Heresy & Heroes

“He is a living relic, y’know. Terra knows how old that rat is, but his kind ain’t been seen around these parts for a quarter hundred and not often afore that either. I heard rumour that some big bugs melted ‘em all or something, or that a bunch of abhumans was sent in to flush ‘em away. Who knows, right? But I’ll tell you this; I ain’t never seen nobody outfight him, nor outshoot him. Even big fellas go down when he lamps one on their chin. Iinky’s won every bar tussle and duel he jumped into, that’s true, and he’s as sharp as a Catachan’s knife to boot. Wouldn’t trust his type though, but he always paid his bills and that’s good enough for me so long as I got an optic on him.”

– Byroll Coate, Bar Owner (testimony under oath)

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This is the second member of my Inquisitorial warband, the master thief and scrappy fighter whose species is, as far as he knows, all gone. His name is Iinky Squet and he’s my nod to a bit of 40k lore that comes right out of Rogue Trader. Back then you see, GW still being in its relative infancy, the designers ported over elves, dwarves and orcs from the fantasy system. They of course became Eldar, Squats (RIP) and Space Orks respectively but the Hrud also existed and they were, originally, Space Skaven. Over the years, GW has moved away from this idea and while the Squats got eaten by Tyranids, and the Eldar and Orks have been given the chance to flesh out their own distinct fluff, the Hrud never even got off the ground and eventually their rat-like look was replaced by aliens with big black eyes and long limbs. So up steps Iinky Squet – the last of those Hrud who never made it. Or is he…?

Iinky Squet is another pretty simple conversion based on a WFB miniature, the Skaven Warlord. The first step was removing a hand, most of the tail and filing off the very Skaveny details on the armour. Next up, he needed some guns. I filed off the details on a Chaos Space Marine bolt pistol (love the ammo hanging loose from the underside of those guns) for his right hand, and for his left, this gun come from the Legion Praetors set from Forge World. I won’t say why I have that set (not yet – all will be revealed) but I didn’t actually need this particular pistol and given that it looks so cool, I couldn’t resist using it. I created the tail by using a whip that come with the Astral Claws Master of the Forge (that I didn’t use when I built my Grey Knights Techmarine), and I then added a little ‘=][=’ charm (from a GK box) to his one of his tassles. Done.

I stuck with a very subdued painting style, darkening everything and bring it back up again with inks. The pictures don’t do it justice here (I know I use that excuse too much – I’m working on it), but I’m really happy with the more natural look I’m getting on the metal and the cloth at the moment. His cloak in particular resembles a battered, old leather sheet, and I’m very pleased with the effect, as I am with his skin/fur – having never painted a rat before I found it pretty rewarding to give that a go and pull it off.

I see his play style being that of a scrappy gunfighter and dirty brawler, big on speed and number of attacks but low on strength. And while he’ll be good at pinching things and picking up items, he’ll rarely show any heroism. He’s joined Thor Joshan’s retinue because the Inquisitor offered him knowledge about his species, their origins and their fate, but if he doesn’t get some answers soon, there’s no telling how long Iinky will stay around for.

So that’s two down in my Inquisitor Warband. A few more to go, but I think I need to do a bit more Mortifactors stuff next – want to get them finished off as soon as possible. So look out for that, and for some more INQ28 stuff too. And I promise (as bloody usual) that I will try and work on the photography. With not being at home when there’s any natural daylight, and having to rely mainly on my iPhone camera, I’m not doing myself any favours, but I’ll continue to work on it. Promise. Onwards!