Between the Bolter and Me: 2016, a year in review

2016 comes to a close!

With 2016 coming to a close, Between the Bolter and Me is now four years old! We began the year updating the look of the blog, changing our logo (maintaining the frog theme, however!) and color scheme, trying to reflect a continuing commitment to pushing ourselves forward in the hobby. We also started a podcast, called Dragged into Turbolasers, hoping to use it as an avenue to connect with a wider audience and meet new people in the hobby. Now that 2016 is over and we reflect on it, we are happy to say that we think it was our most productive and enjoyable year yet! Between two major collaborative projects, The Pilgrym and the Curse of the Alabaster, we met so many wonderful people, and spurred ourselves to create what I believe is our best work yet, painting an unprecedented 20 models (a major feat for us!). We even started to create our own background material and try our hands at writing some short stories. But enough of boring prose, join us below to see a picture recap of 2016!

The Pilgrym: An Exchange of Hands - the final moments of the Daylight Wall Anomaly

Immediately after finishing the Pilgrym Game,  I knew that I want to write a short story describing the final events of game from the perspective from one of our main characters, Roland Arnesen.  He is one of our more interesting characters. a headless mercenary from the Ordo Machinum, who infiltrated the Church of the Red Athenaeum to help locate the Pilgrym.  What's more, he even has a cyber-owl companion named Bronwen!  Roland and his feathered friend played a small, but important part in the Pilgrym game, and I felt writing about it might help provide some additional context to event, and highlight one of the many plot lines threading through the game.

The story was posted earlier on Iron Sleet, but I wanted to post it here, as well. As an addition, the ever talented Aletheia Atzinger wrote some parts in Bronwen's perspective which have been added! I hope you like it! 

INQ28: Painting Beltran Destrieux

We are all but a weapon in the right hand of the Emperor.

The release of the Skitarii Rangers was an exciting time for the Inq28 community, giving a wealth of excellent conversion opportunities (and finally some plastic Adeptus Mechanicus models!). They where also the perfect models to base Lucanus Molnár’s first companion, Beltran Destrieux, a soldier in one of Stygies VIII Explorator Fleets. Having finished all the conversion work on the model, the next step was to devise a color scheme and then get to painting him. The backstory that Eric and I created proved a good place to start. Thankfully we were able to find Stygies VIII color scheme in the Skitarii codex. Unsurprisingly, it had a major emphasis on red (Hail Mars!), with all of the armor being a deep crimson. Unlike the other Forge Worlds, it also had a large amount of black, with all their coats and robes sable.

INQ28: Skitarii Ranger conversion - Beltran Destrieux

The machine spirit guards the knowledge of the ancients.

Having finished Lucanus Molnár last month, we at Between the Bolter and Me have been musing about his background quite a bit, and decided it was time to share some of it, particularly how he became a member of the little know Ordo Machinum:

Although initially a member of the Ordo Xenos (with an obsessive fascination with the Ghost Warriors of the Iyanden craftworld), after his investigations into an aberrant technovirus (OTAV1X) led him to the to the forgeworld of Stygies VIII, Lucanus Molnár shifted his primary allegiance to the Ordo Machinum.  The shift went largely unnoticed in the Pacificus Conclave, and seemed a natural transition for the technologically minded Molnár.  Even the Mechanicum’s quick acceptance of his presense did not raise eyebrows, with the prevailing thought that his timely aid with the OTAV1X scourge opened doors.  The truth of the matter is more iniquitous, and while garrisoned on Stygies VIII, he uncovered elements of the heretical Xenarite sect.  The Xenarites, scholars and archivists of xenos technology, were thought to be eliminated in the Inquisitorial purge of 335.M36.  Instead of reporting the sect’s existence to the Conclave, Molnar saw a potential ally, one who might aid in his search for technology (human or xenos) to restore the Emperor to his former glory.  And so a tenuous union was formed between Lucanus Molnár and the Forge World of Stygies VIII; the Mechanicum would aid Molnár in his holy work, providing the limitless material resources and wargear that only a Forge World could supply, and Molnár would ensure the less “open-minded” members of the Inquisition would not learn of the thriving Xenarite sect within their midst.

Iron Sleet Invitation: For the Emperor's Soul

Everything you have been told is a lie!

I find it hard to believe, but after the most intense two hobbying months of my life, the first Iron Sleet Invitational is complete! To corroborate this, my entry and a host of fantastic entries are displayed in all their glory on Iron Sleet’s website, including an evocative entry by none other than John Blanche himself! For me, the whole process was a great learning experience, particularly encouraging me to pick up a paint brush after many long years of absence, as well as to try some more ambitious green stuff work.  It also got me to revisit Inq28, which I had been meaning to do for many months.  Now, with the two inquisitors done, I can start to explore some of the more eccentric members of their retinues (the new Adeptus Mechanicus models will work wonderfully for Molnar’s crew)!  To round out all of our Invitational posts, I figured that I would do one last entry focusing on the completed Molnár, and to show some pictures of the three models together.