Stalkers

"I don't need numbers to throw into the meatgrinder. I need a precision blow, a... a stilleto. You understand?"

"Yes, Lord General."

"The issue is that we can't outflank through the wastes outside the main Hive. Nothing can survive out there and no troops can operate in a landscape that has been so twisted by chenicals, atomics and the warp-furies of the arch-enemy. So... dammit. I will not launch another full-frontal attack."

"Lord General." The rasping breath of the respirator - a respirator, here? Though the Lord General for a moment - accompanied by the coarse scrape of a cammo cloak against armour announced that the figure from the back of the briefing had stepped forward. "I think, perhaps, we can help."



Tarkov was once an Agriworld, bounteous and fertile. But the 13th Black Crusade turned it into a chemical wasteland of drifting ash, slagheaps of ruined warmachines and fields of bone and metal. The Imperial Tacticians assumed the world would be lost and drew their plans accordingly.

Astonishingly, Tarkov held out. Their PDF and Guard regiments were decimated. The 1st Tarkov Foot were wiped out in the Fall of Hive Volga; the 2nd Tarkov died gasping in the Plague Rain of the Zhukov River Valley. But the 3rd Tarkov Foot adapted to the new conditions. Working in small detachments, wrapped in ABC Protective gear, they melted into the acid rains and appeared from the wastes to carry out devastating precision strikes. After the Relief of Tarkov in 499.M41 the 3rd Tarkov Foot - now better known as the Stalkers - became the force of choice for any theatre which required small kill teams, stealthy insertion or guerrilla disruption.

These are designed for the SW:A campaign at work. I love the idea of the Death Korps but I'm not paying forge world prices so I wondered if I could play around with the aesthetic. Feeding into this was Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, an SF masterpiece from the old USSR. taking the palette from that film and a Soviet-inflected colour scheme as opposed to Prussian have them enough of a different feel to the DKoK .

All of them were converted; they had head swaps using some resin pieces from Kromlech and then cloaks made of greenstuff. Leftover bits of the cloak were used for bandages and wrapping on the guns.

The most substantial conversion was the kneeling sniper who used the lower torso and legs from a Warlord British Line Infantry to get the kneeling position.

Overall I'm really happy with the ragged, Rogue Trooper-esque feel to these guys. Now just to see how they play...

The Rot Walker

Clanking and hissing, surrounded by the stench of rotting flesh, it stalked out of the dust of the Drift....

This was built out of the legs of the Sentinel I had left over from the Green Baron and a shell we picked up on a family holiday to Scotland a couple of years ago. The face was sculpted as was the innards out of sculpy. The rest was constructed of odds and ends.

The painting was all done with a brush, lots of wet blending for a sufficiently organic finish. 

The rigging was set up in such a way as to suggest that the whole thing is being puppeteered by the Nurgling because who doesn't love Nurglings? 

This is another one I am quite happy with. 

The Green Baron

Of all the smugglers plying their trade in the Outer Rim of the Arcadia system, there is one who stands head and shoulders above the rest. Not literally, of course. But ib terms of his sheer determination to get the cargo through no matter what there is no one who can touch the Green Baron.

How a Gretchin managed to slip away from his ork masters is a mystery. Why he would go into business for himself is an enigma. What he spends the money he makes on is a question no-one wants to think about for long. But if you need contraband and no one else can help you - and if you can find him - maybe you can hire Grotfred von Waaaaghoffen.

This was inspired by two things; I had an idea for a build using the legs of a sentinel but would be left with the cab, and a shot in a White Dwarf about a revolutionary gretchin army.

And so the Green Baron was born.

The build was pretty easy, just the cab of the sentinel with some plasticard wings and beat up panels.

The baron himself was selected from the Gretchin box; in terms of conversion I added the goggles and control yokes.

Painting was a doddle. Red wunz go fasta, after all.

A fun little build. It just needs some cotton wool smoke to finish it off.

The Deacon - Post 300!

Far beneath the ruins there are the remains of a church. Here the broken, the twisted, and the forgotten come to worship. They are called to services by The Deacon. Its wails and the clattering of the bone on wood lets all the dwellers of the Underhollow know that time of the Preacher is come.

This started as a little doodle for AOS28 but it very quickly became apparent it would fit quite easily into the Inq28 setting I've developed.

Construction was very easy; a skeleton torso with zombie arms greenstuffed on (I turned the board so the face pointed out). The head was a Genestealer leftover with the tongue cut out and a new mouth and tongue sculpted. The eyes were also blanked out because I'd just watched Alien Covenant. The lower body was made from greenstuff. Painting was just various glazes over grey.

I also, at the behest of my son, knocked him a Space Marine together out of bits and painted it to his specifications:

Shadowserpent

The ratmen had found us; we'd been on a long expedition to the eastern shadowcap fields. Four days without sight of the sun. There were occasional drifts of snow that had blown down there somehow, and our breath billowed in front of us. We were cold and tired and that's why we probably didn't hear the ratmen before they burst out of the sewers. We've all heard the stories, we knew what would happen, we all know how many of us are lost to ratmen raiders. We were, you know, going to make a fight of it, but we were in no doubt what would happen to us.

Then, there was this noise. Rasping breath, like a horse that's been run too hard, but hissing too. Something moved; massive, light glinting off old armour and hard scales. And eyes that burned like coals. And this thing was fast, I mean really fast, like those black snakes you see in the ruins of the temple district. In seconds the ratmen were down or running. And then this massive thing, it turned those red eyes on us. And that big bastard... he winked. And then he he turned, the armour on his tail striking sparks off the wall, and he walked away.

But it's not the wink I remember. It was his shield. His shield was scale. That's like me carrying a shield covered in human skin. And I remember thinking, yeah he let us go. This time. But if he's carrying a shield like that... what if next time he's not in a good mood? 

*****                        *****

This is the first character created specifically to match the new setting of Stonehollow 
As I say, the Skald and the Faceless are being transplanted into the setting with no difficulty but this is the first one created with the setting in mind. As you can see, I'm started noodling about with ideas about how to do the shadowcap fungus on the base.

The construction was very simple; it's a pushfit Stormcast who I removed the sigmar iconography from and then hands, arms and head from leftover lizardmen I bought my son. A few other bits helped disguise the overall outline. I suppose I should have rejointed the legs to reverse the knees but I think the general shape works without that.

I'm also bringing over another character I created earlier because there frankly aren't enough AoS28-ified lizards out there.

Next up will, I think, be the remains of one of the noble houses that didn't leave the White City On The Hill when it fell. I wonder what became of them...?

Stonehollow

The great city of Stonehaven was once a major trading post of the Realms; but the realm of Shadows is not a place conducive to healthy living. And so the great city started to be avoided; with no trade or goods and with all roads in covered in swirling mists and shadows, haunted by strange beasts, there was no reasons for people to visit the White City. And as areas of the White City On The Hill fell into ruin, the shadowcaps spread.

It was the Kharadron Overlords who discovered that the shadowcap fungus could be a valuable commodity; the healing and mutagenic powers of it made it sought after by all races of the Realms. Slowly and surely the new trade started to bring the City back to life.

But Stonehollow – as the shell of the city now is – is a place of the faint of heart. The Sylvaneth haunt the groves that overran the  white ruins; the Underhollow - the habitable spaces under the snowswept streets and courts - are haunted by Skaven who war with the shadowserpents, fallen Seraphon adapted to life underground. Degenerate barbarians hunt fungus farmers through the ruins and the bone orchards while the Kharadron Overlords load their ships from the spire they have erected over the city. 

Deep in the mists of the shadows, strange creatures spawn; warped and changed by exposure to the Shadowcaps these peculiar beasts are hunted down by the Stalker’s Guild – men and women of all races who capture the things spawned by the shadowfungus and sell them on to circuses, pit fights, carnivals and the bonesmiths of the Flesheater Courts.  

I was looking for a fantasy setting to play around with and Games Workshop provided with this rather fabulous little tool: Free City Generator 

The setting you see above was created based on the rolls made on those charts. So we shall see where this little experiment takes us. Stay tuned!