Sergeant Homer in the Sewers of Malifaux

Today I was able to put in some more time working with my Sewers of Malifaux set from Wyrd Miniatures. So far I have mixed feelings about the TerraClips system and my enthusiasm for it has waned slightly from yesterday. I think it definitely looks a lot better than I had previously worried it might, but there are some more pragmatic issues that I'm initially not too crazy about. I'm sure with more practice I will develop a better understanding of what I can do with this terrain but starting out it has been a bit frustrating. Also it's been slower going that I had expected but again I think with practice the assembly process will not take as long.

By now I've only used about two thirds of the pieces you get in one box of Sewers but already I'm running out TerraClips, especially the I-shaped and L-shaped ones. If you're interested in these kits I recommend you consider getting an extra pack or so of TerraClips. At the rate I've been going through them I think a good ratio would probably be 3 boxes of clips for every 2 boxes of tiles. I'm also noticing a shortage of solid wall sections and an excess of those wall sections with doors and gates for what I had envisioned building. I suppose this is just a matter of personal preference and one of the inherent limitations for this type of approach to terrain making.

While putting together my sewers I took some pictures to help show what these pieces are like close up. Once again to act as my visual reference for scale I have requested the help of Sergeant Homer of the Stonecutters chapter. He's no stranger to such filth and so did not begrudge the assignment.

Pictured above is one of the basic 6" x 6" tiles, of which you get 16 in the Sewers box. The artwork on them is double-sided to give more options and variety when deciding how to assemble your sewers.

You also get 32 of these 3" x 3" double-sided tiles, none of which I've yet used as I'm already running out of TerraClips. Some have narrow sewer canals while others appear as solid flooring. They seem to provide a lot of utility when designing your layout, although they will quickly burn through even more of your clip supply.

Add some walls to the floor tiles and Sergeant Homer is now in the Sewers of Malifaux, or at least a little box resembling the Sewers of Malifaux. At this point everything was still quite simple and straightforward. The more pieces you want to use, however, the worse it gets.

You can assemble your terrain to have multiple levels of elevation. Included are a couple of sheets of handrails, balconies, staircases, and ladders. I've not yet tried this out very much, in this case due to using up all of my wall pieces building the main level of sewers.

One aspect I am very pleased with is the appearance of the sewer effluent as this was something that had not impressed me in the pictures I'd seen previously. The sewer canals have a sense of flow in addition to looking suitably nasty. They remind me of the river of negativity flowing beneath Manhattan in Ghostbusters 2. Ahhh... now that is some lovely effluent.

Half of the wall sections included in the Sewers box are solid while the rest of them have cutout areas to represent doors and gates. I felt like I ran out of solid wall sections very quickly. The doors come as separate pieces and can stand up with the help of a little matching pieces of card. Of course the doors can just be left off entirely to make things simpler. Another option is to attach a TerraClip to the bottom of each door and anchor them to the floor tiles if you'd rather not have your doors be openable at all.

As I mentioned my experience with these so far has been rather frustrating and not as much fun as I had hoped. Since so many clips are involved it can be a little tricky wedging pieces together and you really need to plan at least several steps in advance. It can be annoying if you make a mistake or change your mind along the way as you inevitably have to pull apart many more pieces than just the ones you want to switch around. I therefore think it would be very helpful to layout most if not all of the pieces you intend on using so that you can plan the most sensible order of construction. Also that way you know you won't run out of something deep into the assembly process.

Despite my concerns and gripes I'm still optimistic about making good use of my TerraClips terrain. The problems I've run into so far will I think become less bothersome over time as I become more familiar with these kits and learn how to get the most out of them. I also think there's tremendous potential for using these terrain sets outside of the Malifaux universe. In fact one of things I'm now most eager to try out is playing a game of Space Hulk adapted for use with my Sewers of Malifaux. Hmm... Sewer Hulk, anyone?

Alright, that's all the time I have for tonight. I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead with plenty of painting and gaming fun. Goodbye for now!

Chaos Lord Kit-Bash

The other day I noticed some pictures of a fantastically Chaosified jump-pack Chaplin which Rich had posted over at his blog, Ineptus Mechanicus. He's been working steadily on a Word Bearers army for close to a year that makes heavy use of converted and kitbashed models. It's been a really cool project to watch develop because of the creativity, thought, and planning that Rich has put into each model, his corrupted Chaplin being no exception.

Along with admiring his conversion work on the Chaplin, seeing Rich's use of those Possessed wings reminded me of a model that I had kitbashed for a Black Legion army, another project that's been sitting on the back-burner for quite a long time. There's not much to my Chaos Lord, just a simple mix of pieces from various Chaos Marine and Space Marine kits and the tiniest amount of cutting. There are bits from the Chaos Space Marines, Possessed Marines, and Terminator Lord kits, and from the Dark Angels and Space Wolves frames as well. All that's left that I want to add to this model would be some Chaos-style gauntlets made out of greenstuff to his wrists in order to better disguise the loyalist origins of his arms.

Ripper Murdark, scourge of the Groening Sector and diabolical leader of the Black Legion warband, The Cancelled Souls. Having established his base of operations in the tumultuous region of space known as the North Haverbrook Anomaly, Ripper Murdark has since waged a ceaseless campaign of terror and sabotage against the valuable Agri worlds for which the Sector is famous. This aggression reached its peak with his attempt to overthrow Imperial control of the planet Fonsager, fostering a protracted and violent rebellion which was bloodily quelled by the Stonecutters chapter of Space Marines. Having escaped the planet with his Black Legion warband largely intact, Lord Murdark has sworn to take revenge against the Stonecutters and to personally kill the flamboyant leader of its Second Company, Captain Homer, whom he blames for his defeat.

Chaos Space Marines Chaos Lord - Mark of Tzeentch, Daemon Weapon, Melta Bombs, Personal Icon, Jump Pack. 175 points.

That's the basic idea at least. To go along with the Stonecutters and the Blisstonian 9th that I've been gradually working on, I thought it would be fun to include some bad guys to further populate the Groening Sector. Since updating my progress on Captain Homer last night, this seemed like a good time to introduce his nemesis, Ripper Murdark. The Cancelled Souls are obviously in a very preliminary state right now but I've nonetheless enjoyed having an outlet for the occasional Chaos fix. I don't know what I eventually envision for this Black Legion army. At this point I do not have any grand ambitions for them beyond a rather small but still playable collection.

Okay, that's it for this now. I'm going to work more on those Slaanesh Chaos Daemons this week and I will try to post an update about them soon. Happy painting and gaming!

Captain Homer and Mojo WIP

Last May I spent some time working on one of my most drawn out painting projects, Captain Homer and Mojo, and posted an updated about them here. After writing about the progress I'd made, I went on to spend another evening or two later in the month working on Homer and Mojo before once again setting the pair aside. While the painting itself had not advanced very far, the noteworthy accomplishment was in finally attaching Homer's head to his body. Woo-hoo! Having left the last time with Captain Homer still in a headless condition, tonight I thought it would be worthwhile to update this project, even though it's been a while since I actually sat down to work anymore on it.

Before gluing on the helmet I finished bringing the white areas of power armour up to a pure Skull White. I tried to keep the paint thinned enough so that the white wouldn't buildup too much, but I then wasn't able to entirely prevent it from running into some of the darkened lines which define the various armoured segments. I'd like to tidy that up somewhat, in particular on the should pads and a few other more noticeable places. Otherwise I plan on leaving the rest as is due to the likelihood that trying to fix anymore would just lead to new mistakes in need of further correcting.

Once I was satisfied with the white areas around Homer's collar, backpack, and should pads, I evened out the yellow of the power armour and added a layer of highlighting on top of that. I would save the final round of yellow highlighting, however, for after having glued in place the helmet. This seemed reasonable to me should the final positioning of the helmet would alter which lines I wanted to emphasize the most. Additionally the blue legs are now either finished or else close to it. They could probably use one more pass of highlights so as to pick out the uppermost edges of armour as they catch the light. Lastly Captain Homer's power sword is the result of lots of trial and error until I finally had an effect that looked decent enough to me. Well, so long as I didn't look too closely it seemed alright. :)

At the same time that I was working on Captain Homer, I also made some more progress on his buddy, Mojo the Helper Monkey. At this point everything is blocked out in the basic colors and has received at least one round of shading and highlights. I'm rather pleased with how his face and other fleshy bits turned out. He seems to me crazy and dangerous, just the way a monkey with a flamethrower should look. There's still some highlighting and detail work to do but I think this monkey is close to finished.

I don't know when I'll return to work some more on Captain Homer and Mojo. One reason I've been hesitant to go any further is because I haven't yet finished planning out the design for Homer's back banner. Also I'm nervous about freehand painting a design onto such a relatively large area... that a mistake there could really botch the whole thing. Nonetheless I'm pretty sure that once I have the details sorted out to my liking, I will be ready to paint the banner if only to have that particular step behind me. And besides, how hard could it be to paint a big donut and some beer cans?

So that's all I have for now with regards to these two miniatures. Hopefully it won't take another three months before I'm ready to put together the next progress update on them. I'm not getting my hopes up, though, as these guys seem to have become permanent residents of my WIP shelf. Nonetheless it would be really nice to finally move on to the next batch of Stonecutters. Ah, someday... someday.

Goodnight!

Captain Homer WIP

Hobby time has been sparse the last couple of weeks and I feel as though I've been in sort of a painting funk as well. There have been some exciting developments for my family concerning our desire to move to North Carolina which I will explain once things have been finalized, but in the meantime that is what has been taking up most of my spare focus and energy. I have therefore just been working on a few small projects whenever I've found both the opportunity and motivation to do so. There are quite a few half painted minis on my desk I can choose for such tinkering, none of which have been sitting there for as long as Captain Homer. I therefore decided a few nights ago it was time I went back to work on him.

Well what can I say? I hate painting white. It drives me crazy and is the reason I waited so long before returning to this miniature. Yet there's no way for me to realize my vision of Captain Homer without him wearing the blue and white power armour. As expected it's been problematic and I am not entirely satisfied with the results so far. I am happy nonetheless to finally be making some progress on this guy even if it has been at times frustrating. This should be however only the first of my Captain Homers as I plan on making several other alternate models of him for use with my Stonecutters army. Also, having been inspired by the story from Treehoue of Horrors XIII, "Send in the Clones," I would eventually like to make a squad of Homer clones with the same color scheme for use as the army's Death Company. I therefore should have numerous additional chances to practice working with white paint and hopefully I'll soon find a technique that feels more comfortable to me.

That happy little fellow pictured to the left of Captain Homer is his buddy, Mojo the Helper Monkey. Simpsons fans will remember Mojo from episode #5F15 of Season 9, titled "Girly Edition," in which Homer acquires a service monkey to do the various chores and duties that he is too lazy to do himself. Once I saw this miniature from the CoolMiniOrNot Limited Edition Series of a monkey armed with a flamer thrower, I knew he would make a perfect Mojo and had to find his way into the Stonecutters project. The approach for 40k that I've chosen for this is to treat Mojo simply as a marker denoting Captain Homer's weaponry, thus abiding by the standards of WYSIWYG but otherwise having no in-game effects. This particular Captain Homer will count as being armed with a power weapon and a hand flamer, making him a fairly cheap HQ option relative to most of the others that I expect to have with this army.

I am excited about the prospect of having this miniature painted and complete. It marks the long awaited beginning of the actual assembly and painting stages for my Stonecutters army, having been previously stalled in the conceptual and planning phases for far too long. If my schedule cooperates I think I should be able to finish Captain Homer and Mojo in the next few days, although I still have not made up my mind what I'll be doing for their bases which might have to wait a while longer. I'll try to get another WIP update posted soon once I've made some more progress. So until next time... happy gaming and painting, everyone!

The Redwood Raven

So if the current internet buzz can be believed, it looks like the Stonecutters will be getting a Spruce Moose* after all. Woo-hoo!! I haven't had a whole lot of time today to check out the news but I hope this is legit. My first impression is that the design doesn't look terribly intimidating or mean, instead reminding me of a cross between a bumble bee and a lawn dart. Or something else equally silly. But for a Simpsons-themed army I think this model would be perfect. It's got a lot of comedy potential and will be a nice centerpiece for the army once I get around to them.

I'm psyched. The Blisstonians already have their Copperhead in which to chauffeur around Plant Manager Burns. Meanwhile it looks promising that the Stonecutters will have a Storm Raven to spearhead their drunken (airborne!) assaults. Hooray, flyers for everyone!

Sorry I've been quiet the last few days. I became ill at the start of the week but am feeling better now. Painting continues on the Citadel Woods although there has not been a whole lot of progress since my last post. More to come soon... cheers!

*From "$pringfield," episodes #1F08. Another plane belonging to Mr. Burns, the Plywood Pelican featured in episode #FABF16 "Midnight Rx", would also provide suitable inspiration/precedent for a Stonecutters Storm Raven. I cannot however find any reference pictures of the Plywood Pelican so that's why I'm going with the Spruce Moose. It's also from an earlier episode so that gives it primacy.

Update, Sector 7G

In an effort to build some much needed hobby momentum, I've spent time over the last couple of days working on a few pieces of terrain for 40k. It's been almost a year since I did anything with my "Sector 7G" cities of death project so this seemed like a reasonable place to start up again. When I last left off with it, I had assembled seven buildings with another two almost complete. Eventually I will expand this urban industrial collection by an additional four or five buildings along with assorted space fillers, but for now I just want to finish a few of the ones that I put together last summer. It will be good to finally check-off even a small portion of this from my to-do list, plus I'll still be able to use the terrain blocks individually as they are done.

Here's a group shot of what I accomplished before setting them aside to work on something else... I believe it was Dark Angels. Nonetheless, I've begun detailing two of the buildings, the results of which can be seen in the above picture, but more clearly in the shot below, as evidenced by the scattering of sand and some Imperial Guard bits. I enjoy making little scenic additions to these types of pieces, which is the main reason why I chose to base all of them on the modular movement trays. Hence there are a couple of little vignettes that I'll point out once they're painted. Future construction efforts will involve making the aforementioned building sections, but with more emphasis on irregular footprints to help break up the monotony.

Those two structures seen above are the ones I've chosen to address first. The one on the left is the building that I first put together when I started this project. It's also the one that was first referred to as Sector 7G, prior to me deciding to put together a bunch more of them and call the whole group by that name, so this is kind of special piece for me. The one on the right, imaginatively named Pump Station, is the one that really got me motivated to start up again on this set of urban terrain. After painting, I'm going to fill the reservoir area with resin water effects (tinted, maybe?) and use the experience as practice for when I likewise fill the skull pits on my Realm of Battle Gameboard. It has only been about three months since I worked on the gameboard so it can still wait a bit.

The days have been predictably humid here and so I was not able to get these sprayed this afternoon liked I had hoped. Therefore I've planned a session of late night priming this evening. I'm still trying to get my painting situation sorted out, but until then I think messing around with Sector 7G will be a nice way of easing back into the swing of things. I haven't entirely settled on a color scheme for this set of terrain so I'd love to hear any suggestions.

Practice Is Important

A few nights ago I had an hour to paint and so at last got back to the test Homer that I started a couple weeks ago. Overall there's not a lot different from the last time I posted pictures of this guy except that I worked more on the yellow areas and made my first attempt at painting the Stonecutters' symbol. I've never been too successful with my previous forays into painting freehand details which is the main reason why I wanted to have at least one practice run with the chapter badge. Based on my results with proto-Homer, I think more practice is needed.

Before getting to the chapter badge, I first spent some time highlighting Homer's arms and helmet. It's been a long time since I painted any significant areas of a miniature yellow although I don't recall ever having any particular problem with the color. This time, however, I believe I let my paint get too watery as I had some issues controlling the pigment. Otherwise things were okay and I'm happy enough with how it looks, though in the future I do want to accent the highlights more. I'd also like to experiment a little with other lines of yellow paint to make sure I wouldn't prefer something other than the Foundry System paints.

The last thing I did with the yellow was to add a wash of Gryphonne Sepia in hopes of restoring some of the depth of color to the model. After highlighting the yellow those areas looked sort of faded and stale and I thought the wash might provide a richer color. It turned out alright but I wasn't too careful and left some splotches, most noticeably on his helmet above the right eye lens. I probably won't do that in the future, and if I do it will be much earlier in the process. So despite its fearsome reputation, painting yellow wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I feel confident about being able to manage what I'll need to do for this army's color scheme.

As for the chapter badge.... well, take a look.

It kind of looks to me like the double-hammer design for which I was aiming, but that could easily be because I know what it is supposed to represent. I'm starting to wonder if I should have gotten on Chapterhouse Studio's wait list after all, but it really did sound like it could be a very long wait and I'm eager to get moving with this project. If I knew how to make custom decals I would be interested in going that way but that's beyond my abilities, both technical and artistic. That leaves me with painting them freehand. I therefore need to just be satisfied with doing them as best I can and hopefully get better along the way. No other way to improve, right?

Going in for a closer look, you can see that what was meant to be a circle turned out like a slanted, wobbly egg-shaped thing. Not only do I need more practice, but in particular I need practice painting on curved surfaces like those found on these shoulder pads. I wasn't very patient and would have put more care in laying out things evenly were this not a test miniature, plus I made no effort to go back and tidy up my mistakes. I therefore feel like I've got some reason to be confident that I can do a better job when painting it for real. And the same goes for those white portions of the power armor, too, for which I just plan on taking a lot of time in order to get a smooth finish.

This Stonecutters project is very slowly creeping along but I'm okay with the pace for now. I decided recently that I want to hold off on anything more with them until after the home remodeling has been completed. It should only be a couple more weeks now and then I will be able to set up my own hobby space in the house, something which I have sorely missed for more than two years. Meanwhile I've got plenty of side projects I can work on when life allows me the time, like the stack of five Citadel Woods kits that I began assembling yesterday. I may not be painting much at the moment but I'm still trying to be productive.

Proto-Homer WIP

I've been working away at the test mini for Captain Homer's color scheme and think I should be able to finish him up tonight. I could easily spend a lot more time on him trying to correct all my mistakes and get things right, but since I'm doing this just for practice I'll most likely stop long before then. I'm quite satisfied to see my vision of a Homer marine finally realized and don't mind leaving it a bit on the sloppy side. There's really not much left at this point that I still want to do, primarily just highlighting the yellow and then having my first go at painting the chapter badge. After that I think I'll be ready to move on to the next version.

I'm thankful for this practice run as I have decided to do a couple of things differently on the next one. Even though I'm happy with how the painting has gone so far, I am pretty sure my experiment with white primer has ended in failure. I appreciate the vibrant quality of the paints over white but I haven't noticed anything so different as to make it worthwhile. Plus I haven't had any problems getting Foundation Paints to cover black primer which is my preferred starting point. I have a feeling grey primer would work well for this color scheme but I don't want to buy a can of it for only one model. I also seem to have a lot more trouble getting a smooth coat of paint from white primer and you can see especially in the last picture some grainy clumping. I live right next to coastal marshlands so humidity is always going to be an issue for me. I'm therefore willing to do almost anything to avoid additional complications in using spray primer. I think I'll try painting a yellow helmet primed black just to be sure, though.

Okay, that's it for now. I hope to spend a little time this afternoon practicing drawing the Stonecutters' symbol in anticipation of doing some freehand painting tonight. I haven't had much time to paint the last couple of days but I'm trying to make the most it. Also this weekend I plan to get some more done on the gameboard so hopefully the next few days will be productive.

Building a Better Homer

Just a quick update today but one I am pretty excited to make... I've finished assembling Captain Homer! No fancy conversion work was involved so I know this isn't too big of deal, but it nonetheless feels significant to me as I had not previously done anything specific to 40k since finishing that Dark Angels dreadnought last January. It may be just a single model built but it's still nice to finally have some real progress to report. There's no denying it now, the Stonecutters are underway. Woo-hoo!

I want Captain Homer to be largely unadorned as befits a man of action, and therefore I used mostly parts from the standard tactical sprue. I'm going to rely primarily on his unique color scheme to make Homer stand out from the rest of the army and so used only the legs from the Space Marine commander box. I did however add some ammo pouches and grenades which was fun as I normally leave off those extra bits, but this time around I intend to make better use of them. I want as many of the Stonecutters as possible to have at least one extra piece of kit or gear with the aim of making each individual just a bit more personalized and characterful. After ignoring all those little doodads included on the sprues for so many years, I'm curious to see how I can go about adding them to my marines rather than simply throwing them into my bits box to never be seen again.

Also you can see in the photo that I'm now using cork so that I can paint my minis separately from their bases. I've noticed some of the bloggers that I follow doing this and decided to give it a try myself. This seemed reasonable to me considering the style of bases I've chosen for this army and I really don't mind taking the extra time it will require. It's not like I would otherwise finish this project quickly, so why not? My first experience with it was still frustrating however as I seemed to have broken yet another pin vice drill, this time within minutes of taking it out of its packaging.

Maybe I'm pressing down too hard or something but I can't ever get the squeezie part of the drill to hold onto the bit without slipping. It therefore took me most of Thursday evening to pin two pairs of feet and one marine head to their cork stoppers as I had to spin the little drill bit manually between finger and thumb. I did most of the actual assembly work on Friday but was then too tired to do anything more last night after a day spent chasing my daughter around the yard. Fortunately I am now ready to start painting my army's commander, though I still plan on first doing a test mini to give me some practice painting yellow and white. Plus I'll soon reveal what's up with the extra set of feet for this HQ unit that had to be pinned. Ooooooh... how's that for suspense?

Sorry, that was dumb. More WIP shots will hopefully come soon as I should be able to do some painting tonight.

From the Ground Up

Tonight I am officially launching the modeling part of my Stonecutters army project. Yup, another marine army... hooray, right? But unlike the other times that I've done Space Marine armies, the Stonecutters are conceptually my own creation and will hopefully reflect something of myself in its realization. It's all basically a joke and meant for fun, but I'm still going to take the hobby side of this as seriously as I can precisely because it will be my personal contribution to the insanity of the 41st millennium.

To that end I am scrapping my first idea of using some old marines that I had assembled years ago but then never went any further. I built around forty of them but couldn't decide whether I wanted to do Crimson Fists or Scythes of the Emperor. I painted a few from each chapter but was not happy with either and just sort of moved on to other projects. I thought about using them for the Stonecutters to save time and money, but having looked at them recently I know they aren't going to do as I envision wanting a lot more customization on each individual. I will therefore be starting entirely fresh with the Stonecutters which is probably as it should be. I can at least use some of the old marines to test out color schemes and figure out how to paint the new guys.

With that in mind I've been checking out various lines of resin bases as that seems like as good a place to start as any other. I've played around with some resin bases in the past here and there but that's been it. This time however I'd like to try using them for the whole army if possible. While looking at the styles for bases I've been trying to imagine how they might fit my vision of the Stonecutters but wasn't entirely satisfied with the ones I found. Until today, that is. Dragon Forge fortuitously released today a new line of bases called Sanctuary and I knew right away that this is what I wanted for my army. Sticking with the inspiration of Homer the Great, I like the idea of having some fancy flooring for my guys to stomp on. I picture the army's setting as the inside of their secret (i.e., totally obvious) fortress-monastary which I think will be well represented with this style of base. I'm placing an order with Dragon Forge tonight and will now try to decide what to put on top of them. I've got lots of random marine stuff around the house and I'm sure there will be enough with which to start, it's just a matter of finding them.

Fluff for the Stonecutters

Fonsager, homeworld of the Stonecutters, was originally a civilized and well-populated Agri world until suffering a series of devastating failures with the planet's numerous nuclear power facilities. The surviving populations were consolidated into a pair of hive cities and put to work producing the weapons and equipment needed by their Space Marine overlords. Meanwhile the Stonecutters had been forced by this planetary catastrophe to move their Chapter fortress to Fonsager's moon, Hertagha. Due to the intensity of radiation still prevelant on Fonsager, mutation is sadly much more common than on most Imperial worlds and the Stonecutters are rarely able to locate suitable new recruits from the planet's population. The Stonecutters therefore select their Initiates from peoples throughout the Imperium, often testing and screening potential candidates from pacified warzones before moving on. Those who pass are sent back to the chapter fortress to begin the process of becoming a Space Marine and where they will eventually be inducted into the Tenth Company, thus becoming an Initiate Brethren of the Stonecutters. For the sake of convenience the Stonecutters also routinely search their neighboring systems for recruits as traveling through the warp from distant warzones is rarely a simple affair.

The tragedy that befell Fonsager occured just shortly after the founding of the Stonecutters and the establishment of the planet as their Homeworld. In recognition of the disastrous turn of events on their once beautiful world, the Stonecutters abandoned their original heraldic colors and switched to the dark reds seen worn by them today. In remembrance of their early history, it has become custom for those exceptionally rare Brother Marines drawn from Fonsager's native population to paint their power armour in the chapter's initial colors, but otherwise devoid of chapter insignia or squad markings. In accordance with an edict issued by the first Chief Librarian of the Stonecutters, no more than one such Marine may ever be assigned to each Company at any one time. As a practical matter, however, this has never been a problem due to the low percentage of recruits from Fonsager, typically occuring with a rate of less than one per one hundred Initiates that survive to become Battle Brothers of the Chapter. The Scouts of the Tenth Company are never given this honor regardless of their ancestry or parentage, as it believed that the Initiates must first prove themselves worthy of even wearing a suit of sacred power armour. Great things are expected of those Brother Marines who wear these ancient colors and the induction of such a Marine into one of the Battle Companies is a solemn and portentious occasion laden with much ritual, fasting, and meditation.

Since its successful conversion into an industrial hive world, Fonsager is still able to serve the Stonecutters with the output of its manufactorums and weapon forges. The harsh environment that covers the majority of the planet's surface also provides to the Chapter's recruits excellent conditions for survival training, as well as the opportunity to engage in some dangerous combat exercises. There still lives amongst the ruins of Fonsager's old cities significant populations of the heavily mutated descendants of those who were exposed to the worst effects of the nuclear calamity but somehow managed to survive. These unfortunate people were subsequently deemed to be too high risk to be brought into the newly formed hive cities, instead being simply left to live and die in the shattered remains of their previous existence. What has survived to the present day, and in some areas even flourished, is a horribly gruesome race of degenerate cannibals known as the Ghestrani against whom Stonecutter recruits are frequently tested. Were it not for their value as opponents for these young Marines, it is likely that they would have been exterminated entirely by agents of the Imperial Inquisition who remain understandably wary of allowing these abominations any space within the Emperor's realm.

The Stonecutters Guild

I still am no closer to figuring out what paint scheme to use for my Imperial Guard army, but I have had a break-through on a different front. I've played Space Marines for as long as I've played 40k, which dates back to the Rogue Trader era. Early on I primarily focused on the well known First Founding chapters, painting and gaming with Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves, in additiona to many squads from various other random chapters. For the last ten or so years I haven't done anything significant with Marines other than paint up the occasional figure to test a color scheme.

As I could no longer settle on any one of the established chapters, I've been interested in doing a Space Marine army from a DIY chapter. But with so many options this has lead to my previous hobby paralysis, although I did paint a full Chaos Space Marine army with a DIY background that even made it to an actual GW-run Grand Tournament. (My tournament record of 1 win and 5 losses was not so impressive but it was good motivation for getting an army project completed.) But now I know what Marine chapter I was born to create... the Stonecutters! I've still got lots of blanks to fill in about their background, but it's a start! For those of you not familiar with the Stonecutters, they are a secret society and fraternal order featured in The Simpsons episode "Homer the Great," from season 6. I'm a die-hard fan of The Simpsons and I've been watching the show religiously since about halfway through its first season. Doing a Simpsons-themed Marine army will be a fun way for me to pay tribute to my all-time favorite television show and take my hobby to whole new levels of dorkitude.

Name: Stonecutters

Founding Chapter: Silver Skulls

Founding: Twenty Sixth, 738.M41

Chapter Master: Number One, Patricius

Homeworld: Fonsager (Springfield in Latin, sort of...)

Fortress-Monastery: Primary base located on Fonsager's moon, Hertagha.

Main Colors: Burgundy armour, yellow chapter badge and unit markings, yellow trim on the pauldrons, steel -colored chest eagle, turquoise or emerald helmet-lenses.

Specialty: Drunken assaults and Belligerent defense

Battle Cry: "We Do!" (usually in song form, like this, "Who shoots Ork Boyz in the face? Who kills off the Eldar race? We do! We DO!!")

Estimated Strength: 10 Companies with approximately 1000 Battle Brothers and Initiates