Suffer not the Daemon: James WRR’s introduction

G’day! It’s me, your local Chaos enthusiast back again for my second OWAC challenge attempt. This time round, I thought I’d do something unthinkable … Paint an Imperial army.

Look, the way I see it, I need some kind of foe for my Emperor’s Children to face. And what better foe for my debauched, daemon-loving psycho killers than an army of ruthless, holier-than-thou psycho killers?

For this challenge, I’m heading back to the hallowed pages of Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness and picking out a rather obscure army list: The Ordo Malleus. The goal is to summon an army of psychic Space Marines, corrupt space coppers and expendable levy troops led by some of the most horrid bastards in the galaxy.

And the great work has already begun.

Do not adjust your television sets. This is not a black-and-white photo.

The Inquisition has always been one of my favourite aspects of Warhammer 40,000. The faction is key to the grimdarkness of it all, the pinnacle of the brutal repression that is somewhat (and quite horrifically) justified in the 40K universe. Inquisitors and their lackeys can also be just as weird and wonderful and terrifying as any Chaos army, employing everything from mind-wiped super soldiers to screaming daemonhosts and even alien orangutans.

Something I’m very keen to capture in this army is the fact that the Inquisition, and the Imperium as a whole, are not the good guys. There’s been far too much revisionism in modern 40K—too much “Marvelisation”—to the point that many have come to see the Space Marines as gleaming heroes, led by charismatic, demigod-like personalities.

And that’s not the way it should be. A Space Marine should be an absolute monstrosity to witness. I mean, if you were approached by an 8-foot-tall, roided-up child soldier with a gun the size of a Triumph Bonneville and tubes sticking out of their face, you wouldn’t exactly see them as an avenging angel. No, I see “real” Space Marines as the awful living weapons of a collapsing theocratic regime. The Grey Knights of the Ordo Malleus are just the super-specialised version of these weapons, pointed at the gribblies crawling from the Warp. Any glorified version of them you might see depicted in art and stories is nothing but Imperial propaganda.

The inspiration.

Like my fellow OWAC challengers, I’ve also picked out an artwork to be the “inspiration” for my army this year, and it’s this piece above that I feel most accurately captures the overall vibe I’m going for. It’s from the Rogue Trader rulebook (by, I believe, Will Rees, though I'm happy to be corrected) and is one of many glorious depictions of body-horror Space Marines within those pages.

There’s just something so evocative here, and true to the Oldhammer spirit. Sure, the proportions are out of whack. Neither of the characters are as defined as they would later become. But it’s just so wonderfully gruesome and provocative. You can really feel the anger coming off it—largely thanks to the “KILL” and “HATE” armour markings that were the style at the time—but also the sense that this is all just a bit silly. It’s perfect. Peak 40K.

While this’ll be my main inspiration for my own wacky, out-of-proportion mean marines, I’ve also got a few other works in my back pocket that further inform the styling and vibe I want to achieve with this army including those by the inimitable John Blanche.

In terms of models, this year I’ve been collecting a host of era-appropriate Marine bits from various online sources. The thrill of the chase has always been a big part of the Oldhammer appeal for me, and it has definitely been fun to hunt down these models and let fate somewhat shape the army. I’ve ended up with a horde of plastic RTB-01 marines that will form the bulk of the force (and the start of a future marine army), as well as enough big metal guns to make up a whole Devastator squad.

The big-ticket item this year is the squad of Grey Knight Terminators and the two leaders in Terminator Armour. I’m absolutely blown away by how detailed and crisp these venerable models are for their time, especially in comparison to the slightly blobbier Chaos Terminators and practically gooey metal power-armoured Marines that came out around the same time. I can’t wait to get started on them.

The aftermath of the Great Stripping.

As it stands in December, my Ordo Malleus force looks something like:

• Daemonhunter in Terminator Armour
• Grey Knights Captain in Terminator Armour
• Techmarine on Bike 
• Dreadnought
• 5x Grey Knights Terminators
• 10x Grey Knights Tactical Marines
• Rhino Armoured Transport
• 10x Grey Knights Devastators
• 6x Adeptus Arbites

And so it begins! It’s been a high-pressure start already to get to this point, as I’ve moved house recently and have been painting walls instead of minis. But I’m looking forward to hitting the hobby table hard over the coming months to bring this army of zealous monster-men to life. The fact that my chosen colour scheme is mostly just spray-painted silver should help with that.

Keep watching this space, citizen. Don’t let the Inquisition find your obedience lacking …

The elite of the elite, daemon-killers all.

Some superhuman scumbags ready to take on the supernatural powers of the Warp.