Dipping My Toes Into Inq28 (WIP and Narrative Musings)

[tjgreenway]

Good evening all and welcome to my first foray into sci-fi! I've always been a sucker for the grimdark nature of the Warhammer 40,000 setting and the recent Kill Team release seemed like a perfect time to get suckered back into buying GW products. I tried to talk myself out of it by reading through the first year's worth of monthly White Dwarf's since the relaunch that I'd subscribed to and piled away for a rainy day - my thinking was that Primaris Marines, Primarchs and the more heroic direction it's taken since 8th edition dropped would put me right off. Instead, I opened up to Blanchitsu and remembered exactly what drew me to 40k in the first place and got drawn right back in. Oh, and the new models are absolutely gorgeous! 

I currently have the Kill Team box on order, along with the Sector Mechanicus Killzone box, so the first major task will be to build a couple of skirmish sized battlefields to fight over (I have absolutely no sci-fi terrain, so these two boxes seemed like a great place to start!). Once all that's done and dusted, my main agenda will be building forces for an Inq28 campaign that I intend to sucker some friends into playing as narrative gaming is my biggest love in the hobby. I'm sure I'll be fitting some Kill Team games in as well, of course, but the campaign will take precedence when it comes to building and painting 

I'm still waiting for my goodies to arrive and got a little antsy tonight - I just couldn't wait to get stuck in! So, I had a look through what little plastic I still have in my collection and decided to try my hand at kitbashing for the first time ever. I actually got properly put off plastic kits after trying my hand at Malifaux, so tonight has been like a voyage of discovery - and definitely one I have a lot to learn about still! 

So, for my first kitbash, I went with something tried and tested and cobbled together a skirmish-scale Marine from Stormcast and Space Marine parts I had lying around, along with a couple of extra bits - the attached photos are WIP shots of what I've managed so far in a few hours tonight 

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Now, onto the narrative ..

I'm intending this guy to be a renegade Marine who was cut off from his battle brothers and found himself on a primitive death world, cut off from the rest of the galaxy by a warp storm. The natives, a bunch of low tech barbarians, saw this giant fall from the skies and hailed him as a God. One brave native champion stepped forward to challenge this giant of a man, but Brother Silas, as he came to be known, slew the champion and took his revered shield to remind the rest of the population what happened to any who opposed him.

Silas has since organised the natives and taken on the mantle of their ruler - greed and power has definitely corrupted him, but I don't think he's necessarily in the throes of Chaos - yet. I'm still brainstorming the rest at the moment, but I'm thinking that the planet may be close to a Warp gate, which has led him to organise the natives into an organised army, throwing back a number of Chaos incursions over the years. Quite what the forces of Chaos want with this death world I haven't yet figured out, but it appears a Rogue Trader has noticed traces of Chaotic activity and reported back to the Imperium, leading to the Inquisition and probably other organisations becoming involved. Interestingly, no Slaaneshi forces have assailed the planet yet, despite the other three Chaos Gods making their presence known. Has the Lord of Pleasure been subtly, secretly seducing Brother Silas all this time?

Brother Silas will probably need all the help the Imperium can offer if the Chaos forces continue to mass, but he definitely won't be happy with being discovered and running the risk of losing the empire he's built for himself. He'll be a major NPC in the campaign, with the players taking on Inquisitors, Rogue Traders and whatever other ragtag bunch of misfits I piece together as they struggle against the forces of Chaos, ruthless pirates and maybe Brother Silas and his barbarian horde; all the while trying to piece together the mystery of what lies in or on this death world that is so tempting to the Ruinous Powers.

[Carrakon]

What a nice Background you have there - I always liked non-Chaosy renegades in 40k. Your setup sounds like a lot of fun! I will be watching this with interest, as someday soon-ish I got a similar project planned.

[tjgreenway]

Well, I've certainly learnt a lot from my first, very basic kitbash! First of all, I really should have chopped the Stormcast arms off at the shoulder, rather than trying to fuse two different arms together, but calling this guy done now that I've reposed the chainsword arm and ready for the painting queue  Shouldn't be long before I have some Genestealer Cults, Skitarii and a few other bits and bobs to start knocking together now, so I'll try and get this guy painted up in the meantime and work on the background for the campaign world I'm planning - I've managed to sucker a couple of friends into giving the Inquisitor rules a whirl, so planning for the narrative side is now full steam ahead 

I've really enjoyed this little foray into the world of plastics, really looking forward to seeing what I come up with next and how much I can improve - for a start, I really need to remember to get the basics down and remove the bloody mouldlines next time! 

[galatea77]

Looking good, I like the cargo cult narrative Brother Silas is embroiled in !

[horridperson]

I  like the story.  The premise reminds me a bit of Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim; Definitely Conrad.  The impending threat of Chaos could make Brother Silas a more sympathetic figure which makes for a more interesting story.  I'm interested to hear more of his story as you develop it.

[tjgreenway]

Well, I haven't added much to Brother Silas' story, but I have planned the premise for my first mini-campaign, of which he'll be a bit of a background character, with plans to hopefully build on his story as we go and maybe make him a central point for a follow up campaign (if anyone survives!).

The Hunt will be three or four scenarios, centred around a nobleman's sporting affairs - an interplanetary hunting competition between three or four distinct factions. If I only have one player, my plan is for them to play an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor and his retinue, who have been placed as sleeper agents and risen to planetary governor in case somebody of such power was ever required - and now they are!

If I have another player, I'll have them take on one of the other parties, one of whom will be the heretic that the Ordo Hereticus are attempting to sniff out. I'm thinking there'll be an Imperial Guard commander, a Chartist Captain whose lineage traces back to a strong Naval history and probably a representative of the Ad Mech (mainly because that's what I want to kitbash first!), with one of them the traitor. It'll be an investigative game to start with, with there also being opportunities to do some fun monster hunting as part of the actual hunting competition (the winner of the contest is he who scores the biggest and most dangerous prize and brings it back to ship within a set time - I mainly came up with this so that I could do some big aliens and crazy beasts as NPC foes  ).

I also got the itch to get kitbashing last night, so I had a look through my leftover plastics and did a very simple head swap on a Mansions of Madness figure who I had doubled up. I'm thinking I'll go over the apron she's wearing with something a bit more suitable for the far future and maybe add a bionic leg when some more bits arrive. I made a bit of a hash of the neck join and ended up having to Green Stuff over it, leading to me accidentally covering her mouth up - which is when it clicked that this is the mutant daughter of one of the parties (or maybe an NPC planet-side). My initial thought was that she'd be a rogue psyker, but I think I prefer the idea of leaving her rather helpless if she is discovered by the PC Inquisitor (whose crib sheet will indicate that this Inquisitor is of a strongly puritan nature, or at least has acted so in this past). Hoping to throw some moral dilemma's at the PC party as well as investigative and combat 

[FionaWhite]

I also got the itch to get kitbashing last night, so I had a look through my leftover plastics and did a very simple head swap on a Mansions of Madness figure who I had doubled up. I'm thinking I'll go over the apron she's wearing with something a bit more suitable for the far future and maybe add a bionic leg when some more bits arrive. I made a bit of a hash of the neck join and ended up having to Green Stuff over it, leading to me accidentally covering her mouth up - which is when it clicked that this is the mutant daughter of one of the parties (or maybe an NPC planet-side). My initial thought was that she'd be a rogue psyker, but I think I prefer the idea of leaving her rather helpless if she is discovered by the PC Inquisitor (whose crib sheet will indicate that this Inquisitor is of a strongly puritan nature, or at least has acted so in this past). Hoping to throw some moral dilemma's at the PC party as well as investigative and combat 

"Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise." 

I do agree with the others that you've a lovely narrative in the works here.
Does the Mansions figure actually scale well with general 40k stuff? I've never seen any of them live.

[tjgreenway]

Thank you for the kind words, guys!

Does the Mansions figure actually scale well with general 40k stuff? I've never seen any of them live.

She's about the same height but very slender, which gives her a definite child-like look, which fitted with what I was after. I don't think any of the other miniatures (which are packed away so I can't check to be sure at the moment) would fit as they are, though - maybe heavily converted, but at that point there'd probably be better options out there. I only used this one because it was a duplicate when I bought the game and I had nothing else to do with it