When I decided on the Night Lords (8th Legion) 8th Company, I chose it mostly as I have a growing Chaos Daemons of Khorne force, so the number 8 resonated hah. Then I found the single official fluff entry about the Night Lords 8th Legion, which had a single entry in a Forge World Book (about a Dreadnaught that fought at the Drop Site Massacre). The main thing that it said was that the 8th Company called itself “The Circle of Inclemency”. Which given my interest in Justice (professionally) made me really intrigued. The idea of an organization of joint leadership, charged with the perverse sense of harsh justice that the Night Lords as a Legion were founded on, really appealed. I envisioned their leadership to be an 8-member council (Leadership councils in other Night Lords fluff are called Kryoptera). And I envisioned that in the warp lingered a Khornate touchstone for each of the eight members of the 8th Company’s Kryoptera as well–a council of 8 Greater Daemon Bloodthirsters that drew power from the actions of the Company’s warfare. So I envisioned the following:
That shows the type of Bloodthirster, the sort of units that each member of the council looks after, and who those members might even be. I really like this as a way to organize my thinking about the force! The one up top is the stylized Nostroman script rune version too.
And speaking of the Force, I’ve been doing a ton of painting lately. Seriously a whole heap of it. The following pics are all things I’ve added to my army since my last post.
Cultists!
Five more basic Chaos Space Marine Night Lords
First unit of 5 Night Lords Warp Talons
Second unit of 5 Night Lords Warp Talons
Third (!) unit of 5 Night Lords Warp Talons
Mutilators
First Vindicator
Two more Vindicators!
That was a huge push of painting, and I’m really pleased with it. I’ve also added some more to my Tau force (kinda inspired by this too… wait and see hehe), and more Marvel Crisis Protocol models. But I’ll include those in a different post!
Well, I think I have finally settled on what my force for “Invasion of Terra Two: The Emperor’s Thru” will be. I had been leaning toward Death Guard (as I do have a start to that force done), but realized from discussion with other players who will be a part of that event that we’ve got a really huge Nurgle presence already ready to assault the walls. So rather than double-up things, I wanted to spread out a bit more. I had known that I wanted to add a Khorne contingent to my army list, as there was much talk of a Host of Bloodthirsters assaulting the Throne room. So I’ve been going crazy on the Khorne side of things. Yet I didn’t want just daemons, as while I’ll have at least some hordes of troops with the daemons I also wanted to have lines of warriors and rows of siege tanks to break down the walls (envisioning those sorts of battles you see in the art of just lines of war).
So to that end, I thought about what 40k Chaos Legions are not represented in our local meta, but still worked with the Daemon forces that I’ve developed–as I’ve got a lot of Nurgle and the growing Khorne. We have Death Guard, Black Legion, World Eaters, and Thousand Sons covered, plus a whole lot of Slaanesh and Tzeentch daemons. So that led me to thinking about some of the groups that could cover all chaos forces: Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, and Night Lords. I’m not keen on the Iron Warriors look, and gave some tries at Word Bearer armor, but finally found a tutorial on Night Lords that I absolutely loved. After a few practice models turned out well, I committed, and it’s the cursed sons of Conrad Kurze for me. To pair with Khorne, as they’re the 8th Legion (very auspicious), and even more than that, I’m thinking they’ll be the 8th Company. There’s very little fluff on the 8th Company, just a picture of a Contemptor Dread in a Forge World Horus Heresy book with just a bit of info about the 8th company. (Reference: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Reeve ). The dread houses a former Company Commander, and the company name is The Circle of Inclemency. Which sounds utterly delightful. So I’m going to go with that.
Khorne– The Gathering of Eight
The one part I know I want to do is finally get all the Khorne forces I’ve got completed, as there was much talk of the Host of Bloodthirsters assaulting the Throne room in our big game this Fall. So I’ve started up on a Khorne kick again alongside the Night Lords. I’ve got Skarbrand done, and three assembled Bloodthirsters (plus three in box waiting to be built, hah). But to really place them down in a meaningful way that means surrounding them with smaller Khorne forces. I’m really trying to do the “boys over toys” approach to things, as that’s what makes big games look really epic: huge lines of troops advancing on positions, with key bigger pieces amidst them.
So here’s the Khornate Progress thus far:
Skull Cannon of Khorne
Another unit of 10x Bloodletters of Khorne
And a third total unit of 10x Bloodletters of Khorne
Karanak, the Cerebus-looking Flesh Hound of Khorne
Flesh Hounds of Khorne
All told I’m pretty pleased with all the painting progress I got in on Khorne stuff. It makes a fun balance to the Night Lords (see below).
Night Lords
A big part of me getting excited about the Night Lords (over Word Bearers, which I also painted some test models for, and would have fit my Daemon army well), was that I found a paint scheme that I really liked. I tried a first Night Lord with a flat color paint scheme, and while it was okay, I didn’t love it. Then I found a great metallic blue tutorial for Night Lords from Kabin Miniatures (check it out here: https://youtu.be/nFJJTCEMyQY ). I gave it a try, with some of my own color tricks for the reds and leathers, and really loved how it came together. Particularly with my lava base scheme. So with some hunting around the fluff, The Night Lords 8th Legion–The Circle of Inclemency–has begun. I’ve painted more Night Lords points this month than anything else combined all year (and honestly all pandemic). Which shows me something.
Night Lords Warpsmith. Really pleased with him, to the point that at least for now he’ll be the leader of my Crusade force.
Night Lords Sorcerer. Definitely a needed addition, though psykers will take a bit of a rear seat for the force as they’ll frequently be pairing with Khorne (and don’t want to draw his ire, hah).
The first five Night Lords Chaos Space Marines. The one with the meltagun on the right was my test model for the scheme, but they all turned out quite neat I think.
Night Lords Obliterator. This was a fun model to do, as I really enjoy the warped flesh elements the model has. Particularly the weird feet/toes. Creepy!
Did up a Chaos Space Marines Predator Tank as well. At first I was worried, as I tried doing the whole tank in the metallic blue. That just looked too much, particularly as the blue sections’ sheen isn’t always uniform. So I went with large sections of black (and a few of that gold color trim) to balance the blue. I’m still not in love with my lightning bolt freehand work, but overall I’m quite pleased.
Crusade – Charadon: Book of Rust
Our local game store, Drawbridge Games, is running a Crusade campaign, leveraging the Charadon: Book of Rust rules. I managed to get my first game in against Matt’s Adeptus Sororitas Sisters of Battle force. It was a good game, and I managed to keep it close until the last of my units were wiped out by his firepower. Those battlesuit sisters pack a punch. A couple of shots from the game are below.
Skarbrand was a workhorse, destroying 2 units of Battle Sisters, a Rhino tank, an Immolator, and a Canoness (cutting off the leg of the latter and leaving her needing a bionic replacement in the campaign) all before he was finally gunned down.
Even the Bloodletters charging from out of warp and with bonus attacks thanks to Skarbrand being nearby could not stop the Sororitas battlesuits.
The Night Lords infantry let the Bloodletters do the fighting while they fired from cover, protecting an objective. Ultimately they were wiped out by some charging Seraphim, but overall was a fun game.
Marvel Corner
Finally–and quickly–I am still slowly but surely adding to my Marvel Crisis Protocol options. I finished Rocket Raccoon last month, so that meant this month I surely needed to add Groot to the completed/painted side of my pile of shame.
Groot was pretty simple to paint. Could have done more, but I was satisfied with a bit of depth and a suggestion of roots.
The Dark Muse 