The Neverness Hobby Chronicle

In search of heretics, it's Sister Secunda ready to purge the unclean!

Greetings my fellow fiends! Say your final prayer, and think your final thoughts: your reckoning is at hand! Behold! Sister Secunda is here to accept your penance and send your soul to receive the Emperor's merciful judgment!

Yes, I do have a decent size Sister of Battle Adepta Sororitas army, and not a single one has yet to be primed let alone painted to the degree you see above. No, this is Sister Secunda, Redbird's character in my Dark Heresy campaign. Not the campaign I'm running currently, but one of the 1st adventure's I ran awhile back. Sister Secunda was quite a lot of fun to adventure with considering the constant war of lies that the vile adept in that game was stringing against her. Seriously, it might make quite a fascinating read and probably one that would be far more enjoyable than some of the crappy Space Marine stories I've seen Black Library anthologize (I must digress to say that yes, a review of one such anthology is coming eventually). Redbird and I have an idea to do a sort of illustrated children's book on her first adventure on Iconathos but from the point of view that exposure to Imperial Propaganda must start at a very young age. However I have been too busy or distracted by other things to ever do anything with it. Keep watching this blog for an eventual update.

Well, today is Redbird's birthday, and in collaboration with the Wild Bink (her husband) I have been painting her model of Secunda, off and on, over the period of a fortnight.

The first base coat of Shadow Gray for the white bits.

 Redbird primed her black some years ago, but never did anything else to the model. I solidified the black, and added some grit to the base before applying any base coats.

 Skipping ahead a bit, we can see the next color layer, a lighter blue in the current citadel range, and dwarf flesh on top of a brown base coat.

 Here we are with lots of a dark silver color added and thinned white to the robes. And some Elf Flesh to the face.


A lighter fleshtone that I have, I think it's by Folkart, that I use to get some very 'fair' and delicate flesh tones with. It works great on elves as well. Gold is added to some of the metal bits.

Here she is, mostly done!

The studs on the robe game me a bit of trouble but I think I pretty much pulled it off.

and at another angle

Next off, to see Redbird's reaction to this unexpected gift and to see if we can ever find her backpack so I can paint it and truly finish this model.

"Time to purge some heretic scum!!!"

I had noticed while typing this blog that there was a purity seal peeking out from behind the bolt pistol. This has been painted finally, however I wasn't able to snap a pic of it, because I had to seal it and give it to her:

"Surprise!!!"

The Bink and I presented it to her, by having her close her eyes and hold out her hand. This was snapped within seconds of her opening her eyes. As you can see, she was thrilled! Which is always a thrill when you paint up something like this and see that it's well received, so I guess next year I'll have to top this...maybe paint up Secunda's rhino?

:)

-N'v'ness

"No, I am the law!"
"I am the law too!"
"Yeah, well, I have a cyber mastiff, and that makes me the law and than some!"
"...But I'm the guy with the bigger gun."

Or something like that as my players got into their roles as Adeptus Arbites, Imperial Judges of Task Force Gamma.

If you recall back at the end of summer I did a review of Dredd and compared the Judges found in the world of Judge Dredd to the Arbites of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I believe I stated that I really wanted to run an all Judge campaign for Dark Heresy. This past Friday I got my wish!

"I said: "Hotshot" "

My group hasn't played since last summer, and numerous personal events kept occurring that prevented us from picking that game back up. Leaving everything in a 'cliff hanger' state, I decided to run my Judge game, and have it pick up in the aftermath of the previous campaign, not revealing to the players the fates of their previous characters.

Accept one.

In the previous game, the players were running two teams and things were sort of crossing over and intermixing as both teams were working simultaneously to achieve multiple ends and stumbling over similar clues and tangents. In one of the last games, I had Da Masta Cheef's character, Boris, sent to join another character that was sort of removed from the main action to assist with whatever was going on. I decided that this new team of Judges, Task Force Gamma, would be investigating why Boris never showed up.

I just finished and sent out the mission brief, so for your amusement I shall share it with you. Sadly, I can't give you much insight with what's really going on as it would tip off my players (the few that bother to read my blog), and most of them only have a clue at best! LOL

(It was this or show you more progress shots of have half-finished Grey Hunters...)

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice,

• Task Force Gamma’s 1^st mission takes them to the abandoned lander where the lander black box has been retrieved. The pilot has been violently slain and is in a state of rapid decomposition.
• A sniper kills the pilot to Gamma’s lander and it is lost. The sniper wounds a squad member. The sniper is still at large
• Navigating through the abandoned retail complex of Freddicus Mejiers Mexiplex Location XXV, Gamma follows a trail of dead gangers gathering clues that lead them to the Sommer Wells Hab Level 33.
• In Sommer Wells Hab Level 33 a precinct is found with a lone Enforcer who is unkempt and a touch mad. Sgt. Rathers is his name, and he tells Gamma on the fate of his unit. He tells of the times of trouble,the coming of the flys and how they coincided with the arrival of “the one who promises to bring salvation.” He provides info on how to proceed to the next sublevel, as well as where to get medicae treatment.
• Sgt Rathers has a container that contains a contagious object that burst out of one of his men’s navel. No one from Gamma wanted to see what was in it.
• Sgt Rathers provided some Inferno shells (12) to the group if they would send word that he desperately needs assistance at his precinct.
• Sgt Rathers IDs Borris Sevastopol as this salvation figure, and points to a 3-story work in progress mural of Boris. The mural has the words “The Grounds Keeper of the Garden of Salvation” on a scroll at the bottom of the piece.
• The medicae provides healing assistance to Zurio and Bones*.

*Bones injured his leg leaping from the crashng lander, and Zurio was shot by a sniper.

It was a lot tension having these guys worm their way through an abandoned store bloc, gathering clues and follwing the bread crumbs. It was even more fun getting to role play the Sgt Rathers NPC who was pretty much mad as a hatter and paranoid. Also, I got to assign this team to Col. Gentleman who a previous player, that moved away, based (loosely) off of the character with the same name from the Venture Brother's Cartoon, but played more like SNL Sean Connery on the Jeopardy skits. But I totally envision the character in the cartoon, but suited up as an Arbite. I could go on, but let's just say that Colonel Gentleman in my campaign was a riot!

"With Mind-bullets!" Our Psy player will join us in a future game.

So after the game, with half the group gone, I put in the Dredd bluray for additional inspiration and we stayed up late getting idea for next time. I like the dystopic and quasi-anarchy state of the lower and underhive, and the amped up level of paranoia and danger that these Judges are going to have to endure. I wanted to point out that Judge Anderson and Judge Dredd being trapped in Peachtrees isn't going to be too different from where these guys are going, only that this team is going down deeper and will be experiencing more hardships and challenges and with little chance of back up or extraction... it's going to be blast!
:D

The Imperial-Infantrymans-Handbook is the combination of the Imperial Munitorum Manual and Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. I did a raving "drink the kool-aid" endorsement when Amazon first listed it.

I found this on an image search. This is from the Uplifting Primer, which has lots of great diagram art like this.

Nothing is really new here (with exception to the brusque warning -attached below- that if I were YOU citizen, I would heed!) however this still remains a great reference for the RPGs (Dark Heresy and Only War particularly) and is generally just great Imperial propaganda that adds a great feel and sense of duty to the budding Imperial Guard commander. When I ever get around to fielding my IG army, I think I will take this with me to the game and randomly read litanies and propaganda during my opponent's turn. I mean, why not? Spirit of the game and all that...:D

If you missed my endorsement, or the link above elluded you, here is what the intro page says of the book:

"You there soldier! Don't know a las-cutter from a lascannon? Not sure which prayer to the God-Emperor will protect you from the enemy artillery fire? Need to know how to survive an explosive decompression on your drop ship or set up a crossfire ambush in a death world jungle? Better consult the handbook. The Munitorum adepts give us those things for a reason, you know..."

That proceeds this:


And it only gets more awesome from there! If you don't have it, you should. If you need a fun stocking stuffer for a fellow player, this is a great thing to give.

Enjoy.

My brother and I just saw the new Judge Dredd movie, Dredd 3-D.

"Yeah,"

I shall preface this review with a reason why I'm suddenly reviewing movies on a GW-fan-Hobby Blog. You see, without Judge Dredd and his 2,000 A.D. cohorts and cast members, the Warhammer 40,000 universe wouldn't be quite the same. Way back in the mid-'80's, around the time the GW designers were sculpting the 1st Space Marines, GW had the licence to make Judge Dredd miniatures as well as publish the Judge Dredd RPG. The early 40K universe presented in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader was a mish-mash of influencing sci-fi genres: Dune, Aliens, Starship Troopers, and probably many others, but the strongest influence on the worlds of the Imperium, those places your marines are dying each week to protect, is undoubtedly Judge Dredd.

GW's Judge Dredd RPG

The world of Judge Dredd is basicly a dying wasteland with vast cities of humanity stacked and sprawled across hundreds of miles dotting the continents. Resources have been plundered and squandered long ago, or destroyed in the post atomic hell-scapes of the earth. Most citizens don't venture far from the blocks that they live and work in. The population so dense and numerous the Judges, the law enforcers of the Mega-Cities, are too few to deal with all of them. They are empowered to act as Judge, Jury and executioners for immediate and on the spot dispensation of justice. They are the law.



Jes Goodwin design sketch of an Adeptus Arbite

The worlds of the Imperium are either on the way, or already are, dying wastelands with vast hive cities of humanity dotting the continents. Stacked (more so than sprawled) across the continents, spewing forth pollutants and chemical waste as they pump their world dry of whatever resource of value that they can find and use. Most citizens don't venture far from the blocks that they live and work in. The population is so dense and numerous the Judges of the Adeptus Arbites, the law enforcers of the Hive worlds, are too few to deal with all of them. They are empowered to act as Judge, Jury and executioners for immediate and on the spot dispensation of justice in the name of the Holy Emperor on Terra. They are the law.

Not too much difference huh? The judges of both worlds see their worlds as a ceaseless cess-pool of crime. They see the Law as an ultimate, unwavering line that is unforgivable to step over. Extreme black and white: no gray. No sympathy or compassion for those that they dispense justice too. After all, you chose to commit that crime perp, now here's your sentence!




Yes, that is a Space Marine.

So back in 1987 the earliest blister packs of the new Warhammer 40,000 recycled some of these old Judge Dredd models, particularly the various perps, as "Space Pirates". Some packs had a few generic aliens from GW's Dr.Who miniature line tossed in as well (one of my models says 'Timelord' on the base tag, which I have used as an Astropath). I have quite a number of these that I gathered over the years, and they don't look very 40K-like much at all. Not to mention that most of these models didn't really have supporting rules in the Rogue Trader book, so much as they had a supporting role in filling up the gaps in the blister racks of the day. So awkward was this early launch of 40K, that the two brands even shared a product, Citi-Block, which had floor plans to use in recreating table-top blockwars. This background element rarely finds it's way onto the warzones of the 41st millennium, but make no doubt, the underhive is a warzone. The Necromunda game (and it's predecessor Confrontation) both dealt with gang warfare in the Underhives with the Judges/Enforcers of the Adeptus Arbites as a constant threat to the survival of the gang.

Fast forward 25 years later to today, and we find that only the look of the Arbites has (albeit slightly)changed (not so much for Dredd) except now they have cyber-mastiffs and 40k specific gear. As I read through The Book of Judgment for the Dark Heresy game I kept thinking about Judge Dredd and how far, and yet not so much, that GW has evolved the judges of their worlds. And literally today as I was watching this movie, I was thinking: "This is my next Dark Heresy campaign: Judges cleaning up the underhive!"

The top row were released for 40K 2nd ed, the bottom row were released for Confrontation.

Which, onto the review, is what we got with Dredd 3-D: Judges cleaning up the underhive. In Mega-Citi 1, whole City blocks rise up to the smoggy heavens in vast skyscrapers.This was poorly presented in the mid-'90s Judge Dredd movie but perfectly presented here in Dredd 3-D. Especially the gangs and how they fight for control over the various levels of a given block. Dredd and Anderson find themselves looking into a triple homicide but stick their noses in a bit too far, upsetting a very powerful crime lord, who will stop at nothing to protect her operations. To say too much more might give away too much, but I will say that I left feeling like I just read a classic Judge Dredd story. Dredd is never seen with his helmet off. Which is usually the case in the comics as well. The snear, the attitude, the unwavering persuit to serve justice to those he has targeted -all these things- are perfectly presented here. The awesomeness of the 'Lawgiver', which thankfully is improved here vs. the comics, makes for some great entertainment as well. And it left me wanting to play a game where I could control a judge, and clean out a hive spire of the filth that inhabits it.

Awesome grenade options: another thing GW swiped from Dredd.

Go see it, Unless you dislike blood. Cause I think as far as recent action movies go, maybe only Hobo with a Shotgun had more blood and guts than this does...

While scouring through Amazon last night I stumbled upon this gem:
imperial+infantryman handbook

For those of you who have the previous books in this serious, most famously the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, you'll know that this isn't just a reference  book, it's practically a prop! Indeed, our copies of Damocles Gulf editions are constantly being used when we play Dark Heresy. Not only are these books dripping with pure Imperial propaganda, they are also impressively mired in military style verbiage and bureaucracy. Indeed, the Primer was a literal extension of military red-tape that the guardsman is forced to carry with him at all times (or get a bullet in the head!). Did I mention that these books are also kinda of funny? Particularly the propaganda regarding how awesome the standard issue Lasgun is at killing everything!



So I have seen zero fan-fare on this title, so hopefully I have done you a service and you'll promptly chase the link and pre-order it like I did!

(...shudder!...why do I feel so dirty all of a sudden?!)

I've not talked about it much in this blog, although Da Masta Cheef has, I am currently running a Dark Heresy campaign and have been now for about a year. We tend to have quite a bit of explosive fun when we get together, with some of the fun for me being in putting together the mission briefs and game briefs which all heavily rely on GW imagery and content (which is why I haven't published them publicly: they are intended for player used only) however I thought the latest module I ran, although it ended well, wasn't as satisfying as the more loosely based materials I used in past games.

So, while on Scintilla playing through the 1st adventure in Purge the Unclean, I decided to inject an element from one of the more recent source books that Fantasy Flight has published, and see where it would go. I had a player whose character (Artellus) witnessed, and was subsequently blamed for, murders committed by the Spire Stalker. It was a subplot at best, however as the main mission ended we had a player leave, so I sacrificed that character to make her into the literal plot device for their new mission: To recover their comrade's missing head! Here is the Mission Brief I wrote tonight (which they haven't seen yet, but since 4/5s of my players read this blog, they ought to see it here before it ends up in their inbox). I've stripped the imagery out of it for public review.  I would reveal the angles that I'm thinking I will twist this mission with (they never go as straight forward as they're laid out, huh?) but you'll have to wait until we play through this for those thoughts... Meanwhile, enjoy:

+++++++++++++++DATE: ++++++++++++++++REF: ++++++++TRANSMITTED: +++++++++++++++++TO: +++++++++++++++FROM: ++++++++++++SUBJECT: +++++++++++LOCATION: +++++++++++++SECTOR: ++++++AUTHORIZATION: ++++++++++++THOUGHT:

865814.M41 Inq/0456885012/BI Lettuce 561 Squad Gamma, Ordo Calixis Interrogator Errasmus Davis C/O Inq.Svech Mission briefing Segmentum Obscurus Calixis Scintillian Sub, Scintilla LETUS05.61.CLA Warriors of the Emperor seek no other reward but death

And that's it. This will be presented at the start of our next game, along with the latest game brief, and then the next mission will begin! As you can see, my 40K hobby isn't just about painting and playing with little toy soldiers... :)