Badab War

Where better to start than with the Minotaurs Chapter. Renowned for their ruthlessness and brutality, the Minotaurs entered the war in its fourth year, committing their entire Chapter and bringing with them eleven capital ships. Their most famous action during the campaign was the wholesale defeat of the Lamenters Chapter in a close-quarters space battle in the Optera System in the closing days of the early Badab Uprising in 908.M41.

The vicious close quarters fighting of this famous incident will definitely be one of the events I emulate on the tabletop. The minis depicted here are a mixture of GW, Kromlech and Anvil Industry parts. The missile launcher is lead and is around 27 years old!

My Badaab war project is still ongoing, I have lots of miniatures built and converted, but what kind of hobbyist would I be if I wasn’t derailed by new ideas. A friend and I were discussing how large 40k is as a setting, and how much scope there is for projects in parts of the lore that are mentioned only is passing. We got to discussing Caliban, and how cool it would be to use a rule set like Rangers of Shadowdeep to play as the legendary monster hunting knights of pre Imperium Caliban, and before we knew it were drawing up plans for conversions.

The second knight, armed the same as the first, but displaying his own unique nature and weapons. I am currently painting squires for each of them and we plan to set our games thousands of years before the Lion was discovered by Luther. I’ve also picked up a Mindstealer to use as a Great Beast.

I have suffered further derailment of my Badab War project, but as a wargamer I know full well that this is the Way… Anyway, my knights of Caliban needed a Great Beast to hunt, and I fell in love with the Mindstealer as soon as I saw it. The paint scheme is inspired by a certain cartoon cat. I’m not sure that there is a suitable existing monster in Rangers of Shadowdeep whose stats I can use so I will have to make my own. Next I’m going to finish the squires, then back to the Badab war. Probably.

It wouldn’t be the Badab War without the Carcharodon Astra, or Space Sharks in low Gothic. This is the sergeant of an assault squad currently being painted. The mini itself is from 1993/94, 2nd edition era, and is all lead, except for the claw that I added in place of the original power fist. I remember painting him up originally as a Blood Angel, but I think he has now found his true calling. The scale is well off current minis, but I have given him a bigger base and raised him up a bit to try and hide it. It’s not like GW scale is consistent anyway. I will be using Primaris Marines in this project alongside old lead minis. They won’t be Primaris in my games, but as the minis are as big as Space Marines should have been anyway, I am just going to mix it all together.

So, Space Marines weren’t the only belligerents in the Badab War, there were millions of men and women drawn into the conflict, both loyalist and separatist, allowing me a lot of scope on what can be brought to the tabletop.

I had the Rogue Trader minis from the Kill Team box set just sitting around waiting for paint, so I figured ‘who better to run the blockades and supply the Separatist forces?’ Some Rogue Trader would be willing to put profit before loyalty to the throne, if the Tyrant was willing to pay.

I like the idea of playing out a boarding action, with Marines storming a Rogue Trader vessel or interrupting a secret supply drop. I could also use them as household guard for some Maelstrom zone planetary governor. Whatever I use them for I’m glad I finally got them painted.

You can’t have the Badab War without it’s main instigators, the Astral Claws. Now, as previously mentioned, I have a range of Space Marine miniatures ranging from 1993 to 2020, and scale creep is an issue. The old metal models are dwarfed by their modern counterparts. To combat this issue I have decided on a drastic course of action; I have decided not to care.

None of GW’s minis are to scale, Terminators should be huge, for one example, and Primaris Marines are just the size that the Marines should have been in the first place. I plan to mix vintage models with current era Primaris and I just can’t be bothered to care about the size difference, especially given how fond I am of my old models. Which brings me to this guy…

It’s an old model, but it still holds up, especially since I will be playing games using 2nd edition 40k where he can actually use the grenade launcher and digital weapons on his power glove. He will probably earn a name and background once I start playing games with him, but for now I envision him as a regional commander, controlling his own theatre of operations. Of course, every good commander needs and adjutant…

I obtained an old Epic Emperor Titan model from a friend. Legio Crucius was involved in the Badab war so that’s what this guy will be painted up as. Looks like my battles aren’t all going to be small scale skirmishes after all.

I didn’t like the pose so I cut him up and stuck him back together in a more dynamic stance. Foot on rock!

I haven’t updated this project for a while, but with a game coming up I need to get some stuff painted.

The Tyrant’s Legion are one of my favorite aspects of the Badab war, a regional version of the Imperial Guard made up of PDF, conscripts and later, pirates. This is my attempt at representing the more professional end of the spectrum of the Legion. These will be the separatists version of Tempestus Scions, or Storm Troopers.