mortem tyrannis: praise! joy!

Cast aside the bronzed lie of the Emperor, He who brings death, He who takes away your children, murders your cousins, takes your lives and offers you nothing but endless grey for a future.

Throw aside the crushing golden heel of the Empire - come with us, O cousins! O sisters! O daughters and uncles! - come with us into a bright and sticky future.

There will be only peace.

graffiti may be the voice of the people, but oppressors only listen to gunfire

We've seen these lovely scavvies and renegade guard several times in Necromunda, where they form a street gang. In the platoon-to-company scale game of 40K, they form a mob of oozing cultists, prepared to die to defend their saviours-in-white, the sons and servants of Him Who Is King Behind the Mask: The Cult of the Three-Eyed King.

The nucleus of the cult was a handful of models I'd hacked together in about 2004 or so, the last time I'd played Necromunda, using some bits from a friend's Skaven Mordheim gang and a few Cadian guard that I'd bought in the vain hope of starting a new project. They played a few games, got some thoroughly average paint jobs and sat in dust and decrepitude for something like fifteen years until I got back into the hobby hard a couple years ago.

join us! never know pain or hunger again! joy! praise!

I then rescued a couple of them, stripped them and gave them marginally better paint schemes. I've since added to the Cult, and now it stands at a healthy twenty-one figures; three times seven - an auspicious and sacred number to the High Lords of the Warp, They Who Bless and Prosper Us, Yea! E'en Here in the Depths of this Hive.

Why don't we go through them? Meet the family. Hear the whispers. Taste the blessings of the Winged Lord and His Great Servants; let Them feed you...

E'id and Blight, the Ghoul Twins

These images are just in the order that I took the photos tonight, so first up we have the Ghoul Twins. Albino juves, these two are surprisingly fit and healthy, considering their age and scavvy status. Their pallid complexion gives the game away: the brothers are cannibals, consuming the flesh of baseline and mutant alike.

The sculpts are two Digga Yoofs from Gorkamorka. I sold the rest of my collection (a decision I'm not so sure of now, as I get more into retro gaming), but saved these two to include in the Cult. I absolutely love them, although only E'id sees action in Necromunda as I don't think there are stats for Blight's blunderbuss. It works fine as a pistol in 40K, where cultists mostly just 'die horribly' anyway.

Their skin paint scheme was, as always, nicked directly from Ana.

a madman and a turnskin

These two don't have names (taking suggestions!). They are examples of the 15-year-old conversions I mentioned, although I modernised the knife-wielding fellow with his laspistol and flak shoulder piece. I think he's partly Catachan now that I take a second to remember.

The sigil on the dribbling idiot's shield is the sign of the King in Yellow. I decided on the yellow thing while partway through these guys, which is why it's not on the standard bearer. Consistency in design is a thing for those Order schmucks anyway.

former guard of the Spiders, 'Limber' and Vincent

Not everyone in the Cult was born to mutation. These two were once members of the Imperial Guard in the Necromunda 8th Regiment, 'Spiders'. Limber has stripped down to his thermal leggings, revealing the bone spur blessing granted by the End of Tyrants. His co-religionist has clearly gained a scattering of mutations (and allowed his maintenance rituals to lapse).

Guard veterans, once

Fellow on the right here is Chuck, because he looks a little like Chuck Norris. I haven't named the rat with tentacles for a right arm (again, suggestions welcome). Both are vintage conversions. I see both as having served together in some regiment or other (although their uniforms aren't of the Spiders and rat-head's right arm was probably changed after they left the army). Their desertion is probably what brought some ex-Munitorum equipment into the service of Him Who Levels All Men.

No Mask

Burn.

I assembled this guy for this project (although I now realise this was in late 2018, so even the 'new' sculpts have some years on them), giving him an old Warhammer zombie head in line with some of the old conversions you see above. I didn't do much else except scrape off Imperial insignia and give him some damage in sets of three. Note that the remnants of his uniform are that of the Spiders.

The flamer guy lacking much skin on his face tells a tale all its own, I figure.

Jim Halfpenny and Crested Lophi

I threw Jim Halfpenny here together from bits and pieces while bored at the painting desk. His right arm is an old plastic Orlock; his withered left arm from a Perry Miniatures archer kit; his head from the Bretonnian men-at-arms kit. I think the body might be a skaven or goblin torso. He's a horrible little dwarf with no place better to go.

Crested Lophi is another of those vintage conversions I mentioned. He's a skaven with Catachan arms and a flamer that got rusted up in the repaint. I used so much fucking glue on this guy I'm surprised there's any sculpt left at all, but I think it manages to look okay. His mohawk got downgraded from blue to white and I gave him some grey bits on his muzzle to imply he's seen some action. Which I suppose he has, in a way. I made his name up about thirty seconds ago.

Žuta and Papa G'noush

These two are definitely not fifteen years old. The regular cultist (Žuta) came in a lot or something and was surprisingly fun to paint. Papa G'noush is the world's most basic conversion: I glued a pistol holster to the belt of a not-completely-gone Poxwalker. Pretty tricky!

That said, that sculpt is hell of fun to paint. The weird gimp mask alone, but the boils take washes very well, and then there's a cool knife and a rusty propane bottle. A great time. Probably even better with Contrast paints.

another former Spider

I can't decide if this guardswoman is a mutant who was #blessed with 'invisible skin' or if she's a ghost. I deliberately kept her uniform clean and gave her Rogue Trader markings (Third Platoon, Tactical squad although she doesn't yet have a company number) so that I could go either way but it's hard to decide! She's also unnamed but for some reason I am certain that she's a woman. Go figure.

Herne

Definitely my favourite in the cult, Herne was one of those basic kitbashes that came together more easily than some actual sculpts. I added a laspistol to his right hand and replaced his head with the deer from an old Bretonnian knight. That's it, and then the paint job brought him all together. I love him so much. I try to use him all the time, although his equipment is absolutely useless.

Solomon the Blemmya

A talented tracker and known mercenary, it's unclear if this twist is a part of the Cult due to genuine belief in the King, if it works with them out of mutant solidarity, or if it is simply a financial transaction. Solomon's archaeotech pistol and unusual equipment show off his successful career as a freelancer.

This conversion (again, a new one) was a little trickier to come together. I wanted to design a Blemmya because they cool as hell and make for great 40K mutants. Without any sculpting skill, it's tricky, but eventually I figured out that an Ork head is about the size of a human torso and there's no reason why a 40K Blemmya wouldn't also have gnarly facial features. I then randomly got the arms with an Ebay win, chucked on some other bits and there we have it: one weird mutant mercenary.

The Faceless. Cross ref: Ordo Xenos file 32177213.
+ + + ACCESS DENIED + + +
+ + + TERMINATION ORDER: maroon/7γ + + +
+ + + STAND BY... + + + .

Every cult needs a witch. I had these late-90s Mandrakes lying around, and other cultists already had ties to the Dark Eldar, so... one Nurgle-corrupted Eldar coming right up. Weirdly, the sculpt makes more sense as an Eldar who has sold their soul to Nurgle than a shadow-realm creature. The armour blends into the skin in weird places; her leg has scaley patches; the whole 'human-skin mask' bit.

Admittedly, some of that is the way I've chosen to paint him, but still.

the horse and the rider

Inspired by an Un-Man that the apologist did ages ago and Brandon Graham's Prophet I wanted to try my hand at creating some kind of non-sentient human-based equine. I also wanted to just rock and roll and do some kind of insane #inq28 conversion freestyle, with no planning or excessive care; just let things fall into place and trust the green stuff gods.

Turned out okay.

'neigh,' sobbed the horse. 'please.'

He didn't turn out quite like expected, but it turns out that turning a horse into a vaguely human-like creature is really hard. Especially when you aren't planning it properly and don't have any actual skill for the green stuff gods to use when working through you. Oops.

This was only a few months ago, making this weird thing the most recent member of the cult.

made sure to include a laspistol

I do think it turned out okay, although that's about 90% because 'Nurgle stuff' is a great way to handwave sloppy work. The hands are from genestealers, the rider is a GW Lord of the Rings orc, the face is a Skaven, and the weird mechanical tail is green stuff.

Oh, the base is obviously wildly wrong for 40k, technically, but I haven't played any tournaments to date. That said, having a giant cultist on a horse on a too-big base conveys absolutely zero advantages to me and is easily remedied by him being the first to die, so it would probably be fine.

inner circle

bannerman

This chap was a conversion from way back. The cool sleeveless coat is from an Empire militia box (originally the Mordheim warband kit). He had something different for his left arm, but I forget what that was. His right arm is a muscly human arm from something, but the pistol is a Dark Eldar splinter pistol from third edition.

The banner is based on an orc banner from Warhammer Armies, the army book (only one! every faction was in it! imagine.) for Warhammer Fantasy Battles (third edition), simplified a bit. I'm still pretty pleased with it, actually. Sometime in 2018, I'd been experimenting with freehand and painted the banner as a bit of practice. When it came to renew these old conversions, I decided to make it the cult banner. The wonky tentacle came out of this decision.

I haven't given the bannerman a name! Unbelievable.

Truffaz l'Acide

He's a bit second fiddle to the weird rat-riding-man conversion above, but Monsieur l'Acide here was where I learned most of the techniques for the cavalryman. He's also mostly based on a Lord of the Rings orc, although his tootin' arm comes from a Perry Miniatures kit. The head is almost certainly the head I took off Herne, although I don't remember for sure.

Of course, the best part of Truffaz l'Acide is his mount. Some old, rotting suit of lost marine armour at the bottom of a long-forgotten sump, now bolted together with wires, rusted gears, and prayers to maladaptive code. l'Acide steers the thing into battle while trumpeting hymns to gods with too many eyes. Good fun to make! Pity I don't know anyone who plays Imperial Fists, or it would be great to taunt them with it.

heresiarch

The heresiarch of the Cult of the King in Yellow, [He of Three Eyes, the Friendly Plague, a Star-Doom]. She lives! She calls! She is your friend in the hive, your mother! Come to her, O children in the dimness; she brings joy and an end to your suffering!

The heresiarch is just a simple Escher ganger. I'd planned to bring out her corruption in the paint scheme and give her zebra-patterned skin, but once she was together it was clear that doing so would wildly overcomplicate the sculpt. I settled for giving her a horrible stark white skin tone that is still unnatural.

She got a sturdy and not rusted-up shotgun, a rare nod to the actual rules for this gang. Recent editions are treating cultists terribly, as Games Workshop's terror of third party companies producing bits for their games is preventing them from giving cultists any kind of interesting weapons to choose from at all, so the simple shotgun is what she gets.

It's fine, because having the cult leader be just kind of an ordinary person actually appeals to me a lot. I deliberately gave her a wild multi-coloured outfit, both because Escher look great like that but also to emphasise the fact that has gone completely 'round the bend. Just because most of her mutations are in her brain don't make her less of a twist, kids.

teaser image

That's it for now, folks. I'll leave you with a teaser for what's next...