I have always liked the idea of a Celestial Lions force, from the time of reading the War for Armageddon page on them back in the day, they, along with the Exorcists were the two standouts of that campaign to me. The idea of a chapter being forced to rebuild after betrayal from the Imperium (yes technically the Inquisition,  but still) and not breaking, nor turning renegade is a powerful one, one that I have always wanted to explore with a Lions force.

This is a bit of brainstorming towards that end.

To me, the idea of the chapter being “dead”, essentially at Mannheim Gap was a gross overreaction frankly. With the full chapter deployed, that would cover active line troops. The idea that every single Apothercary back on Elysium, garrison Marine, fleet assigned Marine etc… was deployed is kinda stupid, that simply wouldn’t happen. The chapter wasn’t dead, it was beaten and broken for sure and I’m glad the events of Mannheim Gap were expanded upon with Grimaldus doing more than his share of the heavy lifting to keep Dubaku on track and not just going and getting wiped out because… reasons.

So, all that said the question that sticks out to me is; how many Lions left Armageddon? We know there were 96 when they pushed into the gap, and it is stated that when the Ork warlord fell, Dubaku was the only one left standing, that means they got the crap kicked out of them. I don’t think it implies that he was the last one left alive, though I guess it could be interpreted as such, I choose not to. That said, certainly all 96 did not survive that battle.

For my purposes I have decided that 17 Lions survived, along with Dubaku that makes 18. The force I’m building will likely be centered around this battle hardened cadre of survivors, they will make up my Veteran Sgt’s as well as any Stern/Vanguard squads I field. I don’t know if, initially I will field Terminators. For Dubaku himself I am strongly considering Kantor, he gives Sternguard ObSec, and preferred enemy Orks also makes sense for a Lions army. I figure the SternGuard having ObSec is a fitting representation of the surviving Armageddon Vets.

The problem with Kantor is the power fist. I have always imagined Dubaku with a nice big choppy power or chainsword, it wouldn’t be wysiwyg, but he may end up with a massive eviscerator or something along those lines, the stormbolter works fine, it just gets renamed to something suitably lion-ey. Maybe some sort of greatsword with PFist stats to represent the sword of one of the fallen Captains…

Warleader Vularkh buried the war-sword “Je’hara” in the beast’s belly and carved three metres of stinking alien guts free. It did nothing.

I also really want to do a small unit of Vanguard vets painted up as Black Templars to represent the Sword Brethren that returned to Elysium with the Lions. The idea of Dubaku rolling around with them in the thick of things because he can’t afford to deploy his veterans that way yet appeals to me, with the idea being that he has had to spread his veterans around the newly formed squads to ensure their wisdom and experience is leveraged towards the future.

Elysium rises.

No pity. No remorse. No fear.

So, I was goofing around the other day with one of the Masters of the Chapter kits, specifically the dude with the Thunder Hammer. I have always really liked that pose, but I knew I didn’t want to just do a simple headswap with him, so I cut off the hammer and filed down the shoulderpad a bit to fit on one of the massive Kromlech chainsword/eviscerator bitz. I think it looks pretty spiffy. It’s not complete, there is some obvious gap filling to be done.

Now, the obvious headswap to go with it is the first one below, Captains crest, proper modern choppy loyalist Astartes right. Then I started poking around with the various bitz I had and came across the WE Veteran helmet, which, imo totally works as far as the composition of the model, but… It breaks the image I have of Heresy era Astartes. I have always seen them as more brutally functional and efficient, less capes and frills and gaudiness (ain’t nobody got time for that), any decoration being primarily functional; crests of rank, vexilla etc… I’m torn, because I think a World Eater (or hell, Warhound) Captain would be a really cool model to paint up, I don’t know if the amount of bling is appropriate. Maybe I cop out and say he’s a Dornian Heresy World Eater Captain.

Ok, technically Ukranian I guess. Ordered some Terminator bitz from WarGame Exclusive. Pretty happy with these guys, they should make for some good characters, or maybe I cold repurpose them for Arjac’s Shieldbrothers. They are definitely more Cataphracti feel, and the little dangly bits for the shoulderpads and crotchal area are separate. I’ll probably skip using the as they seem kinda fiddly to get placed correctly and I really can’t be arsed. I have some stuff from Puppetswar coming as well, so we will see how mixing that stuff up shakes out with these.

The crested helmets in different marks are pretty self explanatory. These are all super nice, got some definite mould lines on the MK4, but nothing that isn’t easily cleanable.

So I have let my modeling ADD get the best of me again. I have an idea for a small, yes actually small Raptors force.

It will be as follows.

1 Librarian

1 Tactical Squad with Razorback
1 Scout Sniper Squad

 with a Land Speeder Storm

I also have bits for a 5 man tank hunter assault squad set out that may or may not get done in this initial push.

Comes out right at 500 points, so that should be fun to goof around with a bit. The tacticals, and probably most of the power armored infantry in the army going forward will be based off of Anvil Industries Black Ops kits, to give them a slightly non standard look and as seen above the scouts will all get helmets via the new IG Stormtrooper kits, because the non helmeted scouts look all kinds of goofy.

I have been thinking about how to do color scheme, since the stuff for the Raptors is kinda all over the place. So this is what I have come up with for the Color Bible.

Raptors Color Bible

Armor: Olive Drab.
Squad marking: Vertical stripe on the right shoulderpad.
Company marking: Lower plate of the right shoulderpad as a roman numeral.
Squad Leaders: Slate grey helmet stripe.
Sgt: Slate grey helmet.
Veteran Sgt’s & Veteran Marines: Slate grey helmet with stripe matching company color.
Librarium: Olive Drab armor with Librarian blue right shoulderpad. (maybe full right arm blue.)
Apothercarium: Olive Drab Armor with white helmet and narcethium. (Maybe white apotherary shoulderpad.)
Chaplain: Codex standard.

Squad colors

1st Squad: Black
2nd Squad: Blue
3rd Squad: Yellow
4th Squad: Red
5th Squad: Black with red bloodstripe
6th Squad: Black with blue bloodstripe
7th Squad: Black with yellow bloodstripe
8th Squad: Yellow with black bloodstripe
9th Squad: Yellow with blue bloodstripe
10th Squad: Yellow with red  bloodstripe

Some of the FW pics have various marines with a vertical black stripe on the torso of their armor, that may or may not get incorporated. With the Black Ops torsos there is a lot of kit on them so that might get lost and just being visual noise. We shall see.

Legion of the Damned. I put a squad of these guys together using a mix of Anvil Industries bitz, Chaos bolters and regular Marine bitz. I think they came out well. I really can’t be arsed with painting most of the time, I really like building and kitbashing stuff though so… I met a guy here in Vegas who does commission work and his stuff is fantastic, first look at the LotD squad he’s working on for me.

UPDATE!!!

Got the completed (sans backpacks because I’m a jackass and couldn’t find them when I handed off the models) squad this weekend. I’m super happy with these minis. More of his stuff is on instagram RIGHT HERE!!