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Now about another system that caught my attention. Trench Crusade!

This game, made by one and only Tuomas Pirinen- creator of Mordheim, is amazing. Not only is it the real grimdark, forces of God are battling literally hell creatures but that doesn't mean they are above using some truly horrific tactics, but it also plays smoothly like butter. The art created for this game is also something truly breathtaking, horrid creatures and broken people in the world where hope is the only thing that keeps people going, where it's truly the biggest curse to live another day being besieged by demons, heretics and unholy creations of metal, flesh and blood. It's truly wonderful.

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Time to talk about my favorite sci-fi trope that is severely underutilized.

In most sci-fi stories involving aliens, humanity is the faction that is the underdog, the ones being hunted down by superior beings that are physically and sometimes mentally stronger than us. I think that it's a fairly boring take that has been overplayed to death throughout the ages.

What I propose instead is aliens are afraid of us; just think about it. The two main substances humanity needs to survive are water and oxygen. Both of those substances have great destructive power that we don't think about every day. Oxygen oxidizes stuff in your cells, which means that we are setting ourselves on fire (albeit on a very small scale) with every breath we take. Water is a combination of hydrogen, one of the most volatile elements out there, you know the stuff that STARS are made of, and the aforementioned oxygen. Our world is essentially hell, and we are all demons breathing fire and drinking death.

We are also a very war-like species, every few years we basically make our planet explode for no better reason than to earn a piece of land for "our own people", or to earn a few shiny coins or a piece of paper with no inherent worth, it's scary to think what we would be capable of if we faced true enemy, an existential threat, and not enemy we made ourselves out of greed or spite.

We also right now in our times wield terrible destructive power that can be summoned with a flicker of a wrist. Atomic bomb was invented before solar panels, we found a way to summon the core of a star to destroy each other before we found a easy way to turn natural power of the sun into hot water. It's utterly terrifying and fascinating to me.

Average human is also a fairly durable and tough creature, it takes more than you think to take us down if you don't know where to aim that. We also breed like rabbits so if you take one of us down ten more are ready to take their place.

I think that's why i love imperial guard so much, we are talking what is essentialy a modern-day army, just with better equipment going against horryfic xenos and still winning, still snaching bloodied victory from the vicious claws of defeat. We might not be the toughest or smartest species out there but the combination of our traits makes us one of the most powerful forces out there (if we ignore tyrandis but you can't get better than bioweapon mixed with cthulu tbh, that's a bit unfair comparison at the best of days)

If you are a creative type creating a sci-fi universe, don't be afraid of making humans the biggest badasses out there. We drink poison and we breathe fire and we should be proud of that!

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God-Machines by John Michelbach

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some battletech logos I did awhile ago

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Battletech Mercenaries by Marco Mazzoni

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Now a word about Solar Auxilia.

My boys and girls are really underappreciated, both on the table and in the fluff (they show up in only one Black Library book!!!) but I think they are one of the most important parts of the heresy era fluff and they show how far Imperium has fallen throughout the ages.

They were an elite of the human army, taking roughly 1/5th of all the forces. Considered to be second only to astartes those men and women fought in the most dangerous environments, being constantly barraged by enemy ordnance and facing horrors that made even the marines flinch.

Similar to their real life counterpart in the form of roman cohorts they were all professional soldiers, who after serving for a certain period of time were given land to own, financial compensation for their service and in the case of 30k version of the formation even rejuvenation treatment to "give back" years of their life they gave for the Imperium.

Service in solar auxilia was really taxing tho. Their specialisation was in void warfare so they primarily fought in Zone Mortalis which required from them top-tier physical prowess, as well as unflinching morale because inside of ships there is nowhere to run and one weak link might break the chain of Solar Auxilia's assault.

On more open battlefields they preferred the tactics of aggressive defence. They deployed pre-fab fortifications, used dracosan and malcador tanks to establish kill zones and used heavy ordnance batteries to force their enemies to move to them, minimising their own losses and maximizing that of the enemies.

Their main strength was the fact that every single part of their operation was optimised to the highest degree. Every piece of equipment was standardized and produced only in the most trusted forgeworlds. When astartes were often starved of ammunition, armour and spare parts throughout the conflict auxilia was built to last.

Also they look like spacemen from old pulp book covers and i think that's neat.

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SLAYERS!

They have to be my favourite part of the dwarven army and the most original and interesting thing that differentiates them from their more classically Tolkien-esque counterparts.

They are dwarfs who swore off their lives to erase a stain from their honour, to atone in death for the sins of the past, no matter how small or grand they were because for warhammer dwarfs honour is all.

What is interesting is that there are three distinct reactions to taking the slayer oath. Some dwarfs fall into depression, shunning away from everyone but fellow slayers and priests of Grimnir, others become happy and extroverted because in death you do not need to worry about society's restraints, and of course there are those slayers like Malakai Makaisson or Snorri Nosebiter who simply go crazy. The only common thing that binds them is their oath, something more than sacred for them, that orders them forward in search of great doom that will send them to the halls of their ancestors.

In one of the Gotrek and Felix books they meet a lich priest of the Tomb Kings, when he was inquired by Jaeger as to why the dwarf helps the undead the priest answers that matters of the dead do not concern the living. He then explains that when Felix is brimming with life to the point of bursting, Gotrek's line of life was already severed which shows that slayer's oath is more than mere words etched in stone.

There are some musings as to why something like the cult of Grimnir exists in dwarfen society. Some claim that is nothing but a natural consequence of how the dwarfen psyche works a sense of honour taken to its most dangerous extreme, others say that it's a release valve for society that lives under constant pressure of expectations, restrictions and traditions, and there is also a third theory posed by Bitter the slayer who said that Grimnir took his axe and marched north because he could not stand constant nagging of his family.

When you look at the whole picture you start to realise how selfish the oath is. You, for your own sense of honour, abandon all you hold dear and seek death in battle, essentially wasting your skills, knowledge and wisdom throwing it all away at the pyre of glory. At the same time there is something tragically romantic about the whole thing, mighty doom seekers traveling the length and breadth of the world, oftentimes accompanied by human or dwarfish remembrancer poets, to find glorious death slaying enemies of order. I can't help but feel sympathetic to those crazy orange crested maniacs.

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I had to make this post or I'd explode. Death Korps of Krieg and Vostroyan Firstborn are really similar, yet they show how your experiences shape you as a person.

Lets start with the Krieg boys and girls. They are a uniquely dour bunch that are willing to give their lives just to buy some time for their allies or to gain mere meters of ground in prolonged conflict. Contrary to what popular memes will make you believe they are not suicidal (hell during the Vraks conflict there is one recored instance of krieg soldiers executing their commissar because he ordered a suicide charge on enemy positions), they and their generals just see themselves as assets to be spent atoning for sins of their past. In one of the best books from 40k verse i've ever read "Dead men walking" it's portrayed briantly. Local populations inducted into DKoK regiments are stripped of their personalities and made to forget their names, their past lives and faces of their brothers and sisters to turn them into perfect meat shields ready to kill and die for smallest of advantages. Honestly, that book was brutal and it showed how dehumanising the training regime Kriegans go through really is, and to think that they are shipped off to active war zones at the age of (at most) 16 is really horrifying.

Now, about Vostroya: they too are spending their lives atoning for the sins of their forefathers; they too are a siege regiment focused on CQB and positional warfare; and they too have cool gas masks. Yet, despite all of those similarities, they could not be more different. While DKoK needs commissars just to talk with other members of the Empire because they are so devoid of common humanity, others simply feel uneasy around them. Vostroyans are one big family, ready to kill and die for each other. They are the firstborn sons and daughters of their world, being welcomed into the regiment by their aunts and uncles, who are taking care of them and keeping an eye on them on the battlefields of the dangerous galaxy of the 40k's universe. Their distant brothers and sisters prepare mastercrafted equipment, knowing fully well that the lasguns they create will be used by their kin. They are fanatical to the point of madness and their effectiveness is on par of that of the Dead Korps of krieg yet their attrition rate is much, much lower, and I think that it's not only owed to differences in equipment but also to the fact that they are loyal not only to the empire but also to each other. After all, blood is thicker than water.

Now a word about irl inspirations for both regiments: contrary to popular belief DKoK are based off FRENCH soldiers of WW1, not Germans and no, they do not use shovels more than any other regiments. A mace is a much better weapon in trench warfare because shovels have a nasty tendency to getting stuck in things that go squish. Vostroyans are a blend of cossacks, russian streltsi, Polish nobility, and professional soldiers of XVIIth century, as well as a healthy dose of Nikola Tesla-inspired dieselpunk. It's criminal how underrepresented slavs are in popular sci-fi IP's btw.

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Compared to Dark Angels the Death Guard are a really simple legion. Their heresy era history is the history of their primarch- Mortarion and his brother Calas Typhon.

The noble sons of Old Albia were inducted into Emperor's legions and created the Dusk Raiders- legion that focused on rapid fire attacks and who were merciful and honored diplomatic agreements with their enemies. Sadly, it all changed when they were reunited with their primarch- Mortarion. Gone were the days of lightning strikes that broke the enemy with minimal casualties on both sides; the newly formed Death Guard became a legion that favored attrition warfare. Every single legionary was trained to be a versatile killing machine, and unlike in other legions, they could fulfill any role that was required of them, from being a line tactical legionary with nothing but bolter to his name to a heavy support squad member wielding the most powerful weaponry available to Legiones Astartes.

Mortarion is one of the few primarchs whose name and story don't relate to any work of literature. His name comes from Latin word "Mors" which means death and his appearance is that of the grim reaper. What is interesting is that before the fall he was the architipical hero of the people. Running away from his first adoptive father, xeno sorcerer who was alligned to Nurgle, he helped ordinary people of the planet shed the yoke of their necromancer overlords and take control of the planet. During the crusade he and his sons did not show mercy when facing tyrants who enslaved others. What Mortarion failed to see was that he left people he freed shell-shocked and traumatized due to massive casualities his preferred tactics created.

During the Heresy he sided with Horus and became everything he hated. He despised psykers due to trauma that he suffered at the hands of his first father yet he turned to daemonology the moment he realized that it could give him great power. While during the crusade he brutally punished every tyrant and enslaver he turned into one during the Heresy, all in the name of killing the Emperor.

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Finally got some time and energy from other projects to continue this one! Things are getting a bit heated inside the ork stompa.

If you wish to see the whole comic, here are some links to the earlier parts:

Part 1: https://epireancrusade.tumblr.com/post/656509289587982336/on-the-agri-world-of-moloch-ii-the-hordes-of

Part 2: https://epireancrusade.tumblr.com/post/664030014036148224/finally-continuation-for-the-comic-i-started

Part 3: https://epireancrusade.tumblr.com/post/672929576126709760/i-have-been-rather-busy-being-tired-and-depressed

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Both honestly, more and more things are either done off-screen or waved away with one sentence, the rules have holes in them and are dictated not by what's best for the game but what corporate dictates, OW being a great example here. Bests got killed off AGAIN because small tribal warfare within the company rages on for way too long now.

One of the funniest things about this fandom to me is the almost jolly hatred everyone has for Games Workshop. Like you get enough 40k fans together, and sooner or later someone is going to complain about Games Workshop, and then everyone joins in on how trash they are. It's a bonding experience. Everyone blithely operates under the assumption that Games Workshop sucks, that we all agree that Games Workshop sucks, and that it will continue to suck forever and ever. And we will keep on impoverishing ourselves on their overpriced minis and never-ending fount of media.

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The thing is most experienced hobbyists i know are either 3D printing their own stuff, buying 3rd party products or simply have moved away from GW stuff entirely. It's just people that don't know any better, that don't have a supporting circle of "hobby friends" to rely on that are still buying stuff directly from that company. The fact that this hobby attracts mainly neurodivergent people means that the company can easily create a parasocial relationship with their customer base. It's a really scummy practice but it works well enough to keep their growth steady despite lack of logistics and ever failing quality of their products (other than models that are still great obviously). They never were good at writing rules but their fluff had more good parts than bad but in recent years the quality dropped so hard it soon will be reaching Earth's core.

One of the funniest things about this fandom to me is the almost jolly hatred everyone has for Games Workshop. Like you get enough 40k fans together, and sooner or later someone is going to complain about Games Workshop, and then everyone joins in on how trash they are. It's a bonding experience. Everyone blithely operates under the assumption that Games Workshop sucks, that we all agree that Games Workshop sucks, and that it will continue to suck forever and ever. And we will keep on impoverishing ourselves on their overpriced minis and never-ending fount of media.

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Blackshield

commission art

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A post shared by Michael Kirkbride (@michael_kirkbride)

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GW doesn't get enough credit for how they have crafted their dwarves in WHFB's fluff. Unlike in other IPs they are not just little bearded people who talk funny and care only about two things in life: beer and killing elves. They are utterly alien creatures who, while having some similarities with humans, don't think and function like them. For dwarves, every memory is as fresh as if it happened minutes ago, which is both a blessing and a curse. Perfect memory gives you the ability to create works of engineering, but it also makes every wound and every slight against you feel like something you have to address because otherwise the pain will never go away, and it will remain with you till you die. That's where slayers come from: dwarves who have shame so great it leads them to being dead while alive, sheding their past and their future to atone for their, most of the time, percived grave mistakes. It can be a thing truly great and dire, like allowing an enemy to infiltrate your hold and kill your loved ones, or something petty, like creating inferior armor that did not meet your master's standards.

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Was up horusing my heresy yesterday

First time painting in months since my work accident and I was pretty happy how I handled a brush. Lmk what you guys think

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Warhammer Empire fan art. Averlanders. Illustrations made for LARP group Sigmar mit Uns: https://www.facebook.com/groups/100445717072332