Return to Isstvan: James Turner Emperor’s Children part ii

As those who have read my first post will know, I’m collecting a small force of Emperor’s Children loyalists led by Saul Tarvitz and Rylanor the Unyielding. Marked for death, yet surviving the Life-eater virus and firestorm that have ravaged Isstvan III they are now resolved to die-hard, making their former brothers pay dearly for their betrayal…

At the end of January, I had painted the five Terminators of Squad Krysaspædes and had made a start on Veteran Tactical Squad Andarta. Since then I have built a five-man Heavy Support Squad Teutates (named for a Celtic deity believed to have meant ‘protector’, which seemed appropriate for a squad intended to act in a fire support role) and a Legion Armistos – more on him later!

Painting, as was my intention with this project has been at a relatively slow pace, but Squad Andarta is now ready to behave decals added and their bases done, as are the first two members of Squad Teutates.

I’ve probably cheated a little on budgeting as I’ve now already acquired most of what I need, in fact, Rylanor is the only miniature I still need to purchase to hit my initial 1000pts goal. As for the other units, Tarvitz was bought with some Christmas money while I picked up the Tartaros Terminators from my good friend Kieren (who runs Heresy. Scot, check out their new monthly live streams!) at a bargain price as a few bits were missing from the sprue. A single box of MkIII Space Marines was split to make Squads Andarta and Teutates – resin bits and the extra Heavy Bolters came from my bits box. The model used as the basis of the Legion Armistos along with the decal sheet I’ll use to finish things off came from Forge World, so overall costs so far are:

Tarvitz = £30

Legion Armistos = £21
Box of mkIII Marines = £25.50
Tartaros Terminators = £26
Emperor’s Children Decal Sheet = £20
Total = £122.50


Having almost everything I need ‘in hand’ means that I can keep up steady progress on the project as and when I can. At the moment, I’m planning to pick up what I need for Rylanor from Forge World in the next month or so.


Paint anything. Paint Everything

I work for the Highlands and Islands economic development agency, so the last year has been incredibly busy workwise and this year is shaping up along the same lines as we try to support the region through the ongoing impacts of Covid-19. It’s very rewarding work, but it can be demanding which as many folks will no doubt appreciate can affect how much energy and appetite you have for hobbies. I also have three children, two of whom come to stay every other weekend but I try to fit in a couple of evenings hobbying in every week and a few hours on weekends that my children aren’t staying.

Sometimes mood and available hobby time don’t quite sync up but if I’m not in the right frame of mind to paint, I’ll usually try and build something or maybe read something hobby-related. I’ve also started to mix some other smaller projects in at times to help alleviate burning out on just painting purple, gold, and white, a change is as good as a rest when it comes to hobby projects sometimes and it’s great to intersperse painting things to completion among this long journey.

The cool painting part of the last couple of months or so had definitely been deciding on the heraldry of each of the units. Each uses the same main colours; purple, white, and gold but I’ve changed the placement of the white and gold up so each unit is unique but still part of an overall whole.

The white, in particular, has been interesting to figure out as there’s text in the colour plates section of Betrayal that indicates that the use of white enameled armour was prevalent in the IIIrd Legion prior to their reunion with Fulgrim. Along with the unit names, I’m using the white armour to call back to the early years of the Legion’s history.

The cool modeling project for the last couple of months has definitely been my Legion Armistos; Caderyn Ævandir. I had originally planned to make use of an old Forge World event miniature (Sergeant Hamath if I remember correctly) – I had an idea in my head that he would be a stubborn old bastard who had picked up the name ‘The Bull’ and decided to embrace it, even going to far as to craft a bull’s head to embellish his armour’s plastron, but ultimately the model didn’t quite fit with what I had envisaged.

I went back to the drawing board and started looking at other models I could use instead, ultimately settling on an idea using the Legion Praevian. I wanted to make something unique though, so after picking up the model I set about personalising it by carefully grafting the ablative armour from a plastic mkIII torso onto the existing one to ‘up armour’ it. I also painstakingly transferred a targeter eyepiece onto a mkIII helmet which is posed to look synced up to the targeter on the Proteus-II pattern Heavy Support pack. A set of plastic mkIII arms and a Heavy Bolter added the finishing touches that completed the model. The last thing to do was write his backstory, the reason he wound up on Isstvan III which you can read below.

Although Armistos Caderyn Ævandir’s homeworld is not recorded in any of the annals of the IIIrd Legion that remain unsuppressed, Interrogators are reasonably certain that he was not born of Terra or Chemos but rather one of the many worlds that the Emperor’s Children brought to Compliance as they rejoined the Great Crusade.
Initially serving as an Assault specialist, he was critically injured in combat with the Aeldari. Though he eventually returned to active duty the augmetic limb he now bore marked him out from his brethren and saw him relegated to the Legion’s reserves. Taking this fate in his stride, Ævandir dedicated himself to the mastery of heavier weaponry, eventually rising to the rank of Armistos within the Legion.
Pict footage recovered from XVIth and XIIth Legion visor scans confirm Ævandir survived the virus bombing and firestorm of the Choral City on Isstvan III. Last confirmed sightings of him place him within the Precentors Palace, directing and supporting the fire of Heavy Support Squad Teutates. While his ultimate fate is unknown, it is reasonable to assume that he was killed in action in the Zone Mortalis actions that followed.

I’ve not been able to play games as yet, we’re still in lockdown in Scotland, but as restrictions are now starting to ease I’m hoping to get a few games in with these over the summer.

On the painting table ‘next’ are the next two members of Heavy Support Squad Teutates. Once they’re done, that leaves the squad Sergeant to paint, then in an order yet to be determined it’s the Armistos, Tarvitz and Rylanor – I may save him for last as a wee treat! Once everyone’s ready, then I’ll get started on the decals and finally the bases. The total model count for the 1000pts list is 18 and currently 12 are ready for basing and decals so I’m about 2/3 of the way through, which is not bad progress I don’t think.


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