WBRBloom's Black Legion: Tales from the Warp.

[WBRBloom]

Warning: This topic is going to be a heavily narrated trip down memory lane. It is intended as both a personal voyage as well as taking others with it.

 

Of course I am exaggerating. 

 

Hi everybody! I am WBRBloom. If anyone ever wondered this screen name is also as old as time, and derives from the Ad&d Ravenloft scenario 'When Black Roses Bloom'. But this is a Warhammer 40k forum, innit? So let's get to it!

 

Our story begins back in the far away 1990. Little WBRB was almost at the end of grammar school (grade school across the pond), it was summer, and he and his family were returning from a day at the beach. They all stopped at a very big super market, one of the biggest back then in Greece, to do some Sunday shopping before heading home. It was about a month before schools started again, and the holiday (Christmas) TV ads were still far away (this is very crucial). The new games were still a few months away from being announced.

 

As he usually did, little WBRB wandered off to the toys aisle. He browsed the G.I. Joes a little bit (they were now being replaced by scale models rapidly), and he was never really interested in car toys and such. He then moved further down the isle, towards the board games. Nothing he hadn't seen before, Ghost Castle, Mysteries of old Peking, the usual. And then, he saw it.

 

HeroQuest.

 

Deep inside another dimension, face battling barbarians and evil magic.

 

HeroQuest.

 

On a quest for adventure in a maze of monsters.

 

It was a wall of HeroQuest boxes, an endless wall of HeroQuest boxes. The rest were history.

 

To speed things up, WBRB got his hands on one of those boardgame copies, played it and killed orcs and goblins, but since he was already involved into scale models he also noticed the painted miniatures that adorned the inside of the box and he learned a (very) basic way on how to paint miniatures that was included at the back of the quest book. Apparently, there was this company that designed the miniatures, called 'Citadel', and it made more games than HeroQuest. 

 

Enter 1991 (yeah, things in Greece tend to have a year delay), and Space Crusade. Space Marines. Chaos Space Marines. Genestealers. Orks. Gretchin. Dreadnoughts. Oh my..

 

It is now 2003. WBRB, fresh out of his Navy service and having one of his first jobs, one that allows him for some disposable income, decides to start actually collecting, and playing, Warhammer 40.000. He had found about that game a few years back, in 1995 or 96, when an older friend of his introduced him into the hobby stores that sell it. He was fascinated but never had the money to buy/play it. But now seemed like the best moment.

 

He went into one of the local hobby stores and browsed around a bit. He picked up the 3rd edition rulebook off the shelves, and looked at the different armies. He remembered an old diorama he had seen in one of the White Dwarf magazines, one called 'Horus against the Emperor'. It had Sanguinius at his feet and Horus was wearing a red terminator armour with dual lightning claws. Scattered across the spaceship's bridge, were the bodies of red armoured space marines (Khorne Berzerkers, he found out later). 

 

He wanted that. He liked Chaos. He liked the underdog, the villain, the bad guy. He wanted to be that bad guy so badly, that he did not hesitated any further. Grabbing a few more things, a blister pack saying 'ABADDON THE DESPOILER' the Chaos Space Marine codex a squad of Chaos Space Marines, some paints and a couple of paintbrushes, he walked towards the cashier.

 

These models still exist to this day. Abaddon, painted and stripped a couple of times, has only seen battle a few times back in the day. But the cost of him being the same as a Land Raider, deterred the writer from using him anymore, only on specific missions.

 

He now awaits undercoated, with some basic colour added, to be painted and used as a normal terminator (he will probably be dipped in acetone before long and stripped, then re-painted):

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

I wanted his sword to me reminiscent of the original colours of Drach N'yen, but also have a little bit of its own character.

 

The Chaos Space Marines have been all built, converted or scattered along the four winds of Chaos. I will eventually post pictures of all my infantry units, but I cannot possibly find the original marines from that box (although I do know they exist). 

 

Instead, I am leaving you with the pictures of the Hand of Death, one of my original dreadnoughts, painted back in the day. This must be one of the most active units in my army. It has been in almost every battle played since 2003. The banner is freehand (not my best work though).

 

 

        

 

More stories to come.

Edited Monday at 10:56 AM by WBRBloom
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[Tallarn Commander]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I love Hand of Death and his banner!

[Brother Christopher]

I'll just tag on to what Tallarn Commander typed.

 

That's a venerable, foul, heretic machine there. I'm looking forward to reading more and seeing more old heretics.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Well that's a walk down memory lane - I got into the hobby via Hero Quest.

 

I remember that Horus Heresy/Emperor diorama - it was done by Mike McVey.

[WBRBloom]

57 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Well that's a walk down memory lane - I got into the hobby via Hero Quest.

 

I remember that Horus Heresy/Emperor diorama - it was done by Mike McVey.

 

Yes, @Firedrake Cordova, that's the one! How I loved that diorama.. 

 

I was so obsessed with the twin lightning claws, and the terminator armour as a whole, that as I kid I tried to built a suit and envisioned how one can make the lightning claws actually work in real life. 

 

Sadly (?), it only remained as sketches and blueprints...

 

I think there is a company, somewhere, that makes these miniatures as a tribute, either in metal or STL files for printing.

[Rusted Boltgun]

I hope you don't mind me posting this in here @WBRBloom

 

Not the greatest photo but the best I could do!

[WBRBloom]

Not at all @Rusted Boltgun! 

 

I am a little bit ashamed, as I've been in Nottingham twice, but did not had the time to actually visit Warhammer World 

 

The missus and I have discussed this though, and at some point we are going to visit just for that, and have a whole day to myself. To my defence, we were travelling from London up North again, and we were just passing by Nottingham, so it was just a visit for a night.

[Tallarn Commander]

It’s a wonderful place. You will enjoy the trip.