Campaign narrative

 A few friends and are doing a tale of four gamers with these 40k armies, where essentially you build armies concurrently and play games as you reach each army point value milestone: 500pt, 750pt, 1000ptm, etc. Having deadlines certainly helps me hit my hobby goals and gives me a way to keep motivated if I hit a lull.

To tie it all together I put together an outline of the narrative of our campaign and we will build on it each game session and put it up on the Trello to allow people to edit and add their backgrounds for their armies. This outlines the general motivation for each faction:

The planetary governor of a recently settled imperial planet Abyz III has become overly ambitious and overthrown the incumbent authority on his planet. He has declared himself king and surrounded his royal palace and the central hive with an enormous void shield.

A warp storm has also erupted in the system, a phenomenon quite common in the region, far from the imperial homeworlds, cutting off all communication to nearby systems.

Black Templars
Black Templars were in the vicinity of the planet when the uprising took place three years ago and have been ordered to reconnoiter with an inquisitor leading the counter insurgency on Abyz III and provide assistance in restoring order on the settlement (an Amalthanian inquisitor). They have recently landed and are seeking his whereabouts after not having any contact with the group or the imperial force to which they belong as a result of the warp storm in the area.

Custodes
An imperial inquisitor was on the planet and tried to lead a counter revolution with members of the priesthood. This was a failure. A final message sent by the inquisitor was intercepted by an imperial crusade force:
“Governor Darra has taken sole authority…We await final assault.. I discovered a plot to invade the Emperor’s palace and reclaimed the plans. I personally destroyed them and anyone who had seen them.”
The possibility of the inquisitor remembering even a part of the plans is too dangerous to risk, a contingent of custodes has been secretly sent with orders to kill the inquisitor and any who try to aid him.
Since the message was received, a warp storm erupted, this has thwarted any attempts to communicate with the planet or other imperial forces

Squats
The squats of Miraz Dur have lived peacefully on Abyz III ever since 6,000 years ago, after being cut off from the imperium, having to trade with the Orks and Eldar just got to be too much and they said enough is enough. They shut the doors of their stronghold and became self sufficient living completely underground. The citizens have never been happier.

Until now, a massive void shield has suddenly appeared through the middle of the stronghold. It is time to dust off the grudge book, someone just made the list!

Death Guard
His corpulence, grandfather nurgle has planted deep seeds in Abyz III, life is hard and short on the unforgiving colony, it didn’t take long before despair and worry overcame the hope for a new start on a new imperial planet.

Nobody knows the how the population began worshipping a benevolent floating pudding, but out here it started to not sound so crazy. The promise to relieve the hivers of their worries and uplift them into immortality was too tempting to dismiss and the population was ready to grab hold of something. Recently, these ideas have spread to the point that work has ground to a halt. Govenor Darra seized the moment to assert his control of the hive. However now the populace seems to be coming down with afflictions at a rate never seen before, and his own household guard, once uninterested in the new religion, are increasingly being found with pamphlets titled “the pudding is coming - ten reasons you should believe”.

5th faction

Another inquisitor is also present on the planet. Unbenownst to others involved, Inquisitor Tillinghast has surruptitiously been the architect for many of the events unfolding on Abyz III, carefully nudging events towards disorder and conflict (an Istvaanian inquisitor). Tillinghast has managed to establish a far reaching political presence and has many allies.

First group of models done

 

I am very happy with the way these turned out. I think the squat with the radio, second from left, is possibly my favourite from the range, I love the personality conveyed in the model. The squat in the bomber jacket is also up there.

I ended up doing an off white trim on the edge of the padded jackets which make them look a lot more finished. 

One thing I'm not totally sure about is the reflection on the visor that is up on the squat second from right. The visor might be a bit too curved to have the earth reflected, it still conveys the idea though I think. Remaining consistent with the visors will probably be the biggest challenge on this project but I think the look on the army as a whole might create a cool effect!

I also set up a collaboration space for the group that I game with on Trello, which has worked really well to determine the basing and terrain scheme for the campaign. I threw up a poll on there with a few terrain schemes and we ended up with desert terrain. I am very happy with this as it can also be used for Necromunda Ash Wastes when it comes out and I have a way on creating desert bases I am comfortable with using the super glue and bicarb method. I will do a tutorial on how I do it a future post I think, it will help to have a step by step for the method spelled out for me for the future.

Jumping into Squats

 I always loved the Squat miniatures, starting when I was a little kid looking through my brothers GW mailorder catalogue. For some reason I never seriously considered collecting them. I played 2nd edition with my friends and my brother and there was always newer, and way more accessible stuff available to get excited about. I think I preferred buying my miniatures off the shelf and as advertised in White Dwarf.

I bought a few things here or there out of the catalogue, I have fond memories of sitting next to my brother on the phone calling the UK and proceeding to painstakingly read out the model codes one by one. Then the excitment of receiving the mail order box, zoats, scifi adventurers, and other weird old models. I still keep some minis in a few of the old boxes:

I vaguely remember the feeling of 'why did I want this again?' when it finally arrived. A feeling based on the fact, I think, that I never bought what I really wanted because I didn't have the means to make a whole army. This is underlined by the fact that I had an Epic Squat army:

Well now I am older and have the means and like many of us I found myself with a considerable amount of spare time this year. I started rereading old White Dwarfs and decided I wanted to start a big project. Inspired by my brothers large collection of  vintage GW miniatures, I decided to tackle a dream army from way back at the beginning and began collecting Squat models.

I pulled out the old catalogue, unfortunately hole punched, as GW regularly recommended you do back in the day, and falling apart as a result:

These are the models I drooled over, the champions with their powerfists, the synths (because it's the future), the weird roman legionary style standards (I'm assuming that was the Perry twins sneaking in their love of the historical, but the Imperial Guard had similar details at the time).

I now have a few models and have been trying to narrow down what informed my vision of Squats. Centrally it is the Paul Bonner artwork which was present in the catalogue, this drawing in particular:

The mass of squats piling out of the rhino defines their character to me, so much individualism compared with the guard, highlighted by the comissar towering over them obviously uncomfortable/annoyed. The fact that there are squats in the infantry with biker sunglasses, earrings, and caps, and they all seem to have their own customised weaponry really makes them stand out from other armies. They come off as goofy and incompetent but in reading the background they are actually far more competent and capable compared to other imperial armies, capable of repairing and inventing their own equipment and not reliant on religion and the warp. I enjoy this contrast.

The second artwork is the cover of Ork and Squat Warlords by Dave Gallagher:

The image of the Squat war machines behing the sort of dumpy and old but heroically posed Squat here again speaks to goofy but competent image I have of Squats in my head. Not to mention the bright primary colours really vibe with cartoony nature of the army and the dwarf look in warhammer fantasy as well.

As this is the only Squat art in colour that I remember really loving, it was pretty clear that I would need to paint my army in the colour scheme shown here, I looked for a palette online that was pleasing to me that had similar colours, mainly the contrasting orange/red and deep blues

Then I got to it and painted a test model with these colours. I also added a bit of interest in the visor, doing a Sky-Earth reflection which I would carry throughout the army. I really enjoy doing little technical parts, so this sort of thing I leave until the very end of the model and keeps me motivated

I am pretty happy with how it turned out, I think the yellow gloves might be a bit much so I will try toning that down and see how it goes. Super happy with the reflection though and didn't take long at all!

Time to get started on some batch painting!