Khornestar’s Plog: Black Templars WIP

[Khornestar]

Old content here in the OP, can disregard, I'm keeping it here to edit/modify it in the future. The first page is discussion re: a discarded idea. Had this thread moved to WIP forum to be merged with my other WIP thread. Thank you for looking! Currently writing up a bunch of narrative for fun as well, hope to share that soon.

 

 

 

1. I say placeholder because I haven’t named it yet.

1A. I done named it now.

1B. Updated name: Urarat Crusade. Wanted it to be a little different from the real life locale, and also was partially inspired by the ancient city of Ur. So: Urarat.

 

 

2. This crusade is a combined force of Black Templars and their fellow sons of Dorn, the Hospitallers.

2A: Not sure if I still want to do this combined force situation. We'll see after I paint the BT models.

 

 

3. Their target: Iron Hands Clan Raukaan. Read the following blurb which served as inspiration for this righteous crusade:

3A: I know they're "my dudes" but the amount of work that would go into crafting a believable narrative for this just isn't appealing to me right now. I have no problem going with something more conventional: slaying the traitor, heretic, mutant, and witch.

 

 

Quote

Battle of Fabris Callivant (414.M41) - The Hospitallers took part in the defence of the Knight World of Fabris Callivant against an Ork WAAAGH!. During the battle, the Hospitallers' flagship Shield of the God-Emperor was assaulted by Clan Raukaan of the Iron Hands Chapter and their Seneschal, the Venerable Dreadnought Galvarro, was abducted. The Shield of the God-Emperor subsequently was lost under mysterious circumstances during the battle.

 

Much more to come!

Edited May 2, 2023 by Khornestar

[Marshal Loss]

Really cool lore nugget, very unique angle. Look forward to seeing more!

[Khornestar]

Really cool lore nugget, very unique angle. Look forward to seeing more!

Thanks! Waiting for me launch box, which was delayed.

 

Raukaan Crusade? Galvarro Crusade? Neither name is really impressing me.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Galvarro Reclaimation Crusade? 

 

And Welcome to the Eternal Crusade, brother!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Galvarro Reclaimation Crusade?

Great name!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Battle of Fabris Callivant (414.M41) - The Hospitallers took part in the defence of the Knight World of Fabris Callivant against an Ork WAAAGH!. During the battle, the Hospitallers' flagship Shield of the God-Emperor was assaulted by Clan Raukaan of the Iron Hands Chapter and their Seneschal, the Venerable Dreadnought Galvarro, was abducted. The Shield of the God-Emperor subsequently was lost under mysterious circumstances during the battle.

I hope later Games Workshop publications will reveal the "Iron Hands" who abducted the Black Templars Venerable Dreadnought, were actually Chaos Space Marines performing a false flag operation, because it's beyond stupid for real Iron Hands to commit such crimes against other loyal servants of the Emperor.

[Lord Blackwood]

its very interesting because if I recall Clan Raukaan is one of the more prominent , the flesh may not entirely be weak clan companies  that get a good bit of lore shine too. 
I wouldn't be surprised if this was some alpha legion trickery to get the templars to go sniffing after the Iron hands .

[Khornestar]

 

Battle of Fabris Callivant (414.M41) - The Hospitallers took part in the defence of the Knight World of Fabris Callivant against an Ork WAAAGH!. During the battle, the Hospitallers' flagship Shield of the God-Emperor was assaulted by Clan Raukaan of the Iron Hands Chapter and their Seneschal, the Venerable Dreadnought Galvarro, was abducted. The Shield of the God-Emperor subsequently was lost under mysterious circumstances during the battle.

I hope later Games Workshop publications will reveal the "Iron Hands" who abducted the Black Templars Venerable Dreadnought, were actually Chaos Space Marines performing a false flag operation, because it's beyond stupid for real Iron Hands to commit such crimes against other loyal servants of the Emperor.

 

 

 

its very interesting because if I recall Clan Raukaan is one of the more prominent , the flesh may not entirely be weak clan companies  that get a good bit of lore shine too. 

I wouldn't be surprised if this was some alpha legion trickery to get the templars to go sniffing after the Iron hands .

 

 

It's pretty egregious, right?! Certainly got my blood boiling and seemed like a different approach. I think for stuff like this GW is kinda happy to let it remain ambiguous in terms of revisiting it, explaining it, etc. 

 

Clan Raukaan must pay.

 

Spoilers:

 

It gets worse. They don't even use the dreadnought chassis, instead turning the fallen Iron Hands officer into some kind of reanimated machine construct that guards the Iron Council. They used a relic called the Keys of Hel.

 

So that all is a lot to play with in terms of army narrative.

 

Honestly though, I'm treating it as if it happened as described. For a moment I was considering swapping the dead ork on Helbrecht's base with Iron Father Feirros but that's an expensive piece of decoration, right there. I should buy and read the book Voice of Mars to see what happens and figure out if I can get an interesting army background out of it.

 

I don't want to get too bogged down in writing it all out, maybe kinda an outline form, and if I have the time expand on that. Thinking about it, there are so many aspects of it that would need to be explained, hand-waved away, and so on. Unless the Iron Hands killed every single Hospitaller and any other Imperial witnesses, seems like the Imperium would have some major problems with everything that transpired!

 

The chaos/trickery stuff seems like a natural route to go, I think, so good suggestion there!

 

My primary goal is getting the army built and painted. I'd be happier having a cool looking army that I can play with. A flimsy background that can be improved over time. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Juggernut

[Khornestar]

How about this: a thought exercise to help a frater out.

 

Let’s say for the sake of discussion we have a little premise:

 

Hospitallers tell the Templars what happened. Treachery and heresy (forbidden technology). What would be the order of operations? Perhaps the Templars of this particular marshal’s crusade are buddies with an Inquisitor quite interested in these crimes, and the Templars and Hospitallers settling for nothing short of the dreadnought seneschal‘a return, or bloody satisfaction.

 

How would it play out? What’s the proper ordo of the inquisition that would want to investigate? Perhaps a certain blood god is “motivating” the crusade to seek a violent end.

 

But what “would happen” here?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

How would it play out? What’s the proper ordo of the inquisition that would want to investigate? Perhaps a certain blood god is “motivating” the crusade to seek a violent end.

An Inquisitor-turned-Tzeentch cultist who seeks to corrupt the Templars and turn the Marines into Khorne worshipers, as a "poisoned gift," reasoning the recently turned Templars will be so bloodthirsty, they'll constantly seek battle with the "worthy opponents" that are other Khorne worshipers, drawing the Blood God's attention away from Tzeentch's schemes?

[Khornestar]

 

How would it play out? What’s the proper ordo of the inquisition that would want to investigate? Perhaps a certain blood god is “motivating” the crusade to seek a violent end.

An Inquisitor-turned-Tzeentch cultist who seeks to corrupt the Templars and turn the Marines into Khorne worshipers, as a "poisoned gift," reasoning the recently turned Templars will be so bloodthirsty, they'll constantly seek battle with the "worthy opponents" that are other Khorne worshipers, drawing the Blood God's attention away from Tzeentch's schemes?

Sounds just like the thing a true-believing Inquisitor would do. >8^D

[Khornestar]

Alright...

 

I've backed away from my edge-lord ideas to fight the Iron Hands. Despite the narrative described and linked above totally being 40k canon, no one (including myself, I s'pose) is really all that enthusaistic about it. The reactions are more akin to: "Really? It's kinda dumb for a BL novel." And I guess I feel similarly, and the Iron Hands community is far too small to troll.

 

BACK TO THE ORIGINAL PLAN:

 

Black Templars Crusade

Allies (undetermined at this point)

 

versus

 

Word Bearers (masterminds): A portion of Erebus's very own forces.

World Eaters: Khârn and friends.

Mortal Heretic Military/Traitor Guard: Meat, blood, and souls.

 

At least in terms of naming, I'll be utilizing names from both halves of my recent ethnic ancestry, Armenian and Romanian.

 

Rough story outline:

 

A relic both sacred to the Imperium of Man and greatly desired by Erebus. As of yet, I'm imagining some grimdark equivalent of Noah's Ark, which according to some sources (or is it in the bible itself?) came to rest on Mount Ararat (historical Armenia, modern Turkey) after the great flood. I think there is a lot of cool potential for what it could actually be. Or perhaps the inverse, a relic that Erebus has recently come to possess, and the Black Templars launching a crusade to destroy the unholy relic, or take it from the forces of chaos for the Imperium of Man. We'll get there!

 

 

 

Templar forces, built:

 

3x Bladeguard Veterans

10x Assault Intercessors

1x Indomitus Captain

1x Indomitus Lt

1x Bladeguard Ancient

1x Primaris Chaplain on Bike

1x Indomitus Chaplain

1x Primaris Crusader Squad = 10 models, taking a while to finish due to using a sub-assembly system for batch-painting and airbrushing.

5x Reivers with carbines

 

To be built:

 

Leviathan x1

Redemptor x2

Marshal

Emperor's Champion

3x Indomitus Eradicators

Primaris apothecary

Primaris techmarine

 

Undecided fate:

15x dark imperium intercessors

3x suppressors

A few other misc. primaris models

 

As of now, this is going to be an all-primaris Crusade, or nearly all-primaris crusade.

 

It's nice to have it all laid out and organized! This is a lot less work to figure out in terms of army narrative, so I'm quite happy with that as well.

 

I'll use some amount of the built minis above as part of my Knightfall 2021 vow, just need to figure out whom I want to start with. Maybe the Reivers, to work on the paint scheme a bit.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Juggernut

[Khornestar]

Some WIP shots. Sorry the dimensions are so big, bouncing back and forth between phone and laptop and this is what I pulled off.

 

The sub-assembly for the batch painting of my Crusader squad (updated to correct pic):

 

 

 

 

The Sword Brother returned from the Deathwatch:

 

 

 

And a test of a hastily chopped up Dark Imperium Intercessor using an auto bolt rifle from the Crusader kit:

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Juggernut

[Khornestar]

Have been working on my Templars quite a bit, but because linking to IMGUR via mobile is such garbage, didn't bother doing so until I had some things fully built and sprayed black:

 

Brother-Apothecary Hrair:

 

 

Brother Movses, Master of Sanctity:

 

 

Unnamed Redemptor 1:

 

 

Unnamed Redemptor 2 (primer still drying in this pic):

 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Looking good Juggz !

[Khornestar]

Looking good Juggz !

Many thanks! I love all these kits a ton. Lots of fun to build, and here we go with some paint:

 

Wow no idea why the pic is so tiny, will make sure other pics are bigger in the future:

 

 

Planning to spray a black glaze to reduce the intensity of the highlights a little, but so far I’m not displeased. I just gotta get an army done already, as the amount of grey plastic I own is unacceptable and imperfect is better than nothing.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Juggernut

[Khornestar]

Some clearer shots of the highlights. Thinning the paint allowed me to be more accurate, especially with the lightest color highlights.

 

Castellan Artin: Was serving in the Deathwatch when the Marshal of the Ararat Crusade was killed, and the prior Castellan promoted to Marshal. Due to his experience commanding a Deathwatch Keep, Artin was honorably released from this duties in the Deathwatch to return to the Templars and command Ararat Keep on the planet Cilicium. Under his command, neophyte recruitment was expanded to replenish critically low numbers to fight the crusade and garrison the keep. At the time of this army's story, the planet is well-garrisoned when it's invaded by the forces of chaos.

 

 

 

 

Emperor's Champion Artin: Wouldn't you know it, Castellan Artin himself receives visions from/of the Emperor, commanding him to seek out the command staff of the Word Bearers invasion and slay the Coryphaeus. He dutifully dons the Armor of Faith and wields the Black Blade sequestered within the sacred armories inside Ararat Keep. Artin slays the Coryphaeus, and along with his band of Sword Brethren, most of the Word Bearers honor guard and command structure, before Artin and his band themselves are killed and the planet is lost to the 17th Legion.

 

 

 

 

Group shot WIP:

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Juggernut

[Brother Kraskor]

That's a lot of zeal! I feel like Redemptors are just perfect for us now with the Invul and MW 5++. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Looking good !

[Khornestar]

That's a lot of zeal! I feel like Redemptors are just perfect for us now with the Invul and MW 5++.

 

Agreed, I think that they’re my favorite non-FW dreads both due to appearance and effective rules. I like the upgrade kit (only old one in my possession currently) for adding a little flavor to them.

 

 

 

Looking good !

Thanks! I just glazed some of them and the result ain’t half bad, so they’re going well!

[Khornestar]

A bit more color. I'm gonna stop bothering over the difference between in person and photographs, and just keep documenting the progress:

 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Very clean - I like.

[Gederas]

Hmm... Stealing the attaching the arms to the bodies of the melee Crusaders and leaving the pads separate. That's a smart idea for painting :yes:

[Khornestar]

Hmm... Stealing the attaching the arms to the bodies of the melee Crusaders and leaving the pads separate. That's a smart idea for painting

 

Ty! Since I block in colors and highlights with an airbrush, I wanna keep white off of the black as much as I can. Hot glue gun to attach the pads to skewers seems like it worked well, but I still need to get back to work on these. Have been building our home library and that has caused me to shift gears.

[Smoke Frog]

Great work, I really like the Sword Brother returned from the Deathwatch!