Jornath: Unit Spotlight [Kula Conservator Cohort]

This will be an in depth exploration about the men and women of the Kula Conservator Cohort, for more information about Kula Hive, click HERE

Notes on Nomenclature

  The Kula Conservator Cohort, (hereby abbreviated to simply "KCC")  is a bit of an enigma, in terms of its categorization and designation in Imperial Guard records for Jornath. This is of course not a particularly rare occurrence given the sometimes maddeningly eclectic manner in which Jornathii military units, especially those comprising the Planetary Defense Force were formed out of historical feudal warbands. As Such the KCC is referred to by the Regional Munitorum (which does not recognize local/planetary designations only those issued by Sub-Sector Command) as Jornath PDF Regiment 78 through 88, this designation follows the short-sighted assumption that Jornath's PDF commanders organize their units strictly in adherence to the Cadian standard of Shocktroops; this being infantry and armored units combined together in well-drilled and disciplined formations.  

  

 Of course in the Sub-sector's Tactica Command Headquarters on Casa Ureint, the records are more open-minded and flexible towards the eccentricities of each planet's ancient military traditions, with the mindset that attempting to record these variances, would save valuable time during briefing, should an emergency arise. However,  even these records are flawed,  here they refer to the KCC, as the "Kula Conservator Regiment" mistakenly assuming a Jornathii "cohort" as equivalent to that of a single standard infantry regiment (an issue that occurs many times in this particular record) a mistake that would exclude over 200,000 men and several hundred fighting vehicles from the order of battle.  Fortunately, for Kula this would be a clerical error that would very likely save the city, as Tactica Command's plan of defense for the region, appointed vast reserves to flood the area to make up for what it perceived as a lack of strength. Therefore, when the Orks first landed in the opening days of the Battle for Jornath, the KCC brought an effective strength of 230,000 guardsmen, and was supported by nearly as many mustermen, and Oakenzid cohorts appointed to the defense of the vital tidal flats. meaning the initial Ork landing zone was quickly surrounded and suppressed by a half million soldiers. 

  Indeed in reality, the KCC, is a grouping of eleven separate regiments; ten infantry, and one mechanized infantry collected under the title of "Cohort" a holdout from the pre-imperial history of the planet. There is no standard size for a Cohort, nor does it reference all the forces of a particular area, city or nobleman.  A Cohort simply put is a group, bearing forward a particular enscroll of military traditions, practices, and most important to Jornathii history, an honor roll of victories and noble defeats. As a result a cohort's size and capabilities are wrapped within the histories, legends, and complicated familial social structure of Jornath's aristocracy. An off-world commander would look at the massive tome containing the deeds, actions, strategies, size and battlefield cant of a particular cohort, and chaff at the sizeable task of weaning all the data into useable and helpful bytes for theatre command. Whereas a local Jornathii commander would know intrinsically the capabilities, history, and size of any given cohort. The issue of course becomes family bias, and heated disputes over territory, trade agreements, and dozens of other petty arguments between nobles skewing the account of a Cohorts ability, this occurred many times during the first three years of the Battle for Jornath, when local PDF commanders would provide inaccurate accounts of local forces to Tactica Command groups or Astartes, not through pettiness in all cases,  despite their ancestral feuding, all Jornathii hated the Ork and wanted to contribute to its eradication from their planet, in the vast majority of these cases the social dialogue of discussing a rival's cohort had become so ingrained in Jornathii low gothic that they simply had difficulty accurately communicating the information to off-world commanders accurately. 

Equipment and Payment

   Cohorts are raised from volunteers, each has its own stipulations as to whom is eligible to apply for admittance into a Cohort's ranks,  the more well known and successful, the more difficult it is to gain entry. For the KCC, the applicant must be at least nineteen years of age, have no less than one year of prior military experience in a Huscarl, Mustermen, or Militia unit, be in healthy physical condition, and must be a citizen of Kula Hive, Bolasku, or any of the villages or towns in the Kula Province.   

   The KCC is supplied and funded by the citizens of Kula Hive primarily, as Cohorts are required by Jornathii planetary law, to draw funds only from the population in which the unit recruits. However, the KCC act as an interesting exception, in that they are also given funding from the entire nation of Manfredi-At-Prima, of which Kula is the capital. This is due to the prestige of the city globally, and the high regard afforded to the Cohort as professionals, and particularly loyal troops. 

   As a result the KCC is spoilt for options when they look to create their wargear, while the exact equipment and its sourcing is stated elsewhere, it will be restated here for continuity's sake. The basic equipment is fashioned in the Cadian style, but with a bent towards the finery and circumstance consistent in traditional Jornathii Battledress.  The Cadian Flakhelment Mk XI, is an expensive and highly technical piece of equipment, which can be difficult for less disciplined or less technically inclined personnel to maintain effectively, the Jornathi Defense Forces meeting both of these criteria, the optionable alternative chosen by many cities on Jornath, is the Alar-Median, Slatthelm K1,  which, offers a similar weight and protective capability to that of the Cadian Mk XI, but does not include the Vox interface or advanced user HUD, or sensory deadening suite. In terms of Body Armor, Jornath sources  from Antax, Alar-Median and Tolkhan. Kula chooses to take from the Tolkhan Dura-Curiass 023, which takes the Cadian style flakvest, removes the shoulder plating, and alters the sensory and trauma response systems to maintain operation at peak efficiency under water, or in highly damp conditions, but it suffers from decreased performance in high-dust situations, it offers similar impact resistance.  The Kula Conservator Cohort, use the M36-C Kantrael Pattern Lasgun, for the carbines obvious benefits in naval, urban, and mechanized operations.  The Cohort uses the Chimera Armored Personnel Carrier as its chief combat transport, the Helstannon "Intrepid" carrier, for both hauling equipment and most terrestrial troop conveyance. The Chief combat vehicle for the KCC units, is the Leman Russ Battle Tank.  

   The Specialized nature of the  Tolkhan Dura-Curiass 023, sets the KCC a cut above its peers in the Jornathii PDF, who are generally lucky to have Lasguns rather than autoguns. What the KCC lacks, is solid communication on an infantry level, while it makes use of the backpack mounted Vox kit, this flies in the face of the streamlined and fast moving kit that the KCC quartermasters worked so hard to create. The workaround to this,  which is being partially introduced, as funding arises, is the retrofitting of Helstannon carriers into Vox boosting relay's, using the same antennae system most hab-blocks use for picking up entertainment frequencies, obviously in these machines are dialed to receive transmissions specifically from KCC Vox's and the Indigo Sparrow Command Center.  The Helstannon "Vox Carriages" then allow for Microbeads, purchased from Alar-Median in small batches, to be used over longer distances effectively streamlining the basic wargear of the average KCC armsman or NCO.  The KCC has 3 patterns of fatigue, a dress fatigue, in grey with red trim, reminiscent to the one the unit had in the 31st millenium.  A camouflage speckled woodland pattern, produced in Kula province, and finally an arid/tan speckled camouflage pattern, which is produced by Altheri Hive for its Aeroscant crew, and Drop Infantry, but is sometimes used by the KCC for operations in the northern mountains

Hierarchy and Order of Battle

    The KCC as previously stated consists of 225,000 men and women, which comprises 5% of the population of Kula Hive.  These guardsmen, are broken into 10 infantry regiments of 22,000 apiece, and a single 5,000 men mechanized unit. These numerical accounts may seem particularly inflated, as most Imperial Guard Regiments comprise around half this number in a standard Infantry regiment, this is because all of the logistical, administrative and support personnel for each regiment are included in the regiments fighting strength, as the suggestion of not being considered a "fighter" in a cohort you are a member of would be deeply insulting to a Jornathii. When we subtract these personnel from the total fighting strength, we find that the total frontline personnel of each unit to be around 10-12,000, much more in-line with the munitorum standard.

Regiment 1 -  Commanded by Regent Col. Hugh Enniol [OiC]

Regiment 2 - Commanded by Col. Janyce Nemes [Mistress/Master of Quartermasters]

Regiment 3 - Commanded by Col. Petyr Kendisoplis [Mistress/Master of Euclidian Loyalty]

Regiment 4 - Commanded by Col. Dand Ceellis 

Regiment 5 - Commanded by Maj.Chri Wenwyl 

Regiment 6 - Commanded by Maj. Zacc Olliem -Unit Destroyed in Defense of Bolasku 

Regiment 7 - Commanded by Maj. Tenta Eckrad 

Regiment 8 - Commanded by 1st. Capt. Lueff Sentagato - Unit suffered 78% Casualties.

Regiment 9 - Commanded by Maj. Kenlo "Crash" Ean. 

Regiment 10 - Commanded by Maj. Ashwyn Honon.

Regiment 11 - Commanded by Knight Regent. Isabella Jan. [Mechanized Inf.]

The Cohort commander, also doubles as the field commander of the 1st Regiment, and also attains the honorific of "Regent Colonel",  it is the duty of the Regent Colonel, to authorize officer commissions,  and to receive direct orders from Jornath Planetary Command.  During the Battle for Jornath, the Regent Colonel, also acted as the emergency theatre commander of the central Kula province for a short time, as planetary defenses were martialled to properly meet the Greenskins. 

The commander of 2nd Regiment is also the head of the quartermasters, and must approve any wargear deviations for the Cohort, they are also second in rank to the Regent Colonel, and will act as his/her replacement should the commander be slain. 

The commander of 3rd Regiment is the head of the Cohort's spiritual and moral needs, while in no way a member of the Ecclesiarchy, the Mistress/Master of Euclidian Loyalty, informs new recruits of the legendary 1st commander of the cohort, Euclid Kinnell, and reminds all others of what it means to be an armsmen of the KCC. 

Battle Honors

March of Saint Euclid the Loyal - The seminal battle of the KCC during the breakout of the Horus Heresy. The cohort marched en mass, to counter Mustermen and Huscarls of House Genntim, who had massacred Kula's civic leaders, in a bid to effect a coup d'etat in the name of the Warmaster. After a lengthy urban battle, the Cohort was successful in forcing the Traitors to surrender. 

The 1st Battle of Rotthresh Creek - Around 450 years before the Battle for Jornath, The Regiments 3, 5, and 11 as part of a large scale search for a group of missing youthful hive nobles, and local citizens, stumbled upon a heavily disguised Traitor, Sslyth, and Eldar, raider encampment. The Xenos and Pirates fought fiercely to break out of the situation, but were eventually surrounded and obliterated, leading the Cohort to the missing civilians, thankfully before they were spirited away to slavery. 

The Firestorm of Kula- When the orks landed on Kula, they did not do it with subtlety,  the Ork Kroozer, was shot out of orbit by Suetonius Station, as it descended it broke in two, one half crashing in the tidal flats, 20km to the East of Kula Hive,   and the other 475km to the North. The KCC martialled quickly and met the aliens in the burning forests and grasslands of the tidal flats,  they were horrendously outnumbered, by the Orks,  but fortunately the crash had confused and muddled the xenos enough, that the KCC managed to maintain an effective exclusion zone long enough for reserves to arrive. 

Last Stand of 6 Regiment- During the 1st Year of the War, following the botched Operation Remits Maw, Orks on both the Northern and Kula fronts counter assaulted en masse and with good leadership, catching Tactica command off guard. The KCC and other PDF forces had the Ork crash site fully surrounded, with the bulk of forces in the south and west,  where the Orks had attacked the entrenched Imperials everyday since the first day of the war. During the Ork counter assault, in midsummer,  the greenskins struck out with all their forces to the East, into the port city of Bolasku, in a bid to build a ramshackle fleet and breakout to the south along the coast.   The city was held by the 1st Royal Neohuscarl, Militia and the 6th KCC. The militia tried all they could to harass the Orks, but were brutally swept aside,  the Ship building factories, and docks themselves were held by the 1st Royal Neohuscarl and the 6th,  which were able to hold while outnumbered nearly 100 : 1 for 12 full hours before being slain to a man. Major Olliem, is said to have died leading Gamma Company in a bayonet charge to clear the Regiments' mortar pit of aliens, after the company had fully run through its ammo stores.  

The Siege of Lychke. Fight for Gran Lagoon.

"In those first weeks, we didn't really know what to expect...  We'd never fought troops from the Interior systems before.  Rumors spread all over the place, that they had nightmarish machines of death that defied rational explanation by a rough man.  When they finally hit our line,  we learned that they were tough as nails, tenacious, and well equipped. But they' ain't no damn nightmare. That'd happen a bit later..."  - Excerpt from RSgt. Louis Ominov's  "Marshes of Lead"


Sector:   Western Lychke. [ 20km Outside of the City. ]

Strategic Situation: SecMass, elements of unknown disposition are advancing en masse, into small prepared positions along the "Gran Lagoon Highway", being held by the 5th CMI Mechanized Brigade. This road offers the best avenue for quick ground force movements, and is a critical supply artery into the city.


Tactical Situation: On a smaller Company and Platoon level,  groups of inexperienced recruit squads, and CT-8 Armored Support Vehicles hold the road from mobile defense positions,  in places backed up by Tank destroyers, and larger MBT's. These forces will be going up against forward assault elements of the Corporate Army, such as MRAP's, Basic Infantry, and superior officers, which would be attempting to effect a breakthrough.

A section of the Gran Lagoon Highway.

CMI (Left)    SecMass (Right)

Conclave Platoon Command. Directing his units fire.

Effectively, just Trained militia, the plucky men and women of the recruit squads were found far from wanting during the fighting across the highway. 

SecMass Infantry cross the Highway and shelter in the edge of the woods from sporadic CMI fire.

A CMI CT-5 Tank Destroyer firers into a SecMass MRAP across the marshes 

Secmass Troops advance on the western edge of the map, trying to get an advantage.

They advance just as recruits get to the top of the hill. A fierce but brief firefight erupted as the two units tore into one another. The recruits, coming out worse for wear. But not without hampering the SecMass advance significantly. 

On the Eastern edge, The command team and other recruit squad, charge the forest, to dislodge the enemy infantry there. 

Ultimately failing to get to the forest,  the Infantry go to ground and initiate a prolonged firefight with the corporate units. 

Conclusion:  SecMass Victory. 

Despite having initial success in disabling SecMass vehicle support, CMI units had a much tougher time dealing with the well equipped and disciplined Corporate Squads, as they advanced through ditches and tangled patches of foliage.   The Conclave suffered casualties in the form of its Recruit Squads, while these units acted with valor and, in many cases fought to the man, their inexperience and lack of high tech equipment would prove the ultimate deciding factor. The 5th CMI Mech. Brigade, has initiated its fighting withdraw to its fallback positions in the cities military district.  

The Siege of Lychke. Pre Campaign.

A mini campaign myself and JD, played in the Angelshearth Front of our 15mm Gen Sci Fi setting, towards the beginning of August.

Belligerants:  Low Western Entertainment Corporation's "SecMass" Group.  vs. Conclave Military Initiative
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“Sir, picking up a blip on the lower left bow. Coming round Orbital pre point V-102.”

“Probably the damn commie Volocheks again. Cycle the laser reflective mirrors, and arm the railguns, get Gomez up here, we need everyone on deck.”

“Sir, the ship doesn’t match the Volo’s.  Computer bounceback is absurdly sophisticated,  i think its corporate…”

“Oh fuck… Get this goddamn bridge sealed, full alert, summon the rest of the fleet to our location. I want full reverse thrust towards pre poin….

“ Sir, computer is reading power draws on their ship.”

“Bring up my mirrors!  NOW!

A searing bolt of light ripped into the bridge of the CNI Ardent Stallion at 0600 Hours, as it was on monitor duty above one of the provincial capitals of Angelshearth,  called Lychke [Lie-Ch-K].  The Attacking force, has been identified as a vessel belonging to the LWEC corporations’ military arm, SecMass. The CNI Ardent Stallion, withdrew under 25% power, to a fleet staging area. The Reserve ships, the CNI Winged Pride ,  CNI Brutal Jackboot, and CNI-APF Celestial Fear, move at full power, to the SecMass vessels last known location.  

The Battle for Quadrant Crown.

The Reserve ships found the vessel in low orbit in a spatial quadrant of atmosphere called the “crown” as it sat in a sweet spot in Lychke’s Orbital Defense Guns, the ensuing battle was enough to dissuade the SecMass ship from continuing to launch landing craft.  but it left the CNI Brutal Jackboot critically damaged,  The SecMass ship, now, popularly being called the Gray Reaper, by the superstitious Naval Initiative men.  Distanced itself from the planet, and flotilla’s of Conclave Naval Initiative and Provisional Fleet ships formed a skirmish line to ensure that they stayed there.   

The Ground Threat to Lychke

SecMass units had landed, not in the quantity they might have liked, but certainly enough to wrestle control of the capitals defensive lasers and railguns for long enough to allow for more of their forces to land.  The SecMass units are moving quickly and rapidly to the cities outskirts, with the intent of overwhealming the CMI [Conclave Militant Initiative] and APA [Angelshearth Provisional Army] units holding the city.   

The Cities defenders,  the 5th CMI Mechanized Brigade, 10th CMI Guard Scouts Brigade,  and 3rd Provisional Infantry Regiment, make up the modest “Army Lychke”  which has fallen under the command of Magos Ruiz Polochenkov, from the 2nd Army Group’s general staff.  He is a tough dependable front commander with a history of actions during the war for Sellas.

In the morning the Conclave troops, and APA would begin a fight against indoctrinated and tough corporate soldiers, all across the sector, the mettle of raw conscripted troops and their officers would be seen.  Would they be found wanting?

Grave For Angels. (15mm Sci-fi)

Why they called this hell-hole Angelshearth was beyond him. It may have been known for its hospitality and its cuisine before the Rim Wars; But that was almost a century ago, and all that went away after those commie Volochek's took charge.

 More of a Grave than a hearth now... he thought   A place where all the goodness, and hope of a vibrant colonial age is lost.

 The Angels of this place are dead.
  We Killed them.

-Major Kemmnis  CMI 526th Shock Infantry Platoon.
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The Game Group has returned to 15mm Sci-fi with a furious vengeance.  This time the conflict flashpoint, is a world called "Angelshearth"  the sight of multiple wars between myself (The Eisenhorn Conclave) and the Volochek Respublik ( Chris McCollumn, from Fabricators Workbench) over its pivotal location in the shipping lanes, mineral assets and to prove our upstart border empire is better than the others.

Its marshy, and the sporadic mobile warfare necessitates the use of barges and naval craft by the Conclave, in order to move bodies of troops through the difficult, often waterlogged terrain, to various slum villages and cities. 

Once festive and well maintained corporate holdings, have decayed and turned into slum cities.

Under the cover of the Volo-Conclave Wars for the planet other forces, have descended to Angelshearth. The Trans-Humanist commune, (played by Chris from Sippin' on Paint Water) utilizing their advanced technology and tactics, have infiltrated the worlds underbelly. Eager to deliver their message of a universal collective.

We've tried PMC 2640, and are planning on trying Tomorrows War soon.  Other GGoP members are tooling up armies to play in the setting as well,  We have already played a few games on Angelshearth, and its been engaging as most have sizable painted and converted forces, that we have yet to see hit the tabletop more than a few times.  We have a wealth of background material and army fluff for everything, it pains me not to share it all here. but it might be unmanageable. 

Regardless, i will posting the engagements im able to record, and tell you as many stories as i possibly can!

15mm Imperial Fist Tac. Marine

Hey all, the Orion Heavy Infantry from Blue Moon arrived the other week, along with some necessary Westarc minis.   I've tried my hardest to replicate a space marine in this scale, let me know your thoughts,  i plan on bulking up his legs.  I also have a platoon of British FV432's that will serve as Razorbacks.

yesterday, i had a whole gang of guys over for a minis' day.  Owen, JD, and newcomer Kaleb,   we worked on 15mm Sci-fi,  played a small skirmish with those,  myself and JD played a 1500 point Orc v WoC battle in WFB,  and there was a lot of talking about possible manufacturers for Orks, Dark Eldar, and Tau for 15mm 40k.  Hopefully we may soon see several Ork Units WAAAAGHING across the games table.

The one on the far right was done by Chris.

The Story of Westarc (Part 4)

Debate raged over the merits of Planet 68 as ground teams scoured the LZ for any evidence of what had occurred in the night. No bodies had been discovered, but there was an abundance of blood, ash and bullet holes.  It was a patrol searching on the farthest limits of the facility at the edge of the ruins that discovered a broken wayteam drone, carrying a rather curious data-parcel.

Though it was garbled and difficult to understand a message spelled out an unexplained exodus from LZ Humanitie. 

And a fierce firefight against contact referred to simply as "inconnu" or unknown.  A positioning blip link to a Wayteam helmet transponder ended the message. 

Acting quickly on this new information Westarc Ground Command took control of the situation, immediately sending two mechanized units to the ground.  Named "Gothic" and "Typhoon"  these units would converge on the Wayteam with a war footing. Utilizing a small convoy of FSV34's team "Gothic" was to navigate the winding city streets and break through to the survivors, while "Typhoon"  with a medium range Gravitic mortar, would establish a temporary field outpost and triage station to the north of the transponder signal. 

The units deployed quickly at the LZ, which would be held by the initial SAR units in the event the teams would need to fall back. 

At 10:30 am, only twenty minutes after the discovery of the drone, Gothic and Typhoon set out on Operation: Inconnu

Though it was not known then,  the next few hours would decide the fate of the entire Arc, and lead to a conflict that might save the residue of mankind or lead us into damnation.

To be Continued... 

The Story of Westarc (Part 3)

Work and excitement carried Westarc through the first week on planet 68, with a record zero fatalities by suicide. The entire vessel was abuzz with talk of settling, and the manufacturing plant aboard ship was being readied for the construction of suitable human dwelling. Planetside, Explorateur teams scouring the city, venturing farther and farther for clues about the past civilization them found themselves among.  Hope was in the air, but it was but a momentary perfume in the ever hanging cloud of doubts.

[Planetfall +6]
In the shadowy nighttime hours,  PFC LaCroix of the étoiles Explorateur reported a " Curious localized spike in radiation, which disabled his instruments and drained the battery life from his Pulsar Rig."   An immediate science team investigation yielded no source or cause for the anomaly.

[Planetfall +7]
Later in the day, just before dusk call-in,  étoiles Explorateur Wayteam 2  also records the anomaly. This time, as before all team members lost complete Pulsar Rig battery backups, and instrument functionality.  Upon their arrival to the LZ,  Wayteam 2  adamantly reported movement in the ruins, prior to the spike.    all Day 8 patrols cancelled.

[Planetfall +10]
Patrols resume, after several days with no spike reported. When Mid-day an enormous spike interrupted comms between the LZ and Westarc Terraform Command for thirty minutes, prompting the removal of non vital personnel from the planet.  All patrols are again cancelled until, the Science Team could learn the source of the anomalies.

[Planetfall +11]
At 10:30 (Earth Measured Time) in the evening, communications between the LZ and West Arc, again failed. This time however,  they never returned.
After two hours had passed, rescue units were sent to check on the LZ.

[ Planetfall +12]
The following are images recorded from the ground in the early morning hours of the Twelfth Day.

 One thing was clear in those confusing times. LZ  humanité.  and all its inhabitants had been lost...
But to whom. Or to what?     That was still very much to be determined

To Be Continued...

The Story of Westarc (pt 2)

For 6 months, the Western Arc slipped through the darkness of the cold void of space. Stopping at every new star system to look for a new home and harvest fuel, and minerals from countless barren systems.  After a year of absence from the comfort of terra-firma, many within the Arc's population began to grow apathetic and depressed.  It became doubtful that there was any hope of success, a wave of suicides began to take hold, as people simply lost hope.  But in the midst of despair, the Arc sailed ever onward.

One day, 2 weeks, 9 months and a year since departure.  The Arc slipped from Voidspace, into system "DVS-231" for routine search,  of the 1.5 million citizens, around 1.2 million remained alive.  These 1.2 million souls would find "planet 68",  which appeared as a gleaming green and brown jewel in a system of lifeless gas giants.    The first of its kind in the Arc's history. 

The Arc's populace was abuzz with joy at the find and a ground analysis team was quickly formed.  Built from French and Belgian light infantry and science staff, the "étoiles Explorateur" were the first humans to set foot on Planet 68.   It quickly became clear that there was more at work planetside than anyone could have imagined...

What Orbital Scanners and Rendering equipment had mapped as Rock spires, and trees, appeared in fact to be vast, advanced cities, and infrastucture, overgrown by thick alien foilage.

The drop craft of the étoiles Explorateur, landed with robotic support assets in a clearing, named  "LZ humanité."  Immediately they set about testing the atmosphere and creating rough camp.  

Teams of étoiles Explorateur, roved outwards from LZ humanité, eager to explore the vast continental cities of this mysterious world. 

But in the hollow shells, across shattered alien vistas, phantoms.. shades from a bygone era.. began to stir. 

To be Continued...

Sources:  Planet picture is from NASA.   Landscape is conceptual art from Wes Ball. 

The Tale of the West Arc (pt1)

In 4534, the nations of the world initiated the 3rd World War.  It was inevitable… though we had tried all we could to stop it.   

The great nations, and corporate states of humanity tore into each other across the cities, farms and oil fields of every continent. Anti-gravity tanks, robotics, and mechanized suits yielding casualties as high as 2 billion,  thanks to rampant overpopulation,  the supply of warm bodies was plentiful.

At first, the conflict was kept conventional,  the forbidden weapons of our past being kept locked away in their darkened silos. But it was too great a temptation, and the sins of man were made manifest in wholesale destruction and horror.   Gravitic, Ionic, and Nuclear weapons scoured the Earth into heated ash deserts. Only a handful of nations and the off world colonies were spared from the 

holocaust

.

The colonies could not hold all the survivors for long,  illness, civil unrest and anarchy threatened to exterminate us. In a final gambit,  1.5 million souls each were placed aboard “The Western Arc”  and “The Eastern Arc”   given all the technology, research and information that humanity had, they were pointed at opposite halves of the milky way, and sent to find a new home….

While the Fate of both Eastarc and the Sol. Colonies  would make bold tales in their own right.

This Is the Tale of Westarc.   

- To be Continued...



Last painting is by Reid Southen.

What has the Madman been doing?!

Hello gang, you might have noticed a certain...lack of activity.
This has many reasons, primarily to blame is my own laziness however, and i'm going to seek to remedy this.
Below is a selection of shiny pictures to show you what it is exactly that i've been up too over the past couple of weeks/months since the last update, which honestly wasn't much of an update.


Without further ado...

1.)   JD and myself have played several engagements in the Road to Orleans VSF campaign, which i think will be the next post that i will bring to you, as we have gotten all the way to Orleans and the total death toll now is in the Thousands (literally).

Here we have American Colonial Troops and Dragoons fighting in the Massacre that was the City of the Damned.  More to come on that, like i said... next post!  (i swear it'll be soon)

2.) Sculpy!   I've discovered a rather interesting medium to make miniatures with, called Sculpy, that is actually an oven bake clay,  i've been doing some experimenting with it of late,  more to come, as i play with it in as many ways possible and find its uses to a Wargamer. 

3.) 40k !    Yes, there is simply no escaping the grim darkness i'm afraid, i always get pulled right back in...  The minis you see hear are part of a Loyalist Guard Army (i know a strange term around this blog).  That i'm creating to fight Chris from Sippin' on Paint Water's plague pirates. More to come as that progresses further. 

4.) Finally 15mm.

Alot of it,  "The Fabricators" Sons of Thunder are finished, im painting Guuseprians, and minis for "The War in Africa" setting with Chris.  As well as some neat-o terrain boards. 

That's all for now, don't want to overload you.  We are still fighting out the Warhammer map campaign, i've got some GM games of Regimentals, Malifaux, etc  under my belt, and i finished painting all the Blood Angels as well as selling off all my CSM's.   Its been a busy few months of hobby. hopefully i can keep you all better apprised of my comings and goings.

-Your Favorite Madman- 

The "Shore" Party.

Hey All,  i've built up the remainder of the State Troops Box into Rouge Trader crewmen.  Last post i told you about First Mate Ross, the leader of the shore party.


Next up we have.  Mr. Gregory MacHallan, and Lucy Oraphell,  who make up the sniper team that act as the teams support and scout element.   They grew up together in the Forest world of Nemessa.  Seeking more adventure than hunting and skinning game for export to the wider Imperium the pair hitched a ride to the local system market/bazaar, and found the Rouge Trader and his crew docked there. Seeing an opportunity they came aboard.

Next up, we have Sire Kobel, and his sworn bodyguard/pack mule/butler  Lucien Tranh.  Kobel is known far and wide as a marvelous hunter of big game, and his antique rifle is purported to have brought down a Squiggoth, a Frost Onivore,  and a wild giant Grox.   Though these claims are possibly less than truthful.  He formerly was a Hive Noble on Armageddon, but the war persuaded him to change scenery and go adventuring.       I figure this pair works together like a Pavise Crossbow troop with the large shield in front, and the gun propped on top.    ( the ork arm is going to have green stuff gore coming off it)

Finally we have Squad 54-D  of Company A of the 165th Davidspeak or "The Feather Caps", and their inspirational leader Corporal LeChance.   They are the last remnants of their regiment of 3,000 which was tasked with establishing a beach head on the traitor held world of Erasmus IV during the Sabbat Worlds crusade.  Horrified at the callous waste of their lives, their company fled towards the planetary space port, after ambush, after ambush the company numbered only 8 men,  who then stole an Arvus lander, and using contacts in the munitorum and command, were able to desert and flee to a orbital, where they were picked up by our Rouge Trader, who was keen to get more combat experienced personnel on his ship. 

and finally a group shot!

thats all for now folks!

-Your Favorite Madman-