Hector grimaced as the grill-faced servitor aimed its ultrasonic scrubber at his bruised ribcage. Caked blood and grime of a dozen different hues fell away from his pale skin, away from the sockets that would connect him to his holy power armour. Another servitor slaved away attending to this discarded silver shell not far away.
“And then, get this,” laughed Brother Donovan as a serf tightened knee bolts on his mechanical leg, “the thing started weeping. Can you believe it? Actual tears.”
“Haven’t seen tears for a quarter century.” said Brother Kristos, urging the other Knight to continue. “Not up close, at least.”
“It was saying ‘no, no, we’re not the enemy.' The wretch!” Donovan clapped the serf around the shoulder, forcing him to crumple slightly under the weight of one monstrous hand. “‘All the beasts are slain’, says it. Aye, ‘sure thing, witch’, I say to it.”
“Then what, brother?” Kristos asked.
“Well. We torched the lot of em. Put the survivors to the sword.”
“Mightily well fought, brother. No quarter for the unclean.”
Brother Hector beckoned the servitor to leave his side. “Clean enough”, he thought, his nail-beds still stained red with gore. He sat heavily on a pew, the metal creaking under his weight, and put his head in his hands.
“I grow weary,” he said, “of the wailing.”
Brother Donovan and Brother Kristos paused in their laughter and caught one another’s gaze. In a moment, the two demi-psykers had sniffed out an off spoor, communicated like wordless predators, and felt their righteous anger return. Donovan felt for the butcher’s blade still dripping on his hip.
“Servants, begone from us. We have knightly matters to discuss with Brother Hector.”
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| Squad Heliod, in the flesh(world) |
The first month of Old World Army Challenge IX has come and gone like a flash. In that time, the world has changed fast, grown mightily scary and very real brutal forces have made horrifying manoeuvres.
Maybe a trip to the grim darkness of the far future is needed in the grim darkness of 2026. And so here are my first suitably grim Grey Knights.
Squad Heliod is my first ever unit of RTB-01 Marines, from a revered plastic kit I’ve wanted to play with as long as I’ve known they existed.
Working with these models was… interesting to say the least. Most of these second-hand Marines came painted as Blood Angels to a pretty neat standard. Apart from some horrific mould lines to scrape off, all I had to do was give them a nice blast of Leadbelcher to update their livery.
The real challenge was the fellow armed with the missile launcher who was, let’s just say, not exactly built or painted with the greatest of attention to detail. I had to strip him right down to bare, creamy plastic, fully disassemble him then rebuild with plenty of gap filling. The original Marine kit might have been a landmark of design, but they don’t exactly glide together like today’s plastics!
But hey, awkward posing and mismatched parts are the price you pay for versatility and weapon options.
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| Special weapon troopers |
The two metal models are gorgeous and grungy, perfect examples of very early Citadel sculpting, when they were still trying to find a standard. One of them is half naked, for crying out loud. You wouldn’t see that today.
Painting up the Grey Knights is proving quick and fun. I simply had to wash down the Leadbelcher with black, then build back up with drybrushed metallics until I finished off with pure silver highlights and battle damage. A bit of orange Contrast paint for rust and job's a good 'un.
The real challenge was how to differentiate metals. Pure metallic armies are always tricky, but I found that simply hitting things like Bolters and powerpack vents with Agrax Earthshade was enough to make them appear made of a much grimier, more functional metal than the shining armour.
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Brother Donovan, real bastard
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I knew I wanted these guys to look suitably mean and grimdark, so I took a few cues from Blanche by adding flames, checks and brutal litanies wherever I could. Breaking up the big flat panels this way really helped to liven them up, I feel.
Another detail setting these guys apart from modern Grey Knights (apart from, you know, everything) is their iconography. I very consciously wanted to stay clear of both Rogue Trader-era Grey Knights iconography (an aquila holding an axe and a staff) and the modern equivalent (a book pierced by a sword). Both of these are complex, time-consuming designs. But I didn’t avoid them purely out of laziness.
Rather, I’ve gone with a big white Inquisitorial seal to suggest these guys truly are nothing but an appendage of a despotic Ordo Malleus Inquisitor. They’re branded, living weapons, not holy knights. It also gives me more flex to put them on the table as generic Space Marines in later edition games in which Grey Knights no longer fielded regular Tactical Squads.
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| Squad markings and iconography on display |
A final note this month is on the bases. I went in knowing I wanted these Grey Knights to exist on a field of Mars-like red. I thought this would make a nice contrast to the silver armour and white details. I sculpted a few fleshy blobs on these bases, as well, to give the idea that they’re battling through a daemon world.
I wasn’t super sold on my painting of these bases at first, having simply drybrushed up from dark, cool red to a fleshy colour. But as soon as I hit the sculpted detail with Blood for the Blood God, it all came together. The organic looking bits suddenly came alive. Horrible! Gross! Wonderful!
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| Graffitied armour — it was the style at the time |
And so, that’s month one of my second challenge in the bag. I’ve also, of course, painted and sent our friend Jaakko the customary entrance-fee model: my second version of the infamous “big-armed administratum clerk” with some suspiciously Genestealer-shaped tattoos… where could this fellow show up, I wonder?
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| Possible cultist heading to Finland |
Finally, it’s not lost on me that I’ve dedicated myself to painting a group of violent, oppressive thugs in an environment where we’re now seeing more and more of them on the march in our real world. I’m currently rethinking some approaches and model choices as I go to avoid inadvertently valorising any such characters. I want to bring out that classic Rogue Trader/2,000 AD punk spirit, instead — channeling that righteous anarchy to paint these monstrous soldiers in as ridiculous of a light as possible.
Because the grimdark should stay in the far, fictional future.
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Army list as of January
Squad Heliod
Tactical Squad
Sergeant with Bioscanner and Power Glove
1 Marine with Missile Launcher
1 Marine with Flamer
275 points
