sho3box

A few figures that I am quite fond of to start 2010.

Squad Nemesis was assembled and painted up for use as a Possessed unit in my Sin Eater Chaos Space Marine force back in 2000.

Squad Nemesis Possessed Marines

GW didn’t make possessed Chaos Space Marine figures at the time (although a lot of their original Chaos Renegade marines from the 80s were very suitable.  I also painted up a unit of those guys for the Sin Eaters, of which there will be photos at a later date) although the Chaos Mutation sprue came out around then.  Subsequently GW made specific metal possessed marines who looked a little like the Mordheim possessed if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I wasn’t that keen on the possessed figures that I had seen up to that point: they were usually predictably heavy on the tentacles and bat wings etc and low on interest factor (to me at least).  With that in mind when I got around to making my own I tried to steer a little to the left of the usual fare.  Unsurprisingly I used Resident Evil as an inspiration and starting point.

Bloated with Dark Energies. WooOOOoo.

I prefer “science” zombies to “magic” zombies and I have liked the Tyrant style super-zombies from Resident Evil since I first saw them.  Therefore they were a big influence on what I wanted my Possessed to look like. 

Although trying to avoid the idea of magic-y things in the context of an army that supposedly represents worshippers of Dark Gods who receive direct aid from their patrons might sound perverse, I did have a few reasons to do so.  Mainly, the urge to have something slightly different from what I had seen already was one.  This was also influenced by the background of the Chaos Space marines from that era.

Corrupted Beyond Recognition

Before then the Chaos Space Marines were regularly portrayed as mindless devotees to their own cults.  A couple of things about this make them less interesting to me: firstly that I don’t like religion and in particular mindless people with a lot of “faith” and secondly the idea of Chaos Marines who are already completely under the thumb of their patron suggests weakness. 

Part of the suggested background for the Chaos Marines at this time was that the different Legions were actually more in a marriage of convenience with their patrons and that the Marines therefore had their own agenda and goals.  This interested me a lot more that another bunch of frothing jihad types.

Raaargh!

So Squad Nemesis was intended to be a group of (relatively) sane Chaos Marines who use pseudo-scientific means to either augment themselves with physical mutations on a temporary basis or use the pseudo-science to temporarily become a host for whatever daemonic energies were doing the rounds.  So I went with a look that involved a lot of cables coming out of the marines backpacks into their bloated and deformed bodies: a little more science than magic.  I think it worked and of the units in my Sin Eater force Squad Nemesis is one of my favourites.

The parts used were Ork arms, zombie heads and guitar strings.  The guitar strings didn’t keep their shape as well as I hoped which meant that they had to be kinked into shape rather than curved.  I would have rather that they were curved but I got over it.

Happy New Year and all that jazz!

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2000, 40K, Chaos, Nurgle, Sci-fi, Sin Eaters, Space Marines, Zombie | Leave a comment »

Not very Xmas-y, but what can you do?

Brother Chaplain Bakul of the Sin Eaters (note the eeevil Rosarius)

According to the 40K fluff, all of the original Chaos Marine Legions bumped off their Chaplains during the Horus Heresy.  The Word Bearers held onto their guys (they became Dark Apostles if memory serves.  Big into their false idols those Word Bearer scamps). While I understand that GW wanted to give the Chaos Marines their own identity and feel, I do think that the idea of a eeevil Chaplains of the Dark Powers leading Space Marines into battle is potentially fun.  With that in mind I put this guy together on a whim in 2001 or so.

Lots of Skulls on the Shoulder Pad and the Backpack Nozzles

Brother Chaplain Bakul is entirely plastic and is covered in enough skulls to make a rocker blush.  It reinforces the Chaplain skull motif I suppose, although spiky skulls are perhaps my least favourite element of GW Chaos stuff.

Yet More Skulls on the Shoulder Pad and on his eeevil Crozius Arcanum

I don’t like the way that GW have canonised the colour schemes for Chaplains (black), Librarians (blue), Techmarines (red), Apothecaries (white) etc.  I think that the additional colours can ruin a palette and are often unnecessary. 

 Additionally, GW policy seems to be to cover the relevant miniature in that colour when perhaps just a little of it would suffice (for a good example check out the jarringly blue Librarian that features with the Blood Angel Terminators in 3rd Ed Space Hulk.  It ruins the effect in my opinion.  And don’t get me started on the Blood Angel yellow helmet=Assault, blue helmet=Devastator thing.  Ugh). 

The Chaplain is the least offensive of the marine specialists in that regard as adding some black to a scheme isn’t as disruptive as adding an actual colour to it.  Still, when I added a Chaplain to the Sin Eaters I wanted to use the minimum amount of black to make him stand out a bit without ruining the army uniformity.  I think that it worked fine.  Not brilliant, but not awful in my opinion.

“Bakul” apparently means “sweet smelling”.  Ho, ho, ho etc.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2001, 40K, Chaos, Nurgle, Sci-fi, Sin Eaters, Space Marines, Zombie | 3 Comments »