brass shellcases onto marble floors, the crunch-fluid scrabbling of sand and rubble, and the rising hum and buzz of auto-reactive power armour.

 

Two more Iron Warriors skidded in behind him, their backs to the statue. The first, an unhelmeted figure with a nose not so much broken as smeared across his face, nodded to him. His eyes gleamed, mischievously and his grin revealed a mouth full of broken teeth. As one, the three rose up, boltguns in hand, firing as soon as they crested the statue.

 

It was good cover.

 

It was not good enough. The lower half of the statue vanished in a sudden cloud of marble dust that billowed like clapped board dusters in a scholam.

 

The Larraman's Ear was intended to allow an Astartes line warrior super-sensitive hearing. His autosenses worked in concert to cut out damaging auditory input; ensuring the best of both worlds. For this reason, Radoslav felt the explosion more than heard it, though such was the power of the impact that his armour itself rang like a bell. The rigid armour plates rippled, cracking and crimping. He felt his left hand being pulped, and the armour straining to hold his leg straight to prevent major joint breakage.

 

A secondary function of the Larraman's Ear – implanted into the skull in the space vacated by the scooped-out and discarded pulp of the inner ear – was to ensure the Astartes was almost impossible to disorientate or confuse. It was this, and this alone, that meant Radoslav was immediately able to scrabble backwards and avoid the second, third and fourth detonations which brought down the roof of the building.

 

Demo charges. Demo charges. The Fists were destroying the Palace itself to keep them out. Battered and bleeding, Radoslav shook his head and began to creep back to the Iron Warrior lines.

 

+++
+ Phalangite Ignace Radoslav +

 

 

Blue eye-lenses gleaming, Ignace Radoslav is clad in an entire suit of Voss Prime-pattern Crusade armour, augmented by Sol Militaris pattern bracers, and a greave reinforced with molecular bonding studs – possibly a field adaptation made during the Siege. A final flourish is the helmet, a common artificer-altered type that combines reinforced forward plating with a stylised version of the Legion symbol. It was a common and popular variant amongst the Iron Warriors, who were well-known for customising and improving their issued plate.

 

 

This shot shows a holstered umbra-pattern boltpistol, indicating his thigh plate does not support magnetic locking. It is possible that Radoslav is a void-war specialist, though this is not confirmed by his current tactical markings; presumably updated between the Battle of Phall and the ground war on Mars.

 

 

Many believed the Iron Warriors to be clad in unpainted ceramite, but as this shot shows, there is a subtle difference between the duller metal of the rear-facing hooped armour and backpack (both simply sealed ceramite) and the brighter iron finish of the plate. Ferrous compounds were bonded with the ceramite and burnished to give a bright reflective finish before issue. These were almost invariably hidden beneath layers of grime and soot during active combat, though some Iron Warriors did march in gleaming ranks.

 

 

Radoslav is believed to have survived the War on Terra, as a number of sightings marked him as being a combatant during at least two campaigns of the Great Scouring; conducted by the Blood Angels and Raven Guard.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Apologist

[Olis]

The first, an unhelmeted figure with a nose not so much broken as smeared across his face, 

 

I loved the whole vignette but this bit did make me smile. :D

 

Keep up the good work. :tu:

[Kriegriss]

good luck against those fists you're IW are so epic it might even make me cheer against my beloved VII legion for you're little scrap

[Daemon2027]

Nice, he looks excellent and the background is excellent to.

[apologist]

Cheers guys. Painted a bit more last night, to bring these marines a bit further along:

 

Phalangites Eucon and Chalkaspides

 

Phalangite Tolga, Palatarch Songul and Phalangite Munin

[ephrael]

I really like the look and feel of your IW Apologist. They are an excellent example of the no-frills, utilitarian aspect of the Iron Fourth. Would you mind telling me where their shoulder pads are from? Do you make them all by hand by adding the trim to a plastic terminator pad?

[Andvarr A]

He's a bloody genius with this!

[apologist]

Cheers guys :)

 

I really like the look and feel of your IW Apologist. They are an excellent example of the no-frills, utilitarian aspect of the Iron Fourth. Would you mind telling me where their shoulder pads are from? Do you make them all by hand by adding the trim to a plastic terminator pad?

 

A mix – some are Terminator pads with plasticard strips, others I've used greenstuff for the tims. For a few of the Ultramarines I had some 3D printed, but that wasn't cost-effective. Cereal card stuck on and then coated with superglue can work well for trim, too. Easier and cheaper to work with than plasticard.

 

Basing, yellows and some details completed here, so just the weathering and final details (like the eyes) to go.

 

+++

+Loss of the Boeotian+

+ inload – Shields down; inbound boarding parties: 242nd Company respond. Report pending +

 

Had a great game based on Space Hulk last night against Bob Hunk's Imperial Fists. Report to come :)

[apologist]

The clouds of metaphor part every so often, and I can see out. Sometimes onto a war-wearied future, sometimes on to a past I recognise. Ten thousand years has passed out there in the sidereal world, or so I reckon. Adrift on the tides, scattered across this meaningless space, I cry out for that treacherous ship.

 

Boeotian!

 

Gone, all hands presumed lost. In another time, in another place, the great bell of lost souls on Terra might have rung; a great, slow, sad peal for each of the Emperor's precious angels drowned in the Sea of Souls.

 

Not now. Not for them.

 

Rarely it is that I can speak, and rarer still to something that understands. I am glad you are here. Sorry, too, for it means that you have come as adrift from reality as myself. You have eternity here now, in the wallowing lucidity of the dreamsea.

 

Let me tell you, then, star-lost sailor to star-lost sailor, of how I came adrift. Of how stone and iron clashed, and of how I fell overboard from the starship Boeotian.

 

+++

 

As promised, here's the first part of the Lay of the Boeotian...

+ Full report inload +

 

...and a preview pic or two :)

 

 

 

 

Sorry to link off-site, but there's loads of images and it would have been a pain to transpose everything.

[Erenarch]

Really cool mini!!!!!!!

 

And could you post more photos of Phalangite Koinos. It's second favorite after Phalangite Radoslav

Edited August 28, 2015 by Erenarch

[apologist]

Koinos, report to the front!

 

 

I'll post up his full info soon, but it'll probably have to wait 'til next week :)

[Kizzdougs]

Excellent true-scale, bro! Nice weathering on the shoulder pads too :)

[Kriegriss]

I love this thread the pace at witch you update it is truly amazing keep ot up fella

[Andvarr A]

Nice dude....just real nice

[ephrael]

Beautiful pictures and a very inspiring and well written battle report. What rules system did you use for the game? I happen to have 2 copies of Space Hulk myself and I'd love to try something similar with my gaming group.

[Olis]

I have to ask, brother - that head on Koinos, is that the result of converting or is it from something else? It looks similar to the Grey Knight heads but something tells me it's not from there. I could be wrong though.

[Vazzy]

I have to ask, brother - that head on Koinos, is that the result of converting or is it from something else? It looks similar to the Grey Knight heads but something tells me it's not from there. I could be wrong though.

I think it might be a solar auxilia head. Kinda looks like one.

[Olis]

I think it might be a solar auxilia head. Kinda looks like one.

 

That's not a bad shout, actually. 

[Andvarr A]

 

I think it might be a solar auxilia head. Kinda looks like one.

 

 

That's not a bad shout, actually.

Reminds me of a tank commanders head - either IG or from something else, or from an imperial navy bomber pilot, with extra sculpy for the extra padding

[apologist]

It is indeed a solar auxilia head - good eyes! It's from the command pack; the chap with the telescopes.