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I got quite excited when the new guard codex was released. The guard are a good compliment for my existing sisters army, which suffers quite a bit from lack of range. Around Christmas 2013 I made an ebay purchase of some Escher necromunda gangers: wonderfully individualistic models, which are going to be my infantry. I also picked up a chimera and fortification around this time, and I have some existing sentinels that I plan to do some basic conversion work on.

This has left the question of who these women are, and why they are fighting in the regiments of the imperial guard….

++++++

The idyllic shores of Paradiso Prime were, for centuries, home to a highly developed and peaceful civilization. Residents joked that their world must be favoured.. ‘lucky’ to have been bypassed by the various war campaigns blighting their sector. Indeed on neighbouring worlds, used to the grind of conquest and re-conquest, the comments were more barbed, speaking of the complacent and ‘smug’ Paradiso Primes.

So it was when the Demiurg descended from orbit, unannounced. The token imperial guard presence on the world was snuffed out quickly by the ferocity and surgical nature of the Demiurg attack, laying waste to human and machine alike. Chem-weapons were used to clear huge swathes of the human population. The Demiurg command, satisfied that the world had been pacified, moved the bulk of their fleet to the next star system conquest, leaving a small but highly elite and well-armed garrison on Paradiso Prime.

The human fighting population had been ruthlessly culled by the Demiurg, and the remnants were assumed to have scattered into the wilds beyond the boundaries of the key Paradiso cities. At this dark time, it seemed that Paradiso had indeed turned into a Demiurg colony.

But the citizens of Paradiso Prime were not pacified. The administrators, clerks, manufactorum operatives and children of the planet, having escaped the cull, and survived the chem-weapons of the Demiurg, now began to self-organise. To call these groups fighting units would be beyond parody. They had no training, no equipment, and no idea of what to do next. They were motivated by nothing more than the desire to survive, and beyond that, to give the Demiurg a black eye. In the wilds of Paradiso prime they survived, simply subsisting.

The first ray of hope was in the form of graffiti. The embittered youth of Paradiso prime had taken to sneaking up to Demiurg positions under cover of darkness and spraying motifs, brazenly and proudly declaring their “survival” or simply “Paradiso, baby!”. It became a matter of pride as to who could launch the most daring ‘raid’, resulting in the most prominent message. Graffiti also started to be used as an ad-hoc communication method, connecting small cells of survivors in a common, simplistic tongue (those adept at communicating in this medium became to be known as “graf-comms”). The Demiurg regarded these developments with nothing more than amusement.

As a result of the use of Chem-weapons, much of the flora of Paradiso prime had become poisoned, and resulted in many forests becoming toxic. Life for the would-be rebels in these areas became about surviving the poisonous spores that were so numerous. Again the young Paradisians treated this as another game of survival: any youth entering a toxic forest and emerging alive earned the moniker “smug spore” as a cynical nod to better days before the invasion. The young “smug spores” of Paradiso did not realize it, but they were laying the groundwork for a renaissance of human activity on the planet. As the decades came and went, the more resilient, the more brave they became.

Other important parallel developments were the use of graf-comms newly acquired stealth to scout, exploring the ruins of the cities at night, and slowly uncovering key materials. Some of these could be used as rudimentary weapons, and damaged equipment was put in the hands of a burgeoning manufactorum team who slowly gained knowledge of how to repair and operate imperial fighting equipment.

Their survival had been miraculous. Now as more and more cells connected, the fighting unit which called themselves the smug spores began a campaign of guerilla warfare in the shattered, Demiug-infested cities of Paradiso Prime…

*claps* fantastic start, I enjoyed reading that background very much. Demiurgs, wow, it must be the first time I read a player's fluff with something related with them

Thanks Lordy! Here are some early pics, all work done this afternoon!

A quick spores update:

1. Scout sentinels

Magnitised Autocannons done (see pic). I'd like to get some escher pilots converted and some camo netting done.

2. Valkyries

I have acquired 2 of these! I really want to go to town on the conversions, having gunners standing on platforms etc.

3. Command squad upgrades

I'd like to add a psyker and/ or master of ordinance, but a but stuck for suitable conversions to do this. Need to have a think about this one!

An update!

A Taurox, absolutely loved putting this kit together, it has lots of very cool details.

Another angle

Motivation

I've lost about half of my skull objective markers from the 7th ed lasgun cartridge set and thought it might be nice to create some new ones.

Criteria

-Eye catching
-Hard to forget/ leave on the table after a game
-Somehow conveys the objective number for malestrom missions

Early thoughts

I'd like to experiment with LED lighting of objectives. I love the skull markers and have some thoughts about drilling holes in them and mounting LEDs in the eyes.

The central design problem is how to convey what objective number it is. This could be done by leaving a space for a die or by painting numbers on, but I prefer to convey this through the LED lighting.

A couple of options -

1) stack skulls on top of each other - see lower sketch
2) skulls distributed around a diameter - upper sketch

Progress!

Mission accomplished!