Imperial Fists - Betrayal at Calth Breacher Sergeant

Work on my Imperial Fists continues at a slow pace. I finished painting this converted Sergeant for my Breacher squad recently. The conversion is a head and weapon swap for one of the Character models from the Betrayal at Calth box set combined with a Phalanx Warder's shield.

I'm quite happy with how he came out - although I might take a second whack at that power sword at some point as I basically just coloured it in blue without really putting in too much effort (I think I was tired!). I'm quite happy with the freehand "VII" details on the shin guard and the cape though.

He can now join the rest of the army in what I hope will one day be a legally field-able force!

Click on the links below for more pictures of my WIP Imperial Fists Force 

Imperial Fists Squad

Imperial Fists Vindicator

Purgatory - A Failed Black Library Submission

A piece of fiction I wrote for Black Library's open submissions. I didn't make the grade though, so I thought I might as well post it on here. I'm not sure I really met the brief to be honest, but they say you should write about what you know, so whatever. I'm still glad I bothered though. Sometimes you have to chase your dreams right?

As I don't have an actual picture, I'm just using a Chaos Space Marine I painted.

Purgatory (500 words)

The doors finally slid open with an ominous screeching noise; revealing the darkened chamber within.  Rogar cycled his helm’s vision mode to pierce the darkness and the bridge resolved into a grainy green hue.

The remains of the command crew littered the room; they were not merely dead, but horribly mutilated. Their eyeless, flayed forms hung from steel cables that had been cut from the ceiling. Tied up in a parody of grotesque dominance; the cables were stitched through their bodies in dozens of places and their internal organs had been forcibly torn apart under the strain of suspension. Rogar took a steady step into the room and heard a wet squelch as his armoured foot entered a slowly creeping pool of jellified blood.

A figure rose from the darkness; what Rogar saw was like something from a nightmare, but this was no waking dream. A face, pale and waxy, dominated by a pair of lidless black eyes turned towards him and split open in a killers smile; exposing several rows of shark-like needle edged teeth. Rogar needed no more invitation to open fire and his bolter kicked mercilessly as he strafed the room.

“Contact” Rogar roared into the open vox channel.

The figure had already begun to move and Rogar’s shots blazed wide across the bridge, shattering the grim totems in a shower of viscera and torn cartilage. A round glanced from the heretic’s ornate shoulder guard and for a moment he seemed to stumble; disoriented by the force of the detonation. Rogar saw an opening in that split second and let his spent bolter crash to the ground. Drawing his chainsword with a true warrior’s skill, Rogar brought the blade down from his shoulder mounted scabbard with both hands in a savage, decapitating strike.

The blade bit mercilessly into the heretic’s baroque armour. He pushed down with all the force he could muster; driving his opponent to his knees with the brute strength of his enhanced physique. The sword skidded momentarily, glancing from the armoured ceramite, it was all the time his opponent needed to surge upwards from the floor and deliver a thunderous punch that rang like a pealing bell against Rogar’s Helm. As Rogar reeled from the cacophonous force of the impact he felt a hammer blow to his abdomen as the heretic landed a kick that threw him back against a stuttering command console.

The combatants were momentarily separated and Rogar took up a well-practiced stance with his sword idling.

His opponent was still moving, he slowly circled while drawing a pair of long knives from his hips with a flamboyant arcing motion, each was easily two feet in length and ended in a razor fine point. The blades were thin and Rogar could tell at a glance that they were not merely weapons of show, but a duellist’s favoured weapon.

The silence was broken by the traitor’s cruel laughter.

“For the Emperor” he drawled mockingly, his fanged mouth wet with spittle.

Imperial Fists Vindicator Laser Destroyer

I recently finished painting a Laser Destroyer for my Heresy Imperial Fists force. Taking inspiration from the background I wanted to make a footslogging infantry heavy army, but it still needed some solid anti-tank for backup. That and a Vindicator is pretty much the most Imperial Fisty tank there is!


It helps that the thing is a monster on the tabletop too. Running in it's overcharged mode it fires 3 BS4 twin-linked S9 AP1 Ordnance shots (so they re-roll hits and armour penetration and then add 2 to the vehicle damage chart!). It's about the only thing that will have an Imperial Knight shaking in it's giant metal boots!


Painting wise it was the first vehicle that I've ever done with a white undercoat which was a bit labour intensive, but there's just something impressive about bright colours on the tabletop.

Heresy Imperial Fists Tactical Squad

My recently completed Imperial Fists tactical squad. I really wanted to get a good strong yellow for these guys. I know that these days people tend to go for a murkier battle worn look, but I always loved the old 2nd edition canary yellow colour, so I was determined to make them so bright you had to wear sunglasses to look directly at them!

The trick to getting a strong smooth yellow wasn't as hard as I thought it would be - simply undercoat with white spray and then apply about 3 coats of your chosen yellow. I thinned mine with about a third medium to avoid any of the clagginess that you can get with citadel's lighter colours. The only problem is that you then have to painstakingly black in all of the other details on the model, but the results are worth the effort.

I'm looking forward to finishing off more of the army so I can get some battles in!



Heresy Jetbike Captain

With the advent of Games Workshop's Betrayal at Calth box set, I like many others took the opportunity to start a 30k collection. After some time deliberating about which legion to play I chose Imperial Fists. I'm not ashamed to say that it was largely because I've never painted yellow seriously before, as it certainly wasn't for their winning personalities in all the books!

Anyway, so far I have a finished tactical squad and a Vindicator Laser Destroyer all ready to go (more on those later), but what the army really needed was an illustrious leader. I had a look in the book for inspiration and once I discovered you could put a Captain on a jetbike I knew what had to be done. I've never liked the forgeworld jetbikes for obvious reasons to do with them being rediculosly ugly, far too expensive, and way too phallic so those weren't an option.

For this conversion I used Samael - Master of the Ravenwing, combined with parts of some Phalanx Warders and a While Scars Helmet from the Forgeworld set. I still need to do some gap-fill and green stuff to mesh it all together, but we're getting there.