Steve's Verlorene Haufen (Forlorn Hope) - Wrap Up

So the relentless march of time has brought us round to the end of another OWAC and thankfully I can claim the victory of having completed the challenge despite its remorseless onslaught! As ever the challenge has been a great driving force in pushing me to get things painted and it is a truly rewarding feeling to see the end results. Things haven't been easy this year - a fair amount of upheaval and issues at work and some rather large home improvement projects have sapped my morale and time respectively. As a result I've not been as active in the community aspect of the challenge as I would have liked so apologies for that. Rest assured though that I extend hearty congratulations to my fellow competitors for their fantastic efforts and beautifully painted armies!

There's been some tense moments (Resorting to a month off felt like a bit of a defeat!) thanks to real life intrusions and my often over ambitious painting targets but I think I've stuck to my brief pretty well. Todeswunsch's Verlorene Haufen makes a suitably macabre companion piece to the Cult of the New Colossus I painted last year. I may have gone a little darker than Vic Reeve's version of those days past but I'll put that down to my own morbid inclinations!

Stone facing the retaining wall for my "Gin Terrace" has been one of the more pleasant impositions on my time! Just a shame 1:1 terrain building doesn't count towards the challenge!

There were some additions and omissions to the original army list and it was a shame not to get the baggage train, Witch Hunters and a few other bits and pieces done with this lot. The large tub of older Empire miniatures which was the original reason for this project has remained largely untouched, however, in my excitement at finding newer Oldhammer style miniatures that fit my Hammer/Folk Horror theme a little more closely! This does of course leave the way open to finish the project off next year of course...

The sea-reach of the Reik stretched out like the beginning of an interminable waterway before the huddled group of men sat on the dockside. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Broekwater, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over one of  the biggest, and the greatest, towns of the Old World.  At last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over the crowd of men. Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. One of the men spoke up as the light waned,

"This also has been one of the dark places of the earth - still is..."

The others, knowing all too well of Heinriksen's melancholy fits, listened on without acknowledging the outburst. Heinriksen went on regardless,

"I was thinking of very old times, when the men first carved this thin veneer of civilisation in to the world. Light came out of this river then but it was like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of some skiff, ordered suddenly to the north. Imagine him here—the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina—and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Reik water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay—cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death—death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh, yes—he did it. Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion. Yet he must land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him—all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest and in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.”

I'm really glad how this lot turned out - big blocks of peasant levies and religious fanatics, with my own horror-influenced twist of course, and a small core of more regular troops who had survived the earlier depravations of the campaign. Working in inspiration from films like The Wicker Man and Plague of the Zombies has been a lot of fun!

The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman light-house, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway—a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars. Heinriksen fell silent, seemingly defeated by his companions disinterest. He had fallen far since his return from Sylvania - resigning his commission and finding what work where he could. Instinctively he clutched at the ragged bundle of papers he still kept. Despite his wanderings he still could not escape the pull exerted on his soul by his former commander, Todeswunsch. He had even heard of vague reports of a rogue Warlord, operating without restraint in that benighted county and had shuddered at the thought that he lived on. Whether or not they were true, the man still lived on in Heinriksen, his voice a persistent whisper, like dry leaves rattling in the wind.  Heinriksen, his eyes burning in the dusky light, read aloud from the tattered sheaf of letters as his companions receded in to the darkness, leaving him to his madness.

Unaware of his solitude, Heinriksen recited the last words of Todeswunsch as though it were some sermon to save the damned,

"Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards the lands of men to be born?"

"Mutability should be the Goddess you fear for She death for life exchanged foolishly: 

Since which, all living wights have learn’d to die,

And all this world is waxen daily worse.

O piteous work of Mutability!

By which, we are all subject to that curse,

And death in stead of life have sucked from our Nurse."

He paused briefly, glancing to his side, disturbed by the passage of a night watchman. The watchman continued on, leaving well alone.

Heinriksen's oratory became more exercised as Todeswunsch's writing descended in to chaotic ramblings,

"I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one of them kneels to another or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one of them is respectable or unhappy, all over the earth.

I think I have worked out what God is punishing us for. Everything.

Then I shall become it! I shall consume all the ill fortune which you are set to unleash. I shall chew up all the selfish scheming and ill intentions that men like you force upon men like me, and bury it in the stomach of this place!

You must have patience, even while people die. Only thus can the whole evil be destroyed. You must let it grow.

I am ready to return, but understand, I shall use undreamed-of measures to conquer the evil."

He looked up expectantly as though looking for the approval of his erstwhile master yet only the dark stared back.

As ever I should aknowledge and apologise for butchering the writings of masters like Joseph Conrad, Yeats, Spenser and Shakespeare, from whose writings much of Todeswunsch's ravings are taken from!

So after all that here's the final list in the ordere I painted them - I'm not sure they'll make a particularly dangerous opponent on the battelfield but that's always been a minor concern of mine when building armies!

14 Temple Ritterbruden 623 points

L10 Hero, heavy armour, shields, lances, hand weapons, standard, musician, barded warhorses

25 Knights of the Cleansing Flame 418 points

L10 Hero, L5 Hero, heavy armour, shields, spears, musician and standard

18 Habutscutzen - Der Schwarze Haufen 206

L10 Hero (light armour, arquebus, pistol, hand weapon), standard, arquebus, hand weapons

20 Ersatzsolder - Knights of the Moss - Wæpenbora un−læd ðone as Môs 278

L10 Hero (Heavy armour, pistol, hand weapon), standard, musician, heavy armour, pikes, arquebus, hand weapon

30 Landestrurm - Die Seuchenopfen                344 points

L10 Hero and 2x L5 Heroes - Plague Doctors - Light armour and hand weapons

Standard bearer, musician, hand weapons

3x Plague Censer Bearers - to simulate the virulent and deadly plague this levy carry I will be using the Skaven Plague Censer Bearer rules to represent this on the table top.

25 Zombies - Die Schale 512 PointsL10 Vampire Hero, light armour, spears, musician and standard

20 Penal Mutants (Peasant Levy) - Die Sünderinnen                 120 PointsL10 Hero (Light armour, hand weapons), hand weapons, musician, standardErzatzsolder but with D6-4 dominant attributes

Kurt Todeswunch                                               120 points

L20 Hero - Army General, Heavy armour, double handed weapon, barded warhorse

Captain Heinriksen                                            65 points

L10 Hero, light armour, pistol, hand weapon, warhorse

31 Peasant Levy - Die Wilde 151 points

L10 Hero, hand weapons, musician and standard

Giant Mercenary                                                   250 points

30 Flagellants - Die Geissler                            334 points

L10 Hero, hand weapons, musician and standard

Reiks Kanone Batterien                                       60 points

Total - 3481 points

Straining to see in the twilight, Heinriksen sought some last solace from Todeswunsch's papers, joined now by a gathering of hooded and vague forms only his eyes could see. He read on to his new audience,

"When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,

Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose."

Heinriksen ceased, and sat apart from the shadows crowding in on him, indistinct and silent. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast and darkening sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

Steve's Verlorene Haufen (Forlorn Hope) - Leader Month (980 points)

 Heinriksen started as if from some terrible dream, though he had not been sleeping. The carriage jostled him as it rumbled over the rutted track towards Ostermark and the haggard Captain loosened his feverish grip on the handful of papers and letters in his hand. The nightmare was over for him perhaps, as the benighted County of Sylvania dwindled behind him and yet the darkness that hung over it, that impenetrable darkness that Kurt Todeswunch embraced and made his own, still clutched at Heinriksen's very soul...

Well I guess that's a wrap for this year's OWAC! Time has been a little kinder to me this month and I've managed to finish off a few units that didn't quite get done in some of the previous months, as well as getting my Army General painted up. There's still quite a few leftovers, however, so there might be a sequel to my Evil Empire army yet! I'm disappointed the Witch Hunters didn't get a look in and I had a little scenic piece that was a bit of a homage to the excellent film, A Field in England, that was one of the sources of inspiration for this project but as we well know, Time is a cruel mistress and no respecter of the petty ambitions of man!

I used the excellent Mounted Warrior Priest from Gamezone to represent my General, Kurt Todeswuch. Thought I'd best include his much put upon Captain Heinriksen too, who is actually John Stearne, the Witch Hunter from Foundry Miniatures.

The expedition to hunt the Chaos Cult through Sylvania, what was left of it, was now dispersed. Todeswunch had achieved a remarkable feat in just keeping the ragged army together. They had put packs of Beastmen and mutants to the sword, burned villages and slain many heretics. That was the extent of their success however. The leaders of the Cult had never been brought to bay and so the head of the Hydra had no doubt survived. And then calamity had come a second time. Lured in to a deep canyon, the Verlorene Haufen had found themselves beset on all sides. Whether by the insidious lure of Chaos or because of the ruthless methods Todeswunch employed with the local population, the ranks of the Cult had swelled. The expedition had dissolved in to a desperate mass of men with only one goal - self preservation. They broke ranks and fled and survived as best they could. Heinriksen's last sight of Todeswunch was as he plunged in to the hooded horde, a whispered battlecry barely distinguishable above the clamour, "The Horror! The Horror!". The smoke of battle swallowed him up and Heinriksen did not know if he lived or not.

I got a couple more units finished - very glad I managed to shoe-horn in the Flagellants and another Peasant Levy!

Not to mention one of the cannons and its crew!

Shame Bruegelberg's Death Bell cannon didn't make it in but at least it'll lend some flavour to the next instalment!

Heinriksen attempted to smooth the creases from the packet of papers in his lap. To his knowledge, they were all that were left of Todeswunch - those and the memory of the words he had spoken to Heinriksen in that dark time that still resonated deep within him. As Heinriksen mused on his former commander, he felt as though he was peering down at a man who laid at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines. For all his faults, his unorthodox and highly questionable methods, his sombre pride and his ruthless power, Heinriksen confessed to regarding him as a remarkable man. He had done terrible things, reduced life to a mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose and wrestled with Death. To Todeswunch, even that great struggle was an unexciting contest, taking place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

The Flagellants were a lot of fun and pretty much mandatory considering the flavour of this army. As always I've mixed a fair number of manufacturers to get the look I was after - and avoid ebay prices for the old GW flagellants!

There is some old lead in there along with the few flagellants I had already - I forget which range the (converted) standard bearer is from. 

I went for a rather wordy banner for this lot! After a lot of searching, I finally found some lyrics to one of the Flagellant songs that were typically sung during processions at the time of the Black Death. The excerpt on the left is taken from one called Song of the Flagellants During the Time of the Plague, although I edited it slightly to make it a bit more Warhammery:

"Now here comes the wave of evil; flee from hot hell. Lucifer is an evil companion. Whomever he catches, he smears with pitch. Therefore, we intend to flee him."

The excerpt on the right of the banner is a verse from one of the Songs of the Suffering Servant from The Book of Isiah, which seemed in keeping with the theme!

All you who kindle flames

and set flares alight,

Walk by the light of your own fire

and by the flares you have burnt!

This is your fate from my hand:

you shall lie down in a place of torment.

I also had to get a bit of a reference to Blood on Satan's Claw in as well - no one's perfect, especially those of a religious extremist persuasion! The lovely lady below is another Foundry miniature and I figured she could play the part of Angel Blake from the film.

Mind you their venerable leader doesn't look the most holy either, despite his ecclesiastical garb! Great miniature from Antediluvian Miniatures though! 

I had to include Dulle Griet too, along with some Warrior Priests from Bruegelberg and Heresy.

Not to mention the flagellants from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail!

And any self respecting band of Flagellants should never leave home without Brother Maynard and his Holy Hand Grenade! 

Obligatory GW Flagellants...

And assorted Druids and Clerics to add a bit of variety.

Finally an assortment of other religious ruffians!

And yet despite his contempt for both Life and Death, Todeswunch had come closer to that ultimate truth than any Heinriksen knew. Todeswunch had often mocked him for clinging on to his rules and regulations, reciting his favourite verse on Nothing,

Is and is not, the two great ends of fate,

And true or false, the subject of debate

That perfect or destroy

The vast designs of State.

When they have wracked the politician’s breast,

Within thy bosom most securely rest

And when reduced to thee are least unsafe and blessed

Heinriksen felt he now understood that unscrutable stare of his, that sometimes seemed unable to see the flame of a candle before him, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up—he had judged. ‘The horror!’ 

This is one of my favourite units and I'm really happy I squeezed them in! Obviously a bit of a nod to The Wicker Man - another major source of inspiration for this project.

The idea is that they are a Sylvanian peasant levy, pressed in to the service of the Empire by Todeswunch. They are, however, a rather creepy bunch with a prediliction for dressing up as Beastmen (or perhaps they're just in touch with their animalistic pagan side) and treating their superiors (and any unlucky policemen) with less than the respect they might expect!

I couldn't pass up on the tag line for The Wicker Man for the Banner - Feed Your Oppressors to the Land. Surely a good slogan for this day and age!

Eureka's marvellous Cyril, Herald Reluctant and Bruce the Persuader from their Chaos Army range make for a very suitable musician combo for the unit!

It seemed foolish to talk of victory in a campaign such as the one Heinriksen had just survived. Kurt's Verlorene Haufen was no more and it had certainly been a forlorn hope while it existed. Nor had the Cult triumphed, despite weathering the grievous blows Todeswunch had dealt it. If there was a victor in any of this quagmire it was Todeswunch himself, whether or not he lived to tell of it. He had made a friend of horror and stared back at the abyss without flinching. His last battle cry was an affirmation, a moral victory paid for by innumerable defeats, by abominable terrors, by abominable satisfactions. But it was a victory! That is why Heinriksen had remained loyal to Kurt to the last, and even beyond, hearing once more not his own voice, but the echo of Todeswunch's magnificent eloquence thrown from a soul as translucently pure as a cliff of crystal.

The excellent Crooked Dice provided quite a few miniatures from their Occult range, which definitely tips a wink at good old British Folk Horror!

This lot might have slightly too modern dress but hopefully they don't stick out too much - couldn't resist them for The Wicker Man reference!

Eureka also do some very useful multi-part cultists who just needed some suitable animal masks adding. Oakbound studios are another great source of folky miniatures.

More assorted pagan peasants and yes - that is Ukko from the Slaine comics!

And almost finally - more marvellous weirdness from Eureka's Chaos Army. I just had to have some more Breughel/Bosch inspired miniatures! It was just a shame I had to limit myself to the ones that could pass for Humans wearing costumes!

Last but definitely not least is Crooked Dice's Strawman - a hapless Giant the peasants have cajoled in to dressing up like the straw effigy they like to burn their offerings in!

I'd best finish off by acknowledging Joseph Conrad and Edgar Allan Poe as I seemed to have pilfered from their far superior works to quite a great extent in this post!

And what would he do with this pathetic bundle of paper that contained the memory of such a man, Heinriksen knew not. A fitful gust from the carriage window blew the topmost page over, revealing Todeswuch's spidery hand. Heinriksen's eyes fell on the lines written there - another poem with which Todeswunch had delighted in tormenting him. He knew the content of it well enough - the history of man symbolised as a play for the Gods, yet his eyes were drawn inexorably to those final damnable stanzas,

That motley drama—oh, be sure   

   It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore   

   By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in   

   To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,   

   And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

   A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out   

   The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs   

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

   In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!   

   And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

   Comes down with the rush of a storm,   

While the angels, all pallid and wan,   

   Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”   

   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Heinriksen shuddered as a vision came to him of Todeswunch astride his horse and riding in to the mouth of hell, opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. He lived as much as he had ever lived and perhaps lived on—a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to take on a life of its own as the experiences of the past few months crowded in on Heinriksen - the wild crowd, the gloom of the forests, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart—the heart of a conquering darkness. It was a moment of triumph for the dark wilderness, an invading and vengeful rush. And the memory of what Heinriksen had heard him say in those last moments, with the horned shapes stirring at his back, in the glow of fires. Those broken phrases came back to him, were heard again in their ominous and terrifying simplicity. Heinriksen remembered the colossal scale of his vile desires, the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous anguish of his soul until he was left only with that stare - that wide and immense stare embracing, condemning, loathing all the universe and he seemed to hear the whispered cry, “The horror! The horror!”

Kurt Todeswunch                                               120 points

L20 Hero, Heavy armour, double handed weapon, barded warhorse

Captain Heinriksen                                            65 points

L10 Hero, light armour, pistol, hand weapon, warhorse

31 Peasant Levy - Die Wilde 151 points

L10 Hero, hand weapons, musician and standard

Giant Mercenary                                                   250 points

30 Flagellants - Die Geissler                            334 points

L10 Hero, hand weapons, musician and standard

Reiks Kanone Batterien                                       60 points

Total - 980 points

Steve's Velorene Haufen (Forlorn Hope) - Rank and File #4 (632 Points)

 Captain Lukas Heinriksen quailed as Todeswunsch pulled the letter he had but two hours ago written, sealed and pressed in to the hand of a loyal runner. The paper was torn and judging by the bloody stains, the runner had met a sorry end too. Todeswunsch tossed the ripped missive on to the table before him and stared coldly at Heinriksen,

"I see you are not enamoured of the new additions to our little expedition Captain. Not only that but it would seem you seek to share your views with our masters back in Ostermark. Would you care to explain yourself..."

Well! Good to be back after a month off and hopefully this is a triumphant (or at least as triumphant as a couple of units of pathetic peasant levies can be!) return...

This month I had hoped to finish off most of the remaining rank and file units I have for this army but time has not been my friend yet again. My leader may have some company next month! First up is Todeswunch's infamous Death's Head Regiment, led by his newfound and somewhat dubious Sylvanian ally, Count Karnstein. There are those who whisper that the Count is not Human, that he is well versed in the ways of the Necromancer and that the ranks of the regiment he commands come from the grave...

Kurt Todeswunsch eyed his Captain coldly as the man stammered out his objections,

"So you feel my ideas, my methods have become unsound... Unsound. Well, you see Heinriksen... In this war, things get confused out here, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. Out here with these natives it can be a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between  good and  evil. The  good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what those in more comfortable positions call the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. And you think I have reached mine. And very obviously, you think me insane. That my command should be terminated..."

Heinriksen lowered his head, unable to meet the gaze of his superior officer,

"Sir with the greatest of respect... how can your judgement be sound? There are heretics and those touched with the taint of Chaos amidst our ranks. The men think you in league with Necromancers and that the Dead fight alongside them... You are out here operating without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct..."

The miniatures are a mix of several different manufacturers as usual! The zombified French soldiers and Castle Guards from Studio Miniatures are great fun.

I threw in a few kitbashes from various Perry Miniatures sprues with some zombie bits to make up the numbers.

Of course I had to include these lovely Landsknecht Zombies from the Assault Group.

And a bunch of Crooked Dice Husks rounded the unit of nicely!

A humourless smile stretched Todeswunch's features in to a rictus-like grin,

"I shall let this insubordination slide Captain this once and let you in to a little secret. A great man once told me -  I have considered all the works that are under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit, but who believes it till Death tells it us? It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make a man know himself. Oh eloquent, just and mighty Death! Whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hath cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-fetched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words; Hic jacet! Do you recognise those two words Captain? You should for they adorn a great many grave stones - Here Lies - and this is the reason I have it as my motto. 

No I worship not Death and nor do I fear it. I do, however, respect it for this reason and take heed of the lessons it offers. Keep your Gods and your servile bowing and scraping, for Death laughs even at Morr who is but a pale imitation. We will never win here in Sylvania, with all the forces of Death and Undeath ranged against us. At least those mad fools we harry and chase about the place realise that. At least there is a grain of truth in the teachings of that Cult of theirs… You look surprised to hear me in agreement with the heretics when it is you who hold more in common with them than I. Your adoration of what you believe to be a superior and omnipotent God, which is but a poor masquerade for Death comes from the same fear and impotence as those poor wretches, who have fallen under the sway of some Demon who wears the face of Death. You both welcome and seek consolation in the oblivion that that naked and absolute power promises you. It is an escape from the realisation that within your flesh is not one point of firm stability, nor in your bones there is no steadfastness: such is your dread of mutability and change, success and failure, death and life."

The Captain listened on - whether to a madman or a wise one, he knew not.

I figured if the Imperial Guard can have Penal Troops in Rogue Trader then why shouldn't my evil Empire army. I hope to paint up some handlers to shepherd them in to battle before the end of the challenge...

The banner features detail taken from Breughel's Fall of the Rebel Angels - I figured his depiction of Lucifer's rebels as weird and wonderful creatures, as opposed to the more traditional angels who are harrying them out of Heaven, fit quite nicely with the idea of horrible mutations from the taint of Chaos.

Looks pretty Choatic to me!!
 

The text is taken from Revelations 14:11 and reads:

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.

A chill wind buffeted the tent and the candle flames guttered, sending crazed shadows wheeling about the two men who sat opposite each other across the table. Todeswunsch paid them no mind and went on,

"I've seen horrors...horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a traitor. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that...But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.  Horror. Horror has a face...And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. We have to be as strong as them, as the monsters, Heinriksen, or judgement will defeat us. Besides, out here the boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

You will address the men Heinriksen and set their minds at ease. The mutants have their handlers, Karnstein alone commands his regiment and we are but few against the threats ranged against us. Any man who still objects to the nature of our reinforcements is welcome to fend for himself..."

Again I've used a fair mix of miniatures - this lot are from the wonderfulk Dunkeldorf range. So glad they decided to make some mutants!

As the flavour of this army is very much in line with Heironymous Bosch and Brueghel's weirder paintings, I had to include some of Eureka Miniature's fantastic Chaos Army - directly inspired by these two great painters! The Goat Man is from Northumbrian Tin Soldier's lovely Night Folk range. 

The (twisted) backbone of the unit, however, comes from the wonderful Midlam Miniatures and their Cult of the Chosen! Peasants with tentacles erupting all over the place - just what I needed!

Heinriksen stumbled from the General's tent, having been dismissed. His head reeling, he found himself going over a verse of an old poem he half remembered, 

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity."

Did Todeswunsch represent the best or worst of humanity - Heinriksen was dismayed to find he no longer knew...

Well that'll do for this month - hopefully real life will be a bit more forgiving and allow me to tie up a few loose ends as well as getting my leader painted next month...

25 Zombies - Die Schale 512 Points

L10 Vampire Hero, light armour, spears, musician and standard

20 Penal Mutants (Peasant Levy) - Die Sünderinnen                 120 Points

L10 Hero (Light armour, hand weapons), hand weapons, musician, standard

Erzatzsolder but with D6-4 dominant attributes