Throwback Thursday: Penitent Crusade Assault Marines

A long time ago, in a  galaxy far, far away…

Well okay, maybe not that long ago, but it certainly feels like it!  Games Day 2006, to be exact.  This was my first ever official tournament, and I wanted to really push the envelope.  It took me about 6 months, but I ended up creating a Black Templar force that I christened the "Penitent Crusade".

This was my first real foray into converting and sculpting, and I dove in head-first. 

The Penitent Crusade's name came from a short story I wrote about a Black Templar Crusade that lost so horribly to an Ork force, that they actually ran.  I'm not talking a "tactical retreat" here.  They RAN.  The only one who refused to run was the Emperor's Champion, who was promptly knocked out by the Crusade's Chaplain and drug from the field unconscious. 

…I wish I could find the full short story, I'd love to give it a once-over and post it.  Oh well.

I ended up taking a lot of inspiration for the look of these models from historical crusading knights.  Often they would travel with their heraldry hidden or obscured for many reasons, one of which being that their honor was disgraced in some way.  To that end, every member of the Penitent Crusade has their Heraldry on their shoulder pads obscured by a rough fur cloak.  The only member to escape this disgrace was the Champion himself, as he did not run, but was instead drug from the field.  Only he in my entire army bore the Cross of the Black Templars out in the open.

This Throwback Thursday, I'm going to feature the Assault Marines from my Crusade.  All of them were converted heavily, and none were left stock.  Every base was hand made and constructed to fit the pose of each Marine.  Every pose was changed in some way so as to not have a single stock figure in the force.  I think I've accomplished this fairly well here!  It was a blast exploring converting and sculpting the clocks and fur with green stuff for the first time.  I haven't ever looked back since.

Unfortunately I appear to have lost many of the pictures I took of the models in the Crusade, and it looks like the unpainted Assault Marines took a hit.  I only have 9 of the 10.

Still, 9 out of 10 isn't too bad!  It's a passing grade, right?  Right??  How about this, here's all 10 painted versions.

Yes, I'm fully aware that the paint jobs on them don't hold up to my current standards by a long shot.  Also, I really wish I had known how to take better pictures of my figures back then too.  However, I'm still pretty proud of how they came out.  This was, after all, my first fully painted army ever.   Sadly, I sold this army to fund my Centurions.  Some of my friends still won't let me live this down.

I wonder what I'll dig up for next week…

- Tim