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The Imperfect - Emperor’s Children Plog


Hey guys,

I started this project just before Christmas, but for several reasons work ground to a halt on it 5 or so months ago. Just started up again a few weeks back. I'd been logging my progress on it on another board, but thought I'd post it up here as well in the hope of getting a bit more feedback. Basically, it's an army themed around those Emperor's Children who were left to die on Istvaan III. I'm trying to treat each legionary as an individual, so they're all going to be converted to a certain extent and there will be random snippets of fluff interspersed throughout the log. Below is a compilation of everything that has been done so far, with the boring WIP shots of grey resin cut out. Hope you enjoy.





“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

It all started with such promise. A great crusade, bringing light and reason to those who knew only fear and darkness. And at our head, they would march. The shining beacons with which he would banish the night. Twenty beings of such breathtaking power and majesty that even one such as I felt as nothing beneath their gaze. Just another grain of sand drowned beneath the waves.

For centuries we toiled, tearing down the old, building anew. The greatest empire the stars had ever known. A place where mankind could grow and flourish, freed from the bonds of ignorance that had for so long shackled it.

We were fools, all of us. We should have know. We should have remembered. HE should have remembered. For all his wisdom, he forgot what even a child knows. It is the brightest lights that cast the darkest shadows. . .”

- Unknown Emperor’s Child






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"For the others it was a simple matter of necessity. A culling of the ranks of those individuals whose loyalty to the old order was deemed too entrenched to countenance what was to come.

For Angron, perhaps, it was also a chance to sort the wheat from the chafe. A unique opportunity to test his warriors in the crucible of battle against the only foe truly worthy of the World Eaters. Themselves.

But for Fulgrim, what had begun as a simple exercise in expediency came to encompass so much more.

Since their inception the Third Legion had always striven for excellence. But with the finding of their Primarch this desire for self-improvement developed into a cult of perfection; and what had begun as a noble drive to better oneself gave way to the darker, baser need to better others. To those outside the Emperor's Children they came to be seen as a haughty legion, grossly intolerant of what they deemed as the failings of others. But this intolerance was as nothing to the severity to which they came to judge themselves. Obsessed with the idea of perfection, in art and form and war, the hierarchy of the Legion were unflinching in their quest to achieve it, and this madness slowly but surely came to dominate the whole ethos of the Emperor’s Children. As the Great Crusade ground towards the close this situation only grew worse, and those who failed to meet their legions exacting, and increasingly bizarre, standards found themselves progressively marginalised, denied rank and honours despite their courage and prowess on the field of battle.

And so when the time came, on the eve of heresy, to decide who should live and who should die it was not just those with strong ties to the Emperor who were marked for death. Just as the apothecaries of the legion had begun to experiment on their brethren in an effort to create the perfect warrior, so too did the Primarch Fulgrim use the betrayal at Istvaan III to reshape the legion as a whole. He was ruthless in wielding the knife."


- Excerpt from Fall from Grace, Class VI Proscribed Text

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Hope dies,
Glory fades,
But Faith is eternal.

- Loyalist Emperor’s Children catechism

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"Our
great sin was not that we strived for perfection. Rather that, in our
growing arrogance, we came to believe we were worthy of attaining it."

- Arkaddion the Repentant, shortly before his execution.

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Night falls upon us,
The faithless come to the dance,
Blade clashes on blade.

The children brothers no more,
Locked in one final embrace.

- Death Poem of Tytos Brax, Sergeant, XIV Company, XIX Millennial, Emperors Children.

*Note (author unknown) The custom of composing death poems - a tradition amongst the noble Terran houses from whose ranks the majority of the legion was drawn - had been widespread during the early years of the Third Legion's life but rapidly fell out of favour after the rediscovery of their Primarch. Whilst he encouraged his sons to pursue the arts in all it's guises, including poetry, Fulgrim disliked the fatalistic nature of the form. He argued that a warrior who was so openly prepared for death was already resigned to death. Such a man could never hope to achieve perfection.












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- Day Fourteen -


Nestor crouched in the ruins of an abandoned manufactory breathing in long, steady breaths. The air was thick with ash; black and bitter.

Across the room from him brothers Diocletian and Antimenias similarly crouched, the former inspecting a long crack in the others breastplate. After a brief moment Diocletian gave a thumbs up and slapped him on the back. All was well.

Seeing this, Nestor turned over the MKII helm he held in his hands and grunted. The bolt round that had struck him in the face had destroyed his helmet's optics. And, whilst it had miraculously failed to find it's way any further in, it had left him suddenly, catastrophically blind in the middle of a melee. He still didn't know which of his two brothers had knocked him down and dragged him to safety just as the enemy ambush from the buildings above had opened up on friend and foe alike.

"Gratitude, brother," he said, directed at both of them and neither.

Diocletian shrugged one armored shoulder, whilst Antimenias simply ignored him. Antimenias then.

"How many of the others did you see get out?"

"Brax did, of course. Cut his way through five of them with Mellor and Draven on his heels. They were headed north." said Antimenias.

"I saw Hessal go down in the fighting, and Gedwin and Thros when the enfilade started. Maybe some of the others made it."

So, three more dead to add to the list. At least. How many more days before mine is added to it? How long before we all are?

"Did you see who it was?" he asked, referring to the ambushers.

"'Eaters, probably. They wouldn't care about killing a few of Horus' pups who happened to be in their way." suggested Diocletian.

"They weren't ours, certainly. We're still alive." Antimenias, pride and bitterness intertwined.

Nestor knew how his brother felt. Fourteen days since their world had been irrevocably shattered. Fourteen days of ash and smoke and screaming steel that had not even begun to numb the feeling of betrayal, the utter disbelief.

Our father has forsaken us.

Not for the first time since that day, Nestor felt a flush of despair come over him, threatening to swamp him. Gritting his teeth he clamped down on the unfamiliar emotion and ground it into dust. He knew his own worth. Ninety seven years an Astartes, from the Agrallax Crusade to the pacification of Numeria, he had served with distinction. Never failing. never faltering. He had worn his Legion's colors with pride, and brought great honour to it in turn.

As he looked at his two comrades he could see past the cold, lifeless visage their helms projected to judge the men underneath. He could see no stain upon them, no more than he could upon himself. As impossible as it seemed, as wrenching as it was to face, the fault must lie with Fulgrim. The man, the god, to whom they had all looked had betrayed them. And he had done so because he was flawed, irredeemably so. And for that he had to die.

Click. Click.

The sound of the Comm-Node in his ear chirping to life brought Nestor back to the present. Antimenias, over by a shattered window, motioned him over.

Hunching low to avoid being seen, Nestor joined his fellow Children.

"Contacts, two. South-West."

Peering carefully, Nestor glanced in the direction indicated and immediately saw two power-armoured figures making their way cautiously down the street. One of them was clearly injured, his left leg dragging uselessly behind him whilst his comrade helped him along. Their armour was the deep purple and bright gold of the Emperor's Children.

Nestor cursed his helmets destruction, for without it's Friend-or-Foe acquisition routines he had no idea which side of this insanity they belonged on.

"Vaeron," said Antimenias, aware of his deficiency, "With Delphus, I believe, from Maeron's Cohort."

"Where the hell did Vaeron find one of Maeron's men? Their landing site was twenty, thirty clicks from here!"

"We're all scattered to to the seven winds, brother" said Antimenias, shrugging, his casual evocation of his old tribal gods betraying his origins on Xaxos IV. "No reason not to expect the others all to be as well."

"Well, wherever they're from we'd best lend a hand and get them into cover. You watch the street, brothers, and I shall lend assistance."

Click. Click.

"I would advise against that, brother Nestor," said Diocletian from across the room. Motioning to the adjacent building below him, he held up 5 fingers. "I believe it is our friends from earlier."

Sidling up alongside him, Nestor peered down. Indeed, 5 figures lurked amongst the fallen masonry, fidgeting with impatience as their prey stalked unknowingly closer. Diocletian had been right. Their armour was the white and blue of Angron's butchers, and they sported short-hafted chainaxes in their fists. Any moment now they would charge, and that would be that.

And yet.

Pulling a grenade from his belt and grinning viciously at his brothers, Nestor pulled the pin with his teeth and raised his other hand, silently counting down.

Three. . .

Two. .

One.

They were forged with a singular desire. To be Incomparable. Unstoppable. Immortal. No matter what horrors should await them out beyond the dark, they would endure and overcome. For the glory of Mankind.

But there was one foe they were never designed to face. A trial to which no one had even conceived of putting them. When brother turned against brother and the stars themselves wept blood, the Astartes found in themselves an enemy they had never before encountered. Equals.

And so, amidst the shattered ruins of Istvaan III, the immortal warriors finally came face to face with their own mortality. They died in droves.

- Unknown










Really enjoyed converting and painting up this guy. Finding the MKII armour a lot easier to repose than the MKIV. The way the arms are segmented mean it's really easy make cuts at the joins and realign them without requiring any more than simple gap filling, usually, unlike the MKIV's which if you want any kind of bend in them need the elbows and wrist guards re-sculpting.

Anyway, that finally completes the first half-squad (at this rate of 6 months per 5 models, I should be finished by about 2044! ) so here's a group shot. Hope you guys like.