Genesis

"And so He called forth in a loud voice 'ARISE ALL YOU WHO WOULD CALL THYSELF MAN, FOR YOUR LORD IS AT HAND'! 

And His words were as fire, and the unbearable brilliance did sear at their flesh unto bone, burning away the sin and wickedness, until they emerged from perdition anew as men of purity!

And His voice was as a glorious brazen trumpet that did sunder the heavens in its clarion blast, and the men lept to their feet anew with their souls fired by righteous purpose! 

And His truth was as a great flail of gold that lashed and scoured the sin from the hearts of men, for all who beheld Him knew at once the blinding majesty of Emperor, and none could deny His bidding without curse of blood and leprosy, and so all the men cried out in praise that Emperor is Lord! 

And so it was that where once walked urchins, thieves, liars, fornicators and the blind sick, there now strode a mighty host of men gold of faith and a great love and fear of Emperor immortal, and with great trumpeting of fanfare and singing Emperor is master did they march through the iron gates of Nod!" 

A simple passage, but one full of wisdom. For just like the pilgrims who came from the lowest of human life, so too is the tremendous might of The Emperor the birthright of all mankind, no matter the station, and it is the sprit of man that is the immortal God Emperor's gift unto every human being, no matter their birth. We too, are as wretched as the pilgrims on the road to Nod when the God Emperor met them, for even the greatest man is but fleeting and insignificant before the eternal grace of the Emperor. 

And just as The Emperor called to the lost souls on the road to Nod, so too does He call to us even now! He burns within the righteous hart of every good man, imploring us all to rise up, to take a stand against the darkness, to fight humanity's blighted fate with every fiber of our very being! And so long as we fight with unyielding faith in the God Emperor and His Will in our souls, we will triumph over all and march forward in the golden light of a glorious new dawn over the galaxy that is His Emperor's kingdom for mankind! 

So sayeth the holy gospel of the God Emperor of Man.

Wonderful news everyone! I am a new man, saved from the death and torment that is the wages of sin, and delivered unto the glorious path of the God Emperor, for I am His servant and His plan is my destiny! I have been lifted up from the filth and the maggots to walk by his side in the everlasting kingdom of man! I have cast off the suffocating bands of degeneracy and wickedness and embraced the purity of the light! 

Take heart, for I am at long last, just in time for their 20th anniversary, starting the Witch Hunters army I always wanted.

The first time I discovered the Witch Hunters was when I had just started into 40k for the first time, at age 8 going on 9. I was researching every scrap of information I could find on the Games Workshop website and so invariably turned to the Witch Hunters page and.... was horribly confused. Witches in space? Witch Hunters in space? What the hell was going on? What's with all the braziers and torches? Why is everything half-medieval in my sci-fi game? What the hell does this Inqzecution thing have to do with anything? Or this Ordos Hathfickfehichsurs? Wait their troops are mostly girls? Ew cooties!

Pretty much the only thing that didn't go completely over my head was a photo and short blurb describing a type of fighting machine called a Penitent Engine, which was a kind of battle robot powered by a prisoner hard-wired into it whose desperate frantic need for mercy and forgiveness directed the robot straight into the teeth of the opposition. And even at that young age the whole concept and the model were both very creepy awesome and the ultimate illustration of the evil of the Imperium, so that very quickly earned a special place in my heart even when I could not make any kind of sense out of the rest of the model line. 

But the real origin of this Witch Hunter army lies almost a decade later, in 2011. By this time I had become a morbid depressed teenager and had discovered the darker joys of horror films and gloomy symphonic metal ballads about suicide. I had also learnt how to read and pronounce 'Ordo Hereticus' properly (well sort of, by habit I was still putting the accent emphasis on the second-to-last syllable for 'Ordo HereTICus' but it's a minor squibble). 

And in what might have been their greatest stroke of brilliance in the 2010s, GW released the entire complete Witch Hunters codex online as a free PDF. One fateful night I decided to look through it out of curiosity. And everything changed. 

I understood everything. 

I understood the Imperium. I understood what playing an Imperial army was supposed to be like. I understood space gothic aesthetics and hunting witches in space with crossbows and everything. And I understood the appeal of it all. Reading through that book was what finally broke me out of my bubble of Tau-powered classic science fiction. Ever since then I've wanted an army of heavy metal Witch Hunters. 

And finally I'm starting to get around to it this year. Here are my first results. 

OK, not my best work by any stretch, but hey that's what test models like these are for. 

In fairness they're much less flat looking in real life - an unexpected side effect of the colour scheme I've chosen is that it is apparently much less photogenic than my usual reverse-engineered GW studio schemes are. This is only compounded by the fact that the 2019 models being used are weirdly barren of details in a lot of places. The hair on them in particular is so poorly sculpted that I gave up trying to highlight it, resulting in the flat blobs of colour pictured. 

But for all that, it is a solid proof of concept and the basic colour scheme is turning out nicely, needing only a little further refinement before being ready for application on my precious metal Witch Hunter models. 

Right now the biggest question that I'm wrestling with is which variant of white to go with on the armour - grey-white (as showcased on the blond and brunette on the left of the group shot) or blue-white (as seen on the redhead and dark haired models on the right of the group shot)? The blue-white does give a nice stony gothic artwork look, but the grey-white produces a very Imperial look. A possible compromise I'm also considering is blue-white for the rank and file and grey-white for the veterans. 

Let me know which one you like more in the comments! Then also take some of these pamphlets and come back every Tuesday night, Thursday night and Sunday morning where we will be studying the holy word of the Emperor's Creed. 

Tor'Vash'Por (2)

 Luna Samara: .... moving on to the Penros system now where Tau expeditionary forces have been struck by an unprecedented surprise attack from Ar'cea fighters in the northern temperate belt of Penros VII, where coalition forces have been evacuating heavy equipment from storage depots situated in the planet's northern tundra. The Ar'cea launched a raid on one of the derelict matter transit gates identified on the planet's surface and sized the surrounding area with extreme prejudice, our correspondent Farrier Seyburey has more now. 

(We see a sweeping vista of rugged temperate wilderness beneath an open sky)

Farrier (VO): One step forward, two steps back. For the Tau expeditionary forces on Penros VII, still in the midst of recovering their heavy equipment abandoned in the planet's northern reaches, the last thing they needed was an unprovoked assault from Ar'cea military units. 

(Several explosions suddenly sound and smoke begins to rise from behind a ridgeline of the wilderness)

(The tiny black shape of a lone monolithic gateway can be seen drifting past near the horizon in the distance from the roof of a speeding Devilfish)

Farrier (VO cont.): Tau convoys loaded with equipment and supplies recovered from further north noticed the second of what is now two known objects on the planet's surface believed to be long distance matter transmitters. Being situated in a remote sector well away from known front-lines, the Tau dispatched a forward detachment comprising a small handful of troops and medium battlesuits to investigate further. 

(A band of Tau Fire Warriors takes shelter against a large rock formation as a stream of burning green-white bolts slam into it. There is a brief pause, and the Fire Warriors spring up and fire off several bursts of pulse rifle fire in response)

Farrier (VO cont.): They were met with shocking force from Ar'cea believed to be affiliated with the Iyanden Craftworld. Accounts from the fighting claim a band of Ar'cea fighters including paramilitary militia and supported by large numbers of autonomous combat drones stormed the matter transmitter site and fired recklessly at the approaching Tau forces, refusing any access to the device. Two of the Ar'cea's heavy combat walkers were also deployed in support of the attack. 

(Tau Fire Warriors pull a number of wounded comrades from the shattered hulk of a Devilfish, smoke and flame billowing from its engines)

Farrier (VO cont.): Despite the timely intervention of a team of remnants from previous actions in the north, the Tau were unable to wrest control of the site and fell back in good order after considerable equipment losses, linking up with elements already retreating from an Ar'cea mind science strike. Nonetheless Fire Caste troops were able to inflict some noteworthy losses on the Ar'cea, most notably crippling one heavy combat walker and eliminating almost the entire Ar'cea troop contingent and the Ar'cea mystic commanding the attack, something that the Tau forces on the ground are taking much solace in. 

(A Tau Fire Warrior talks into a microphone held from just out of sight)

Tau Fire Warrior: Ar'cea Uash'O Or'es Xor'ves[The Ar'cea heavy combat walkers are tough adversaries even under ideal circumstances. They're built more densely than normal vehicles, so they take concentrated heavy weapons to bring down, and we had limited heavy weaponry after our support missiles went down with the TX-6 that was assigned to us. I'm just relieved we got most of our warriors out. Still, we did give them a pretty bloody eye by eliminating all the Ar'cea themselves, including their leader. I hate the thought of killing such sophisticated and intelligent beings, but they launched an unprovoked attack on us, so it had to be done. 

(Farrier walks behind a row of Devilfish parked on crisp blue-grey pavement. Turbines can be heard somewhere in the distance)

Farrier: The Ar'cea attack is a dangerous new paradigm for the Tau Penros coalition, especially as they have launched their first strikes close to the evacuation corridor running from the planet's northern reaches down to the current Tau staging grounds in the equatorial zone. For weeks now under the cover of Air Caste aerospace forces the Tau have been emptying their northern storage depots while the local pirates and terror groups are preoccupied with fighting each other and disrupted with constant Tau aerospace strikes. You can see behind me here some of the heavy equipment recovered - these TX-6 troop transports are now a common site behind the front lines where they're used to rapidly shuttle supplies and troops to where they're needed and they're also now starting to reach front line forces, bolstering them with much needed fire support and tactical mobility, but there's still a lot of equipment to both move to safety further south, and to get up and running again so that coalition fighters on the ground can actually make use of it. 

(A massive Defender class starship drifts above the glow of the planet beneath it with a distant gleaming speck in perfect echelon formation behind it)

Farrier (VO): With the sudden reckless attacks by the Ar'cea now a threat, the Penros expeditionary coalition is believed to be readjusting its long-term strategy in the system. So far no Ar'cea aerospace assets have been identified in the system, which means the Tau still command aerospace supremacy over Penros VII and naval space supremacy across the wider system, an advantage the coalition leadership is keen to maintain. 

(A Barracuda hangs in the air behind a refueling hose suspended from the underside of a Manta just above view)

Farrier (VO, cont.): Already Air Caste forces operating over Penros VII have begun to focus their attacks on identified airbases, concentrations of aerospace craft... 

(Viewed from above in monochrome through a Tau gun camera, a row of Thunderbolts and Lightnings sit on the flight line of an airbase. A series of harsh white explosions ripple across the line, leaving the aircraft in flames)

Farrier (VO, cont.): ... and fuel depots in order to preemptively neutralise as much of the air forces opposing them as possible before either the Gue'la Imperium invasion force receives naval reinforcements, or the Ar'cea begin to deploy aerospace craft in support of their assaults. 

(Aboard a Tau starship Tau, humans and various aliens move past a large set of doors emblazoned with the Water Caste logo)

Farrier (VO, cont.): Meanwhile the Water Caste delegation attached to the Penros expeditionary fleet has issued a statement in direct response to the unprovoked Ar'cea attack, calling for an immediate ceasefire and diplomatic negotiations. 

(A Tau Por'Vre addresses an out-of-sight crowd from a gleaming podium. Several varieties of plant have been placed in the backdrop behind them)

Tau Por'Vre: The senseless violence unleashed by the Ar'cea serves no purpose other than to make the pirates and terror groups in the system stronger. We understand the monumentally profound significance that Ar'cea lives have to the people of Iyanden, as well as the monumentally profound significance and rich cultural importance of the Ar'cea mystics. We greave and weep alongside the people of Iyanden for the loss of such a brilliant mind, and deeply lament that they chose a path of violence and senseless bloodshed. We have no wish to spill any more Ar'cea blood, and so we urge the people of Iyanden to show restraint, abandon their reckless attacks and meet us in peaceful negotiation towards cooperating in Penros against the pirates, against the terrorists that plague the system, and towards cooperating together to make the galaxy a better, safer place for all sentient life as is the imperative for all galactic powers as advanced and intelligent as the Ar'cea people. 

(In the middle of a busy Tau starport, beneath a cold grey pink orange dusk, Tau and drones hastily load grav-tanks and crates into the open cargo hatch of a landed Manta. The vast hulking shapes of landed Tau transport starships loom in the distant background)

Farrier (VO): With no naval assets detected in the system the Ar'cea are believed to be using one or more of their own long range matter transmitters situated somewhere on the planet to move in fighters and equipment without running the formidable gauntlet of coalition warships currently patrolling the Penros system. Without knowing for sure the precise number and location of these matter transmitters it's not possible to determine with certainty where and when the Ar'cea will strike next, putting the Penros expeditionary coalition under increasing pressure. Already growing numbers of recovered equipment from the north is being moved into safety aboard orbiting starships, and its believed that the coalition command might soon withdraw from Penros VII entirely. 

(A forlorn looking band of Tau Fire Warriors wait inside the sealed interior of a Devilfish)

Farrier (VO, cont.) For coalition fighters on the ground, it's now a race against time to prepare for further Ar'cea aggression as best they can. From Penros System this Farrier Seyburey, Tor'Vash'Por. 

Luna: Time for a quick break now on Tor'Vash'Por, coming up when we return - unlocking the secrets of one of the galaxy's most mysterious elements, Earth Caste scientists release their latest findings on the rare substance Dioxazine, that story and much more still to come when we return...