Heresy & Heroes

This model marks a big moment for me in this year’s Mortifactors project, but I’ll get to that in due course. Firstly, allow me to introduce you to Iamador, Sergeant of Squad II, 2nd Company, Mortifactors.

Iamador leads a Tactical Squad set up for tank and walker hunting and as such I’ve equipped him with the very versatile and cool combi weapon that comes with the Tactical Squad box set, and of course I tempered the bolter aspect of that weapon with some classic melta goodness. And I gave him melta bombs too, as illustrated by the rather hefty device at his feet.

Both shoulder pads were robbed from remnants of the Vanguard Veterans kit that were in my bits box (such a great kit). There’s of course the classic skull motif on his left pad, but above is a very ornate design, marking him out as something special. I’m not 100% sure where his helmet comes from – possibly a vehicle kit, but I couldn’t say for certain.

There are lots of little touches that set him apart from the rest of his squad – the skull on his knee, the crest on his helmet and even his backpack all carry subtle marks or colour changes to show his stature in the squad.

This sword too comes from the Vanguard Vet box and as soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to use it – all the skulls! I could have given him a powerfist to match the meltas in tank hurting ability but it always seem such an expensive choice for sergeants. Besides, a good chainsword is traditional!

As for that skull, I’ve noticed of late that I have slightly (just slightly) lost the knack for painting those. I think I used to worry about them more and since time has gone on, I’ve got a formula in my head for how I paint them – that’s not such a good thing. I start relying on that formula too much and intuition goes out the window. I often find that, oddly, as soon as I know that there’s a right way of doing something, I find myself doing it wrong. Anyway, it’s something for me to work on.

That’s a nice tank you have there…

Tactical Squads aren’t the best tank hunters in the world by a long shot, and while they’re more of a jack-of-all-trades unit in many cases, they’re still darn tough as far as basic troops choices go and that means that they’re a little more adaptable. True, if and when these guys do go after a tank, seven of ten won’t be doing much, but the above three will have a pretty decent chance of wasting even the larger vehicles in the game if they get good rolling on their side. And they make a nice change to my other tactical squad which is all about massacring infantry (Heavy Bolter, Flamer and a Stormbolter on the Sarge). Here’s what Squad II look like in full…

Ah yes, that milestone I mentioned earlier. Well, of the 2000pts of Mortifactors that I wanted to have painted this year, I have now completed everything that walks around on two legs! This sergeant was my last bit of infantry. All that’s left now is vehicles and, time and life permitting, I should have my 2000pts done by the end of the year. So prepare to see some armour rolling out from my painting area pretty soon. I hope you enjoyed the read – comments and questions below please!