When Iron Sleet first launched our Inq28 universe Ynqvisitor in 2020, we introduced Venus as a planet for the Imperial upper-class. A world of unfathomably large family palaces, their countless servants and a planet-wide network of floating cloud canals interconnected with lesser villas (still the size of entire cities), Venutian gardens, sky bridges, courts and rockrete spyres reaching the planet’s mesosphere.

Drawings by John Blanche © Games Workshop

We worked as historians and cartographers spending ages exploring old Games Workshop lore, re-reading Warhammer 40K-novels and investigating old and new maps of Segmentum Solar and the Sol System.

– and we discovered a pattern!

On most maps of the Sol System, charted by Imperial scholars and cartographers of the Ordo Geographia – descriptio orbis terrarum! – Terra appears as the divine seat of the Emperor of Mankind, the Golden Throne outshining even the light of Sol. This mythical place, Terra, was the setting for the Pilgrym Game in 2016, which Iron Sleet hosted together with old friends of Sleet Peter Hudson, narrative writer extraordinaire, Tim Molloy, Games Workshop’s mis-chief archivist and John Blanche, Godfather of Dark Baroque.

Segmentum Solar maps depicting Venus shrouded by a black sphere © Games Workshop

Venus on the other hand, Holy Terra’s ‘sister planet’, is often represented as a counter-image of Terra: A planet depicted in reds, yellows and golds shrouded by a black sphere.

Enter our deep lore of Venus – descriptio orbis venutum! – which we have been carving out for many years of Iron Sleet-madness beginning with our idea of the moon-sized seed-vault Neith circling the dark side of the Venus.

Study trip to Venice © Iron Sleet 2023

Inspired by the incredible real-world setting of Venice – even going on study trips to one of the craziest and most stunning cities in old-world Europe (the word Venice itself so phonetically close to Venus) – we imagine Venus as a massive 42nd Millennium version of the ‘Serenissima’, ‘Queen of the Adriatic’ and ‘City of Masks’;

This includes giving birth to places, events and mythical beings like the Conclavum, Venutian palazzo’s the size of hive cities, the Horned Ones – some of the wealthiest merchant families in the Imperium – and the recent death of the Doge of Venus.

The Doxii is Dead!

The Doxii is Dead!

The Doxii is Dead!

Long Live the Doxii!

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On Iron Sleet, we believe that we have only scratched the surface of Ynqvisitor and the deep dive into Venus. This planet and its world of intrigue and decadence holds so many unexplored potentials!

So, where the first iteration of Ynqvisitor was built up around an Inq28-setting, each of us building smaller groups for smaller games and many of you participating with stunning contributions to our 4th Iron Sleet Invitational, we are now hard at work in the Iron Sleet machine room building the stage for an epic 10th edition Warhammer 40.000 war on Venus throughout 2024.

Each of us are currently building a 2000 pts W40K army, preparing for smaller battles during the winter, leading up to a massive Venutian finale later in the year.

Models and images come first, Story is king!

We want Venus, the Queen of Segmentum Solar, to be distinctly different than our previous games. What better place to start than with the bases? We are working the colours of Venus into our terrain and bases across our six armies. While each army will be different and represent our individual takes on Dark Baroque we want each miniature to be part of our collective project of bringing Venus into the world of Warhammer 40K!

Enter yellow, orange and red pigments from Vallejo Pigments and AK Interactive!

NB: You can click the images for full-size resolutions and get reeeeeally close to painting and bases!