Hello chaps, carrying on my humble efforts on the Rogue Quest project that JB and Jon kicked off, I would like to present my fifth entry. As a reminder, the brief is to build a six-strong adventuring party for Rogue Trader/Confrontation, where each member portrays one of the classic dungeon crawler tropes:

• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Fighter
• Magic user
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue/thief

This time, I’ve tackled the ‘Cleric’ character, and I must admit, I have really been looking forward to this one… I used the classic ‘Techpriest Schlan’ model from the Adventurers range as the base model – a creepy and disturbing individual if ever I saw one! To be honest, the base sculpt is so-so IMO, and I felt compelled to make a few ‘adjustments’ here and there. I embellished the staff with several bits from the Flagellants kit (a great source of bits!), and bashed together a creepy mechanical claw and backpack/flamer from various AdMech bits. I should probably explain that I started out with AdMech in mind for this guy, but over the course of the conversion I got to thinking about him as more of a heretical type… the battered feet, the raggedness, the hunched look… they all suggested a wandering vagrant to me, rather than a powerful AdMech priest, so when it came to painting, I deliberately avoided using too much red. I did slip a little bit in to tie him in with the RogueQuest crew, but I (hopefully) avoided making him look obviously mechanicus. I kept the pallet muted and weathered looking – this guy clearly isn’t rich or powerful! The feet were particularly fun to do – whether the sculptor intended it or not, (one of the Morrisons, Naismith or Copplestone I believe), I interpreted the exposed and skeletal feet as being cybernetic, and painting the transition between flesh and metal was good fun. The other major point on the painting side is the religious icon… I spent a lot of time on this, and it’s the most ambitious bit of freehand I have ever undertaken… I’m hoping some of you may recognise the image that I was trying to reproduce here???  ;-)

Anyhow, here are some pics, see what you think:

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And here’s the fluff:

“Hass used to be a Mechanicus exploratory priest from Urdesh, and he travelled the galaxy widely in order to gather artefacts and data for the holy Omnissiah. His services were highly prised, for Hass’s expertise covered many fields – biological, medical, linguistic, mechanical, electrical, and even social. He never questioned the doctrine that he had been programmed (literally and metaphorically) to believe, until a fateful discovery on a distant and uncharted moon in the galactic south – a region of space seldom travelled by the Imperium. The moon held evidence of an ancient population, and the rulers of Urdesh held its existence as a jealously guarded secret. Hass was one of the few explorators to ever be sent to the moon, and the mission was so clandestine that, unusually, he went alone. The high priests of Urdesh dispatched Hass with a small craft and no crew, (apart from a handful of mindless servitors), in order to preserve secrecy. Hass was unperturbed, and accepted the mission without reservation.

On arriving at the designated moon, Hass spent several weeks surveying the small, barren world, and he eventually identified an equatorial area that appeared to have a subterranean complex of intelligent design. He landed his craft, and set about organising servitors to assemble a bio-dome and begin preliminary excavation. The servitors soon broke through to the subterranean complex, and Hass ventured in to explore and document thoroughly. To Hass’s amazement, he discovered that the site was an ancient human habitation dating back to the dark ages before the Great Crusade, containing examples of technology that pre-dated even the STC system that his peers worshipped with such zeal. What was most surprising was the sophistication of the computer systems that he found, far more elegant than the simple servitor-driven systems that he was used to. It took time to connect power feeds from his ship and bring the habitat to life, and even more time to figure out how to work with the machines, (they were operated by delicate keys in a language that had been dead for eons, but eventually he gained access, thanks to a cryptic yellow note that had been helpfully left attached to one of the terminals). Hass discovered that the ancient humans called the machines ‘Windows’, and  he could see why – the ancient monitors were like windows to an unimaginable life that was vividly painted in pictures and words. He poured over millions of files over many months, and learned much of this ancient civilisation. Much was strange to him, but what came across clearly was how much art, beauty, curiosity and free thinking was valued by these ancients, and how little superstition and reverence they possessed. Nothing it seemed was beyond their curiosity, and Hass was filled with admiration and inspiration. One image in particular kept recurring, that of a mechanically enhanced man who seemed to embody this wilful expressiveness and creativity in his gaze. Hass committed this picture to hard copy, convinced that it must be the image of some profit or saint of the ancients.

All too soon, Hass completed his survey. He knew that he should return with his findings, but to his surprise, he found that he didn’t want to… for the first time in his existence, Hass had feelings of defiance and wilfulness that ran counter to all his teachings. He ran countless diagnostic checks on his own systems, and each showed that he was operating perfectly, and yet Hass felt different – changed. Put simply, he wanted to be free – free of dogma and ritual, free to express and create, free to explore and grow. In that instant, Hass resolved to escape his life, even though he knew that such heresy was punishable by death. He quickly calculated that the only way to escape the Adeptus Mechanicus would be to stage his own death in a crash-landing, to sever his connection to the Noosphere, and to find another crew where he could hide under a different identity. The plan was risky, but Hass knew that it had to be done. He left as if to return to Urdesh, and picked a sparsely populated Imperial trading outpost en-route where he could implement his scheme. He over-rode the pilot servitor engrams in such a way as to make it appear as a fault, and he manually guided the craft into a crash in uninhabited part of the world. The crash was calculated to be severe but survivable, and Hass was able to leave on foot, rigging the ship’s plasma drives to detonate once he had reached a safe distance. He waited until the precise moment of the explosion to fire a low-pulse laser into his own cortex in such a way that he physically destroyed the portion of brain that connected him to the Noosphere without causing too much incidental damage. To anyone tracking his Noosphere connection, it would appear is if he had been vaporised with the ship.

Wounded and disorientated, he wandered the world for months as he recovered from his ordeal, before finding himself in a minor trading port. He learned of a visiting Trader named Arturo, and he introduced himself to the young man and offered his services in any capacity that Arturo chose to name. Arturo was intrigued, and asked Hass what he could do – he was suitably impressed at the long list that Hass provided. Arturo agreed, and Hass joined the trader as an apothecary and engineer. He integrated well with the crew, where his usefulness and personality was welcomed by all, and Hass enjoyed the freedom and liberation of the environment in turn. Over the course of several weeks, Hass felt a growing sense of responsibility and loyalty to the crew… Although discovery by the servants of the Omnissiah was unlikely, he didn’t want to endanger them in any way, so he decided to confide with Arturo regarding his past. Arturo listened patiently, and remained quiet and still during Hass’s story. He thought about all the ex-priest told him, weighing risk against benefit, and accounting for the friendship he felt for Hass. Eventually, Arturo agreed that Hass could remain a part of his crew on the condition that he shared and developed his new-found philosophies, for Arturo saw them not as heresy, but as a way of free-thinking that brought him a trading advantage in a dogmatic and superstitious galaxy. Hass agreed, and now travels as a member of Arturo’s crew, proudly displaying the picture of the ancient visionary that he recovered from a long-dead moon – an image that embodies the power of creativity and curiosity, ever reminding Hass of the value of free though.”

So, there we have it – six RogueQuest characters completed, and six crew members to accompany Arturo on his RT adventures. I hope you have enjoyed this little project as much as I have, I’m not sure what I’m going to do next, but it’ll probably be some civilians to populate my imaginary world… watch this space ;-)

Finally, I just want to thank JB and Jon again for letting me crash the party and for your kind words and encouragement – I’ve loved watching your interpretation of the brief, and I hope that you enjoyed mine in return. I really hope that I get to meet you guys at BoyL next year, and maybe even get our RQ parties together on a table! Now that would be cool :-)

Hello chaps, carrying on my humble efforts on the Rogue Quest project that Asslessman and Axiom kicked off, I would like to present my fifth entry. As a reminder, the brief is to build a six-strong adventuring party for Rogue Trader/Confrontation, where each member portrays one of the classic dungeon crawler tropes:

• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Fighter
• Magic user
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue/thief

This time, I and very happy to have ticked off the ‘Ranger’ category… I picked up a lovely post-apocalyptic sculpt from Moonraker’s ‘future skirmish’ range, and did a bit of chopping & weapon swapping to bring her into the Rogue Trader universe. I added a lasgun from one of the IG tank kits, (I really like the folding stock!), plus a scope and a new barrel to create a convincing sniper rifle. She also got a Dark Eldar left arm with a wicked dagger in a reverse grip. All in all, she looks like a very accomplished huntress to me, and I went with a subdued colour scheme to accentuate this. The only real colour was the red Yasser headscarf… the detailing was a pain in the buns, but worth the effort I think.

So, Devana was looking pretty awesome, but she still didn’t look quite right… something was missing, but then it occurred to me – she needed a hunting dog! A quick bit of Google-fu turned up the rather spiffing ‘Unity Counsel Stim Hounds’ from Anvil Industry. I only wanted one, but £12 for 4 is a bargain! I ordered some up and ‘Hound’ was born. I admit, Hound was originally a ‘she’… A quick bit of GS work turned Hound into a ‘he’, just so I could say that at that moment in time, my sculpting was, quite literally, the dog’s bollocks :-)

Anyhow, here’s a few pictures of Devana and Hound, and some more with the rest of the RogueQuest party:

And here’s her story:

“Devana is a gifted killer from the Imperium-abandoned world of Utrel Secondus – a savage world of warring techno-barbarian clans that picked over the shattered remains of crumbling hive cities and mechanicus forge-cities. As a youth, Devana rose to prominence within her clan as a peerless hunter of beasts, men and mutants, ably assisted by her faithful beast ‘Hound’. Eventually, by the age of 14, her skills brought her to the attention of clan chieftain Gaxton, who invited her to join his personal kill squad. Devana gladly accepted Gaxton’s offer, for to be a member of the Chieftain’s kill squad was a prestigious position – little did she know how this decision would shape her destiny in ways she couldn’t imagine.

Chief Gaxton was a reasonable man, (if such can be said for the savage chieftain of a post-apocalyptic barbarian tribe!), but Gaxton had sired a son of twisted malevolence. This son, Melsin, was of an age with Devana, and was a sadistic and vicious creature. He pursued Devana’s affections, at first with flattery and gifts, but he was refused by the girl. Frustrated, Melsin tried increasingly bold approaches, until the fateful night came when his patience snapped and he tried to take by force that which Devana would not give willingly… Melsin tried to rape her, but Devana was a fighter of superb skill. A single strike with the hilt of her dagger burst one of Melsin’s eyeballs within his skull. Screaming, he ran to his father, claiming that Devana had attacked him without provocation, and so Gaxton had Devana seized. Out of fairness, Gaxton demanded her side of the story, and was unsurprised to hear of his son’s attempt at rape. Gaxton was nothing if not fair, so he had his son gelded, (for he had other sons to carry on the bloodline), but he was also honour-bound to have Devana’s eye put out as punishment for her assault on his family. Devana was banished from the tribe and was left to wander the wastelands, yet Gaxton bore her no malice, and so he allowed her to take her hunting dog for company, and her favourite rifle for protection.

For many years, Devana made the most of her new life – collecting bounties on fugitives and mutants, trading salvaged tech at wasteland trading posts, and becoming an expert survivor in the process. She would spend months at a time in the wilderness, exploring and hunting, always moving, and ever alert to opportunity. It was on one of these treks that she discovered a set of hidden catacombs in the western desert, and during her investigations, she discovered an exquisite scarab created of an untarnished silver metal… She had never seen anything like it, and knew that it would raise a small fortune if she could find the right buyer. She marked the location of her find in her memory, and headed east for several weeks until she reached the nearest trading settlement. After many days of asking around for a suitable buyer, Devana was put in touch with a galactic trader – a so-called ‘Rogue Trader’ from the semi-mythological Imperium of Man. The trader’s name was Arturo, and he offered Devana a fortune in exchange for the scarab. Once he held the machine, (for machine it was), in his hand, he fixed Devana with his gaze. He told her that what she had discovered was both a relic of a long-dead civilisation, and a harbinger of the destruction for her own… Devana had unwittingly discovered a Necron tomb, one of hundreds that spanned the planet, and which had been showing power surges that Arturo had been observing from his orbital void craft over the last few months. Arturo made Devana an offer – join his crew and leave Utrel Secondus now, or remain and die as the Necron’s awoke and re-took their planet. Devana didn’t believe Arturo at first, and so Arturo convinced her to lead him to the catacombs that she had discovered. The journey was a brief one in Arturo’s atmospheric landing craft, and once in the catacombs, Arturo used strange technology to navigate much deeper into the tunnels than Devana had dared to go. After hours of walking, they entered into a vast chamber that contained thousands upon thousands of skeletal robots, stood sleeping in silent ranks. Arturo explained that Devana’s entire world was built on top of thousands of similar chambers… millions upon millions of these undying warriors, just waiting to rise up from the earth and re-take their world. Finally convinced, Devana agreed to leave with Arturo, providing her faithful companion Hound could be saved as well. Devana integrated well with the crew, and now adds her formidable scouting and infiltration experience to the team.

As for the Utrel system, Arturo alerted the nearest imperial outpost and provided the scarab as evidence, as well as his own vid-feeds from the catacombs. The sector was subsequently quarantined by the Imperial Navy, pending conclusive evidence of Xenos activity. Two years later, the system was overrun by the rising Necron dynasty of Hepmatak… The fate of the human inhabitants is unknown, but with the system scheduled for exterminatus, their fate is already sealed.”

So, there we go, RogueQuest entry number 5 (plus doggy!), and another member of Arturo’s crew. I hope you like her folks, she’s certainly one of my favourites! Just so you know, I’m about to take a week away from painting, (and therefore blogging), but I’ll be back as soon as I can with my next effort – a rather special ‘Cleric’… I’m excited about him already!

Hello chaps, carrying on my humble efforts on the Rogue Quest project that Asslessman and Axiom kicked off, I would like to present my fourth entry. As a reminder, the brief is to build a six-strong adventuring party for Rogue Trader/Confrontation, where each member portrays one of the classic dungeon crawler tropes:

• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Fighter
• Magic user
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue/thief

I went for the Bard category for my fourth effort, and there was really only one model that I wanted to use here – a certain Mr. Kelos Longfinger from the RT402 Eldar Command Group. I managed to track him down thanks to the Oldhammer trade network, and I was really looking forward to painting him up! Unfortunately, I really struggled with whole painting experience and it was difficult to summon much enthusiasm for poor old Kelos – he is what I would describe as a ‘soft’ sculpt – no clear delineation, not much detail/missing detail, and some very strange proportions… he isn’t called Longfinger for nothing you know – just check out his left hand! I found him to be a pretty unfulfilling model I’m afraid to say… I can’t even be bothered to make up a name for him, and just went with the catalogue name. Still, I persevered and got the job done, and he does make an impression… he’s certainly 10/10 in terms of being ‘Bard-like’! I went for an authentic Rogue Trader era paint job – dark grey-blue for the body, and a bright red for the helmet & key armour areas… (I was tempted to go with yellow, but I wanted to keep the group looking coherent). The squiggles on the helmet are a must for the period imo. Finally, I tried for a bonelike effect on the derpy church organ thing on his back and the harp… y’know, bone singers and stuff…        yeah…

Anyhow, here he is, see what you make of him:

Nice organ!

And some backstory:

“Kelos, called the long-finger, was once a young bonesinger from the Milantos craftworld. He worked diligently at his chosen path, but unexpectedly began to develop a psychic foresight and precognitive ability that terrified the Farseers of Milantos. The reason for this fear was that Kelos only ever foresaw one event – the total destruction of his craftworld and the death of his kin. Kelos tried to convince the counsel of the validity of these visions, for he was certain that they were a true-sight, but these disturbing lines of fate were undetected by the Seer counsel and they began to view Kelos as an abhorrence.  The taint of Chaos was suspected, and he was banished from his world by the counsel. Alone and afraid, Kelos began to wander the stars while his kin thought themselves wise and safe… Weeks later, the craftworld Milantos was overrun by the minions of Slaanesh, its people destroyed, their souls consumed by She Who Thirsts.

Kelos felt the destruction of his world, and was distraught. Many months of mourning passed – his soul was a battleground where his guilt and shame waged war with rage and fear. At the end of this time of madness, Kelos emerged with a new sense of purpose and strength, for his premonitions had changed since the demise of his craftworld. He was now convinced that his destiny lay with the Mon-keigh, specifically, one Arturo Lamina, though the ultimate reasons for this were obscure to him. Regardless, Kelos followed the threads of fate that lead him to Arturo and finally caught up with him on the desert world of Frenos, where he found Arturo caught in a skirmish with a mutant desert tribe. Kelos was able to intercept several mutants that were in danger of outflanking Arturo’s position, killing the savages with a sonic/psionic weapon of his own devising, and so was able to swing the battle in the Rogue Trader’s favour. He introduced himself to Arturo after the battle, describing how fate had conspired to bring them together and how their destinies were intertwined. Arturo also felt the hand of destiny in this meeting, and so invited Kelos to join the Rogue Trader’s band.”

Phew, another RogueQuester in the bag, and another member of Arturo’s growing band of misfits… I hope that the next one is more enjoyable to paint!