Black Star Initative on You Toob

 I know that there is some Black Star Initative thing for some online space opera game.  But this me, so you know I'm not talking about that.

This is what little men are for.  This is why my garage is full of the little guys.  I absolutely love what is being done here and commend this whole series to you.  It builds.  At the moment it goes to Episode 7.  I hope they do more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnJtGebVSOo

The colours of the Imperial Guard

 

The Queen is dead, Long live the King.

Big boys did it and ran away

Chasing the perfidious Eldar away from the Brick of Scrutiny this week are these stalwarts from the Valhallan Imperial Guard.  These are Print your own ones from a kickstarter.  They were printed for me by Mr Lee's painting emporium (printing emporium ?)

Led by this fella.  Who comes with a handy orc head to swing around like some kind of grimdark bludgeon. 

These are well sculpted, well proportioned, appropriately armed and equipped counts as Valhallans

They're also nicely characterful. 

And they're huge.  That's a normal size marine (wolf priest) because I didn't have a bannana.  I don't see this as problem flufftastically. 
 

Lay members of the Tree of Man

 Not sure if these might qualify for the =I= conclave or not.  But allow me to introduce to you, some of the movers and shakers of the people Bishop Popper has on occasion referred to as 'the great unwashed'.

The Children.  These are costumed to represent characters or aspects from the cult's interpretation of the Imperial Creed.  The fish head is papier mache, but the soup pot is real.

The Beadle and his team, responsible for the care of all of the orphans given over the order's care.  On Devos IV, in the active warzones, they are the only social service whatsoever.

They have a piper, who for what are perfectly explicable reasons to the Tree of Man, wears an Ursid costume.  His additional role is to protect the children, hence the large sword.  Plissikern can be a little taciturn unless guiding his diminutive charges.  

The Beadle has a rod of office, legally he responsible to the Eclessiarch for the safety and wellbeing of the children.  He holds the purse strings for the Children's Mission.  When he received his prosthetic leg, he found the chicken motif amusing.  But that was some time ago.

The Matron is a qualified nurse and supposedly the cheif clinicition and caregiver.  She has her favourites and is capricious and shallow.

These two have no official title.  The bald lady in the homespun dress does most of the actual caring for the children, but she has no practical aptitude or training, so forced scrubbings and gruel are the order of the day.  She knows this is not right, but lacks the personal experience to imagine anything different.

The hunchback is vile human being, the type of which can only exist in a broken and corrupt system.  The big sword belongs to the Beadle.  If the Beadle was not so possessive of it (and it wasn't the offical symbol of protection provided by the Order) he'd pawn it in moments.

Inquisitoral Conclave 2022

Well, following the maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, this would appear to be a factionless warlock or seer of some kind with a retinue of equally disparate assorted Eldar.

The leader.  Impassive in his (her ?) wraith helm.  Looking stern with a witchblade.

There are two swordsmen/women with convential weapons and two swordsmen/women with chainblades.

This individual is possibly the pilot of their grav-tank.

Two more individuals with hafted weapons.

So these are people who at the climax of the final battle for Xyphonica, when it looked like the Imperial Guard were over extended, appeared at XVII Korps HQ and negotiated. 

 

Troops Choice Thought Excersize 3

 So if was throwing it all down, what would I do ?  What could it look like ?  Up there in this pict are the Valhallans and some of the others who routinely share the same large figure case.  You'll recognise Capt Chenkov front and centre.  Immediately behind him are three platoons, two entirely of Valhallan types and one which is two squads of Valhallan type and then the three squads of Macrons.  So we'll call three platoons even though the Macrons bring with them two super numary officers.  

Here are twenty convicts from the Penal Legion.  In anger, I'd probably put the twenty from the Cadian 24th with them for a blob of 40 of them.  Because it would be funnier.

Their leash is an officer from the Vostroyan 158th, rolled for the duration of the campaign as Provost troops. Being a Vostroyan officer, he has a stooges to make him look important and shine his boots.  So that, to certain POV, sort of makes them a command squad for the penal unit detachment.  Perhaps.

 There is enough for two squads of Psykers.  Which could be a fun random sort of element.

  Enough Commissars to spoil everyone's weekend. But useful to share out amongst the Guard. 

 And there are bucket loads of Priests as well, handy for an assault. 

 Medics for a spot of FNP.  Because if it makes the command squads last a bit longer, that can only be a good thing. 

There are thirty VV Special Police, who perhaps will make a reasonable conscript blob, both RAW/RAI and flufftastically. 

The Knovians (Mordian7th's Geno 5-2) make another detachment of two platoons. 

Photo

And a platoon of the Hulin Rifles.

Photo

And the Daredevil Combat Engineers

All under the command of Capt Chenkov.  So they could all be recycled as long as Chenkov is alive and still on the table.  Hurrah ! 

Set Design

 

Khorne Flakes - the Crunchy bits.