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Hey man,

check out the last paragraph in my previous post for the first ideas on a possible retinue.

Oh derp...so he's a puritain. Thats cool I'd like to see another radical warband personally but that's just me

id say leave the array and Option B

 alabamaheretic wrote:
Oh derp...so he's a puritain. Thats cool I'd like to see another radical warband personally but that's just me

Huh. Just because he may be a puritan (I haven't even really decided that yet, you know...) doesn't mean the retinue has to be boring or anything. Tell you what, I'll just share some of my early ideas for the warband with you. Originally, planning yet another retinue was not exactly a priority, to say the least. But with the rush of having built a model that I am so very happy with, I couldn't help bashing around some more ideas. I would love to hear your thoughts!

So far, possible members include:

1. Menials/Bureacultists

Both because the Inquisitor will need something to lug around all those precious scrolls and books and because the concept of a pencil pusher gone feral is just too good to pass up! These will most likely be based on WFB flagellant bitz, above all else. The guy with the multiple eye lenses appearing in the Wayne England illustration will certainly serve as an inspiration.

2. Parchment Scrotener

Like I said, the obvious way would be to base this model on the Brian Nelson Nurgle Lord -- or a Putrid Blightking. The problem here is that PH and Jeff Vader have basically come up with exactly the kind of character I want between them:



However, I would probably use this Ork weapon for the character, as it just seems like the perfect tool to destroy huge quantities of scripture while also being ideal for eviscerating heretics:



Of course there's always a certain push to do something original with the Nurgle Lord, given the model's popularity with hobbyists, but I don't know: Why invent something new when an almost perfect template already exists? I think I'll have to sleep on this...

Beyond these characters, I also looked at the various models already in my collection to see if anything stuck. I came up with these three older metal models, for starters:



The guy with the implanted flamers in the middle seems like he would be really good at burning forbidden scripture. And yet, maybe he's a bit too on the nose and would work better for a Hereticus warband.

The Sister Repentia might make for an interesting alternate parchment scrotener. She definitely has the look and the right tool for the job:



But in my heart of hearts, I'd much rather convert a new plastic character than paint a metal one...

The servitor with the scrolls seems to be a bit of a no-brainer, though:



The model is a little clunky, but it works really well with the whole Scriptorum concept, wouldn't you agree?

Beyond those metal models, I also looked at some conversions that don't yet belong to any warband, and I think I have found some that would work pretty well with the Inquisitor:

First up, a model I originally converted as a underhive ganger:



I am actually already pretty sure that she'll be a member of the warband. I see her as a female tech ganger whose augmetic implants (I added some small plugs and cabling to her head, although it doesn't show well in the photos) allow her to perform noospheric dives. She's basically a grimdark hacker. I think I'll be calling here Alizebeth Selandrine *wink*wink*nudge*



There's also this sun cultist/assassin that I built quite a while ago:





I am still really happy with the model, and she does have that same look of "sleek malevolence", to quote weirdingway, as the Inquisitor, so I think she might be a good fit for the warband.

However, there is also this cyborg assassin, built mostly with parts from the AdMech releases:







And again, I think he might work well with the Inquisitor, because he's so slender and creepy. But he might ultimately fill the same slot as the sun cultist, so to speak, so maybe I should choose one of them...?

Anyway, here's a very early mockup of a possible warband with some of the more likely candidates:



I would really love to hear your take on this matter!

I really dig the flatulent designs that would be very interesting take. The Lord is a classic design so why fiddle with something that isn't broken so I could see how you could go with that as well. You know I could also see him with a bodyguard or two that's made out of brets and with the backpack and you know books just hang on their side. Another thing that crossed my mind is the gladiator for your shredder type guy. I do like the flamer dude he is interesting he would be a character to say the least for your warband. The one with the scrolls is a gimme I agree but your talent makes sometimes better creations. Tthe hacker is a wonderful addition. The sister would be an easy slap paint down fix no brainer. No challenge unless you wired her up. The cyber assassin is very cool.

I love the concept here, i think you are on to something! The inquisitor is pretty much perfect the way you have him now...

the other retinue members are adequate... the older metal model is a match i think.

I agree you should forget the nurgle lord idea. You actually had me thinking of a fahrenheit 451 reference there.... you know the firemen that burn the books?? maybe you could do some kind of grim soldier-fireman types. I agree with you the traditional 'spanish inquisition' style works better in a hereticus warband though.

Cheers, guys!

@ meade: Just to clarify: I think I will be going with the Nurgle Lord approach after all: It probably won't be a super original reimagining of the character but rather a refinement of some of the approaches that already exist. It just seems like the right idea for the character at the moment, and I can always scrap the model if it doesn't turn out well.

The Fahrenheit 451 idea is an interesting one, and the idea of a member of the retinue tasked with burning books would certainly fit the Ordo Scriptorum's more openly aggressive tactics, I'd imagine. I have to admit though that I am somewhat reluctant to add any flamer-wielding character for two reasons: One, the concept feels very Hereticus, due to the well established iconography and lore. Two, I am somewhat squeamish about the concept of burning books as a part of my retinue, even if it would match some of the Ordo's most openly brutal strategies. I think that having a guy who goes around with a giant chainaxe for shredding all those books fills the same role, but with the kind of silliness and audacity that makes it more 40k and less real world, if that makes any sense?

Anyway, here are my current thoughts on the models I have so far:

The Parchment Scrotener:
Like I said, I'll just be giving the Nurgle Lord a go, in spite of everything. I don't even think that my objective here is to come up with something totally crazy and original for the model, seeing how both PDH's and Johan's conversions are already very close to what I have in mind for the character. That said, I do have some ideas that might make the model look slightly different after all, but please don't expect this guy to be groundbreaking. Even so, I think he'll make for a nice addition to the retinue and a nice foil for the look of the Inquisitor. Regarding EdT's comment, I have actually thought quite a bit about blind/mute/illiterate/plain dumb servants of the Ordo, and I agree it would add an interesting angle! I don't think I'll be using an Ogryn, though, as the models just don't speak to me, or at least they don't seem like the best solution here.

The Hacker:
I think this one is a keeper, both because I like the model well enough, but also because I think she might really work very well together with the Inquisitor, once both models have been painted. I do have a plan for a unifying colour scheme -- I may even use her as the test piece to find out whether the colour scheme I have planned for her and the Inquisitor works as well as I hope. We'll see how it goes.
As for a ganger not fitting the retinue, yes well, I think it's always a question of the overarching narrative. In this case, I see her as a citizen of a planet/Space station controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus, say a huge orbital shipyard. When still very young, she was outfitted with some cranial implants, maybe to facilitate her work as a tech menial or maybe even as the first stages of being inducted into the Cult Mechanicus. But she got away from her destined fate and joined the ranks of one of the tech gangs flourishing in the seedy underbelly of the orbital installation, and that's where she has lived for years, operating as the 40k version of a hacker, until being picked up by the Inquisitor as a member of his retinue.

Like I said, here augmetic upgrades have left her with the ability to perform noospheric dives, but to the Tech-Priests, she is obviously an aberration at best and an abomination at worst. Still, such a character would make for a useful tool in those operations that deal with the Adeptus Mechanicus, right?

The Assassin:
I think the Inquisitor will be needing at least one rather physcally oriented bodyguard, and while the Parchment Scrotener may be a good fit for that position, I would like to have another character in that vein, only more slender and agile. I was slightly in favour of the "sun cultist" (only a working title, she doesn't even have to be a sun cultist anymore) previously, but maybe the cyborg assassin would be a better fit. Then again, he does seem slightly too monstrous maybe. And yet again, the idea of an opponent approaching the entirely unarmed and icy calm Inquisitor with that ...thing then exploding into his face does seem pretty scary, doesn't it? I think this character might need more thought...


And now, as they say, for something completely different


In between all the concept work for the new retinue, I just needed to build something quick and fun and uncomplicated, and the March theme for the ongoing "Ready Your Retinue" event over at the Ammobunker - "Spring Forward" - provided the perfect excuse to do so, so here's my entry for that, a pitslave gladiator:









I had already been messing around with those bitz halfheartedly, but the model refused to come together until I added that Ork power tool yesterday

And while I was messinga round with Ork bitz, I also added a trophy pole to my mutant overlord:



I am normally *very* reluctant about adding back banners or trophy poles to models, because they end up looking very silly more often than not, messing up the model's silhouette. But I thought this guy needed that precise pole ever since I started building him, and I like it a lot. It also has the added benefit of adding another layer to the model, so to speak, as the base model is surprisingly two-dimensional.

Anyway, as always, let me know what you think!

Love the gladiator. The mutant loooks great too! The banner adds to the character nicely. Gave me an idea. ;-).

Absolutely awesome stuff, keep it up and I'll keep checking it out

Great stuff as usual

Really inspiring to get making a inquisimunda war and myself

Your conversions are fantastic. That's a kind of stuff that should be really fun to paint !
Full of personnality, great attention to details. I dig the sun and cyborg assassins.

I'm loving all these conversions, but I think that cyborg assassins my favorite so far .

Great stuff. I like the puffy sleeved assassin with the blood angels mask, but then I like some Empire in my Imperium, as it were. Parchment Scrotener is such a great name you've already won no matter what model you use.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

@ kestral: Cheers, man! Just to clarify, though: I cannot claim ownership of the Parchment Scrotener idea, as the concept was invented by Little Brother over at the Ammobunker INQ28 boards. Credit where credit is due!

Anyway, here is something for you to look at: My mostly finished pitslave gladiator, painted this weekend. I give you [i]Grimspyke,[i] the Impaler, former gladiator champion in the fighting pits of St. Sabasto's Reach:










As always, let me know what you think!

Looking brilliant, I love how the yellow accentuates the industrial aspects of the mechanical weapon, while the more grimdark parts retain him in the Inquisimunda flow.

Another brilliant and characterful miniature, as always with this blog.

Wow Kraut great choice with the yellow not sure what it is but its made me fall in love with this model great job!

Looking good man. Can't wait to see more

Oh I like the yellow! His impaler arm looks might imposing. I have been subbed to this thread for a long time, and I am always amazed at the seemingly endless flow of creativity you have. Nice work, cant wait to see more!

Excellent stuff! I especially like the pit spike arm. It fits really nicely on that body. His head is very clean, has he just had a respray?

Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone! I chose the yellow because it felt appropriate for a gladiator fighting in the pit to use brightly coloured armour, almost like a stage outfit of sorts. Plus I wanted the colour to recall heavy duty construction machines, of course. One thing that I need to point out is that there's quite a bit of sponge weathering on the armour plates that doesn't really show up all that well in the pictures, so the armour is not quite as clean as it looks.

So, here's the next small update: Building and painting that pitslave gladiator was so much fun that I couldn't help converting another one This time around, I wanted to push the slightly grotesque angle of pitslaves and the loss of humanity due to crude augmentation even further, and there's nothing that works quite as well for that as contrasting a massive Ork Klaw and an arm stump, if you ask me:







Ultimately, the pitslaves and the mutant overlord I recently posted may end up as the first models of a loose group of former slaves that have managed to escape the slave economy of St. Sabasto's Reach, a world within the Velsen Sector. Here's a short outline for the world I wrote:

St. Sabasto’s Reach

An extremely rich hive world grown fat and depraved through slave trade and the exploitation of its mutant lower class.

The world originally earned its name when the Imperial Saint Sabasto rested here after his great victory on the fields of Belzifer, before engaging in the last stage of his holy crusade for the defense of Velsen against the forces of the Arch-enemy. While Sabasto's crusade army was still magnificent at this point, it had also suffered heavy losses (a fact, it is argued by some contemporary Velsian historians, that conrtibuted to Sabasto's eventual defeat within the Veil of Impurity).
When the Saint contemplated the price in blood paid for the reclamation of Velsen, he decreed that the entire world of St. Sabasto's Reach would be given to the orphans of the slain and that the Imperium would see to it that the children of martyrs would never need to go hungry. This spurred the planetary populace into religious fervor, and countless orphanages and scholae were opened in the saint’s name, earning the world bynames like “The Planet of Orphans” or "The Oprhans' Cradle".

However, with a slow decline in piety and a general economic recession, many of the world’s orphanages have had to close over the centuries, while others have turned to a far darker trade, giving the world’s epithet a new, sinister meaning. It is true that Imperial organisations like the Schola Progenium, the Ecclesiarchy and even the Inquisition still maintain a presence on St. Sabasto's Reach and recruit from the ranks of the homeless orphans, choosing the most talented or devout to serve in their respective organisations. And in the deeper levels of the world's hives, missions and orphanages still offer a real, if meagre, chance for survival to this day. Yet that is only one face of St. Sabasto's Reach. For at the same time, the world has also become the biggest fleshmarket in the entire Velsen Sector, providing human resources in a very literal sense, from mutant workers to household servants. Moreover, it is rumoured that there exists a slave for every kind of service in the almshouses and slave pits of St. Sabasto’s Reach, and the masters of the world have long prided themselves on being able to cater to every taste and desire, no matter how “eccentric” it may be.

Another mainstay of the world’s culture, the countless circuses and fighting arenas, are also fueled by a constant influx of “material” from the slave pits. At one point, the world's renowned Circus Imperialis served as a front for a cult of chaos worshippers and was purged by the hand of Inquisitor Antrecht. But even after this upheaval, the remaining slavelords and ringmasters of St. Sabasto’s Reach quickly regained their step, slightly realigning themselves in the resulting power struggle and carving out a new pecking order among themselves. Because the Inquisition's issue was never with the slave trade itself, but with the presence of heretics, and so the House of Blossoms, the Angelflesh Lodge and countless other establishments like them continue to ply their dark trade to this day...

I think a group of former slaves would be an interesting concept, plus it would allow for all kinds of different character types, including pitslaves, mutants, workers and some more exotic members. I don't consider this a high priority project at the moment, but it's still a fun diversion.

Anyway, as always, let me know what you think!

One-armed powerfist maniac is amongst my favorite archetypes, and your lad here is a fine example

Dig the construction yellow punchspike chap too!

- Salvage

Eh. It just looks...unfinished with only a stump of a left arm. maybe something that he just found and added on?

sounds very interesting i dig it. should be very interesting builds

I like the one armed pit slave. Maybe something further up though? Like his arm was ripped off at the shoulder area? It would look very cool if it was like Mister Hammer from Batman Arkham Asylum.

Image follows:

Cheers for the feedback, guys!

@ Lorax: Haha, the twins erre actually one of the inspirations for the model. However, I did want to leave some kind of mechanical stump/socket in order to show that he probably had a bionic arm that he lost and that was never replaced.

@ Kepora: Such things always come down to personal taste, of course, but I think the lack of a left arm gives him a lumbering, overmuscled look on his right side that has a slightly grotesque and sad quality ot it, something that gets lost easily when you just replace arms with power tools on pitslaves

Cheers, mate!

So here's a quick and dirty update: The second pitslave, quite a ways into the paintjob:





"The championship match between Grimspyke and Crusher Vex? One for the ages, that was! I'll never forget when Grimspyke took Crusher's arm clean off during the fifth bout!"

"Shug" Holn, Sector 2 Habber

As always, let me know what you think!

Pitslave are looking great. The yellow really works (not something I thought I'd ever be saying!!!) great work as ever KS

Great work, full of character as usual

Cheers, guys!

So here's the finished model: Crusher Vex, also known as "Old Man Claw":









Something that doesn't show well in most of the pictures is that I have added some greying fuzz to Crusher's head:



I wanted to show that he's a rather old guy, and definitely well past his prime as a pitfighter.

And here are the two gladiators together:



As always, let me know what you think!

Hmm, anybody...?

Alright, so I guess I'll just be leaving this here: Painting on the third former slave is already underway:





As always, let me know what you think!

Looking great maybe take some inspiratons from Angron's followers as well?