Cerastus Knight Legionnaire - Magnetised and ready for war

[IVIilitarus]

Full album here: http://imgur.com/a/fpYPx

 

Another Imperial Knight goes to war.

Venator is a knight freeblade presently piloted by Centurion Lucius Vorenus (formerly Sir Duncan Nyman). Venator and its pilot were formerly aligned with an unknown, Mechanicus-aligned knight house. On an exploratory mission escorting a Mechanicus Explorator Crew, the mission came across a cache of archeotech on a ruined world containing knowledge long lost. The mission was intercepted by the vile forces of the Chaos Undivided and in an act of desperation to avoid the archeotech data cache from falling into their hands, Sir Nyman inloaded all of the contents of the cache into his machine's Throne Mechanicum for safekeeping.

The sudden inload of data from an unknown, powerful source forever changed the functioning of the Throne Mechanicum and by extension, the pilot attached to it. Nyman was assailed by countless images of great battles and grand figures from a world apart. The inload came with it names of strange places like Roma and Caesar and Gaul and historical figures never before heard of - Kleopatreon, Zeus, and so forth. Alongside that was an intimate knowledge of the war-making methods of a barbarian people from an age long past.

Upon return from the mission and having had the data copied out of his Throne Mechanicum, Nyman and Venator were left changed and empty. Dejected by the losses suffered during the escape from that desolate world and without purpose, he found hope in the after-images of the data inload - the name of a long-lost brother, Titus Pullo. The forgemasters of his world offered Nyman a reward for his recklessly brave actions to recover the archeotech and Nyman requested a small arsenal made to complement his Knight-Atrapos' existing panoply. Chief among them was a grand Ion Shield manifested as a rectangular slabshield powered by the killing energies of a Thunderstrike Gauntlet and a mighty reaper chainfist of a Knight-Acheron, dubbed the *Gladius*. Nyman took ownership of his new gear and a name from his visions, *Centurion Lucius Vorenus* and embarked on the path of the freeblade to find his brother among the stars.

While ordinarily, the mechanicus would be furious at the notion of a talented pilot gallivanting off with precious, master-crafted wargear on a mad quest for a ghost, there was merit in the Throne Mechanicum's visions. In the many questioning sessions following the battle, the mechanicus masters of the world gained an admiration for the stories the visions told. The visions told of a people who spoke an archaic form of High Gothic, who exterminated and enslaved those beneath them. They told of an army of soldiers clad in red and steel who venerated the Omnissiah under a different name: Mars and fought with tenacity and fury. Perhaps greatest of all was the effect of the visions on Vorenus. He entered a brazen, reckless knight-scion and left a consummate warrior having mastered a lost art of warfare with sword and shield. Any doubts about the faith of the pilot were extinguished upon seeing the machine in action with its pilot, gouging terrifying holes into the mightiest foes and turning aside titan-slaying blows with its shield. Clad in the red and steel of the Mechanicus and singing prayers to Mars itself, there never was a more devoted warrior to the Omnissiah. To deny such a pilot his quest for a sworn-brother was madness. The prospect that such a machine might have a *brother* - a template to create more of the same, mighty warrior was too good to pass up.

Today, Centurion Vorenus and Venator journey at the head of a minor explorator fleet, taking the sword of Mars to their foes while Vorenus searches the stars for his long-lost brother, Titus Pullo. Unusual for a freeblade, Venator still bears Mechanicus heraldry in honour of the visions that have possessed its pilot and carries the word of Mars to the galaxy.

Yet back in the forges, the archeotech analysis teams delving into the data cache remain baffled by what effect of the artifact created such a warrior through the Throne Mechanicum. Their logic-engines scoured the data from end to end, finding the many references to a long-lost civilisation that venerated the Omnissiah and spoke Gothic, but the secrets of inloading the data safely to create a new generation of knight scions remain locked under laboratory conditions. Further baffling them is the name of the data cache, with no precedent in the vast archives of the Mechanicus' libraries: HBO - ROMA

This one is built on the [Atrapos](https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Mechanicum-Cerastus-Knight-Atrapos) chassis with parts from the base Imperial Knight and Cerastus Knight Acheron kits. It also features a 3D printed scutum powered by the energies of a thunderstrike gauntlet.

The knight is themed after a Roman Legionnaire in its base configuration with a 3D printed shield attached to existing parts of the kit. A number of other weapon configurations are also included thanks to the magic of MAGNETS.

It stands on a finished wooden base commissioned from a carpenter and bears an aluminium plaque with the machine's name and a quote: VENATOR - What wars must there be in creation that require warriors like you

The project was an exercise in learning airbrushing techniques. After getting comfortable with the bare basics of airbrushing, I've taken to slightly more difficult techniques like airbrushing stark shadows and creating glow effects. The project was inspired by the work of [ThirdeyeNuke Studio](http://www.thirdeyenuke.com/gallery-1) who make extensive use of stark black shadows airbrushed onto heavily weathered or darkly toned models. To try and emulate their style, I went for a very heavily chipped and worn appearance on the armour plating and a greasy black steel. Decals were weathered down and a couple coats of wash were airbrushed over the Tamiya Flat Red, acting as a filter to darken the whole model down. Black shadows were airbrushed into recesses for the extra grimdark effect.

I'm extremely happy with how this project turned out and am now  a bit better at working my airbrush than before. I'm absolutely enamored with the eye lenses, glow effect on the weaponry and damaged armour plating of the project and I'm really glad with how they turned out. I did also want to play with the lore a bit and decided that a backstory for the knight freeblade involving... downloading HBO's Rome into the pilot's brain and Imperial technology being what it is, things got wonky and oh look the pilot is now possessed.

 

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[Claws and Effect]

That's fething awesome.