Vahland: Haustic Belief and The Cadmusians

 The Hausticans and Haustic Belief : Inside the Vahland sub-sector there are a number of divergent Imperial belief structures tolerated by the Ecclessiarchy. One of the most popular, particularly on the eastern edges of the Urient Sub Sector and Southern stretches of the Kalomyr sub is Hausticanism or Haustic Belief which holds a polytheist view of the Emperor. Essentially viewing the roles of the Emperor's life as separate divine entities manifesting through the singular vision of the Emperor as godhead. Thusly, his Astartes, and Primarchs represent divine fragments of the God-Emperor. There is a popular series of readings meant to complement the Leticio Divinitatus, called the Haustic Cantos which ascribe many of the sub-faiths particular practices and Belief structures in long-form poems in the Drenjion Style favored by many writers in the late M.40 Vahland Sector.

The Cadmusians: At the fall of Ankou, Shield Captain Cadmus of the Akhelian Shield fell in glory at the Stand in the High Civitans Palace. Two years later, at the Liberation of Ankou by the 3290th AG, his remains were recovered from the field of his death, untouched and barely decayed from his gene forged birth his body had evidently become a bad omen for the greenskins during their occupation of the moon. Building on his legend the Civilian administration of Jornath rechristened Ankou as Cadmus' Rest, and reappropriated supplementary control of the world from the Cult Mechanicus to the Ecclessiarchy, specifically Cardinal Emanuel Telly, who dabbled frequently with Haustic Belief. Tully alongside several members of the Jornathii Planetary Elite, developed the Cadmusian Canto, an embellished hagiographic retelling of the Ankou War, canonizing Cadmus in the Haustic Belief structure as a divine being, and therefore technically making Ankou (now Cadmus' Rest) a shrine world, Increasing the amount to be sent to the world via the Administatum for rebuilding efforts, and catapulting Jornaths importance as a cultural center beyond its already lofty heights in the sub-sector, potentially clinging to Casa Urients heels for Sub Sector Capital status years later The Sect Cadmusian has become an entrenched part of the pantheon of Imperial God heros within the Urient Sub Sector, the Bishopric of Cadmus' Rest established a military order about 60 years after the end of the 1st Jornathii Ork War, producing Crusaders for protection of Ecclessiarchy officials, as well as Guard officers, and Puritan Inquisitors. This order, is called the Miseracordia Jornathii officially, after the ubiquitous Custodians side arm. Their heraldry is that of the Akhelian Shield, being royal purple and gold. The Civitans Park where the last stand took place is preserved as it looked during the Liberation campaign, the body of Cadmus himself can be seen laying stricken atop the toppled Aquila, at the site of his death, though those in leadership are aware that his body is actually far away on distant Terra, and that the "corpse" on Ankou is actually a vat-grown flesh proxy clad in gold-tinted steel. The Akhelian Shield has on multiple occasions made its displeasure known about the deification of one of their fallen, and while the Ecclesiarchy has profusely apologized they have refused to issue a formal declaration of decanonization for Cadmus as it could spark a violent religious schism on or around Jornath

A Haustican Priest encouraging the 4th Devosite Penitents during the Landings on Harshfang

Hobby: Knights of the Feast

I've decided to work on some Chaos Warriors, partially to use in my Age of Sigmar setting "Synn", and to act as the Elite Foot in a Dragons Rampant setting that's been cooked up by my buddy Chris from Sippin' on Paint Water fame. 

The unit in its glory. I used a combination of the standard Warriors of Chaos Kit, with pieces from the Frostgrave Cultist box and a small selection of pouches and skulls from Mantic's skeleton infantry. The unit standard is the backpack banner from the Mk4 Space Marines.

Any good monstrous killer knight worth their salt needs to have the latest in flesh cape fashion. 

Hobby: Deciduous Tree Stands

Having moved house and started in earnest on working on a board for my own nefarious purposes, I obviously needed something to put on my burgeoning tablescape. I want the majority of things to be as versatile as possible for the moment, usable in a variety of scales and genres, which of course means revisiting the classics trees, hills, roads and streams.  To be fair the last time I even attempted some of these basics I was still in Middle and High School, so maybe I can put nearly a decade of accumulated knowledge to good use and create some woods that look at least partially like woodland.

Thanks for reading!

-Your Favorite Madman-

Hobby: Gretchin #1

Hey everyone, just posting up some photos of a few greenskin ankle bitters for you to look at. Nothing particularly mind-blowing in terms of scheme or presentation, but from a purely technical level I'm happy with the result. 

Thanks for Reading

-Your Favorite Madman-

Hobby: Stormknights of the White Wolf

I was thinking of playing AoS in the old world. Jd and some of the guys at our local GW concur. I could see the Stormcast Eternals being an experiment from the college's of magic by Teclis that uses the best and bravest of the empire knight houses and gives them magic powers and brutal strength. The motivation being Archaon and his boys coming down and kicking ass during the storm of chaos. The empire is left in ruins after fighting off Nagash a few years earlier and a wave of pro-chaos Skaven clans sacking Altdorf the year before Archaon comes in means he's really successful. Rumors of Sigmars return are rife in those times, and many suspect a final victory for chaos. The reality is not so much victory but a stalemate. Glottkin, a mighty chaos general in his own right betrays Archaon as the chaos host reaches Reikland, and gets bogged down in a number of costly sieges. Internal divsions starts fracturing the chaos warriors, and strikes from the stormcast prove vital in dissolving the chaos cohesion. For their vital role and their devout resolve in their God kings name, the new age post-archaon invasion is named the Age of Simgar. Chaos warbands now reside in the south, particularly in the ruins of Middenhiem and Kislev The empire rebuilds.

I prefer to think of the old setting in terms of modeling, and while I miss the regimented blocks the new system is frenetic and enjoyable. I'm sure the new mortal realms setting is interesting but I prefer the more traditional tolkienesque map.

So I picked up the cheap little battle pack "Storm of Sigmar" with 5 Stormcast and some chaos guys, split between myself and as mentioned before JD.

I'm happy with how the majority of the model came out, I do think I want to revisit the shield, however, it's far too blue. 

I did some experimenting with adding greatsword pieces to the Stormcast as well, and I do really love the results.

thanks for reading!

-Your Favorite Madman-

Hobby: Repair Hanger

A piece of terrain that I finished a few days ago to serve as a "vital objective" during the apocalypse game I mentioned in a previous post.  The general idea is a service bay where they repair train engines outside of the local fortress/vineyard.  The structure is generic enough that I could see it finding a place in hive city boards or as part of farmsteads etc. as some type of garage or dock. 

Its an extension of my desire to have more (relatively) intact buildings on the table. I think a little room clearance adds some excitement to a guardsman's day, and I find it hard to rationalize why I'm sending my troops to recapture a totally reduced city in most games. 

Damage from a lascannon blast on one side of the building, being surveyed by a brother from the Marines Errant, which was painted by Chris and eventually found his way into my possession through the murky shifting of time.

Door to the offices, from the workshop floor

building overview. the stairs are high enough to reach the gothic archway from table level. Forgot to pull them out before I took the picture

Not even the Imperium is able to avoid the tendrils of capitalism it seems.

Shot down the main hall

A view of the back wall exterior. 

A utilitarian sign, without flash, and clearly not very clean.

A battlecannon shot through the side of the building, serves only to slow the shambling form of the Plaguebearer.

Thanks for reading!

-Your Favorite Madman-

Fictional Histories: Christopher Hollowell

Fictional Histories is a Fine Art project that seeks to analyze the world of tabletop gaming and looks to use the voice of the hobby to tell the stories of the men and women who engage in the hobby community. This work was among 4 others that were displayed at the Gatewood Gallery in May of 2017. 

This is the third of those pieces presented in the show, here showcasing an interview with one of my long time friends and opponents Chris formerly from "Sippin' on Paint Water" now contributing to the blog-o-sphere through Gloria in Morte. Chris is a skilled painter and modeler, the resident "how did you paint that?!!" guy of the group so to say, it's not uncommon to see intricate unit badges on the sleeves of 15mm soldiers, or to look at his host of carefully converted Death Guard with horrifying disgust. While his recent move has taken his forces appearance on the blog to a reduced regularity, we still find time on occasion to throw tiny plastic warriors into pitched battles. When I talked to him about the most memorable moment in gaming for him he pointed more towards a time period, a stretch of time around the release of 6th edition 40k, that spanned around a year where the group of us began entering into the 15mm generic sci-fi scene. I chose to capture that time period by looking at one of the absolute earliest battles between the two of us, the Battle for Sellas. 

Christopher Hollowell

I can't speak to any one person's reasons for playing a tabletop game, or becoming more involved in a wargaming community. I do think that it has something to do with a sense of camaraderie or  shared interest in a creative outlet. I think it's good in general, more people means more money in the hobby, a broader variety of interests to fuel the hobby's expansion. I think we'll see more and different ways that people choose to integrate it into their interactions with others, especially in a digital way.

I've had some long term projects, I've had large projects, but I think the single best gaming experience had to be when I started into 15mm sci-fi as a genre of interest. It's got less to do with science fiction and collecting lots of cool and affordable miniatures, and more to do with my exploration of that community as a digital presence and in a more real way with my close friends who started into that process at the same time. It allowed me to experience it as an individual, as part of a small group and with a sense of belonging to a sort of hobby diaspora.

so you would say like the PGCC and the stuff we did as part of that rush in the beginning was more rewarding because it was entirely our thing. like because it was crafted entirely from our small group it held more significance than it would have if we had moved from mainline 40k play to like infinity or something

Yes, not because the bigger games lack value, or good game design, but more because there is a certain amount of organic enthusiasm and creativity in something that is less polished. 15mm sci-fi is more of a sandbox setting for gaming, there are rules but no one set is king, there are great minis but the companies that make them don't have add budgets or marketing just a product that gets people excited and wanting to share it with folks who like it as much as they do. It might not be the best formula for long term success, but it is earnest and engaging in a way that something more established can't be.

Fictional Histories: Jonathan Hedgecock

Fictional Histories is a Fine Art project that seeks to analyze the world of tabletop gaming and looks to use the voice of the hobby to tell the stories of the men and women who engage in the hobby community. This work was among 4 others that were displayed at the Gatewood Gallery in May of 2017. 

This is the first post of those 4 pieces that features an interview with my long time vengeful opponent JD. Whose forces featured in the Road to Orleans campaign, as well as the Siege of Lychke, and many others. Presented below is the interview and photos from his diorama.

JD Hedgecock

“What tabletop games do you play and how often?”

I play Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons and things of that nature, multiple times a week

“What is the most memorable thing to happen to you during a tabletop game?”

I and my friend Aaron, were playing a set of rules called Valor Steel & Flesh, and it was between two characters that we had created within the game, and through just sort of the random chance of the dice these two characters had become rivals. Well in one of the games, there two characters met on their own outside of their units above this hellish carnage. It was a really cool moment because it was just this really cool moment that came  about through the rules and through just talking outside of that. It was very cool because it was just this sort of collaborative story that happened very naturally.

“Can you tell me more about the lore, setting and context of the game you were playing during that memorable event?”

The setting I think was an extrapolation of the 100 years war, that we took and expanded out into the victorian age, and gave everyone magic and steampunk tech.  He was playing the British, and I was playing the French.

“Can you tell me about the character/s you were playing or that participated in that event”

One of them was Commander Bosch, which was mine who, felt that he could change the course of the war by gaining enough prestige and momentum through success in the army to eventually usurp the government and bring the fighting to a halt. The other was Captain Teague, who was under Aaron’s command, he was also very prideful and nationalistic but i don’t really recall too much else

“Can you tell me about the character/s you were playing or that participated in that event”

One of them was Commander Bosch, which was mine who, felt that he could change the course of the war by gaining enough prestige and momentum through success in the army to eventually usurp the government and bring the fighting to a halt. The other was Captain Teague, who was under Aaron’s command, he was also very prideful and nationalistic but i don’t really recall too much else

“What do you think the upswing in the number of people playing tabletop games, both in person and online means,
in social terms?”

I think that people are looking to find more common ground between themselves, I think that areas of creation, of sports and games. You get all of these things in Tabletop gaming, the creation arts, the camaraderie and competition of sports, and i think that all of those things harbor the feelings people are really looking for.