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I was so excited to finally near completion of this project that I got up early and stayed up late over the last two days to complete these models, but they're finally done!

I'll give some background to how this army came about, before showing more pictures further down!

The desire to create a Renegades & Heretics army was actually born about 18 years ago, believe it or not. When I first became interested in 40k, I had the 3rd edition rulebook and spent many hours looking at the images of models within. This page, in particular, captured my imagination:

The models on this page all had a battle-worn, grimy look that was at odds with the shiny, clean space marines on previous pages, and I was drawn to them. To me, this page really showed the breadth of war in the 41st millenium. I was enamoured with the Imperial Guard and wanted an army of hardened yet insignificant soldiers and tanks. Somewhere along the line, the warped scions of Chaos took me and my first models were a scattergun collection of Chaos Space Marines. The Guard were forgotten.

However, many years later, the Eye of Terror Codex was released. The Traitor Guard depicted in the book were the perfect marriage of my two favourite factions: Guard and Chaos! Yet, still I did not create the army! I think I originally stayed away from Guard because of the cost of buying so many models, and then stayed away from Traitor Guard because I was not confident in my ability to convert and paint the models.It would be many years before I finally created a Traitor Guard / Renegades & Heretics army.

Here are the images from the Eye of Terror Codex that most inspired me:

As you can see, the army I created is not a million miles from what you see in these images. The colours are even similar! What I eventually created is not quite Traitor Guard, but rather an army of untrained cultists from a semi-developed Manufactorum world that was taken over by a cult of Khorne. The leaders of the cult believe that Khorne is actually a facet of the Machine God. They therefore could be seen to worship Khorne and the Omnissiah simultaneously. The world is Bohemus, and these are the Bohemar infantry. They are human, but now many of them are part machine as their leader, Stroj, replaces their injured limbs and organs with mechanical parts. Part mechanical warriors may slaughter in the name of Khorne without faltering or tiring, and therefore are superior to normal humans. Even some of the Chaos Space Marines who later came to the world have had limbs replaced with mechanical parts at the hand of Stroj. Warlord Krev Grazl, the Chaos Space Marine who now rules over Bohemus, has tasked the Bohemar infantry with defending his fortress on Bohemar when he goes offworld in search of glory. Occasionally the Bohemar accompany Krev Grazl on missions when the need for massed infantry or rumbling tanks is needed.

Now you know who they are, lets take a look at the models in detail.

This is the command squad. Stroj is the biggest character with a power axe and bolt pistol. There are some Forge World Renegade Militia Command models in here, and a two plastic cultists.

Next are the three squads of the first platoon (the first is the platoon command squad). Some of these models have been shown before, but the squads have been reorganised slightly, so there are some new models here. The models are mostly kitbashes of cultists, Skitarii vanguard, Cadian troops, Catachan troops and Empire flagelants. There are also heads from Bad Squiddo games and a ganger from Necromunda. See if you can spot where the parts came from!

Next up are the three squads from the second platoon (the first is the platoon command squad). The models are made in the same way as those above, although you may see some interesting parts not found above.

Next up are the veterans. These guys are bigger, badder and more bloodthirsty than their comrades, and are made of various larger models - mostly blood reavers, but all are heavily converted. These guys carry a lot of equipment for their raids behind enemy lines. I'm particularly proud of some of the poses and the lasguns poking out from their cloaks. Oh yeah, the cloaks - blood-soaked cloaks that sport the icon of The Bloodstorm.

As you can see, the blood-soaked cloaks match the banner on the rear of their chimera:

I've posted them before, but I might as well post the heavy vehicles while we're at it! If you want to see more detail from these, check my Bloodstorm blog.

And that's all, save for more pictures of the force assembling on the desert plans of their homeworld!

Great stuff and thanks for sharing. I like the conversions and the figures you've chosen. I too was inspired by some of those same pictures. When I got into the hobby it was a time when GW was showing you how you could make your own, unique forces, when conversions and counts as were everywhere in the official publications. I doubt I would be very interested in 40K if I picked up a white dwarf for the first time today. I have no interest in painting stock figures usually - kids in china will do that for pennies as well or better than me.

 kestral wrote:
Great stuff and thanks for sharing. I like the conversions and the figures you've chosen. I too was inspired by some of those same pictures. When I got into the hobby it was a time when GW was showing you how you could make your own, unique forces, when conversions and counts as were everywhere in the official publications. I doubt I would be very interested in 40K if I picked up a white dwarf for the first time today. I have no interest in painting stock figures usually - kids in china will do that for pennies as well or better than me.

I do agree. I find recent books disappointing since they include such little 'hobby' information, and I miss Warhammer Visions because that contained some amazing conversions. I think White Dwarf is starting to include more conversions but it's fairly thin on the ground. Luckily Dakka is full of people who consistently make great conversions and scratchbuilt models!

I like to think I've got better at theming a force. If you look at my early armies, they always contained conversions, but they were quite random, and the army was only held together by a common paintjob. More recent armies are more consistently themed.

I am digging it. Not just the models, but its nice to see how unique this army looks. Great job.

Awesome Stuff!

I'll preface this by saying that I still don't enjoy normal Khorne/Chaos aesthetics - but that is overcome by the appreciation for a fully painted, and bases, thematic army. Well done!

Really nice army, great job.

Vaxx wrote:
I am digging it. Not just the models, but its nice to see how unique this army looks. Great job.

My sentiments exactly. Very nice. I like how the minies and vehicles are not just overdone with skulls and spiky bits as well.

How did I miss this recap ? Thanks for the great pictures and detailed comments alongside.

Fan friggin tastic buddy, thanks for sharing! Giving me some ideas for my own cultists as well!

Darrrrn nice.