Sons of Malice, 'Batko Blacks' 7th Company - a WIP project

[GooseDaMoose]

Welcome and thank you for visiting. I'm a long time lurker on this site and I only recently joined properly. I've been so inspired by many of the army blogs on this site that I wanted to start one myself. I was looking for a new project to start, and on my quest for inspiration, I stumbled upon the Fifth God of Chaos, Malal. After a bit of research (thank you Malal-Lives website and creator of said website who I do believe is a member on B&C) I was sure I wanted to do an army of Malal worshippers. Their rejection of other Chaos worshippers and the totalitarian Imperium, as well as Malal's tendency to help the underdog, people who seek to overthrow their masters, fit me just perfectly.

 

Thus, the Sons of Malice are the army for me. I had a vision of a sort of Makhnovist (Ukrainian rebels during the Russian Civil War) army set in the 40K universe. Cuz let's face it, the imperium is totally fascist, and Chaos followers are evil, shouldn't there be some good humans?

 

Anyway enough of my talk. I started out with just a Lord and his retinue and I will build on it as I go along. My progress with armies is normally pretty slow cuz I work only when inspired to work, so hopefully getting feedback and comments will fix that :D

 

So far I have this lord based partly on the first Malal follower, Kaleb Daark from fantasy. He even has the Dreadaxe, and an updated hairdo.

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC009.jpg

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC007.jpg

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC008.jpg

 

And two bodyguards with trophies.

Hockey stick dude:

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC010.jpg

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC012.jpg

 

And charging mace dude:

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/IMGP0005.jpg

[dark_inquisitor]

Awesome ideas!

 

Couple of suggestions:

 

Color scheme: maybe do something that sets them apart from the rest of the chaos legions. Black, Red, and purple are everywhere. Maybe a blue scheme trimmed w/ silver? but carerful there to avoid the thousand sons cheme.

 

Positioning: good start on the basing of the lord, but be careful with that left foot. In the first pic it looks a little awkward b/c it is semi touching the ground but not really. Bend the right knee a little more and straighten out the left one? or just build up the rock under the lft foot.

 

On the mace dude: great idea, but the arm looks a little too thrown back for power armor, and a little too turned for someone who not a yoga master. Tilt up the mace a little more and bring the arm closer to the body.

 

Hockey stick guy: what weapon is the hockey stick going to be? I, personally, would like to see more pole-arms in the w40k universe. Maybe an ox tongue or partisan would look really freakin cool.

 

Hair: The lord's hair and the mace guy's hair look a little similar.

 

Also, love the rack o' ribs on the lords armour. pretty brutal. As well as the axe. maybe add a curved spike at the base of the pole for it?

 

Great idea and great parts!

 

Also, the inquisition will be visiting your world shortly with holy redeeming, fascist fire. :)

[Surreal Cruelty]

Awesome ideas!

 

Couple of suggestions:

 

Color scheme: maybe do something that sets them apart from the rest of the chaos legions. Black, Red, and purple are everywhere. Maybe a blue scheme trimmed w/ silver? but carerful there to avoid the thousand sons cheme.

 

If he is doing sons of malice, their color scheme is pretty much going to be black and white quartered

 

 

Great idea and great parts!

 

Also, the inquisition will be visiting your world shortly with holy redeeming, fascist fire. :)

 

And oh did that world get torched...not exterminatus protocols but definitely toasty.

 

I agree, very good use of parts, Good mix of loyalist and chaos parts too... though I would consider swapping out the shoulder on the lord for one of the chaos knight spiked shoulders, or positioning the spiked plate a little more solidly...maybe even going Justaerin style.

[Hyaenidae]

I like the hockey stick guy. For the Glory of the Red Wings!!! :) What are you planning to do with him?

[popkhorne]

cool models, i love the sons of malice(especially there fluff) but i would advise against the "spare ribs" hanging from his shoulder plate, i mean im all for gore and stuff, but it looks more like hes trying to use the sun, to smoke jerky or something:P perhaps some zombie bitz or something, a little more human looking?

[Vandael]

Welcome to the forum GooseDaMoose!

 

Great way of introducing yourself with a fairly unconventional army. The only Sons of Malice I rember are the ones that are coverd in the fluff so I'm looking forward to yours. The ones you show here are top notch, lots of promise nice, menacing and brooding. Seeing that there is few fluff aound the SoM (rumored to be worshippers of Malal), you can make it up.

Jup, Malal got pretty canned with GW, always loved the fluff though. Too bad he's a too small of a player (like Squads) to ever see the light in the 40k universe. Ahh, the Dreadaxe hope they bring that one back in the next codex. In the hands of my Daemon Prince pretty mauled everything.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Cheers,

 

Vandael

 

 

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT!

[Captain Mick]

Great looking models but remove the ribs indeed. Cant wait to see something painted :rolleyes: .

[Muller]

TBH it looks like the lord has 2 heads soaring in his palm...

it don't look like he's actually holding them

[GooseDaMoose]

First of all, thank you so much for all the comments B) they are really helpful

 

I like the hockey stick guy. For the Glory of the Red Wings!!! :P What are you planning to do with him?

 

I figure I'm gonna give him a naginata-type weapon or like a falx. But I might do a polearm thing. We shall see :P I need more wire stuff.

 

Dark inquisitor, I think the Lord's foot issue might be because he's blue-tac'd on at the moment but I see what you mean. To be honest I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep him on the rock thing and just make a different base entirely. I dunno if the angles are bad on the Mace dude but I think the arm is at a pretty possible angle. It just goes straight out of his armour, I'll post a better pic..

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC002.jpg

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BC003.jpg

 

Does that look better? :S

 

And the colour scheme is pretty much gonna be white and black, though I haven't entirely decided if it's gonna be quartered or not :P I figured the trophies would give some colour to the models.

 

Popkhorne and Cpt Mick, I hear yah, but I wanted to convey the Sons of Malice's cannibalism in some way. So if the Lord get's hungry during a battle he can just turn his head and snack a bit :P no but if it really looks that silly, I guess I can think of something else :P any suggestions?

 

Müller I'm not sure how to fix that, it's just how the powerfist looks :S do you have any suggestions?

 

And btw the reason their hair looks the same is cuz the mace guy's head was the prototype for the Lord's head. I haven't really sculpted anything succesfully before so I needed a practice run. But is it terrible if they look a bit alike? I was thinking of including like one set of twins in the army somewhere, as two aspiring champions or something :P one in all/mostly black and one in all/mostly white to represent Malal's symbol sorta and show his duality as a) a god who stands up for the little guy and B) a god who likes to screw everyone over. Any thoughts?

[hazardousZERO]

I like the hockey stick guy. For the Glory of the Red Wings!!! :P What are you planning to do with him?

He did it for the glory of the Bruins not the evil red wings. B)

[Vandael]

And btw the reason their hair looks the same is cuz the mace guy's head was the prototype for the Lord's head. I haven't really sculpted anything succesfully before so I needed a practice run. But is it terrible if they look a bit alike? I was thinking of including like one set of twins in the army somewhere, as two aspiring champions or something :P one in all/mostly black and one in all/mostly white to represent Malal's symbol sorta and show his duality as a) a god who stands up for the little guy and :P a god who likes to screw everyone over. Any thoughts?

 

No shame in two characters looking alike. Knowing that Marines are made up from the same gene-seed it's actually quite common that they look alike. The Alpha Legionaires even make an efford in it.

I like the idea of two opposites in characters, but instead of doing one almost white and the other black I would split it in the middle. Rightside black and leftside white & mirror it with the other guy. This way they each still have their duality within themselves and are an opposite of the other.

 

As a Chaos player I personally go for option B.

 

In case you hadn't find it yet here are some links:

 

Lexianicum's fluff on the Sons of Malice

 

Lexicanum's fluff on Malal

 

 

Cheers,

 

Vandael

 

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT!

[GooseDaMoose]

Thanks for the links man :P

 

But yeah that is a pretty cool idea, I really like that they themselves would be split as well being opposites of each other. I'm just unsure if it would be obvious enough that they were opposites.. well I'll test it out when I get myself some squad boxes :P

 

 

Btw does anyone have any ideas on how to model some guns on these guys?

[Hyaenidae]

I like the hockey stick guy. For the Glory of the Red Wings!!! :) What are you planning to do with him?

He did it for the glory of the Bruins not the evil red wings. ;)

Sorry to say, but it's the Bruins that worship the dark gods. That's why they get beat, hehehe.

 

@Goose: I really like the Falx idea, run with it. As for modeling cannabalism, buy some zombie/cadian bits, carve some pieces out of them, and fill it in a little with green stuff. Leave a bloody, torn chunk missing, like he took a bite. For the twins, since the SoM quarter their colors, do one black and white, then switch sides (white and black) for the twin. That'd look sharp.

[GooseDaMoose]

Alright 1000heathens I'll give it a try on some test models. And the whole cannabalistic thing I'll fiddle around with some stuff and see how it works out. And I'm glad you like the falx idea, I think those things are so badass.

 

Furthermore, to keep you guys interested I have here some pics of two new guys.

 

One dude will have a polearm, I'm thinking one of those hook-y thing they used to pull guys off horses, the technical term escapes me (or is that just a polearm?) anyway. And numero dos hasn't really got anything special to him so far, but I'm thinking of making him a sorcerer/librarian with blue armour and a staff like the loyalists do it, calling upon the power of Malal while crazy winds blow through his hair like nobody's business. Or ill just give him a gun. Any ideas?

 

Polearm dude, please note the dead IG general upon his shoulders who I am quite proud of :) I know his helmet looks a bit nurgle-y right now but I wanted one freaky looking guy who nobody really knows who is and stuff and I'm gonna make it look more like one of those gladiator helmets when the GS dries.

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BS007.jpg

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BS005.jpg

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BS004.jpg

 

And another..

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BS002.jpg

 

 

And sorcerer who so far has really nothing going for him cept a left arm with a powerfist and a windy head o' hair. C&C welcome and suggestions for sorcerer fellow requested. Should I just finish the squad without him and make him into a regular or go all out and make myself another character?

 

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BS003.jpg

 

Thank you, come again

[popkhorne]

Ok I for one like the "half-shaved" hairstyle. its almost like a sons of malice staple for me because of that old kaleb daark model. but as for conveying cannibalism,just use some warhammer fantasy vampire counts, ghoul or zombie bitz, you should easily be able to find something to fit that aesthetic in their range

[popkhorne]

also, are you planning on doing troops as well or just the terminators?

[Muller]

Müller I'm not sure how to fix that, it's just how the powerfist looks :S do you have any suggestions?

Cut off the fingers, reposition them and fill the tiny space with GS?

[GooseDaMoose]

Müller what if I just sculpt some hair coming out between his fingers? I don't really wanna start cutting him up unless I really have to :P

 

Ok I for one like the "half-shaved" hairstyle. its almost like a sons of malice staple for me because of that old kaleb daark model.

 

That's exactly what I was going for :) I'm glad it worked. And yeah I have some ideas for troops but I'd like to give each squad like a "theme" sorta, like one squad is of all marines running into position and another is all marines firing and stuff like that, I saw a Space Wolves army like that in WD or something and it was pretty dope. I just need to figure out a way to get running legs without having to buy tonnes of boxes of assault marines.. I dont have THAT much money.

[GooseDaMoose]

Time for some fluff.

 

BACKGROUND

 

The Sons of Malice have always been known to deviate from typical Codex organisation but the Company under Commander Batko differs greatly from the rest of its legion. During a battle against the "Emperor's" violent lap-dogs, the Ultramarines, Batko's company came into contact with an attack force from the Alpha Legion's 5th Company under Lord Asti. In a sort of "the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" way they allied forces in order to beat the Ultramarines. During the 2-month campaign that followed the two commanders became close friends and discussed many things. The Alpha Legion typically had a much less authoritarian structure than other legions, relying more on each other and mutual trust than barking orders at each other. Thus, Lord Asti had always had a problem with the way the Imperium was organised, especially when it became a backward, technology-fearing, superstitious and corrupt system after the Horus Heresy and the fall of the Emperor, but he also hated fighting on the side of the followers of Chaos, seeing more and more of his honest comrades fall to its lure. The Sons of Malice of course share very similar views, hating both the Imperium and the servants of Chaos. Batko had also always encouraged his soldiers to seek knowledge in all fields of learning, not just war, so his company in particular always had an ideological dislike for the Imperium. Thus the two commanders learnt a lot from each other and eventually they decided to join forces completely. Anyone who didn't want to join was free to go.

 

ORGANISATION

 

Organisation under Asti and Batko became something new entirely. The military organisation was based around direct democracy; all officers are elected and totally recallable if they do a lousy job. The main decision-making platform is comprised of a council of the most skilled and knowledgable warriors of the company (my Termies :P) who are also elected and recallable. Major decisions however are brought forth to be discussed. Although proficiency in all weapons, long-range, close-range and close-combat, is required, specialisation is possible, where the most skilled are collected into squads of Devestators, Assault Marines or whatever else.

 

Note: due to Space Marine's self-discipline and sense of duty, this way of organising works better than many of you might thing :P

 

RECRUITMENT and EQUIPMENT

 

Recruitment occurs much like it does for other loyalist legions. However, no one is conscripted unless really necessary. The Sons of Malice have certain worlds where they normally get their recruits, such as their homeworld of Scelus where there are still some savaged with a deep hatred for the Imperium running around. Other than that, with help from the newly inducted Alpha Legionnaires they run operations on Imperial worlds where the Governor is unjust and treats the working people like crap (which is most places) and thus get a steady stream of recruits from all over the galaxy. They also occasionally get volunteers from other legions. Geneseed is usually recovered when possible from fallen Marines but is otherwise stolen if needed. Equipment is mostly stolen from Imperial and Chaos Legion supply lines with pirate raids, but there are several Techmarines at service within the company too, to fix anything that can be fixed.

[chaplain belisarius]

cool...id like to see how this army progresses...:D

[Lupercal Sanquine]

Love your work so far, i particularly like the mace-swinging terminator. Dynamism's particularly difficult to do, but i think you pulled that one with oodles to spare :lol:

 

Not incredibly keen on the fluff though. Dont get me wrong, i love the idea of the Sons of Malice, but have you read the short story about them from one of the Space Marine short story compilations? The Sons aren't *exactly* goodness and light. Hell, eating all manner of sentient creatures *alive* and over a period of several hours isn't what i would call being 'the good guys'. THe idea of them being better than the Imperium in terms of ethics is a good one, but the background would be much richer if it was in a 'lesser evil' sort of way.

 

Might i also recommend reading Lord of the Night? *Yes* it's a Night Lords book, but it's a brilliant example of a solitary marine stirring up the local population against the Imperium. Admitedly he has a vested interest, but then again, who doesn't in 40K?

 

Other than that, i'm flagging this topic up for updates. I'm keen to see your army when it's finally complete :P

[GooseDaMoose]

Love your work so far, i particularly like the mace-swinging terminator. Dynamism's particularly difficult to do, but i think you pulled that one with oodles to spare :)

 

Not incredibly keen on the fluff though. Dont get me wrong, i love the idea of the Sons of Malice, but have you read the short story about them from one of the Space Marine short story compilations? The Sons aren't *exactly* goodness and light. Hell, eating all manner of sentient creatures *alive* and over a period of several hours isn't what i would call being 'the good guys'. THe idea of them being better than the Imperium in terms of ethics is a good one, but the background would be much richer if it was in a 'lesser evil' sort of way.

 

Thank you very much Lupercal, I'm glad somebody actually read it :P and your comments are very welcome. I have indeed read the short story about the Sons of Malice and no, they're maybe not the nicest guys in the world lol. I didn't really like how evil they were in the story but that's besides the point. Anyway I don't think my fluff really gets in the way of the official story, I mean yeah they have the crazy eating people ceremonies but I don't ever claim my guys don't do that and all else is covered with the fact that this particular company is way different from the rest of the legion/chapter :P . I guess I went a bit overboard making them seem all high and holy though, I'll tone it down a bit :)

 

and thank you, I'm pretty proud of him. I'm painting him now so pics should be up in not too long!

[firestorm40k]

I really like the conversions and characterful embelishments you've given these Terminators, this army is off to a great start already, looking forward to seeing it develop!

[GooseDaMoose]

I can't seem to make any actual progress to a point where I can start painting, but anyway, for the time being I need some help.

 

This is a sergeant for a tactical squad or devastator/havoc squad I haven't decided. Anyway, what I need help with is the cloak. Is it alright? And if not, can anyone help me with tips on sculpting one that looks good?

 

http://i1043.photobucket.com/albums/b440/GooseVonMoose/BS009-3.jpg

[dark_inquisitor]

seeing the side of the mace dude, great job!

 

Fluff wise, i like the inside look at the Alpha legion c. 40k where they still aren't all chaosy.

 

on the cloak, one suggestion: as your looking at the pic, on the very left, last ridge: instead of coming out, sink it in. There's is a ridge next to it, so it should terminate in a valley, coming up @ the very left edge of the cloak cuz of the raised arm.