In the Emperor's Name!

And now for something completely different...

With the rise of Allies in the 6th edition of Warhammer 40,000 I wanted to do a small force that would work well with any of my Imperial armies. The obvious choice was Grey Knights as I love the models and they work nicely with any non-chaos force! I designed the army to feel like it was the Inquisitor and retinue that were with the army and the Grey Knights were called in later:

I essentially designed the army to operate legally both in its own right as a small 1k army and as an allied force. Having the Inquisitor leading it rather than a mighty hero of the Grey Knights makes it feel more believable for me. Deploying 15 Grey Knights and a fire support dreadnought feels about right. I can only see a large Grey Knight army being deployed when you are fighting an entire Daemon army. Sending what is essentially a stiffened tactical squad feels right for taking on a possessed army commander or whathaveyou.

The angry fellow that is the focus of this post, however, is the Banisher of the Inquisitor's warband. He's one of the figures I had lying around and I'd always loved the pose. Rather than go for the multi-tone scheme that the GW studio went for, I wanted an understated, monastic feel. See the side by side comparison below to see what I mean.

The robes were taken from Dryad Bark up through Gorthor Brown to Baneblade Brown and then shaded down with Agrax Earthshade. I decided that the icon and bell would be simple brass. I kinda felt that the story of this guy would be a pious guard veteran sergeant (hence chainsword and holstered pistol) who retired to a monestary which was attacked by the forces of the archenemy. His faith was strong enough to turn back a daemon and that feat got him noticed by the Inquisitor. He got his old souveniers out of storage and followed the Inquisitor as his banisher. See? A little story like that and he is suddenly much more interesting and makes painting choices easy. The chainsword in matt camo green, the bag and holster in black leather. The icon and bell in cheap, worthy materials.

In order to raise the badass quotient I added some stubble residue to the beard and head. Just Russ Grey and Black mixed and then really, really thinned to wash over the regions required. Rehighlighting these regions with the flesh highlights push the stubble "under" the skin and help with the realism.

Grey Knights Workometer

So, as the workometer shows, I am one down and 26 to go! Small elite armies are quite comforting in this respect. I have a single unit of Dwarfs in my Warhammer army project which has the same number of infantry as this army. Hell, my Goblins come in batches of 50! I'll be showcasing more of these chaps over the next few months as they are going to be a "painted when I have five minutes or so" type of project. The banisher - for example - was painted in two and a half hours over an evening. Until next time:

TTFN