The Saturnine 27th, "The Reaping Death"

[GomezAddams]

Christ I turn around for a few days and you come up with that! Very John Blanche, and a very clever use of parts.

I also agree with the infantry squad option - that way I won't feel so bad about my incredibly slow progress...

[Apologist]

The officer looks smashing; as BowlingShirtJerk says, it's got a very 'Blancheian' feel. I'd echo the suggestion to work on the infantry squad before the command squad. To capture your interest and remove the feeling of it being chore, why not try adding in some minor specialists or unusual poses? These don't have to have in-game effects – you could have a model with a mine-detecting device, someone checking an auspex or map, or simply sneaking a choccy bar out of a belt pouch.

Along with the proper specialists, such as the vox-man and sergeant, you'll be able to make every model something that you look forward to painting

[BeatTheBeat]

The Yak - Hahaha yeah I see now! Absolutely awesome, I definitely don't take that as criticism haha, my imagination just wasn't vivid enough! As evidenced below, I took your advice, and it feels very good to have gone down the righteous path for once... But... Hey... Ork Air Cavalry?

GomezAddams - Yeeeeaaaah mate, how about that progress of yours? HRRM?! Want to see moar of the proud sixteenth!

Apologist - Thanks! Tried adding in some stuff, but I'm sorely lacking bits for more interesting conversions and scarfs are just about the extent of my green stuff skills. Need to find more DKoK bits, expensive as they are. The chocco bar idea is actually amazingly good, and one I'll have to do in the future! Even my meager sculpting skills should be up to the task. I can see before me the Captain's aides grabbing a quick snack with a guilty glance to their commander when she looks the other way.


Some assembly and sculpting has, wonder of wonders, taken place today. Just basing now and then they're ready for paint. After that I'm actually eyeing a Leman Russ, as I'm moving back up north soon and can't really order more stuff from FW while that's going on, wouldn't want it to be here when I'm there or the other way around!

Nuff' talking, evidence of progress:



Also: Want to buy (any) bare heads and DKoK bits (arms and non-running/dramatic pose poses mostly). Drop me a PM if you got some!

Cheers,
BTB

[DeathCat147]

Ooh shiney Lovely work as usual BeatTheBeat. We definately need more of the 16th and the 27th! But i am dissapointed that there isnt some more of the wonderful background/story with the post

[Servant of the Emperor]

If you want plenty of kriegsmen at ease buy the gorgon infantrysquads and cut them apart. That way I got 46 kriegsmen for 50 pounds. They look almost exactly the same (well my buddies couldn't tell the difference) and all you have to do is resculpt some sleeves in 2/10 cases and 6/10 you simply have to snap them of and voila! The last 2/10 require some new arms or major greenstuff work.

Looking great so far keep up the good work

[BeatTheBeat]

DeathCat147 - Damn you, now I had to write another chapter

Servant of the Emperor - Thanks, and yeah, I'll get that set for the next platoon!



-FOUR-

The stones were cold. Stones usually were cold of course, even on this sphere of sand. Who judged hot from cold, he wondered? Who wandered the dividing line and could tell the left from the right, the line from the voids that it divided? Years ago, he wondered these things as well, and had no answers. He had asked questions since then, to himself, to his friends and family (the dead and living both), to the books and datastacks, to the Strangers. The Strangers, of course (the capital letters were important even her in his minds writing, denoting their difference to the others, those strangers who had once been called friends, those fools not deserving of capital letters, barely even of mention... For a moment his self-control slipped, but quickly, his mind's eye returned back to outside of the parenthesis) the Strangers, yes, had been the ones who he had expected the true answers of. All he got was riddles. The universe had stayed in a state of uncertain divides and twisting scales born from unknown springs and wells of metanarrative and civilisational consciousnesses. He did trust an honest riddle better than any truth at all though, if such a term could even be allowed independent existence. Those who claimed truth knew nothing, those who knew of ignorance could learn to recognise illusion.

Nevertheless, however, the stones were definitely cold. To some, he knew, the basic instincts of the mind were the clearest judges of truth and reality from falsehood and chaos. To some others, he knew, the mind itself was the chaotic sea that turned fact (Ha! Such a thing) upside down and around and around and back again.

Pushing his way back from the depths of his mind, he returned himself to his body. It had been still for so long, even the eyelids hurt as he let them move again. It was clearer now, the stones were not only cold, they were ice. With mixed feelings he looked up at the stony ceiling.

"Are they come?"

The alien creature looked down at him, or up, he couldn't say. He still wondered how they did that - not the walking upside down thing - that was what more naive minds would see - the rotating reality thing. Well, what was truth anyway?

Without opening its mouth, words appeared within his mind like scribbled letters on a blank paper, and he sighed.

"It feels them - the planet feels them. The stones..."

The alien nodded. It knew. Of course, he knew that it had known all along, even before his own birth, maybe even before the first of his ancestors had landed here.

"Whatever we might think of them, they are of our - my - blood. They are like me, and it's not through any error of their own that they are blind. There is an emotional connection to them still."

The wonderfully elegant features of the alien melted softly into a smile, in all likelihood meant to be a soft and kind smile, he knew. Upside down, the smile looked everything but.

It spoke, though it didn't have to, in perfectly fluent high gothic, though it didn't have to do that either.

"We will make their deaths quick, Governor".

-END

[droken]

I approve of this log!
Keep up the good work, BTB :-)

[Snoddie]

Where did the head come from, for your conversion?

[BeatTheBeat]

droken - Mark of approval is gratefully accepted!

Snoddie - I suppose you mean the Captain (though every single model in the army this far has been a conversion involving a change of heads), her head is from the uber-vampiress riding the VC Coven Throne. The scarf covered up her fangs pretty well, luckily...

Cheers,
BTB

[The Yak]

The story is getting really interesting now BTB have you thought about applying to write for the Black Library?

The next squad is shaping up well, I am look forward to seeing them painted for two reasons.
1) to see the captain and the 2 squads lined up together (because you know it will look amazing)
2) So we can have more story!!!

Excellent work

The Yak

[lilloser2010]

HA oh man, these are great, although I should expect nothing less.

LilLoser

[BowlingShirtJerk]

I always get a little excited when this log is updated...

Looking forward to the new squad being completed. I really dig the topknot on the one guardsmen, it totally works and has that awesome Blanchian (pre-heresy army?) vibe. As for the Russ? If you don't get a Mars pattern you better convert the hell out of one of the standard tanks!

[Petay1985]

lovely work fella, i really like the fluff, very well composed. The aesthetic you have gone with is very nice indeed, it has a great nomadic quality without being rag-tag. simply sterling fella.

[BeatTheBeat]

The Yak - Woah, huge praise mate! I haven't really, but if somebody from BL would drop me a PM I wouldn't say no haha!

lilloser2010 - Thanks mate! Really missing your BA log btw, dropped that project?

BowlingShirtJerk - Happy to hear that! Not very exciting updates today, but proof that something is being done at least.

Petay1985 - Thanks! Nomadic, that I like. Very much what I'm going for.


The second infantry squad is now at the stage where everything looks like ****. Basecoats are done, bases are done except for static grass, now it's onto highlights, washes, and details. Oh how I hate the black highlighting...



Just wanted you to know I'm not dead

Cheers,
BTB

[Servant of the Emperor]

Looking good. Cant wait for some pictures when they are finished and some more fluff
Keep up the good work!

[DeathCat147]

Glad your keeping up the good work BTB

[malika]

Hmm, since they're from Saturn you might want to go for a more "pre-Heresy" tech feel for some stuff. What about getting some Proteus Pattern Rhinos and/or Predators and convert them a bit to make them game legal (if you're into that). Would be a nice touch since these guys are from the Sol system after all.

If you don't care about rules at all I've got one suggestion for you: Proteus Pattern Land Raider...

[droken]

This thread just gets more and more interesting. Awesome work BTB.

[BeatTheBeat]

Thanks for the motivation guys! Malika - Yeah, I definitely want a Land Raider Proteus somewhere down the road. I will probably include some more standard vehicles as well, if only for the sake of my poor, poor wallet and actually ever reaching 1000 pts. Currently the money - pts ratio is about 1£ - 1pts... So next addition once/if these infantry are done before I go home on the 11th is a Leman Russ, probably an Exterminator as I really like the aesthetic.

Hopefully the squad will be more or less done by today or tomorrow, but my guess is as good as anyone's here really

Cheers,
BTB

[BeatTheBeat]

Right, finished product. Now I need to spend more money. WOOOHOOOOO!

Not as happy with these as with squad one, probably a lot due to "first love" syndrome, but I think the highlighting was a little sloppier this time around as well. Some exceptions though - the Sergeant I really like, the flamethrower girl, and the dude with the radio headphones who I imagine is listening to heavy ass future hip hop all the time instead of doing something useful.

Just five more Guardsmen for a platoon command squad and I've got two Troops choices finished. I have this hunch that GW will change the force organization requirements with 6th ed though, necessitating the further spending of cash on resin goodies...






Saturnine 27th, II Company, Squad 1-2

-FIVE-

Guardsman Olex stood at ease on the dusty ground of another planet. His first planet, if truth be told. The sensation was pretty flippin' awesome, he had to admit to himself. He had hoped that he someday would get to be planetside, just wherever really, and now he was not only planetside - he was planetside with a blastin' army all around him, preparing to make war upon some traitor freaks, with a huge damn lasgun in his hands and amazing career prospects if he just made sure he lived a little longer than his squad mates, and in his headphones a sick tune was pumping.

All together, life is flippin' good, he thought.

As the bassline dropped, Olex saw the sergeant call them to attention, and he clicked his boots together with reasonable sharpness and straightened his back just enough, his mind reeling from a tune so utterly mind-blowing. The lyrics were awesome too at this point, and Olex closed his eyes for a while as the Sergeant droned on. He could feel wind in his hair. Just that! Every single gust of air he had felt before had been generated by this or that air vent or power generator or cooling system or heating system. Real wind felt so much more fresh, even this dusty motherflipper of a wind. He supposed there were more pleasant winds on other planets, and if he survived this brief encounter with martial death, he would make damn sure to get to one such world.

Nevertheless, Marec 14 was way better than everybody had heard it would be - there were supposed to be darn huge and dry deserts, the rumours had said before deployment. Now, well, the planet seemed huge and dry allright, but he kind of expected deserts to have more sand and less grass, dry as even that grass might be. He guessed none was more disappointed than sergeant Luuxin though, who had kept on ranting about how his black skin needed a warm frakking sun and a maxed out desert, and how he would show the pinkie boys of the platoon how real men got tanned, going on and on about how their skin would burn day one.

Looked like they'd have none of that, as the sun felt kind of cosy. Far from cold yet not too warm. At the horizon, some birds that Olex obviously didn't recognise flew in weird patterns. Distorted by the heat at this distance, it looked like they faded in and out of existence every now and then. They had come just minutes ago. As second company had disembarked from the landers, no life at all had been in their immediate vicinity. Then again, any lifeform not scared away by the maxed out noise of the troop landers was probably going to become an evolutionary frak up anyway. Olex chuckled at the thought.

"Is something funny, Olex?". The sergeant must have screamed, since Olex heard him through the insane buildup of the song playing in his headphones. He switched the music off with a though, not without a certain disappointment.

"Sergeant! Positive!" he yelled, in the most militaristic manner he could, which was pretty darn militaristic he knew. "And what might that be, Guardsman?"

"I find it pretty frakking amazing that me as a part of this insane overkill of a platoon can see birds in the distance Sergeant, when by all rights all life should be going off-world to preserve their existence in the face of such mind blowing excess of violence as we will put up their behinds, Sergeant!"

The desert rang quiet in his ears, and the eyes of the Sergeant lay cold upon his own. A booming laughter distorted the sergeant's stern look, within milliseconds joined by the rest of the squad - earning them some looks from the other squads - and the laughter would have been enough to go through the noise of the landers and his music both. Olex laughed along, as much from the fact that he didn't have any severe punishment to look forward to. These kinds of things were risky at best, he knew from experience with the sergeant.

"Guardsman Olex, you are truly captain material, but never let our beloved Captain hear that or she will by all rights kill you herself. Now get your fat asses together, we are moving out across this not-so-much-a-desert-as-I-would-have-liked right now. It seems Fourth has encountered something that fights back at their landing site, and we are going their to make sure it dies alright."

Olex switched the headphones back on, pumping out a fresh beat from the Cypra Mundi underground scene. Above them, the birds circled, now as close as to be within range for the rifles of the platoon. Like a huge black snake of flesh, armour and weapons, the gathered strength of second company moved out across the stony grass flats of Marec 14. The sun turned slowly from a blazing orange to a blood red, and somewhere far ahead, somebody was dying.

-END-

Cheers,
BTB