Hello there!
Scrivo here reporting in for a bit of a longform post about my progress on my Dark Angels and their origin.
I was an Ork player, plain and simple. Back in ’94 I had a Fantastically bizarre collection of metal models and an obsession with Squigs, which led to my nickname at School to be ‘Squigs’.
Thankfully that one faded into the immaterium.
Early in my 20s I battled on a deadlier battlefield: that of nightclubs, bars and pubs. I found myself pulled away from my lifelong hobby and I continued to watch from afar whilst putting my artistic focus on Comic Book creation…
Skip forward to the embers of my 20s, I was settled. I had a beautiful wife who supported my failed attempts at the life of a Comic Book creator. I found myself needing an artistic distraction that wasn’t sequential art. Out came an Ork Battleforce I’d bought in a moment of weakness a few years prior. The weird thing was my original hobby group, all 4 of us felt the pull and admitted in our Group chat to painting minis, this built to the point that we all celebrated our 30th birthdays on our first pilgrimage to Warhammer World.
In the months after we all looked to start second and in some cases third army projects. Saim Hann Craftworlds were exploration. My Dad had Biel-tan when I was a kid but I loved fast and red, like Evil Sunz?!
I dabbled and explored where to go next. Bev had his our custom Chapter and Tom had Space Wolves (almost my choice!) so I scrolled the GW stuff to make an informed choice, the army needed the following things to be true:
- Their own custom units
- Lots of characterful Epic Heroes
- Their own shoulder upgrade kits in plastic
- Fast moving stuff BUT also Terminators
This flashed me back to those early 90s where I had the first edition Space Hulk off a Wargames Show Bring n Buy sale for £10. After months of heavy gameplay I found myself in possession of the expansion: Deathwing.
Feck, I’m painting white Terminators now, aren’t I?
So I went with Dark Angels! This was the end of 7th edition so I grabbed a copy of Dark Vengeance for those sick Ravenwing Bikers (RIP) and those Short Kings, Deathwing Terminators.
My initial force was that box and 3 tactical squad with Rhinos (a bundle box of the time).
Jump forward to the end of 8th edition I’m playing with them at events, sometimes with some questionable unit choices, but they were my choices! By this point I’d stumbled across Mr Tom Lowman and kept cooking up Narrative stories with him, including a short lived series on a local Batrep YT channel, Twisted Dice.
Then a few years go by, I found myself not happy with the Green/White/Black scheme across my Successor Chapter. The Brotherhood of Redemption needed something to push my hobby interest. To celebrate The Lion returning, they decided (me, it was me!) to repaint their Ceramite in Black in tribute. This plan was sown by my Kill Team ‘Risen Angels of Death’. Which found me using only Robed and Hooded heads to make a fun little Kill Team (that I used at Warhammer Worlds first KT24 event).
The project hit full swing for LGT 2025, with my Stormlance Task Force being produced in all Black (except the Repulsor, sorry folks!). I put it out for Best army. It never was going to win in such a competitive field, but completing the force and being proud of it meant more. I just wanted to share my pride.
For the current WTC cycle I’ve been deep in scrims with my beloved Orks but still needed to keep an eye on my Watchers in the Dark, so a Crusade force was born. More on this will come, but timed with the Crux Terminatus boxset, you’ll clearly be able to guess what theme it’ll take!
Until next time,
Scrivo x