SICK & TWISTED

 Over the years I have fallen prey to the "Look Shiney !" syndrome that many wargamers suffer from, one of the earliest cases of this was during 2 nd Ed 40K, when the new Chaos Codex came out, with lots of cool characters within it's pages, later on I realised that special characters weren't the way to go, with their massive points cost, and more expensive models, but at the time, collected up most of the character releases, Abaddon which I painted up straight away as my entry for Golden Demon ( made finalist) and the other two, then sat in varying states until now. As I'm clearing old projects I decided to finish both as a break from units I'm currently working on, up first is Fabius Bile, here's a little information on him, if you don't know who I'm talking about :

Fabius Bile, also called the "Clone Lord" and the "Primogenitor," is a Chaos Space Marine Apothecary, originally the Chief Apothecary of the Emperor's Children Legion, who has repeatedly attempted to use his extensive knowledge of cloning and genetic engineering to create superhuman beings under his control.

The goal of his quest for knowledge is to match and then exceed the Emperor of Mankind's original scientific achievement in creating the primarchs and the transhuman Adeptus Astartes, in the hope of creating a truly perfect Human form.

Travelling the galaxy more widely than any other Chaos Lord of the Traitor Legions, Bile has earned a number of epithets and aliases from those who have suffered the affects of his vile experiments. On Dimmamar, Bile was known as the "Chem-master", for there he changed the atomic composition of the air until the population was forced to ingest his transformative serums or slowly suffocate. On Arden IX and in the Bray System he is "Manflayer," for there he would wear the skins of those who opposed him as a great stitched cloak, forcing the skinless survivors to carry the garment behind him like a bridal train. To the wretched tribes living among the ravaged hives of Paramar V he is the "Clone Lord", for he vat-grew obedient twins of every firstborn child and replaced them with their doppelgangers the better to guide the planet's descent into darkness.

To Bile himself, there is only one title that does his magnificence justice -- the "Primogenitor". He believes that in him is the Emperor's boundless artistry reborn. He claims he has unlocked the secrets of the Emperor's earliest replicae experiments during the creation of the primarchs and the first Space Marines. Bile's twisted alchemical knowledge and skills at genetic manipulation can be attested to by every planet he has had contact with, for he has left a trail of foul deviants and twisted abominations wherever his ships have landed.

His name has become a curse to the High Lords of Terra and those of the Adeptus Astartes' Apothecarion who have learned of his legend. Many believe that he has irrevocably tainted Mankind's gene pool, polluting it with hidden growth strains and lurking corruptions. Some scattered Chaos Cults even worship him as Pater Mutatis, father of all the mutants that skulk in the underbelly of the Imperium. It is a belief that Bile does nothing to dissuade.

Fabius Bile is accursed throughout the galaxy and a Renegade even from his own Legion. Formerly of the Emperor's Children, Bile's fascination was always with the mysteries of life, not death. Amidst the carnage of the Horus Heresy, Bile aided the Emperor's Children in their inexorable journey into the embrace of Slaanesh. He altered their brain chemistry to sharpen their senses and connected their pleasure centres more directly to their nervous systems so that every stimulus would bring them unholy joy.

Bile left Terra before Horus' defeat, accompanied by a retinue of altered followers. He moved through the war-torn Imperium like a shard of glass through an intestinal tract, selling his services to rebel commanders for prisoners, genetic samples and ancient technologies. Many ambitious overlords came to rue the day they let Bile experiment on their armies, until his acts of genocide and other atrocities sickened even the most deranged maniacs. He eventually found his way to the Eye of Terror, where he offered his services to the highest bidders, promising the Champions of Chaos vile cures for their problems. There he set up a new base of operations upon a Crone World. Once, it had been home to the best and brightest of the Aeldari civilisation; now it was a darkened, twisted place of crawling madness.

Most of Bile's experiments end with his subjects dead or so horribly deformed they might wish for death. Yet the altered specimens of Bile's efforts exhibit strength many times greater than the human norm. These are Bile's proudest creations, the New Man that forms the pinnacle of his foul art.

The shattered Traitor Legions making their home in the Eye of Terror have particular need of Fabius Bile's skills. His augmented warriors and bio-magicks can give a warband of Heretic Astartes a vital edge, and cloned warriors and slaves are put to good use on a hundred battlefields. Yet it was the skills Bile once learned as an Apothecary of the Emperor's Children that are most precious to the lords of Chaos. The Traitor Legions still need the ability to extract the Progenoid Glands of the fallen in order to create new Chaos Space Marines, and in this strange art Bile is undoubtedly preeminent.

Without such skills, the Long War would slowly grind to a halt, and the fires that Horus had lit would go out forever. With so much influence at his behest, Fabius Bile has negotiated cunning if fragile bargains with the Daemon Primarchs, selling his secrets to each of them but refusing to aid one more than any other. In this way the Primogenitor ensures his position at the heart of a web of influence that spans across the Eye of Terror and beyond. Since the birth of the Great Rift, he has used his leverage to a singular end -- the capture of the Primaris Space Marines sighted across the galaxy. His fondest desire is to harvest the genetic bounty of Primarch Roboute Guilliman himself.

Due to the original infection of the III Legion's gene-seed by the virus known as "the Blight" which still affects him, Bile's gene-seed organs soon sprout tumors that result in his rapid physical decay and death. He has managed to sustain his life over the long Terran centuries by creating clones of himself and transferring his own brain into them, one after another for millennia.

As far as the model goes I've gone for the more modern scheme for him, with the armour still being in Emperors Children colours ( pre heresy) no conversion, just getting it finished.

Next up is Ahriman, also a standard model, this is his background :

Ahriman, whose full name is Ahzek Ahriman, is a Chaos Space Marine and the most powerful Chaos Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion after their Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red himself. Ahzek Ahriman was once the Chief Librarian and first captain of the ancient Thousand Sons Legion.

Ahriman has always sought to better comprehend the nature of his patron Chaos God Tzeentch and of the force of Chaos itself and gain the unrivalled power such knowledge will bring.

His action in crafting the Rubric of Ahriman, perhaps one of the greatest works of sorcery in history, would ultimately result in his banishment from the Legion he had hoped to safeguard. It is his intense need to find a way to undo the effects of the Rubric upon his beloved Thousand Sons that first drove Ahriman on his quest to seek out the deepest knowledge of Chaos. He remains a wanderer across the galaxy, forever searching for any knowledge that will allow him to finally grasp the greatest of all enigmas in the universe -- the true nature of Tzeentch himself.

Across a thousand worlds, Ahriman has sought the keys to save what he has already destroyed through his own hubris among the Thousand Sons. The scars of this obsession found across the galaxy have made his name a curse in the mouths of Humans and aliens alike. Scraps of arcane lore, artefacts both obscure and profane, and rare but psychically powerful souls draw him like a raven to a corpse.

To the Craftworld Aeldari, Ahriman is the carrion scribe who eats the souls of their dying race for secrets; to the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus he is the lightning rod which brings a storm of Daemons; amongst the servants of Chaos he is a flame of power and trickery as likely to burn those drawn to his light as to illuminate them.

A master of subtle manipulation, Ahriman has seeded Chaos Cults on a hundred worlds, and bent the desires of the powerful to achieve his ends. With conspiracies and plots spread across the galaxy, he coils between them, a puppet master pulling invisible strings. When such subtle means are impossible he wages a sorcerer's war, forcing armies to kneel with visions of terror, shattering war machines with invisible forces, and ripping the souls from mighty heroes.

Ahriman knows the True Names of Daemons, and possesses pacts which can bring daemonic armies flocking to his call. Worlds have burned at his command, billions have fallen to the hunger of the Warp, and reality has bled at the fury of his power.  

Ahriman refuses to acknowledge either Tzeentch or Chaos itself as his master. Across the ensuing millennia he has become a scourge of the Imperium, raiding ancient museums, librariums, scholaria and reclusia, places of learning, religion and contemplative thought. He seeks to acquire artefacts, data, or even persons he believes can lead him to fully master the way of the sorcerer.

He fosters Chaos Cults on dozens of worlds at a time, providing the cults' chosen magi with sorcerous power until such time as they have acquired some antiquarian trinket or satisfied another of Ahriman's demands before turning the wrath of his Thousand Sons' warband of Chaos Space Marines, the Prodigal Sons, upon them and seizing all they have for himself.

Paint wise I've gone for the newer colour scheme again, and even done some freehand on the cloak.

I hadn't planned on doing these models, but found them while I was looking for some Death Cultists, couldn't find them, but may well have given them to a friend to help out on their army, or they're just hidden somewhere I haven't thought of looking yet ! LOL That's all for this post, so until next time stay and have fun !

Cheers Dave