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The Imperfect - Heresy Era Loyalist Emperor’s Children


Laborious

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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. smile.png 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

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121015073057/warhammer40kfanon/images/f/f1/EC_Mk_II_Crusade_Armour.jpg

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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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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/ec1_zpse131870b.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/ec2_zps11788b27.jpg

Hope dies,

Glory fades,

But Faith is eternal.

- Loyalist Emperor’s Children catechism

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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/B00FE3E3-307E-4764-84B7-8C22B685FEA0-6496-00000BCFFDC42830_zps30fe7452.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/4244C89F-4666-47B2-9DCD-F6A7DB6EE59D-6496-00000BCFF1113512_zpsf3932750.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/101F6167-CC65-4B05-915C-8B8A2021C009-6496-00000BD003D22935_zps0f6a2f36.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/04A84A4C-3081-4EC8-AEBB-543BEF9519E5-6496-00000BCFF68C420B_zps8e789850.jpg

"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.

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/IMG_0387_zps4d6b854e.jpg

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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.

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000126_zpsabdec3df.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000127_zps3606acd2.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000128_zps7c9186bb.jpg

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They're so pretty... almost enough to make me want to be loyalist. Almost.

 

I especially like the attention to detail on the interior of that transport. I'm trying to achieve something similar on the screens for my chaos bikes, but I just don't have a brush fine enough. What did you do to achieve such fine lines?

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Love the models mate, and the fluff is really cool!

 

Not sure about the photoshopped(?) background on the pics though, can we see them naturally? I just find it a little jarring is all :)

 

Also have you thought about joining the Heresy's ETL? a chance to show off your talents to the rest of the forum and also a great way of keeping momentum

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Thank you ever so much for the responses guys, really appreciate it a lot.

They're so pretty... almost enough to make me want to be loyalist. Almost.

I especially like the attention to detail on the interior of that transport. I'm trying to achieve something similar on the screens for my chaos bikes, but I just don't have a brush fine enough. What did you do to achieve such fine lines?

Just as you suggest, a size 000 Winsor and Newton series 7 brush. The panel wasn't glued in when i painted it so it helped a lot obviously being able to gt free access to everywhere.

Love the models mate, and the fluff is really cool!

Not sure about the photoshopped(?) background on the pics though, can we see them naturally? I just find it a little jarring is all smile.png

Also have you thought about joining the Heresy's ETL? a chance to show off your talents to the rest of the forum and also a great way of keeping momentum

I'll check it out now. smile.png

Very cool models indeed. The only thing I don't like is that the selection for the photoshoped backgrounds is a little rough at places tongue.png

I agree about the PS backrounds. My lighting setup for for taking pictures is pretty terrible, so it's a none too successful attempt at getting rid of the unsightly shadows the actual backround has over it. But, because it's not perfectly lit it tends to blur into the bases hence the dodgy chopping tenshi has noticed. ohmy.png

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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

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000143_zps4a7810bf.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000142_zps3991ce67.jpg

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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000140_zpsfe271a66.jpg

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! msn-wink.gif) so here's a group shot. Hope you guys like.

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000134_zps9b298ffa.jpg

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Thanks very much. :)

 

Started work on my converted vox operator this evening. Just the base colours painted at the moment, but hopefully I'll have him at a vaguely interesting stage tomorrow for some WIP photos. :)

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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000171_zps730b08a8.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000172_zps88f41c47.jpg
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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000175_zps04300f4f.jpg

Herald Stentor, XIV Company, XIX Millennial, Emperors Children.

*Note* Herald Stentor is equipped with a Hermes-pattern Vox set, an experimental design introduced for the MKIV pattern "Maximus" armour in the later days of the Great Crusade. The Helmet is augmented with 13 directional receivers for local tactical communications, whilst the backpack is equipped with a single powerful antennae for intercontinental/interorbital transmissions.

Really pleased with how this model turned out now he's been painted. Most of it has been converted, barring the torso and right arm. The legs are the kneeling plastic MK VI legs from normal tactical sprues with the groin and knees resculpted, and the left arm and backpack are from there too with the arm being repositioned and a vambrace added. The gubbinz on the helmet and backpack are the chopped up pieces of a beaded cable-tie type thing, believe it or not. smile.png

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Hehe, thanks. Did all the modelling work on him before christmas. Then Not too long after that FW brought out the recon set with the kneeling legs. . . Still, they weren't difficult to do, so i saved myself a fair few quid. :)
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Cheers. :) The bases themselves are cork tiles broken up for the slabs, with various bits of plastic girder etc. They were then sprayed black, heavily overbrushed with charadon granite, drybrushed with adeptus battlegrey, more lightly drybrushed with astronomicum grey, washed with a watered down mix of army painter strong and dark tone around shaded areas, drybrushed again with astronomican grey but concentrating on the edges, then they  were given a final very light drybrush on some of the raised areas with dheneb stone. Since starting this army I've actually switched over to using the vallejo extra opaque colour range from the old foundation range, but the colours are all pretty much an exact match for the citadel ones. Same goes for the army painter washes and the old gw equivalents. No idea what corresponds in their new range, however. sorry :) Hope that's of help. :)

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Love your work on the Emperor's Children. The loyalists of Fulgrim's legion always strike me as particularly tragic and your bits of background capture that perfectly.

Thanks. smile.png

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000178_zps11987351.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000179_zps10aa4c1d.jpg

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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000182_zps8e115bca.jpg

Child Pelias, XIV Company, XIX Millennial, Emperors Children.

*Note - Child Pelias is armed with a heavily augmented Phobos-Pattern Bolter. It is equipped with a rail-mounted 3.90x scope and has been modified to take an 80-round high capacity drum magazine. Such configurations become quite common within the Emperor's Children, and other Legions, as a way of providing individual squads with their own means of laying down moderate suppressive fire without having to rely on separate Devastator squad support. The success of such ad hoc improvisation would later influence Robert Guilleman's Codex Astartes, which ultimately led to the reduction in size of dedicated Devastator squads and the extinction of the Tactical Support Squad entirely.

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-Day 34 -




"Fall back!"

The call to retreat was almost lost amongst the staccato beat of hundreds of bolt rounds as they whizzed past him through air, and on into stone and steel and flesh. Over to his left Amphion could hear a slow, steady thumping as someone opened up with Autocannon fire. Whether it was friend or foe, he had no idea. A moment later he had his answer as the ground around him erupted with detonations. Next to him, Child Pylades simply ceased to exist above the waist. Rolling out of the path of the oncoming fire, he was up and running in an instant; making for the dubious safety of a burning Predator.

Ducking behind the wrecked vehicle, Amphion popped his head out long enough to squeeze off a short burst towards the enemy. No sooner had he shown his face than return fire hammered into his cover from a dozen different positions. Too hot by half.

"Back! Pull Back!" came the call again, his Sergeant clearly of the same mind. To his right, Amphion could see the shattered remains of his squad pulling back into the side streets around the plaza through a gap in the melee. A moment later and it closed.

He was cut off. Alone.

Running feet, howls of glee. Two purple-clad figures rushed passed him, boots pounding upon stone. Something struck the leading man in the back and he tripped, falling into the path of his comrade as he went down. The two men were still struggling to regain their feet when the trailing pack surged into them, chainswords rising and falling in bloody arcs. Screaming in fury, Amphion switched his fire selector to fully automatic and depressed the trigger until the magazine ran dry. Five bloodstained corpses lay heaped on the cobbles, brothers one and all.

Ejecting the spent magazine, Amphion slid a fresh one from his belt and slammed it home. Time to move. He could see a small knot of mixed loyalists fighting hand to hand to the west of him, but even as he prepared to run to join them they were swept under by the sheer weight of numbers arrayed against them. Everywhere he looked it was the same. Still, he couldn't stay where he was.

Ducking down as low as possible, he scuttled out from behind the tank and sprinted towards where he'd last seen his squad. Maybe he could find a gap in the fighting. The Predator was burning fiercely now, acrid black smoke stinging his eyes as it poured out of the cavity where it's turret had been; obscuring anything beyond a few dozen paces from view. Perhaps that would work to his advantage.

He almost ran into the back of the crouching Deathguard, skidding to a halt as the man twisted round in surprise from his work. He was kneeling over a still form, the hilt of a combat knife jammed through the armpit of the man he had just killed. Nestor. The first of Amphion's rounds took him in the gut, knocking him backwards. The second hammered through his chest, the self-propelled bolt round cracking the ceramite with ease. The third took him in the face. The first would have killed him given time, the second had done so outright. Amphion didn't care.

Stalking through the smoke, he hunted something else to kill.

The low rumble of the blades on idle was enough warning, and as the axe growled to life Amphion ducked beneath the decapitating blow that emerged from the haze. Grunting as he overbalanced, the World Eater stumbled past him. As he did so, Amphion drove his boot into the back of the man's knee and as he went sprawling shot him four times in the back. He didn't get up.

Even as the man was falling, the rest of his squad boiled out of the smoke, charging towards him. Backing up slowly, Amphion calmly aimed and fired, a surgeon wielding a scalpel. First man, the soft juncture between crotch and thigh. He went down. Second man, the briefly exposed throat. Third man, his face is bare; all too easy. Fourth man, click click click.

Empty.

Amphion braced himself and waited for death as, yipping with deranged joy, the last man rushed in for the kill. He got three steps before a hail of bolter fire slammed into him.

Spinning to his left, Amphion saw half a dozen figures step out from concealment. His squad. What was left of it.

"A good day to die, brother!" greeted one of the warriors jovially, clad in plate the mirror image of his own. Zethus.

"Tomorrow would be better!" he replied, clasping his twins armoured gauntlet. By the throne, it was good to see him. He'd hated the thought of not being with him at the end.

"It matters not when we die, only how." said Sergeant Brax as he kicked over the squirming body of the first injured World Eater. Not even looking, Brax fired off two rounds from his pistol and the writhing ceased. "So come, brothers, we'll serve no purpose dying here this day."

"You always were trigger happy," laughed Zethus as they ran, nodding at his empty belt, "Here."

Slotting the proffered clip into place, Amphion followed the after the others as the sounds of battle slowly faded behind them. They had survived another day. Some of them.


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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l38/RAPTOR192/Citadel%20Minatures/Emperors%20Children/P1000193_zps51054293.jpg



The twins, Amphion and Zethus, XIV Company, XIX Millennial, Emperors Children.





Really pleased with these two, think they're my favorites to convert and paint so far. Was unsure how the converted MK VII torsos would come out but now they've got paint on them I think they're pretty convincing. What do you guys think?
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