Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier Squad

 I bought these guys in 2007.  I only know that because I know I bought them in the middle of my Iraq deployment.  I naturally would have liked a whole army of them.  Such a venture was too expensive for me, but I allowed myself one squad for my Inquisition army, which consisted of a weird and wild retinue of arco-flagellants, Sisters of Battle, half man, half machine retainers and converted armored vehicles.  For some time they made up the bodyguard of my Inquisitor, the dreaded Simion Phang.  

My choice of models made for a pretty wonderful looking collection, and even my conversion work wasn't too bad, but my painting wasn't there yet.  Probably didn't help that I was trying to paint in a tent in Iraq with lousy light and crummy gear.  In the end I wasn't happy with the army and I never finished it.  There are a lot of great miniatures still sitting in boxes wondering why I abandoned them.  I have a converted Rhino which the guys used to ride around in somewhere, too.  I shall have to dig that out and paint it.

I pulled this sinister looking bunch out of a drawer a few days ago where they'd been sitting almost forgotten for about a decade and decided that they didn't look too bad, they just needed some re-basing and a little touching up, so here they are, Big Sarge out front, leading the assault...

These really are marvelously menacing and characterful models, with their blend of Dystopian Sci Fi and WW 1 trench warfare elements...

...I can almost forgive them for being plastic.  They lack the goofiness of my more regular Rogue Trader stuff, though.  I never made an effort to see if they would fit in with my Rogue Trader Imperial Guard guys.  Maybe they could be a squad of elite shock troops or something.

Flame thrower guy.

The Grenadiers assault through the cactus forest...Space Orks beware!

Rogue Trader: Inquisitor Smyte

The mighty Inquisitor Malleo Smyte arrives on Geminion Secundus as part of the Inquisitorial Team dispatched to the Wailing Reach immediately prior to the outbreak of the third 'Stealer war.

Smyte had made his reputation as a young Inquisitor during the darkest days of the Second 'Stealer war, ruthlessly seeking out and purging 'stealer nests in the Geminions and also on Nepenthe.  He frequently worked in tandem with Inquisitor Julius Byrne, the two making an especially formidable team.

Unlike his comrades Inquisitors Heng and Byrne, who favored the employment of  what amounted to small armies of retainers, Smyte was a brooding and solitary creature.

He was normally accompanied only by a weird biomechanoid servitor and the strange being known as Lazarus Alte.

Alte's frail as wizened appearance belied his true value, for he was a master astropath and sanctioned psyker who wielded powers of appalling potency.

Well, its been fun working on these Inquisitors.  I suppose though, that this means its time I got off my butt and started painting up some genestealers for them to fight.

 So many projects, so little time.

"None can withstand us!!"

Rogue Trader: Inquisitor Byrne

Another member of the Inquisitorial team dispatched to The Wailing Reach during the 3rd 'Stealer war is shown here, having recently made Planet fall on Geminion Prime during the early phases of the struggle.

Inquisitor Claudius Byrne was the only member of the team to have the distinction of having fought in all three phases of the Genestealer conflict in the Wailing Reach.  Though at an advanced age when signs of a Genestealer  resurgence in the region became apparent, the aged Inquisitor came out of retirement to help 'finish the job' in the Wailing Reach once and for all.

Inquisitor Byrne arrived for the 3rd time on Geminion Prime with the same weapons that `had made him famous in his greener years, a combi-weapon incorporating a flamer and las pistol and a terrible Daemon weapon with a white hot edge.

Byrne was well known for his preference for fire-based weapons, firmly maintaining that 'That which has been shot, hewn, beaten or broken to pieces may yet return to life, but that which has been reduced to a pile of ash and char is far less likely to return to trouble The Emperor's peace."

He is shown here accompanied by two menacing henchmen` and one of the cherub constructs he preferred to use to simultaneously announce summons to trial, determination of guilt and passing of sentence upon heretics and aliens alike.

"This is your trial.  The verdict is guilty.  The sentence is fire."

Rogue Trader: Inquisitor Heng and His Warrior Monks

 Inquisitor Heng arrives on Geminion Secundus in the opening phases of the Third 'Stealer War.  At the time it was feared that the reappearance of Genestealer cults in the Wailing Reach signaled the approach of another Hive Fleet.  Happily, Inquisitor Heng's investigation revealed that the re emergent Cults were merely survivors of Hive Fleet Terrasque, thought to hive been wiped out in the Second 'Stealer War.  The Third Stealer War was an unpleasant experience for the citizens of The Wailing Reach just the same.

Inquisitor Heng is seen here, as usual, in the company of a detachment of his crack warrior monks. The Inquisitor maintained a small army of about two hundred of these fanatical devotees of the Imperial cult in his Stronghold on Io.

In the ranks of the Heng's Monks were many orphaned children Heng would find on his bloody travels.  Heng would return to Io with these waifs and raise them as disciples in his monastery.

They invariably proved to be most redoubtable warriors.

Iquisitor Heng and his monks scour the ruins and forests of Geminion Secundus in search of clues as to the whereabouts of a Genestealer Cult cell...

...and run afoul of a pack of mutants and ganger trash!

"Purge the Scum!!!"