Grimdark words for wargame nerds
After a lot of time-lapsing, chopping, captioning, re-rendering and swearing, the first Dreadquill speed conversion video is here, with music by the handsome and talented Frazer Merrick. Follow the journey of transforming an 18-year old lump of metal into a living, breathing character ready to smack down some heretics and grimace from underneath a helmet.
With a new campaign coming up, it’s time to talk minis! With all the excitement of the new Dredd series announced, the urge to make some future-police was overwhelming. I’ve always had a fondness for the aesthetics of the Adeptus Arbites and getting an opportunity to play one was a huge excitement.
To me, the 40k universe was always a battle between order and disorder rather than good and evil as so many other sci-fi and fantasy lines fall back on. Here, everyone’s a bastard, and the Arbites represent the closest thing to a Paladin that 40k has, but rather than smiting evil and doing good deeds, their job is to rigidly and aggressively uphold the tenets of order that have been 10,000+ years in the making. If it’s good enough for the God-Emperor of Mankind, it’s good enough for you, scrub.
Arbitrator Gelt is a rich kid medal-chaser, believing that his strict adherence to THE LAW will advance his status, making his eventual return to his Household all the more triumphant. He has played in two games prior, so has a little XP under his belt and I have a feel for how he plays. This campaign I’ll be joining some friends from Hobgoblin 3d, whom I have never played with and for many it is their first foray into the grimdarkness of the 41st millennium.
When rolling quirks, he got ‘tattoos’ and ‘face paint’, and I had just spent the last few hours bingeing on Attenborough documentaries, and I couldn’t think of anything more hilarious than the Superb Bird of Paradise to base his terrifying warpaint on. Perhaps on his home planet, these wee birdies actually grow to the size of ostriches, and so are treated with fear and respect as much as cooing adoration. Could you imagine bumping into a three metre tall one of those in a dark alley?
So far, all I have is the concept sketch and a collection of bits scavenged from my collection. The metal Arbitrator body is actually old enough to vote (if it believed in fair democracy of course, but keep such unlawful notions of recidivism to yourself, peon) but the other bits are relatively new.
There will be a time-lapse video going up of the conversion process fairly soon, so watch this space!
*Edit* The video is now live! You can see it here.