Starminer Builds...Crimson Fists Display Board

This is not a new project, being completed several years ago to participate in a friend’s tournament, but as this is my first project blog (I’ve been very quiet in the hobby scene for a while due to life changes), I figured I would bring something that, to me, is a timeless piece of 40K lore to a little bit of life.

If you are like me, you enjoy displaying your army in a unique themed way. Especially if you are playing in a larger public setting, like local tournaments, narrative play events, or in presentation competitions, such as Games Workshop’s Armies on Parade. Often, such events recommend, if not require, a display board of some sort.

As a grognard who has played Warhammer 40,000 since 1st Edition, I have always had a Crimson Fists army of one iteration or another. And though I’ve sold off, gifted, or traded many units from the army, they have always fascinated, and been a chapter I have loved for that nostalgia factor.

I continue to grow it as new models appear that grab my attention and would make suitable narrative story additions. It’s gradually grown and changed over the years but one thing remains, their stalwart determination to recover, rebuild, and overcome overwhelming odds time and time again.

The narrative of the destruction of their citadel on Rynn’s World tells their whole story in a single moment, and can be captured in a single image.  So what better narrative for a themed display board for this army than a ruined Crimson Fists chapel, or administratum building?

Now that I have a theme and image in mind, I needed to come up with a plan to bring it to fruition.

You don’t always need a plan, and freeform terrain building is fine. But there is usually a vision that drives that, and often you find  yourself shifting gears as plans formulate in your head when you get to work. That’s a perfectly valid, and fun way to build terrain. But for this, I had to meet certain criteria.

So, I listed my goals:

1. Tell a narrative story.
2. Display a reasonably sized Warhammer 40K army.
3. Conform to display size limits for tournament or army painting competition.
4. Easy to build.
5. Portable.
6. High quality finish.

I already had my theme sorted, so the narrative story followed. I planned to have the army emerging from the ruins of a chapter building, with their chapter heraldry prominently displayed.

The size followed. As the most important thing for me was to be able to use it for GW’s Armies on Parade, it had to conform to the maximum size of 24″x24″. This was handy, because most reasonably sized Space Marine armies at the time could easily fit in that space.

Making it easy to build would be sorted by sourcing a wooden art canvas and frame of suitable size from the local art supply store, which was sturdy, light, and had a nice finish.

Being armed with that information, I sketched out my concept to approximate scale.