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The Gelt Journal – Prelude

“I was not prepared for what I had seen. I had expected a paltry gathering of dead men’s dusty things, or some backwater squatters with zipguns holding up the local merchantry. Not… this.

Bile rose in my throat. My vision narrowed to a distant pair of pin pricks. My body rejected the nature of gravity and my head took leave of my senses. My previous life was vomited into the turbulent stream of my consciousness, but not the part I had expected. I had piled men as sandbags on Caltrax-9 and dug riot trenches through the tank-compacted bodies of water rioters on Daphnia, but those were not what I had flashed back to at that moment.

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Shapeways 3D printed 54mm weapon comparison

A few weeks back I saw this pack of 54mm weapons on Shapeways and I impulse-bought a set for three reasons;

  1. 54mm scale sci fi weapons have not been commercially available for almost 9 years
  2. People who make these kinds of things need to be supported, so there are more of these kinds of things in the future
  3. I’d not had a rainy day in a while to spend my rainy day fund on
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Primaris Space Marine 54mm weapon comparison

I’ve been eyeing up the Primaris Marines from GW’s new Dark Imperium box set with green eyes, partially because I’ve always been a fan of true-scale marines and partially because of those smexy new bolt weapons they’re all carrying. Given their new size, they *might* just be useful enough at 54mm scale to act as real bolters, rather than the current weenie 40k bolters in the massive ham-hands of Inquisitor models.

I borrowed a bolt rifle arm off a friend and did some bluetack and photoshopping, and I think the results speak for themselves.

Primaris Bolt Rifle 54mm dry fit
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Blood in Golgotha Mines – Inquisitor Battle Report

Colonel Vaux blew warm air into his hands. It was dark underground, but at least they were out of the blasted wind on the surface. He looked back over his shoulder towards his Inquisitor. The man’s face was lit only by the dim green glow of his auspex, playing on his scar and making it look like a fissure deep through his skull. 

“There are six potential stashes. I’ve marked them on your dataslates.” The Inquisitor spoke flatly, as though they weren’t just about to kick down the door of a dangerous gang’s hideout.

Vaux heard the familiar clicks and muttered prayers of Guardsmen checking their weapons and reciting litanies of readiness. He did the same, sliding a fresh magazine of Kraken penetrator rounds into his bolt pistol. 

“You have been briefed on the crystals. I expect a full report when we convene.” With those words, the Inquisitor disappeared into the gloom ahead.

For this Inquisitor skirmish, two warbands clashed over possession of Chaos-tainted Yu’Vath crystals in the gloomy, frigid depths of the Golgotha mines.

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Inquisitor event “The Wastes” – now with photos!

A routine augur scan of the world Eurone has picked up abnormal levels of both electromagnetic and psychic activity from within a region known as “The Wastes” – a non-fertile region of little use to the Imperium, officially uninhabited.

The region is largely uncharted, with few living outsiders who have any knowledge of the region, making it a dangerous prospect to explore. But nonetheless, The Wastes hold secrets that unchecked could devastate the Imperium of Man.

“The Wastes” was a one-day event run by members of the Conclave, the official Inquisitor online community, and we were honoured to be joined by the Lord-Remembrancer himself, John Blanche.

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Expanded Warp Travel Encounters table released

We’ve all been there -you’ve been playing Rogue Trader and your crew is getting semi-decent at warp jumps and dealing with the harsh penalties the wild expanse throws at them. Either a jump goes off without a hitch, or you’ve played out the scant few encounters in the core rulebook so many times that translating into hell and madness becomes routine, and you’re often so busy juggling the rest of the game that improvising another new warp encounter is off the cards. Time to change that!

Here is an expanded table of 20 different warp encounters, appropriately balanced to the vagaries of the warp and definitely deadly if the dice gods are not smiling favourably that day. It will help keep your players on their toes whenever they’re traversing the Sea of Souls, and make them think twice about saying the fateful words “Oh that’s fine, it’s only one warp jump away.”

You can get the full table here.

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Speed conversion video: Arbitrator Gelt

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.

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Arbitrator Gelt – work in progress

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.