Adrian's March rank and file month - Night of the Living Dead (638 points)

Rank & File Month #3

T+021: The task force arrive at deployment zone Alpha at Romeria, in a farmland near Monroeville.

Lt. Commander Lazarus: Tactical Squad Ismail, you'll be the scouting force. What do you see in your approach to the town. You're guided by brother Giteau, stand firm.

-Sgt. Piero: There are only thousad of square kilometers of corn fields around us. Nothing remarkable here.

-Lexicanum Trent: Endless crop fields... like the archives from the wise King Stephen from old Terra. It proves that they may hide important omens that we should take into consideration for our mission.

-Lt. Commander Lazarus: What have you found in the prophet's old books, brother librarian.

-Lexicanum Trent: There is a recurrent theme of terrors beyond comprehension inhbiting in small towns. I recommend that none shall enter the crop fields or else they will lose their minds. 

Also, in my meticulous study I have made a list, avoid any monorail, metro stations, churches, pet sementaries, shady basement clubs, mines...

 

-Chaplain Giteau: Apart from the crops, I think that we will not find any of that here. Anyhing else that may actually help us, brother Trent?

-Lexicanum Trent: Yes, among the worst enemies that you can encounter there are a collection of mutant gangsters, cowboys and man-eatting clowns.

-Sgt. Piero: Copy. We will shoot any clown in sight.

 

T+023: Squad Ismail enters Monroevile. Everything is strangely quite, no local communications, not even emergency broadcasts. 

Only when they enter the town, augurs detected a weak portable radio signal comming from an area near the arbites station.

T+023: Demisquad leaded by brother Morris secure a corner two streets from the transmission point.

 

The rhino approach the building. This time there is no enemy fire to welcome them. Instead, there are civilians up in the roof craving for help.

"At last, the imperial space marines. We're saved! Over here!"

T+024: First contact with the remaining resistance members on the system

Demisquad leaded by Sgt. Piero reach the rooftop of the arbites station.

-Sgt. Piero: We're the imperial space marines loyal to our lord, the Emperor of Mankind. Who are you? Report, you remind me of the biker gangs we found on the Uneeda moon.

-Biker #1: We're members of the resistance, a group of militiamen and bikers from the outskirts that started harassing the Word Bearers supply convoys some time ago...

Did, did you met with our cells up there at Uneeda? We lost communication three weeks ago.

-Sgt. Piero: I shall report that Uneeda was a hellish place when we arrive. Some sort of virus spreaded and has made everyone mad and started killing each other. 

If your friends were there, they've already shoot each other or we had to euthanized them with our bolters.

-Biker #2: *sigh* poor bastards. 

But one moment, they were shooting each other? What about the undead cannibals?

-Sgt. Piero: There were no walking dead sir. What have happened to this place?

-Biker #1: Here there was also a virus of some sort. But everyone did not get mad, instead, people started dying fast in the cities and then the dead walked the earth and started eating the living. 

We survived in the small rural communities outside the cities, few spread at first. The resistance tried a coup and control the remaining ships to evacuate the planet with the survivors before the pandemic spread... 

However, the Word Bearer garrison started recruiting cultists. We met them, and they were not several squad has we have thought first. There were also Emperor Children reinforcements. We were doomed

-Sgt. Piero there weren't any imperial knights to support your coup as we had been informed?

-Biker #3: Imperial knights? No sir, you mean knights, the knightriders, a biker gang that dressed like chevaliers. The Emperor Children screwed them hard. 

I mean, it was a cool idea maybe for a holomovie, but trying to charge with a lance in a bike against a space marine...what a bunch of dorks.

-Sgt. Piero: There was no support from local authorities? imperial army?

-Biker #1: No, only local authority supporting us is the legendary Marshall Kurt Westwood, here.

-Mh. Westwood: At first I didn't take too seriously the "resistance". Then we saw what the Word Bearers were doing while the plague was consuming the planet. 

Yet still, half of our police officers stood with us, half of the others went with the Word Bearers and the cultists. There is no army, nothing else. Those cowards.

-Bikers #1: Half of them nonetheless, try to reform that.

-Sgt. Piero: Whoah, take it easy boy. We're here to shoot every cop dead because they're not our repressive force anymore, not getting political or something. 

What about that virus, anyone knows where it comes from? We've followed the other illness that spreaded in Uneeda and all the hints points towards this place.

-Mh. Westwood: Mmmh, we do not know about the zombie apocalypse, less to that madness thing. However maybe you'll have to ask Officer Tempeny, a local commisary. He was all day talking about some sort of biological experiments that the Word Bearers overlords were doing somewhere near here. We thought it was a nonesense.

-Sgt. Piero: Where is he?

-Mh. Westwood: Sadly, the cultist kidnapped him yesterday. They came from the new church. Probably they've him there.

-Chaplain Giteau: By the Emperor, a church? We must follow them, retrieve the officer and burnt it to the ground. Those Word Bearers do not learn.

-Biker #1: Hey, he was a bit awkward but talk a lot about the epidemy and that he found several evidences. He was the first that suspected that the Word Bearers were not the nice guys. Probably he guarded the evidences in his home as always did with his "investigations". It is a farm nearby, outside the town.

-Sgt. Piero: Where is that fa...

 

-Brother Morris: SIR, YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS. We have made contact with "potential" enemies. We couldn't detect life forms in the bioscanner. The dead. There lots of dead men... but they... they're walking toward us.

-Sgt. Piero: Morris, return fire inmidiately. We will come for your aid, I must see how this plague works.

...

-Chaplain Giteau: AAAAAH! SUFFER NOT THE UNCLEAT TO LIVE

-Biker #1: Oh no, that guy of the comm was not the only one in trouble.

 -Chaplain Giteau: HOW THEY DARE TO APPROACH MY RHINO, I'LL CRUSH YOU BENEATH OUR TREADS. ADVANCE BROTHER LEARY.

-Sgt. Piero: We must scape this place, I think that our firepower will not be enough against so many nemies. 

Marshall Westwood, indicate the coordinates of that temple to our comm specialist. We will reunite with our chaplain and try to save officer Tempeny.

And you *points at the biker* where is that farm. We can send a second task force to that place and seek for the evidences.

 ...

-Lt. Commander Lazarus: The coordinates of the farm are not far from our main landing zone. I had analyzed all the information from your conversation and will take matter myself. 

Sgt. Piero, Chaplain Giteau, try to save that poor man and anhilate the church. If Trent collection of horror stories is right, we cannot let that this degenerates in another Signus incident.

-Chaplain Giteau: Understood.

 

T+026: Squad Ismail and the remaining resistance members scape the arbites station harassed by the zombie horde. The survivors prepare the assault on Monroevile's church.

And that's all for march.

Again, the side projects for the scenes have been a bit too much maybe? 

I've no trouble making with the squad but I would have wanted to finish some other Necromunda scum and gangers and ended reusing the bikers.

 

 

The zombies were a fun addition and an opportunity to try some weird skin tones. Maybe I'll use some of them in the future to paint a second batch of C20 trolls for my orc army.

 

 

Another miniature that I loved to paint is the sergeant. I made some speed experiments with object source lights in the lightning claw and the plasma pistol.

 

Tiny thunderbolts for the win. 

There is a lack of checkers in this month update but tried to make a pattern in the lighting claw similar to the marking of other special weapons like the power fist, assault cannon (on terminators) and so on.

I think that there's no actual lightning claw in Rogue Trader era. But if anyone knows, and more importantly, there's a fist marking for this weapon type, I would be glad you let me know the source material!

Finally, the guest star is Marshall Kurt Westwood, who will have an important role in the next update.

I've based this gem from Tim Prow in a mixture between the uniform from "Hang 'Em High" and the good ol' "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". 

Not a B-movie or Romero's reference, but sadly I couldn't get in time my conversion of Ed Harris in full plate armour in a bike. 

Sad, because it would have been glorius final charge against the Emperor Children in the OWAC VI ending.

Well, enough nonsense for today. What can I say at this point...

Adrián’s out.