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So, I haven't touched a brush (much less a sculpting tool) since life led me away from the hobby more than ten years ago. However, recently I have found myself in need of recreation to take my mind off of things. So I visited my parents, rummaged through all my old boxes in the attic, did a little shopping, and now I have a hobby project going. It's great to be back at it!

This is my first finished paint job and conversion after my long hiatus from the hobby. A knight-sergeant of the Fire Hawks chapter. He will lead a small team of fellow marines who are on their way in the modelling phase, along with some chapter serfs and servitors to tend to their high and mighty knightly needs.

I like the storytelling part of the hobby much more than competitive play. So if I end up grabbing some games with my brother and old friends, it will be primarily narrative, fluff driven play with a ruleset that serves those purposes (suggestions are welcome - doesn't have to be of GW origin).

He is a repurpose of old bitz, some of them already painted when they went into the conversion, so parts of him are really overstuffed with paint, but looking at the pictures I can already tell I need to thin my paints more than I already do. I'll grab a better picture if the sun decides to come up today. Suggestions and feedback are really welcome - I want to regain my old skills and better myself.

W.I.P Chapter Serfs

Using the indomitable void fortress the Raptorus Rex as their home and monastery, the Fire Hawks held command over several hundreds of thousands of human crew, servitors and chapter serfs before they were all tragically lost to the warp. Differing in training, and mostly regarded as mere cattle by the superior Knight Astartes, these servants non the less compromised a capable and efficient fighting force. While rarely deployed on offensive maneuvers outside of naval conflict, there is a certain ironi in Grand Master Lazaerek commanding such numbers, while his hated rival Huron were so chided for the human auxiliaries of the Tyrant's Legion.

As with most of life in the Fire Hawk Chapter, the organization of the serfs and naval crew were mirrored on the feudal systems of old Zhoros. Arbitrary caste systems dominated society and order on the ancient space station as it soared through the galaxy. Those void born of ancient stock, able to trace their line back to the old planet were regarded as superior to those stemming from the second lost homeworld or commandeered through the travels of the chapter. Male born "Children of Zhoros" were first in line for the trials to transcend to the demi-god ranks of Astartes, and discards and females compromised the majority of high ranking servants and naval personel. While all members of the space born warrior society received combat training, this upper class caste where trained and equipped to a much higher degree. Often appearing meek in their subservience when accompanying their towering masters on diplomatic missions or caught in surprise engagements, they were in fact warriors on par with some of the finer imperial fighting forces outside of the Adeptus Astartes.

The knight-sergeant looks good! I like your serfs even more, though. Their masks remind a little of plague doctors, very striking. The backstory is good too, and I look forward to read more about the Fire Hawks. Welcome back to the hobby, by the way. I also returned after a ten-year break just a few months ago, and I'm very content so far.

Great storytelling so far! And yeah, the masks are nice and unsettling looking. Keep it up!

Fire Hawks are a pretty uncommon chapter, I will be interested to see how this progresses. Nice masks on the serfs, like Cask said the vaguely plague doctor style is cool.

Welcome back to the hobby, I’ve been back a year now and enjoyed it immensely. As you say it’s a good distraction from real life!

Great start on the Fire Hawks, I made the mistake of over painting some of my early returns. Stripping the paint is fairly easy if you get the right product (I use dettol but I’m not sure if it’s available in Denmark) and the younger you didn’t cake the paint on too thick! The plague doctor serfs also look great, looking forward to see how they turn out!

Thanks for the welcome and comments everybody I did in fact have a plaque doctor's mask in mind - going for something a bit sinister and medieval'ish but also at the same time sort of civilian.

Todays' update is a W.I.P. pic of my entry to this month Dakka Painting Challenge. Having only 3 days to completing the challange after finding out about it, he is a bit rushed, but it was fun.

I went for a representation of the Grand Master of the Fire Hawks, Stibor Lazaerek. Clad in a Mk1/Saturnine Terminator armour, with artisan weaponary. (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Terminator_mini_MK1.jpg). The idea was to let the suit convey his archaic manner and general age. Not how sure how pleased I am with how that turned out, so suggestions are welcome. A bare head might have been better? Not sure how fond I am about terminator suits without helmets tho.


"Burn them all, The God-Emperor will know His own"

Grand Master Stibor Lazaerek was the reigning Chapter Master of the Fire Hawks when he, along with the entire Chapter, were lost to the warp in 963.M41. More warrior than general, and sadly both as petty and cruel as he was arrogant, Stibor had at that point led his Knight-Astartes through more than 500 years of conflict. Overseeing both triumph and failure during those long years, his last known actions led to what was undoubtably the once great chapter's darkest hours.

Driven by his resentment and rivalry with Lufgt Huron of the Astral Claws, the bitter old man had a solid hand in escalating the Badab Schism into full out civil war, plunging his forces into the conflict. Unfortunately, his bombastic strategies and the frontal fighting traditions of the Fire Hawks were no match for the tactical ingenuity of the Mantis Warriors, nor the cold hearted logic of the Tyrant of Badab. Driven back, suffering horrendous casualties and worse still, loosing the overall command of the loyalist forces, Lazaerek was humiliated and exposed, choosing to let his anger loose on undeserving civilian populations, bombing planets from orbit and committing uncalled for atrocities.

On the battlefield however, Stibor still made a magnificent figure. Aged by untold wounds and conflict through the centuries, the old knight couldn't match his former provers, but even then he was a formidable opponent. Clad in the chapter's most precious piece of equipment; an ancient suit of tactical dreadnought armour, build around the fabled Mk1, and incorporating a prototype assault cannon, the suit was said to have been blessed by Sebastian Thor himself after the victory over Vandire in the Age of Apostasy. In addition to the incoporated twin powerfist of the suit, the Grand Master also wielded his personal power glaive. A massive weapon, boldly captured in his youth during a raid on an unknown renegade chapter.

Your Stibor Lazaerek looks great.

However, I do have to point out that you are on the wrong side. The lapdogs of the so-called "Lords of Terra" have persuaded you to deny the rights given to the Adeptus Asartes by the Emperor himself, and you will be destroyed for your mistake.

 Fifty wrote:


However, I do have to point out that you are on the wrong side. The lapdogs of the so-called "Lords of Terra" have persuaded you to deny the rights given to the Adeptus Asartes by the Emperor himself, and you will be destroyed for your mistake.

I might get around to paint some of the good guys at some point

Color scheme for the Chapter Serfs. These are Stibor's personal Herald and Scribe. Both unarmed for potential scenarios and stuff. I'll repaint the scribe's mask to be more like the Herald's at some point. Overall I'm much happier with the yellow of these guys than on the Sergeant.

Lovely colouration on those serfs! I like the masks too, great stuff.

The serfs look good! I agree, the yellow colours feel more natural this time.

I agree, those yellows look excellent, it came out very rich

A prototype Stryxis (Stryxia? Stryxy?) for random encounters, maybe a mercenary for secessionist forces and for use in a future campaign I want to play some time in the far future, when I have more time

The Serfs are just wonderful little models. Great job.

 youwashock wrote:
The Serfs are just wonderful little models. Great job.

Thanks! I'm quite fond of them too. My only problem is that I can't figure out how to arm them. How would a Chapter, more so a chapter as the pettiness incarnated Fire Hawks arm their serfs? Lasguns seems a bit too gaurdmanlike, autoguns might be too lowly, something more advanced too valuable... I will decide at some point.

I am getting ready for my first skirmish game since returning to the hobby. Which mean I have to get some stuff done, and not just play around with endless ideas and half finished models

These are the grunts of a skirmish band. The fighting will be set during the Badab War, so I needed something to represent the Tyrant's Legion on Iblis, one of the first mayor engagements between Huron's forces and Stibor's. They won't be the final iteration of Tyrant's Legionaries, but I think they fit perfectly as Planetary Defense Force armsmen from an agri-world (Iblis), being drafted into the Legion and put under prober command. Also, as generic PDF's with autoguns for random encounters. I think they might be old Warlord miniatures, but I am not sure. If anyone know who made them, please let me know, they were actually very fine sculpts and it felt like a bit of a same to speed paint them as I did. oh well, I will put some more love into their heavy weapons and their support vehicle. I put their WIP Astral Claw centurion in there for scale.

Iblis Planetary Defense Forces of the Tyrant's Legion

It was on Iblis that the Fire Hawks and their Karthan allies truly met the might of the Maelstrom Warders for the first time. Wanting to divide and conquer, Stibor fainted a frontal fleet assault on the Badab Sector itself with a diversion force of primarily Karthan contingents. Thinking it would be enough to hold up the warders arrayed under Huron's banner, Stibor himself brought the might of the Fire Hawks to bear on Iblis, an agri-world in the Endymion Cluster - The home and protectorate of the Mantis Warriors. Counting on the honor code of the shadowy chapter to compel the Mantis Warriors to commit to open battle in defense of their charges, Stibor's faint would under other circumstances have been a decisive one. However, the warders had been preparing for an all out conflict for decades, and when the Fire Hawks descended on the population of Iblis, they found the planet waiting for them.

Rebellious scholars and brave cadets around the imperium still study the strategies displayed on Iblis as a prime example of planetary defense in the face of overwhelming odds. Mostly documented in the dairies of Inquisitor Ulysses Confligere, details are vague and much knowledge is lost to time and erasure, however the facts remain that a force of conscripted farmers and badly equipped agri-worlders met the full might of an entire Astartes chapter head on, committing the transhuman warriors to unexpected open battles and luring the far superior attackers into a continuing meat grinding death trap. How many losses the PDF regiments suffered are unknown, but the numbers must be staggering. However, while the tyrant's legionaries held the ground, the Mantis Warriors did join the battle. Using the breathing room brought them by the stalwart defenders, the illusive secessionist Astartes answered Stibor's challenge with all the tricks of their trade. Command structures were targeted, leaders sniped from afar or suddenly rushed by hidden assault teams. Safe landing zones were bombed from out of the shadows, and in space, the Mantis Warrior fleet engaged in a dangerous game of hit and run with the legendary interstellar might of the Fire Hawks. All the while allowing the human defenders to chip away at their assailers, as total chaos started to rule on a planet wide scale.

Had events elsewhere not unfolded as they did, the assault on Iblis might very well have been the end of the entire Badab conflict before it had even truly begun, as the Fire Hawks suffered a defeat unimaginable. Luckily for Stibor, his superior aerial power allowed him to call the retreat when words of the fall of Sagan finally reached him. The news temporarily waking him up from his furious rage to call his warriors out of the trap before its' teeth closed fully. But for all intents and purposes, he was defeated.

Welcome back to the hobby! Your painting and modelling skills obviously did not erode during your time away. That green stuff work is downright impressive. The plague doctor serfs turned out really well. The PDF have a lot of character and seem to be a good scale compared to your marine there. I haven't hose models before, but they definitely fit the part! Keep up the good work.

PDF look really nice, especially if you've "only" been speed painting them Really like the armor, the right mix between scrap parts and professional equipment.

Thanks a ton guys

This project is very much still alive. A vehicle and squad command + special weapons are underway for the Tyrants legionaries.

I have been working on this chapter serfs weapon team tonight. I'm not totally sold on the wheeled up lascannon however. I mean, I like it, but is it too massive for the serf? I have been looking at it for twenty minutes now, trying to decide on wether I like it enough to finish the conversion or if i'm going back to the drawing board. Since it is getting late, I thought that I would give it a rest, and see what you guys think before continuing.





(The second guy was a way to sneak in a vox caster idea I had had for a while, since they are probably not getting their own command - it will need some more gs work tomorrow to smoothen out the horn)

I think the lascannon is a great idea, but the wheels feel off to me. I reckon they’re not far enough forward and too narrow. It maybe needs some support spades too. The voxcaster looks sweet!

Some proof of life pictures... Post-Istvaan Iron Warriors for Horus Heresy





More soon

De-Nurgling the Plague Marine models works a lot better than I thought it would!