The Re-Imagined Imperium Revised!

Hi!

Well we're back from an amazing week in Rome and countless hours of investigating aged ruins and beautiful art and I've found myself re-exploring my re-imagined Imperium.

Whereas my previous attempts did away with the Grimdark and moved tech forward a bit, having visited the glories of Rome, I feel I need to take things a few steps further and really get my teeth into the setting and rework it some more to suit how my ideas are slowly developing!

To begin with, I am thinking of doing away with the Gothic feel of the Imperium and replacing it with something altogether more classical with more than a hint of the British Empire, Dune and quite a few other sci-fi novels added to the mix!

With that in mind, I've been poring through my art book collections and the thousands of photos we took whilst on holiday for suitable inspiration and hope to begin fleshing things out over the course of the coming week.

I'm thinking of the Imperium at large being more like the Roman Empire at it's height with lots of marble columns, grand sculpture and a more classical look to them. Also in the past the Imperium was much larger but due to The Horus Heresy and assorted wars and pandemics, the Imperium shrank back within it's borders for over a millennium but now fresh armies and explorers are setting out to reclaim lost worlds.

Imagine Imperial Conquistadores leading small expeditions in search of lost cities of gold, Rogue Traders plying the frontier and trading with civilisations of aliens and humans outwith the Imperial remit and the Imperial forces themselves getting a bit of a rethink too with Legions of power armoured troops, Imperial Auxiliaries and at the heart of the Imperium, Empress Lionstone playing off the noble houses against one another to further her plans.

I am hoping to crack on with using a mixture of figures from a wide assortment of manufacturers from sci-fi to fantasy and historical to start fleshing out the inhabitants of the Imperium and will also be sculpting my own bits and bobs when needed as I've got some cracking ideas I want to try out!

I also need to re-explore my scenery collection and really go to town with building some suitable locales for the inhabitants of the Imperium to live in, fight over, loot and explore!

This will give me the opportunity to play around with lots of monolithic ruins as well as a lot of new buildings and scenery to work with and I am also taking lots of inspiration from the Orientalist painters with their rather fabulous illustration of twisting alleys and lush, exotic decorations on buildings for Farpoint itself.

Imagine something like this but with alien traders, weird beasts and ramshackle vehicles, not to mention bulky tech liberally strewn around the place with Imperial Legionaries patrolling the streets!

All in all, I need to spend quite a bit of time going through my original notes for my Re-Imagined Imperium but I am rather looking forward to the opportunity!

In other news, I have been slowly painting through some Xenos scum for my Imperials to mix it up with and hope to show some pics later on this weekend once everything's painted and based. I am also going to be showing a few NPC's for Farpoint as well as exploring the setting in a bit more depth so do check back!

All the best!

Imperial Presence Increases on Farpoint

Hi!

My Governor General's Imperial Guard unit has received some reinforcements in the form of a rounded out command squad and complete first squad as well as a Sentinel scout walker!

Imperial Guard Squad plus Sentinel Support on Maneuver, Freeport City 

The standard Imperial Guard squad operating on Farpoint is armed with Imperial Industries Combat Las-Guns and flak armour while the heavy weapons element is a Imperial Industries MK3 Grenade Launcher and a Regis XV heavy bolter.

The above photo was taken outside Professor Abullah's house in Freeport City, the capitol of Farpoint and a den of gamblers, thieves and smugglers as well as other ne'er do wells. As tensions have mounted, Governor General von Dorn has authorised armoured support in the form of Sentinel Armoured Scout Walkers.

Dorn Class Sentinel

Produced on the Imperial Fist homeworld of Inwit, the Dorn Class Sentinel is a highly mobile and well armed scout vehicle. Sporting advanced sensors and a powerful assault cannon, they have been a mainstay of Imperial regiments throughout the region for decades.

The Sentinel is scratch built by myself out of plastic, sculpey and assorted bits and bobs and I must admit that I am quite fond of the little guy, so much so that I am making a second one at the moment!

House troops of the Governor General

I'm slowly putting together a platoon of Imperial troops to mix it up with the assorted villains that inhabit the sector and despite the tedium of batch painting, am quite pleased with my progress thus far. Sadly I seem to have run out of miniatures to paint so may skip onto some baddies next or possibly paint a few more Ultramarines!

 The force thus far!

Game wise, I have the bare bones basics of an Imperial Guard force and need lots more troops and armour to really make it a workable force in 2nd edition or 8th edition but I hope to add to their numbers over the coming months.

Last but not least, Governor General Laars van Dorn has posed for a posed for his first official portrait since arriving on Farpoint:

  The Governor General of Farpoint, Laars van Dorn!

Hopefully I'll get some more bits and bobs done soonish but we're about to start packing to move house so expect rather intermittent posts in the short term!

All the best! 

Imperial Battleship Spotted Above Farpoint!

Hi!

Following on from my Imperial lander from last week, I felt the need to crack out the cardboard once again and build something a bit different in the form of an Imperial warship!

The Dauntless, Imperial Tyrant Class Cruiser

Governor General van Dorn has been supplied with a small fleet to aid in the pacification of the Farpoint sector and the flagship of the fleet is the Dauntless, an Imperial Tyrant Class Cruiser under the command of Admiral Ludo Sterne.

The Dauntless has seen quite a bit of action in the last century and bears quite a few scars from its previous deployment against the Eldar raider fleet of the Serpent Brotherhood. Despite the scarred appearance, the Dauntless is a powerful force to be reckoned with in the sector.

Armed with a powerful broadside and destructive Nova Cannon, the Dauntless should be more than a match for most of the pirate flotillas that have plagued the sector in the last few years but rumours of a traitorous Rebellion warship in the region has the admiral keeping his crew battle drilled and ready for any engagement.

Constructed from a mixture of foamcore, cardboard and some plasticard, I must admit it was quite a long term sculpt but I am rather pleased with how it turned out. While it doesn't sport the gothic elements of the traditional sculpts, it didn't cost me anything and was quite fun to build.

I hope to add a few smaller escort and merchant vessels to the mix which will hopefully give me a small flotilla to play some skirmishes using Battlefleet Gothic.

Now I have a battleship to pootle about the sector, I think I will also have to procure a complement of naval types to add some interesting scenarios for 15mm scale skirmishes too and may have to represent the curmudgeonly Admiral Ludo Sterne too!

In my version of The Imperium, technology has moved on a bit from the dark ages and the ships are more bulky armoured boxes with guns than flying cathedrals as I wouldn't know where to start with building such a monstrosity!

I doubt I will be playing any vast fleet action style games (and if I was I would have made the ship scale considerably smaller!) but I can imagine half a dozen ships of varying sizes blowing each other up in the aether above a frontier world!

I've got the crazy idea of sculpting some tiny fighters and landers as well as other small ships too so watch this space!

All the best!

Stormcast Eternal

Hi!

I'm on holiday this week but sadly will be spending most of it getting my flat ready to go up for sale but I have managed to finish the first of my Stormcast Eternals for my rather glacial Age of Sigmar project!

Stormcast

I had originally painted him gold but didn't like the finish so repainted him and repainted him and eventually repainted him! His colour scheme is rather inspired by Ultramarines but I quite like him!

It may be a wee while before I get chance to update the blog again so in the meantime, All the best!