Having finished a group of pilgryms it’s finally time for me too to start building my faction with full focus. Lady Novellis will prove to be a central character, so a retinue is being created for her.
A few forge world minis were just spot on for this theme, so they will go unconverted for the most part. A surgical servitor of remarkable quality flanks the lady, as does her personal serf, carrying tapestries of House Dessicum. The veiled character is still taking shape, but I imagine his objective is to be the first point of contact to the Exanimus operations for many pilgrims.
The two brutes are also taking shape. The obligatory slaughterpriest conversion is more finished, while the genestealer aberrant is still in a very incipient phase. Both are creations of the dissector laboratories, made loyal by nerve-binding and chemical supplements. Crude but useful beings..
IRON SLEET 
Very nice start! It’s almost tempting me back to INQ but I’m too far down the winding roads of change.. 🙂
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oh that road is only more winding on the 41st millenium..
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Probably, just gotta find my way there first 😉
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Cool. I like the use of the Cairn Wraith here, and the fact that he’s been given feet (or, is at least not floating).
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I have to concur with Odie. While the entire warband is lovely (that Slaughterpriest! Those Servitors!), the Cairn Wraith conversion absolutely takes the cake! Beautiful conversion, love the idea of giving him the robed lower section (from the Fantasy Chaos Sorceror, correct?), consider the concept borrowed!
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Happy to hear! The robe is actually from the empire battle wizards. The kit has a surplus of long, flowing fabrics.
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Such a treat! I like the confidence of using almost uncovered models. Trying to do the same here with a few additions.
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That wraith-based conversion is so simple and clean. Very original and new!
Great stuff.
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Cheers Jakob! It’s such a classic base model that it feels really good to hear it’s original. I noticed there was a lot of play to be had with the body language using only the hands, when all else was locked.
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The Officio Sancti Exanimusse… the holie servantes of the Ecclesiarchy, minstering to the pilgrymme deade… yet more carrion-fowle and parasites on the rotting corpse-worlde…
The Ladie Novellis, Princeps Concilia and heir to house dessicum… a macabre mixe of the foulle and the beautiful, her pleated gowne, over a bustle, hung with greasy and bloody bones, the coate or upper part of the dresse seems to be ruched velvet, I imagine the pile soaked and sticky with bloode and fat when the ladie wipes her filthy hand… a jewelle in a blackened setting hanging over a necrotick breaste, perhaps powdered and scented to hide the stink of sweate and decaye…
Her hat of velvet too, mouldering and anciente I imagine like all else on Terra… her dresse all decaying dusty heirloome-pieces of forgotten antiquitie, testament to the wealthe of her house though filthy and stinking with bloode, a piece of fine millinerie with its feather… and her face a grinning skulle, misshapen and blurred, perhaps a mask perhaps not… (shudder) If so, one socket is still filled with an augmetic eye… perhaps the ladies’ face has rotten away, the blurring is caused by shreds of preserved skinne, a macabre sign of her trade, her braine in its cranium sustained by ritualle-medicine.
Her left arme is skeletal and shrivelled too… (I wondered if her arms and face were rotten by some disease or else a grotesque fashionne for quasi-excarnation by chemical means amongst house dessicum… echoes the thieves hande of glorie) carrying a syringe, perhaps of formaline, perhaps poisonne to kille or stunne a valuable pilgrymme with some mutation which the clients want intact… the righte replaced entirely by machinery, the skulle is one ‘memento mori’ or signe of deathe, the clawed hand clutches an hourglasse… The hourglasse is another signe of deathe but also of the corruption and worldliness of a house allegedly devoted to a spiritualle mission… just as an hourglasse denotes the present time, for the house the only time is nowe, the past is but a usefulle victimme to drinke dry, the future mythe… the pilgrymmes are but weake, tired victims to be seized, killed and butchered, the reliques for sale to the highest bidder, the organnes to the lowe-factories….
Her leg armour is a beautiful relique of forgotten make, the foote alone a flexible shoe of five gothic arches, the other plates elegante… but I imagine rusting, dusty, covered with the decaye and filthe of the bone-littered, muddie, shitte-stained pilgrymme roads, slicke with bloode at poenitential stationnes…
Her base shows the squalor of Terra… a heape of skulls, filthy cobblestones and a devout pendant perhaps once worn around the neck of a decaying skeleton… worth a few coines…
Owing to the length of this I’ll tackle her servants in another poste… brilliant work as ever.
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A surgical servitorre of ‘fine qualitie”… perfect for the more carefulle extractions of valued organnes or to paralyse a victimme too delicate for the usual cocktail of obliviscator-drugges… Barely humanne, a necrotic face bent double, the head pierced by a mass of pipes, the arms replaced by knives, syringes, a sawe… a bloodie apronne…
The tapestry-servitor is a wonderful piece of decadence… twisted, lobotomised, arms gone, augmetics crudely and painfully sutured to fleshe, carrying fine, but holed, dustie and faded heirloomes of the house… her role as negotiator makes me wonder if they are not perhaps used as bribes in the endless feudal politicking of Terra, or simply a slaved signe of wealthe.
The ”first contact”… shudder… has a priestly look, robed and hooded… passing more or less unnoticed amongst the exhausted pilgrymmes, keeping up the pretense of reverence but only in outward show… Hunched and twisted by mutation or long furtive squalid years in the service of House Dessicum, seeking the weake, gullible, loste, long stooping over his weake unresisting preye, the smooth edge of his knife to slitte throates and cutte away organs, the saw-toothed edge to hack through bones… in a darke corner of terra, one hand reaching out for a flagging pilgrymme, to clamp over the mouthe while he holds his knife readie for the kille…
The meat-hooke on its chain might carry a head, an organne, an arme, anything of value to be carried back for sale… I imagine his robe, will be soaked in blood from the hooke, knife and hooke bloody too… perhaps the respirator is (as elsewhere on Terra) a pomanderre or nosegaye, keeping off the stench of bloode and fatte and decay… As the tube goes behind the skull-face it seems to be a maske with an augmetic eye.
The brutes, hideous creations of the fleshe-artistes, are excellent… perhaps wretched slaves are forced to bear children, mutated unnaturally strong, sustained in a tanke, sometimes fused with the decaying limbes of mightie menne dead on terra, gladiatorres of the foul pits in the lowest parts of terra found dead… the slaughterfiend conversion has had an arm lopped off and a sawe bolted to the bone, the arm then roughly sewn back together… the torso with deep rents, perhaps where tubes bearing sustaining ichorre and sedatives are crudely torn out when the service of this foul knight-errant is needed.
I used the same term for Ulbus, the warhound of the ladie bethseba, and the same signs of feudal displaye are visible in this slave.. the armour on the legs and head is of goode make, knightlie make, though doubtless a relic of great and decaying age if painted like thistle’s… indeed in this dark millenium all things of good make will be of great age… the house wishes its posessions to reflect its glory… crude but useful creatures, chained up if the sedatives fail, howling in the agony of their tortured existence, their metabolism would collapse without constant care… perhaps the neck-collar injects sedatives, perhaps even an explosive if they begin to threaten their owners…
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The idea of the tapestry servitor carrying bribes for politics is brilliant and I will definitely look deeper into it. Also the percipient notion of the brute’s collar makes me want to have something similar to his more grossly mutated counterpart. An element of chemical sustenance is to be studied with these guys. But not in the obvious way à la dark eldar wracks..
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Thank you for the clarification. If I can ask (you may have told me and i’ve forgotten), what’s the origin of the name novellis? No lucke for me…
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of course. there is not so much background there. It’s a play on the fact that she is the character the warbands story revolves around, as well as the constant search for ‘new’ in the form of escaping death or age.
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Fine words and as much a source of inspiration as any scratchbuilt miniature. We all have our own form of art!
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Thank you very much — I am deeply grateful, deeply and sincerely touched by the kindness all the sleeters have shown and such high praise.
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As others have said the wraith conversion with the wizard legs is inspired, I really wish I had thought of it. The little changes made to the forge world models help set them apart from the originals. The Slaughterpriest conversion is really nice to.
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A great collection of new models! I must say that Death Korp Quartermaster set works really well here! As said above, the idea to give the wraith legs was a stellar idea, one I am amazed has not be done more often. I love his withered hand! I am also glad to see you are already trying to use the new genestealer cult models, he he. The slaughterpriest looks rad too. I love how small his buzzsaw hand is, and you did not try to add one of those huge ork ones; this looks ever so much better. Keep up the great work!
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Fantastic collection! Very nice slaughterpriest conversion. The buzzsaw is proportionate in a very natural way, which is a rarity in warhammer;)
Allthough my fav of the group is the veiled character! very sinister and creepy
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