Topic: Slightly...unusual Army for starting Chaos.

[Telliria]

Wow, your writing is just like William Gibson's. I really like that you're going your own way. It has developed differently than I imagined from your original writings. But this is your show and it is obvious that you know, or know that you don't know what you're doing.

Truth is irrelevant, facts are meaningless - things are as they are.

[rgj798]

what an awesome idea, I likey.

[Onanon]

The Unnameable [sane]: The end result of the Outsiders process. He is disembodied. The tears stream down his face unceasingly. Perhaps it is liquefied brain? Attacks with bolt of ennui.



Echo's Bones [dead]: Ordered to hold a position, Echo waited until he was reduced to nothing. All that remains is a voice and a gun.



Motive [dead]: Someone once told him he was special. Because of that, what remains is motivated to go on, even when there's nothing left.


Parable [dead]:
Originally, he had more of a story, but it too was eroded by constant enemy fire. Really proud of the damage and missing limbs


The Reborn [insane]:
Has died and reincarnated so many times that he is a conglomerate of all his past selves and is losing his morphogenic field. Before long, he will be a mewling spawn. Does not fear death. Love the catachan face pinned to the left side screaming in his ear. Centre third of head is loyalist, last third is a horn. Horribly out of focus, sorry.

Wow, your writing is just like William Gibson's. I really like that you're going your own way. It has developed differently than I imagined from your original writings.

  Never read him, though Neuromancer is on my list. My favorite story, 'The Trooper', had another poster comparing me to JP Sartre. Who I had also never read... 

I think I grew up a lot in the year between. I don't know if my writing improved, but my experience certainly grew. This thread charts that growth.

. But this is your show and it is obvious that you know, or know that you don't know what you're doing.

Galvanised uncertainty.

Truth is irrelevant, facts are meaningless

I'd disagree. Nothing is more real than nothing in this army. Every bolt shell that hits an Outsider sticks. Every wound and crater is relevant, is meaningfull. They go on despite that damage, until they can't go on any longer.

things are as they are.

Unless you chose to change them. The tragedy in the army lies in the lack of self-awareness. The only ones still 'alive' are Babyhands and Oldstyle.

Thanks.

[Cripple, Whose Corporeal Form is Now a Shade of Blue]

all I can say is.... wow!

in a very good way.

I love it! very creepy, and I like creepy. I especialy like Motive. Anyway, keep up the good work.

[Jimi, Disciple of Slaanesh]

You, My Friend, Are nuts.
Totally Bonkers.

Man this is FREAKING AWESOME!!! Love to see these Painted!

Keep it up!

[Telliria]

Truth is irrelevant, facts are meaningless

I'd disagree. Nothing is more real than nothing in this army. Every bolt shell that hits an Outsider sticks. Every wound and crater is relevant, is meaningfull. They go on despite that damage, until they can't go on any longer.

things are as they are.

Unless you chose to change them. The tragedy in the army lies in the lack of self-awareness. The only ones still 'alive' are Babyhands and Oldstyle.

Thanks.

Maybe somewhat late reply, but anyway. Truth and facts (as I would express it) are always reflecting a point of view - something this army does not have, or have lost a long time ago. They are no longer what they once were, but existing only in the interference of the memories of their existance and the void left from a thousand bolter holes.

But maybe I missunderstod you...

[Onanon]

They are no longer what they once were, but existing only in the interference of the memories of their existance and the void left from a thousand bolter holes.

That might be what I'm trying to articulate. I'm once again getting to the point of the (currently) unammable.

I think it's closer to an absence not really an absence that's an absence.
The absence of a childhood playground when you return to it.
The space is waste ground, but it's not an absence. There are needles, stones. No birds.
The real absence is felt in your emotional response. You have an awareness of nothingness. There is a little death.

Like if a friend didn't turn up to a cafe. He wasn't there, but neither was George Washington. We as humans have a unique sense of nothingness.

But maybe I missunderstod you...

I haven't a notion where I'm going with the army either. It's a process. I'm advancing 6'' a turn into some vast psychic hinterland. I don't know if it's plasma guns or objectives in there. I'm leading a grey crusade into the soul.

[Telliria]

Keep going, it's interesting stuff you're doing.

And you really should read Neuromancer and also Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood. A novel which (I feel) really deals with the nothingness of one man's existence and the nothingness of a postapocalyptic world. But as you say, still from a human point of view. You might hate it, but then again, you might like it.

[Onanon]

The crux of the Vacant idea. Slap corroded brass face plates on elongated plastic daemonettes. Some self-denying concept of beauty. Wasted strength.


The Recluses concept of working 'outside' - outside normal strictures found their ultimate expression in Chaos. They had moved one step further into anarchy. Eventually, the limitations of freedom began to assert themselves. Collective relationships, where everyone improvises and the dynamics are hidden, can be breeding grounds for covert tyranny. As the history of automatism shows, spontaneity attracts the inevitability for collapse into repetitious themes and behavioural tics, stasis and empty chatter.

Unless work is taken to the contrary, all living systems fall towards entropy. e can't afford to have an Outsider become self-aware. He's got total control, they are, literally at the end of it, objects in his plan. But without organisational deep change, they're all doomed. In making his decisions, e's committed too much to ever go back. The only way forwards is slow suicide. Neon tubes close to death, heart murmurs, mechanised guillotines snipping the heads off rows of toy soldiers, sheets of lead unfurling in empty underground car parks. He's alone in the void. Zuvassin is pleased.

Keep going, it's interesting stuff you're doing.

And you really should read Neuromancer and also Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood. A novel which (I feel) really deals with the nothingness of one man's existence and the nothingness of a postapocalyptic world. But as you say, still from a human point of view. You might hate it, but then again, you might like it.

I read Oryx and Crake already! Thought it was very similar to something I had already done: a hideously bleak comic set at the end of what has become the human race. The setting was later re-used for the Nihil Rifles stuff. Just as an indicator, the rifles stuff is far, far more human.

I might have a battle next week with the Outsiders... watch this space.

[Onanon]

Had my first battle with the Outsiders on Tuesday. Had a victorious slaughter versus another CSM player in the end at 500 points. I lost my fist AC (Oldstyle) to his fist PM AC. I killed everything else but for one AC who fled off the table, ending the game.

I lost 55, he lost 500.

List was:
DP with Wings

Squad 1:
10 CSM, 2 melta, AC with fist

Squad 2:
5 CSM,flamer, Rhino.

The DP ate a 5-man squad (bar that lucky AC who fled),Squad One received a 8 (?) PM charge, won the combat then ran them down. His lord went down quickly to bolter and flamer fire. His last 5 man squad was shredded with combined fire.

Maneuvering kept me out of rapid fire range and counter charge, let me get into rapid fire range and counter charge.

Rhino was quality, blocking LOS, taking fire.
DP was a dream, killing everything, soaking up plasma fire.
Big squad worked well. Lots of ubergrit, firepower.
Small one was very effective. Would give a plasma gun in future.

Thanks all. First Chaos game, first Chaos win. 

Everyone loves the models. They love the fluff. Really enjoying the college game soc. Was up until 4AM last night playing Inquisitor, but with my 28mm Necromunda gang of Enforcers.

A few ideas have surfaced, mostly for more marines.

Candidate - Part of the infiltration party of Telluria IV, Candidate skinned the newly elected Planetary Governor and stapled the governor's face to his own. In a reverse possession, the candidate's psychic residue infiltrated the nervous system of the CSM. Seizing control, the marine's skin turned a rich coffee colour. He did a line of coke, then was elected leader of his squad despite his inexperience and lack of real substance. His promise of 'change' was fulfilled by a profound rift in his psyche. Candidate still lurks. He tends to kiss hands and shakebabies with his powerfist.

A smiling, bareheaded black marine extending a handshake from the front. Hidden behind is his powerfist, with whorled, grotesque screaming familial mouths covering the back of his armour.


The Soft Marine - He once extended a towering triumph of a bolter, recent melta and flamer washes have have destroyed his self-esteem. After his big gun went soft, nothing could ever be the same again. Modeled as marine with modified bolter. Expect fire to feature heavily in his conversion.

Loath - Dead.


Also came up with Iron Spawn, what I might use as an economical option for Oblits. Have one guy stretching a orifice in his chest for a load of guns to burst out (under his skin is stretched with barrels, call him 'Barrel Chest' or something), the other is covered in open human orifices ejecting guns. Lascannons out of his behind. Call him 'Arsenal'.

My Dark Heresy campaign is forming up for after Christmas, and I have a 1k battle versus the same guy next week.

Things are going very well.

(Telliria, I highly recommend Samuel Beckett's 'Malone Dies' and William Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch'. I took everything from these guys. Follow up with Beckett's 'The Unnameable' and Burroughs' 'The Soft Machine'.)

[Telliria]

(Telliria, I highly recommend Samuel Beckett's 'Malone Dies' and William Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch'. I took everything from these guys. Follow up with Beckett's 'The Unnameable' and Burroughs' 'The Soft Machine'.)

Noted. I feel ready to pick up some fun books after my exams are done this week and get into some christmas holiday reading.

[Onanon]

Here are a few Outsiders painted to test out colour schemes:


I think this is really nice. Pre- Heresy.


Having said that, I think the blacklining here gives it real 'pop'. Attempt at orange 'static'


One possible rendering of the warpfire/static. If anything, I would add more texture to the greenstuff.



What it won't look like. Added here because the other two models look more like they do in natural light. Really dirty, grungy.

Uh... these were painted by drunken consensus at 3AM after a club by myself and two others. So not that much detail added. Will have a real marine up for next post. Probably AAngle.


This is something I inspired a friend to do. I guess it's how Lesser Hollows will look when I get round to making them.

I can't words tonight. So I image'd.

[Onanon]

ANgle#:
Like an Iron Maiden turned inside out. Speaks in static screams and the marine himself is a CCW.

Low detail painting, but it's quick and it works.


Bad baby:
Looks like a malformed infant. Enjoyed the idea of wasted strength/potential. Probably the 'worst' model I've made. Looking at it makes me feel ill. The baby arm on the right is wrong.


Scout Sergeant Oenenone - Along with Chaplain Pater Gregor, is the last surviving Recluse. A weatherbeaten wraith who stalks Interzone in a shabby grey djellaba. Portentously anonymous, his appearance means something big is about to go down in the City. His personality is defined by absence and negatives.

One of the originals, he's been there since before day one. Taught every Scout in the chapter the essentials.

Now alone in the City, he does everything he can to stay one step ahead of the Anonymous, e's invisible chosen.

Stands with Pater Gregor in the fall of Anomie.
[Model is Scout Sargeant Telion]



Zemanová - Chapter Master.
He strove for moderation in all things.
Acted as a counterpoint to e's bestial behaviour.
Liked order and efficiency. His mother may have had an unusual occupation.

Now entombed in a Dreadnaught stolen from the Ultramarines by e, who, following the Heresy, forced a million million dead souls through him, washing away every atom of ego. His existence is bound to this insane wreck, and he shares the death pangs of every new kill.

His firefrenzies and blood rages are just an expression of that pain, but for every kill he makes, it's torn right back through him like jagged thread trying to suture a hole in the void.
There's no body or anything, just sheared spirit, dead mechanical flesh driven on by the machinations of hate. Written on the side with credit cards and letters on sprue is 'FRAMED E'.

[Noodles the Defiler]

this stuff is awesome, i am intrigued by your persistance and great creativity.
especially finding new things to add all the time and actually making it all look so sweetly grotesque.

i will wait and see more.

[Onanon]

Had another battle with the Outsiders, again, 500 points. We played objectives, he was Blood Angels, I used the above list.

DP charged first turn as he was right forward (deployment was weird) and ate his 10 man Marine Squad. His commander then charged, the DP killed him and the remainder of the squad over two turns.

My ten man squad got onto an objective, the five man with plasma scuttled up in a Rhino, opened up on the Imperial marines trying to hold the objective. They fell back, I had parked the squad and rhino on the objective. Turns were up. I lost two marines, and a wound on the DP. He lost the commander, fifteen marines with various upgrades. I had two objectives, he had none.


A Paint marine had graffiti on him, I really liked the idea:

REMEMBER RIDICULE. Once, one time, younger sister ORAL towards endlessly reproducing stars  ...oh IS IT IN YET? Shot down. Wrong hole.

I know I can kill. KNIVES IN. beslubber 'forever'. I am I.

Useless. No birds. SHOOT ME I AM THE BAD GUY. Start again. Play pretend.

eeeeeee Miserable pile of secrets. It hurts. Don't pray. harder

..Aa..#u.,c.a,1.11,a....111a...ca..aa.11...1.a1111...1.

Don't tell CHANT CHANT CHANT CHANT. In the Pink snow, his hated friend certainly a mirror. ISN'T IT SAD- wanna touch wieners? THROBBING Need need need need all over him, save me, you all forgot, laughed at Dachau. I UNDERSTAND NOW.

RELIEF. BIG GUN. Held her down, RUINED. Not there, used used used.

FORGIVE FORGET RAPE requiem, mother I tried pleasebelieve me

HA HA HA... Why? Bought and sold. Spinning plates. Falling to pieces all over again.


Marines are beginning to roll of the production line. Might have one or two for the weekend (no camera in college). Wisdom teeth are coming through. Girlfriend has a dream: There were lots of us. We were hiding in a room with locks on the door but the locks combination was being cracked so we were attacked.There was a man with a chainsaw holding babies at arms length and sawing them in half. My friends and family were eating each other, convulsing on the ground, cutting each other into tiny pieces.There was lots of laughing. Chainsaw man carved the flesh off my legs. i couldn't escape.

[tzeentchling]

Your girlfriend has some pretty messed up dreams there... course, given what you're writing as inspiration for the Outsiders, it kind of fits... scary.

[Greggor Sin, the Jolly]

Reading your work is like watching the Wall and playing two different Pink Floyd songs all at the same time.

Amazing. Scratch that.  Arousing.

[Onanon]

Caseless:
Part of the Berserker horde absorbed decades ago. Totally emasculated by chem-gelding, he resolved to turn himself into a glistening pillar of muscle.

It was remarked that turquoise is under used. Sought to rectify that.



The Unnameable:
The end result of the Outsiders process. He is disembodied. The tears stream down his face unceasingly. Perhaps it is liquefied brain? Attacks with bolt of ennui.

The varnish running down from his eyes on to the plinth is quite subtle in natural light, inks of blue and purple give it an ethereal vibe. I worked so hard on making his cylinder look unplanned and diffuse.



Another paint marine. The yellow needs a further thinned coat to make it functional.


What should I do with the bases? I like the pillar chap's grey base. The marines seem to blend into the background...

+

Army is pure materialism. Reproducing endlessly into the void without presence or potency.


'Pawn'- Koma was dead. He crouched, stirring the stillbirth with a stick.
Oldstyle raised his fist again, on which the blood would never dry. Caseless fire screamed civilians to stains.

Pawn, being ripped apart by plasma in a last stand:
No way out.
Thank god.

Why was he picked in the first place? What was two hundred years? Tedium. Given an arbitrary purpose, told to go on. Should resist. Cannot.

A fruitless tree. Babies boiled in bellies. Landscape of stake and ash. White maggot figures writhe in sunshine.

Three kids. Blanks.
Light fire under idiot, tied to post, nervous system burned out by psychic shock.
Spasms. They spark up the next one.

Photosensors dial up. Sun rise. Appalling vista.

Defy despair and say:
‘All is dust.
But not yet.’ 

+

Spinning ideas for an Outsiders story. Lost big sheet of stuff, still had some it. I felt it coming up like a tooth.

Your girlfriend has some pretty messed up dreams there... course, given what you're writing as inspiration for the Outsiders, it kind of fits... scary.

lol

Amazing. Scratch that.  Arousing.

wat

[Onanon]

Kritic:
Has tried Chaos, Loyalist, coke/pepsi and has but one verdict for the universe: it's amphetamine parrot. Ultramarines? It's amphetamine parrot. Undivided? It's amphetamine parrot. His face has warped into a giant declaimatory mouth.

A much needed icon bearer.


The Drawback [sane]:
Vague Berzerker. Is self-aware, but is unable to communicate that self-awareness. Thus, rage.

Wolf:
A Recluse with close ties to the Space Wolves. Ended up constructing a persona that consumed him entirely. Spends his modest income on plush wolves and wolftotems.

Used:
Another icon bearer. Pole coming out of his neck, dissociated parts of skeleton on the pole.

[Onanon]

The Stranger:
Started the whole thing looking for ‘insight’. Deluded, though he was happy. Now he’s like every other dead Marine saying LIFE IS GOOD BUSINESS AS USUAL.

But Pawn is different. He can’t say that he’s just a cheap heel, a predestined failure. For him there’s going to be no superhuman transcendence. It’s a slow, every day killing. In between fighting and digging holes, he’s just passing the time until he dies.

Oldstyle starts telling story about M31. Pawn remembers him on founding day as a loyalist Sarge. Nowadays, every aspiring champion, no matter what his colours were, was scared of Oldstyle. He scared Pawn amphetamine parrotless. Knows Oldstlye is deliberately living in a fantasy world. Babyhands was another sick beslubber. The children’s hands stapled to him never decayed. Like pressed flowers, he thought.

‘The Stranger?’
Oldstyle rumbled.
‘Dunno if he’s even alive. Can’t see any glowy amphetamine parrot on him. Maybe his mind is mashed. Maybe he got Hollow infestation.’


[Interjection from Inquisitor ==PURGED==]
‘Let's take one of your brain cells and possess it with a daemonic replica. That part of your brain is dead, but continues to more or less function. Every day we'll possess another brain cell, a slow and gradual process. The living cells will have time to be accustomed to the daemonic cells and by working in unison they will be able to complete things just as they always did and your development will continue seemingly unaltered from the original plan. What happens when all your brain cells are daemonic? To your CONSCIOUSNESS, you dig? The body will still be able to hold a conversation and react to stimulus exactly as you would have while alive, but would your world slowly become dimmer and dimmer until finally you felt like you were just a passenger in your own body going along for the ride, then an observer, and finally nothing?’

Scary amphetamine parrot.

And him? Missing arm that wasn’t missing. The inference, the hole whre the arm was in space, had become redefined by it’s absence. It hung, blue. A literal phantom limb. The warp was heavy on him now.

+

AAngle# was chained.
He spoke in a wash of code that no one could break with sanity intact. Sensing Pawn, he began the quasar hum. Pawn began strangling him. Spines erupted from AAngle#’s intangible flesh. His head opened like a rose petal.

Pawn stopped and grabbed the chain.
He began hauling him to the drop pod filled with similar berserk specimens. Oldstyle nodded, threw his last in, then smacked the door activation rune. Those inside fell silent.

+

What tedium.
Oldstyle’s quarter was filled with distorted dataslates, music wreathed in ambience and static. Pawn listened closer: percussion of beetles knocking in coffins, ovens cooling, irradiation of aether with aether. Neon tubes close to death, heart murmurs, mechanised guillotines snipping the heads off rows of toy soldiers, sheets of lead unfurling in empty underground car parks.

Oldstyle brought out his trophy rack and started reeling off names and dates from M32 onwards. Pawn continued browsing.

The dataslates were Imperial. That in itself wasn’t unusual. But it was all pop-culture stuff: TV, stories, songs, even hymnals. Stuff from home.
All of it had been cut up and rearranged into incomprehensibility .

‘After the Chapter defected, e swore he’d take Anomie down. Only the studded strap-on of a Scarusian space fleet stopped us. When we went back in M41, my 10th millennia, I couldn’t bear it. Too many memories.’

Pawn hadn’t noticed the knife in his neck. Oldstyle ripped it out, then grabbed him by the armoured collar and flung him into the wall. Pawn hit the bulkhead and bounced.

‘There wasn’t there anymore. So I did what I could and washed everything as bare as I was. Then I could see the PDF as targets. Then I could see the skinned kiddies as pieces of meat. Home-’

He composed himself.
‘-Anomie means amphetamine parrot to me.’
He socketed a power first.
‘You’ve made a tit of yourself.
So why don’t you beslubber off?’

Pawn scrabbled on the steel and ran out the door.

+

It was like he had done the worst of things for a laugh. The Emperor was dead. The Imperium was a joke. Humanity was an infected boil.

Nothing was sacred.
Nothing was profane.
Everything was permitted.

Oldstyle cared about not caring. He showed up all the errors and mistakes, he lived right out there without shoving anything up your soul.

If a mob or Ork Boyz swamped them, he’d follow him.
If a Carnifex barrelled through the Rhino, he’d follow him.
If beslubbering Marneus Calgar in terminator armour charged them, he’d follow him and then laugh about it afterwards.

Pawn had nothing better to do anyway.

+++

Seriously, that started from a character desciption... I'll be continuing that story.
Had a 750 point battle versus Guard this week:

Winged DP - 130

8 CSM, AC with power fist, melta - 170

8 CSM, AC with power weapon, melta - 160

8 CSM, AC with power weapon, flamer - 155


5 Anonymous Chosen with a melta. Infiltrate, then Destroy. Attack. Die. - 105

Rhino- 35

750


Wiped 750 of mixed armour and infantry Guard (minus a Sentinel) and took around 75 points of damage.
I captured his objective and he had nothing on mine.

Chosen worked very effectively in infiltrating and blowing up his Russ. They later charged and disrupted his infantry line long enough for the 8 man w/power fist squad in a Rhino and Demon Princess to attack.

I swapped theChosen's flamer for a melta after dropping the MoS.. but that did bugger all against the front of a Russ. So krak grenades it was! They come highly recommended and will be used in future lists.

DP didn't see a lot of action as it was against a gun line, it only consumed a mere platoon of 20 Guardsmen.

Squad in Rhino did great things. Rhino cut incoming fire when doing a drive-by, got them quickly and safely into his deployment zone.

Two footslogging squads: Both with power weapons to save points.
The first squad was charged by a Sentinel and was held up from turn 3 onwards. Lack of a power fist really hurt me here. Did good things in gunning down a Rough Rider assault.

Second squad held my objective, and rapid-fire'd, and charged 25 Guardsmen moving to my objective into dust.

Star players were the cogs in a Chaos hate machine, the Chosen. Infiltrate lets you punish the enemy for anything. Another win for the Outsiders!