Black Legion Commanders.

 

Lightning flashed in the dark clouds high above the embattled ruins of Kasr Krast. Static electric arced between anything metallic and the air was heavy with the threat of rain, a by product of an orbital assault due to dumping so many thousands of tonnes of equipment into a planet's atmosphere.

The flashes lit up a nightmare scene on the ground as they fully illuminated the chaos forces advanced, rather then just the flashes from muzzles of weapons.

Streaks of bright white lasfire flashed across the ruins as the dug in Cadians defended their homeworld desperately. Reinforcement tank squadron's were apparently on their way, but no sign of their arrival had been spotted yet.

The chaos Astartes stalked through the ruins and over the plaza towards the imperial line. Flashes from Boltgun muzzles strobing across their twisted armour.

Sergeant Sern barked out orders to his squad, "The Emperor is watching you, do your duty and hold the line!".

He was anxiously turning to reload when he heard an ominous hissing noise gradually rising in pitch, and the air became heated as the noise transformed into an angry roar.

Before he could shout a warning, trooper Kratz, head and shoulders above the parapet to fire his rifle, became a dried husk of a person as a blast from a melta-weapon evaporated all the moisture from his body, before disintegrating it into a cloud of ash flakes on the wind.

Sern angrily snatched at his bolt pistol where he had dropped it on the edge of the firing parapet.

A huge riveted boot crunched down on both weapon and wrist, shattering all the bones at once.

A black armoured figure leered down at the Cadian sergeant, fear suppressing the pain his body was feeling as the giant warrior growled a laugh through the vox emitters in its bionic face.

A slimy, horrid looking creature skipped and slithered its way around the warriors feet and with a start he realised that a cloak of sewn Hunan skin flowed in the air around the warrior.

At this point he finally cried out and lost control of his bowels looking up at a nightmare made manifest.

Having savoured the moment, the Chaos marine raised his bolter and fired on the stricken Sergeant, before turning the rest of the magazine on the other Cadians in the trench...

*****

After finishing off Dreadtober I decided to pick up a couple of models which I had nearly finished painting, just before I had to take some forced time off work due to being ill.

During that time I decided to paint up the Tyranid army, because they were new and shiny, but also I wanted to do something completely new and different to take my mind off of everything happening.

Cleaning my hobby desk about a week ago after Dreadtober, I came across two character models for the Black Legion I had been working on, and decided to get them finished off as they were about three-quarters done.

The first is Luthran, Aspiring Champion, Executioner and second in command of the warband:

The second is the Chaos lord himself, Gan Ashahl, The Eternal Claw:

I'm particularly happy with how Gan Ashahl turned out, being based off of a Huron Blackheart conversion I picked up second hand in March or April. I gave him a headswap for one from a Kataphron Destroyer, as well as a Chainsword from the Raptors kit. 

My favourite part of the kitbash though are the cloaks, which were made from chopped up Nighthaunt spares, to get the torn, flowing material look, which I then painted as flayed skin for a true early 2000s vibe to the models.

Both the leader models follow the same Black Legion scheme i was painting nearly a year ago now, with Corvus Black and Retributor Armour as the main colours and washed over entirely with Earthshade. I decided to mix things up a little and include a bit more red in areas on these models to vary up the colours. Something I may go back to do to the already painted members of the warband (maybe?).

The entire Warband as they stand at the moment. I am working on a few Marines to fill out the two units I started and have a couple of Terminators waiting to be built to fill out that unit, there are also a couple of Defiler's, hidden away in the cupboard of opportunity, but I have a slightly different plan for them...something involving Iron within and without...

This is just a quick victory getting the two characters finished off and cleared off the painting desk.

Until next time, have nice day...

Black Legionnaires - Invaders of Cadia.

 

Another explosion rocked the command bunker causing a trickle of rockcrete dust to fall from the ceiling. 

Zayn Von Meyer, Colonel of the Cadian Ninety-Second, hurriedly swiped it away so that it didn't obscure his data readout on the map projector in the center of the room.

He barked a series of orders about reinforcing the western flank and ordering the Twenty-Second Cadian Armoured to disengage. This sent adjutant's scurrying away to various vox-sets set against the bunker walls and the hurried issuing of curt orders to begin.

His brow creased with frown lines, thrown into crazy angles by his bionic eye implant, Von Meyer studied the pict intently. Red runes for traitor forces approaching, Green runes for friendly Imperial units defending. Distressingly there was far more red then green on his chart.

Another explosion caused more dust to fall, then a deeper thud drew his attention. It came again a rhythmic thud against the out wall of the bunker, again and again, each time seeming more insistent. More dust fell and sparks flickered from a ruptured lumen strip in the ceiling.

After a moment Von Meyer realised that all activity in the command center had ceased, orders were not being given, calls for aid or reinforcement were going unanswered.

He began to turn to reprimand the officers when the wall at the end of the access hall exploded inwards, armoured doors disintegrating from the superhuman pressure placed against them.

A booming noise, so loud it was painful in the close confines of the room sounded, accompanied by a brilliant strobing flash. Too late he realised that it was sustained bolter fire and that screams punctuated the sounds between firing explosions. 

Officers and servitors came apart messily under sustained fire, vox units and pict readers sparked as they were hit. Von Meyer looked around at the ruins of his command squad and turned towards the breach in the wall.

Silhouetted against the firelight from outside was a baroque hulking monster. Ten feet tall, jagged pauldrons displaying iconography which made his head feel dizzy, above them were rows of tall spikes studded with trophies, many of them skulls loosely chained in place. As the muzzle of its massive bolter fired he caught glimpses of scorched black armour overlaid with gold trims, in the midst of it all was the blood red eye of the arch-traitor.

Von Meyer took all this in within seconds of laying his eyes on the monster. He felt the thud of a bullet impact in his shoulder and barely had time to panic before the mass reactive round exploded and blew his left arm off of his body, hurling him backwards over the map projector in the process.

The monster stalked into the bunker, followed by a second and then a third of its fellows. The metal grill of the floor distorted under their weight as they walked forwards, swinging brutal melee weapons they cut through any survivors of their assault. The first crashed through the projector hurling it against the far wall and stopped looking down at the crippled major, shock keeping the unfortunate man alive long enough to register more details.

"Does the Warmaster still want prisoners?" One asked with a deep grating voice, dirty beard spilling over it's mouth and eyes covered with an iron circlet, as he leaned over the fallen Imperial officer. Horrified the Cadian noticed faces writing across the surface of the armour as it moved.

"No, that one appears to be damaged" a second traitor growled back through the slit in his helmet. A pair of vast curved horns erupted through the black armoured plate and a skull was mounted between them glaring menacingly over the scene. A dead eyed Astartes helmet was impaled upon a trophy spike, it's one pure white wing raised majestically against the darkness.

With a dawning sense of cold dread Von Meyer watched as the first reached out a clawed powerfist and cradled his head for a moment seeming to stare deep into his soul with those iron covered eyes. Then he knew know more as the powerfist closed around his head, blood welling from between the claws.

"Bunker clear!" A third grating voice boxed in the spark filled gloom.

*****

Some of the last miniatures I finished painting before I arranged the Apocalypse Game with Dave.

These are some more Black Legion Astartes for my Project Eye of Terror, this time eight bolter marines and three Terminator veterans to add to the legion, the last two bolter marines need finishing at some point.

Champion Ezigon and his Legionaries, I stuck to the same overall scheme as the previous close assault veterans and Helbrute, just with a couple of non-chaos bare heads thrown into the squad for some variation, one is a space wolf head and the other from the mk.iv marines I believe.

Plasma gunner, Champion Ezigon, Heavy Bolter and a Chaos Marine.

A close up of the plasma coils on the plasmagun and pistol wielded by Ezigon. I do like star trek so wanted to try the 'warp coil' effect on the plasma. I used red to tie the models together and limit the palette of colours overall.

The reminding four members of the squad I finished. Notable is the space marine helmet trophy, I chose to paint this in Dark Angels colours to really cement home the Eye of Terror campaign. Other trophies will be in Space Wolf colours as I have a plan for the future involving those.

Next we have 'The Voidsworn' Terminator Veterans led by Champion Alekan. These are the stars of the story above incase you didn't get the descriptive elements.

They are a legal unit at just three members strong, but I have a couple of other Terminators to finish for this unit, just waiting for some shoulder pads from eBay to turn up.

Of note is that none of these models have the proper Terminator helmets, I replaced them all with others culled from the bitzbox.

A Chaos Marine head, a fantasy Chaos Warrior head and a fantasy Flagellant head for the bearded one. Again the marine helmet trophy is a Dark Angel and the Tyranid skull is Hive Fleet Kraken I believe.

When I bought these miniatures second hand from Mirfield Miniatures, this is what they originally looked like:

I think the original owner was going for an Emperor's Children theme maybe?

Anyway, I'll get the last few finished after the apocalypse game as I'm now on with adding Greenskins to my WAAAGH ready to fight on Helsreach Highway.

Until next time...

Black Legionaries - Close Assault Veterans.

"A great storm of darkness will descend upon the Cadian Gate. A tide of destruction will sweep aside the naive usurpers of the Corpse Emperor and the servants of the Dark Ones shall reclaim the citadel's thereupon..."

Legionary Kaal turned away from the Dark Apostle preaching his ravings and strode through the gathering throng. Here in one of the assembly bays on the Vengeful Spirit the forces of the Despoiler were gathering to pay homage to their warlord and work themselves into a frenzy for the coming assault.

Bludgeoning a pair of beastmen out of his path as he walked, he focused upon the preparations which had taken their Warmaster centuries, oaths recalled, favours offered and repaid, misdirection and misinformation.

Even now Lord Khiron had surrendered himself to the Imperial Lapdogs and was spreading misinformation to them, weakening their resolve before the coming storm...so he had been told.

Kaal thought it a fools errand, better to face the enemy with bolter and blade in hand then be tortured for information and executed.

Though he was not a member of the command echelon's, so what did his opinion matter.

The Warmaster had his plans, Ygethmor had his plans, even his own Lord had plans, inscrutable though all of them were.

Twenty minutes later Kaal entered his squads arming chamber, he had told the rest of them to remain there and arm themselves, as he knew there would be nothing would be beneficial for them at the moment.

Aurgeth sat with his back to a storage crate, monotonously banging his head against the lid, he had done that since being wounded during the twelfth crusade.

Ereyan and Morcoth dueled each other at the rear of the chamber, half shrouded in darkness, the lights glinted off their armours trim, making them seem like shadows come to life, chainswords sparked as they met.

Malwyn, his second in command looked up from the dataslate he had been reviewing as Kaal entered, his baroque armour growling with freshly serviced servo-motors.

"Well?" Malwyn asked, "Anything of note from the Apostle?"

"The usual raving of a madman" Kaal replied.

"Show me a sane man around here, and I'll show you a liar!" Malwyn said, replying with humour.

"Are we ready?" Kall asked, and the entire chamber fell silent. The screeching of chainswords died off as Ereyan and Morcoth turned towards the conversing pair. Even Aurgeth ceased his eternal thumping to look directly at his warleaders.

"Yes, we're ready, has there been word for when the assult will begin? Everything around the ship is coiled to the breaking point!" 

Somewhere deep within the ship Klaxons began ringing and an automated vox message rang out "Helbrute escape. Helbrute escape. Helbrute escape".

Kaal reached out and shut off the internal ship vox and turned back to his squad.

"Soon".

*****

As we move on further through the month, it's not necessarily a race to get stuff finished, but I know that I'll probably be gifted some more gear at the end of the month (is there a certain day approaching?) and aim to. Lear some stuff off the painting table.

Also, I aim to make a good start on the forces I'll need for "Project EoT" so this is a post going forwards with that.

Legionary Kaal and the beginnings of a squad of Close Assault Chaos Space Marines and the Hellbrute 'Tarn the Tormented' are my first experiments with the Black Legion colour scheme.

Sure on the surface, it's just black and gold with a little detailing, but not all Black paints are equally good when finished and I wanted a different look to these miniatures when compared to my Deathwatch for example.

The Chaos marines have a basecoat of Corvus Black as this has a very dark grey finish, not entirely black like Abaddon Black for example.

Gold trim is Retributor Armour (to get a good solid colour), metals are Leadbelcher and the red started at Khorne Red.

At this point the entire model, including the base which is Mournfang Brown to lock on the sand, is washed with Agrax Earthshade.

This I find darkens even the Corvus Black in the recesses where it wouldn't on the pure black. It also weathers all the trim, metal and shades the red areas.

Final steps are to highlight the red with Mephiston Red to draw the eye to details and then finish the bases with my usual Baneblade Brown, Ushabti Bone drybrushed and paint the base rim Abaddon Black.

Legionary Kaal and his squad started off as spares from a group I bought from Mirfield Miniatures, a shop which specialises in second hand Warhammer.

I got fifteen chaos marines for £18 which is a very good deal. Two already came with chainswords, so it was a quick matter to clip off a couple of Boltguns and a Missile Launcher and add spare parts from some Raptor Sprues they sent in the box with them.

'Tarn the Tormented' is an old Dark Vengeance (the 6th and 7th edition starter box) model which I have had kicking around the hobby gear for years and not known what to do with.

There is a lot of flesh on this model compared to the others, but the armour and trim were painted as the marines. The fleshy areas are just Cadian Fleshtone washed with Earthshade instead of Fleshshade. To add interest to this model, the cables buried in its flesh are Kabalite Green rather than Mephiston Red as they blended too much into the skin tone.

These models clear two boxes and a line for Seventy points and a new total of One Thousand and Thirty points.

I'll post more on Project EoT,towards the new year, but it's still a ways off yet.

Until next time...