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The Murderclowns Lament


Kinstryfe

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No noteworthy painting lately except the Captain over in the boxing day bash thread, but I did try to flesh out the most interesting chapter that got randomly created, the Righteous Punishers. I'm hoping to eventually turn it into a full IA, and I'm very tempted to paint up a single squad of them just because I'm so amused by them, especially having started out as a nod to comic books.

 

 

The Righteous Punishers are a chapter known for working closely with the Ecclesiarchy and for being strict, almost fanatical followers of the Imperial Creed. They believe that all Astartes are guilty of the sins of their genetic forebears, most greviously the sins of their Primarchs’ failing to prevent the near death of The Emperor at the height of the heresy. As such they strive to punish any who commit further heresy in their eyes and would have been declared excommunicatus many times over if not for the protection of the church. The Punishers do not know whom is their genetic Primarch and so both revere and hold in contempt all of the loyal nine for their successes and failures. It is tradition for a Primarch to be adopted by a brother as a personal saint, the brother's actions being dedicated to cleansing the guilt of sins millennia past. Brother Castiglione is the last survivor of his squad and, as is tradition in the chapter, carries the sins of his squadmates and has opted to join the Deathwatch in the hopes of securing their place at The Emperor's side before he dies.

 

Doctrine

While nominally compliant with the Codex Astartes, the Punishers notably differ by their internal command structure. While each Brother reveres the teachings of a Primarch and the majority hold Roboute Guilliman as their spiritual predecessor ever since his return, many feel a kinship to his brothers. Of late the chapter has adopted the training habits originated by Guilliman with his Unnumbered Sons, with squads typically comprising a mix of devotees and a squad almost never having at least one member devoted to a different Primarch than the rest. No matter their personal devotion, a brother of the Punishers holds The Emperor above all and follow the Ecclisiarchy as prophets of His will and voice made manifest.

 

Organization

In the Righteous Punishers each company is traditionally led by a Captain honoring a specific Primarch, though that is a tradition and at times in the Chapter's history as many as four companies have been led by devotees of the same Primarch. In addition it is traditional for a company's Lieutenants to follow different devotions than their Captain, giving each company a trio of expertise to fall back on. Diverging from what is prescribed in the Codex, the company colour corresponds to the primary color of its spiritual ancestor, each company being outfitted as the training of its devotee would prescribe. While each company contains a full century of brothers, their armament tends to be different than the Codex delegates. During the Indomitus Crusade, the Punishers gladly accepted their Primaris-born brethren into their ranks on the condition that they not know which genestrain they originated from. There has been some reluctance in the original Primaris Astartes to follow Chapter doctrine; it contradicts the Imperial Truth which many were instructed in; but newly produced Primaris are as zealous as the rest of the Chapter while those less suited to the Punishers’ methods most often serve in the Ultima company.

 

Company Structure

The Fist - The most fanatical company, the Fist excels at bringing excessive power to bear and contains many of the Chapter's veterans and suits of tactical dreadnought armor. Yellow or Golden pauldrons.

 

The Iron - A battle company, the Iron excel in protracted warfare and contain many of the Chapter's heavy vehicles. Iron or steel pauldrons.

 

The Helm - A battle company, the Helm excels at decisive strikes and drop assaults. Dark Green pauldrons.

 

The Forge - A battle company, the Forge excels in armoured combat. Orange pauldrons.

 

The Axe - A battle company, the Axe are most deployed for close quarters combat and siege breaking. Grey pauldrons.

 

The Ultima - A reserve company, the Ultima operate largely in the manner prescribed in the Codex Astartes. Blue pauldrons.

 

The spear- A reserve company, the Spear excels at mounted combat and shock tactics. Many of the Chapter's bikers belong to the Spear. White Pauldrons.

 

The Claw - A reserve company, the Claw are experts at surprise and guerilla warfare with a high proportion of assault squads and minimal devastator support.. Black pauldrons

 

The Blooded - A reserve company, the Blooded are experts in void and aerial combat. Red Pauldrons.

 

The Undevoted - The Undevoted are the Righteous Punishers’ scout company.

 

The Unspoken

The Righteous Punishers understand that just as the Codex Astartes contains sage advice from experts of warfare who have now fallen from The Emperor's grace, that sometimes those teachings and insights are vital to servicing the light of His will. Occasionally a brother will identify with the teachings of one of the fallen and will opt to take their wisdom and methods of combat to heart. When this happens the brother strips himself of his name and becomes one of the Unspoken. These brothers are an unmistakable boon to the chapter but sacrifice all chance for glory and recognition as well as their advancement in the chapter; in the Chapter's history only three times has an Unspoken attained the rank of Captain, and they are forbidden within the chapter from serving as the Master. At this time Captain Angielos of the Claw is the only serving Captain to be Unspoken. To the chapter the Unspoken carry the largest burden of sin, their power armour stripped of any proclamation of devotion to further remove their identity. Only in the death of their fallen brothers can the stain of their sin on the soul of the Imperium be cleansed.

 

The Great Mass

While the Righteous Punishers generally fight in squadrons of mixed devotion, at times a Captain may determine that a particular tactical expertise is needed. At those times the Punishers hold the Great Mass, during which praise is offered unto the devotee whose teachings are needed and devoted gather across companies as a single minded fighting formation. At times the expertise of the Unspoken is needed and the Chapter holds the Black Mass, often turning command over to the Unspoken until their methods have achieved the desired results with all glory going to The Emperor's guiding hand.

 

I hope you enjoy, and ideas on how to improve on it are of course appreciated

Edited by Kinstryfe
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Do the Righteous Punishers use chimeric gene-seed, i.e., that of multiple Primarchs? Do they use the Red Scorpions' Chapter tactics, i.e., due to the deliberate ambiguity regarding their Primarch's identity, the Chapter can use the tactics of any of those listed in Codex: Space Marines?
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Do the Righteous Punishers use chimeric gene-seed, i.e., that of multiple Primarchs? Do they use the Red Scorpions' Chapter tactics, i.e., due to the deliberate ambiguity regarding their Primarch's identity, the Chapter can use the tactics of any of those listed in Codex: Space Marines?

In universe: they don't know who their geneseed donor is, and specifically don't want to find out, as to them it doesn't matter because all the Primarchs are revered for being The Emperor's sons, but also somewhat despised because of their failures in saving Him.

 

Out of Universe: I'm not sure that I want to commit to a single source. On the one hand because they don't care their geneseed is likely chimeric, or at least they use seed from numerous strains. The thing though is that Corax and Vulkan are right out due to physical mutations, and if they can spit acid they're probably not children of Dorn. They also can't really be wolves as they're not Fenrisian, or blood angels due to not having the flaw inherent to that strain. That leaves Guilliman, El'Johnson, Mannus, and the Khan as potential donors. The fluff was written with a bit of a wink toward the Dark Angels, with Astartes being called together via specialization just like the Wings of the preheresy era were. If I *had* to choose, I think it would be the Lion, but with them having no idea about their lineage or of the Angels' whole secret schtick. They also mirror the Dark Angels in that they seek absolution from The Emperor for past sins, though it's of the Primarchs rather than of their own actions.

 

About tactics, I think the whole "pick whichever tactic you want" would work. I honestly am of the mind that any Chapter can justify any of the tactics one way or another though. Even if I said they were Unforgiven, I'd probably run them with Codex: Space Marines because they wouldn't have any specialized troops from the other codexes.

Edited by Kinstryfe
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IIRC, Cawl managed to reverse the deterioration of the loyalist Primarch's gene-seed when he completed the process to create Primaris Marines, meaning Primaris sons of Dorn CAN spit acid and enter suspended animation.

Not just Primaris, but any new marines made after the Primaris have access to the full gene-seed of their lineage, so any new Dornian marine can spit acid and go into the healing suspending animation.

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Both valid points, but any chapter pre-Ultima founding would canonically lack those abilities if descended from Dorn's seed. It's actually kind of funny, for how many chapters supposedly don't know whose seed they belong to...

 

Russ's only works on people from one particular planet, plus has physical abnormalities that arise with age of the Astartes.

Corax's and Vulkan's both have physical abnormalities that arise with age of the Astartes.

Dorn's has an absence of two organs pre-Ultima founding, so while missing those two organs does not equal being Dorn's seed, having Dorn's seed does mean they would lack those organs.

Sanguinius' seed carries a flaw that even Cawl didn't purge, which would make his lineage evident over time.

 

That means that any "Unknown" lineage is really just the Khan, the Gorgon, El'Johnson, or Guilliman in the running without directly contradicting existing fluff. Statistically we know most would be of Guilliman's lineage. Which kind of means any *notable* chapter's story would need to be either chimeric, traitor, or belong to one of only three Primarchs unless you want them to be Guilliman's. I just find that kind of interesting.

 

I think the best narrative mystery comes from avoiding the cliche (traitor geneseed), and going with mongrel geneseed. I almost envision the Punishers treating *all* Astartes as their brothers, albeit guilty of some sin or another, and imagine they wouldn't be above implanting geneseed from other sources they find or acquire. After all, it's important for a brother to live on as his geneseed, in the Punishers if not in their originating chapter. That philosophy could perhaps eclipse even the obvious geneseeds: Brother Kastiel may bear the chalk white skin of a son of Corax but has adopted the Khan as his personal saint, and counts himself among his sons even in the face of obvious physical evidence to the contrary. On second thought, I like that idea more than a single legion as it makes them a Chapter of willful ignorance in their origins instead of it simply being a mystery.

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After a bit of a break building raider than painting, I've got my first model of the new year more or less done aside from basing. Unfortunately I've also decided that the murderclowns™ need to be a full army of at least 1500 points, so it's a starweaver transport. My plan is for 3 in the army, running the royfbiv gamut, starting with this guy cycling for purple to yellow. The next will gradient from yellow to blue, and the third from blue to violet-red.

 

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Started my first murderbike. The thought of painting even the 3 more I have fills me with dread, not to mention the inevitable bunch more, and I don't even have the crew assembled. But, I think I'll be able to make them look pretty cool once it's all done and I can work some gradients across the squad.

 

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Tonight's work has been a Solitaire conversion. I wanted him to look a bit brutal, so modelled his caress as a Drukhari gauntlet. He's in much more muted colors while still incorporating the light blue that's been on all of the infantry so far. I originally planned for him to be quotr a bit different, but in the end the fluff of wandering murderclown lost out to army cohesiveness. I may or may not get the official model depending on how much I end up liking this guy.

 

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My three Starweavers are finally pretty much finished. Pretty happy with the results since I don't have an airbrush and had to wet blend everything. I'm dubbing them light, twilight, and dark for the Harlequin theme. The only thing left is figuring out how I'm going to do the bases.

 

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Today's hobbying was mostly playing Kill Team and building the murderclown reinforcements that arrived, but I still had time to paint one mini. It's one of my Troupe Masters. I purposely used a very limited palette on him; just the white, red, and light blue that nearly every clown so far has used. I'm mostly ok with the diamonds, but a couple look a little funky and may need to be redone. I also used a Hydra gauntlet as a Caress, both because it looked kind of cool and to differentiate him from my non-Masters since all the clowns are from the same basic kit. He's very much the "light" master, the other will be there "dark". Overall, not my worst outing, especially as it took under two hours so far.

 

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Thanks to everyone for the kind words. Today I got my first game in with my Harlies (doubles, another brand new Harlequin player and I against World Eaters and Death Guard), narrowly losing. It did however give me some ideas of what works and doesn't, so that was good. Tonight I got 3 clowns painted to finish off my first fully painted squad. Now that I know squad makeups I'll give each troupe their own color theme, and with this guy's it was the addition of yellow to the palette in common. I guess they'll be the "light" squad.

 

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Tonight I finished up the first two bikes. I have another two waiting for assembly and will doubtlessly need at least 6 total, possibly more. The plan is to paint the squad much like the Starweavers, running a rainbow gradient thru it. I stuck mostly to the army-wide palette of white-red-blue for the crew, mostly to keep them simple (by Harlequin standards) and so they don't detract from the bikes themselves.

 

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After what feels like ages painting enough clowns to eat what remained of my sanity, I finally have all 3 of my main squads done (5x same weapon and 3x fusion pistols). Went with green and purple as the respective squad colors to match them to the Starweavers with green and purple in their gradients. Hope you enjoy.

 

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2 bikes finished, 2 needing crew, 2 in the mail. I'm definitely liking them more as a squad than viewed separately. Trying to pull off the same sort of gradient as on the Starweavers but spread across five or six bikes instead of the three weavers.

 

5IZl3a3.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

*blows the dust off of the plog*

 

Painting tapered off a bit as I started to get worn out of painting clowns, so I took a break to paint an Imperial Fist for the OMDFRD painting event over in the Astartes subforums. Between that and the Lamenters I'm now thoroughly burnt out on yellow. Luckily I only have 8 crew and two Skyweavers to finish painting and my Harlequins are pretty much done, so if I can make myself power thru that I'll be able to take some full army shots.

 

Also, what do people think looks better: flying bases clear, or based to match the Infantry?

 

Angel of Dorn

 

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Edited by Kinstryfe
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