The perfidious rank and file
Today I will be enlightening you with the beginning of the story of the leader of the first squad of Palatine Blades. The story of Sal and the rise of Sal Grins Vol.
Sal Grins Vol
Palatine Prefector, 7th company, 2nd squad.
Born on Terra, Sal had the luxury of living in a wealthy aristocratic Family of nobles, after the war of unification the house that Sal resided in, gave away the young boy to the forces of the Emperor, as was standard proceeding methods to appease the higher powers that had taken over Terra. Sal’s career blossomed as he honed his skills from campaign to campaign gaining notice from his upper commanders, Sal received the honorary title of palatine perfector and leadership of his own squad. Sal’s rise in the ranks had made the young Astartes want to reach new heights in the legions quest for perfection but ultimately this would lead to his downfall. During a battle against the cult of the poison star at the time of the great crusade, his squad came under fire with a plethora of poison tipped power spears and ammo, taking heavy fire. Sal’s confidence in his abilities and the power of a Astartes physiology, he leapt forward, igniting his jet pack to a forward front assault against the ab-human horde, always without his helmet to show his face to his squad and his cockiness clouding his judgment, he believed he would never be struck in the head.
Sal took a small graze from a bullet laced neurotoxin, permanently giving him a warped smile. It was thought impossible that a Space marine could be affected by poisons of any kind, a rogue agent of the gene craft of the biologica temple had hit a milestone in his research and decided to sell his work to the highest bidder. after the battle had been concluded and the world pacified, Sal took on the nickname ‘grin’ With animosity but eventually took to the name. During the Battle of Isstavaan 3 Sal took on Loyalist forces, despite having great Kingsman ship with his prior battle brothers, he could no longer accept What he saw in his eyes for the imperium has become. now leading a hedonistic and corrupt force, he is to rendezvous with the Iron Warriors to take part in Fulgrim’s mission to become a Demon prince.
To make this model, I bought the chaos space marines tactical squad box set. I then went to my local independent hobby shop (Ragnarok hobbies based in Gillingham,Kent in the UK) and bought the metal guild ball character, the arms and shoulder pad were from the palatine blades from forge world.
To start, cut down the torso of the Guild ball character and then sand it down so it nice and smooth, cut about less than a quarter of the upper Chaos space marine torso so its more in-line with the metal character. once this is done you then glue the arms together and you want to pose the head ideally facing towards where the sword is resting, I’ve managed to make it look like my character is looking at the reflection in his sword, as to reflect his own vanity. I then glued the jet pack to the back of the body and voilà you have yourself a vein over the top looking character who epitomises the legions feel.
Conversions & Inspirations
For conversion work we are spoilt for choice. There are a multitudeof third party vendors (Kromlech, Puppets of War, Maximini and Spell Crow) as well as new 3-d digital artists producing kits on shape ways. Forge World also offer a whole host of shoulder pads, specialist units, characters, decals and parts for your heresy collection. The IIIrd are a converters dream – it all depends on how far you are willing to push the madness.
You can look further afield when it comes to which waterslide transfer to use for your legion. The Emperor’s Talon sheet comes with some wonderful filigree and screaming face designs that echo the regal IIIrd, and the Blood Angel sheet offers an interesting opportunity to cross pollinate imagery.