A traitor can never be forgiven…

“A Heretic may see the truth and seek redemption. He may be forgiven his past and will be absolved in death. A Traitor can never be forgiven. A Traitor will never find peace in this world or the next. There is nothing as wretched or as hated in all the world as a Traitor.”

Cardinal Khrysdam, Instructum Absolutio

Right, now that we know how old Khrysdam feels about the matter, we should maybe take a closer look. Let us speak of traitors, shall we?

One thing I realised only after getting back into the hobby in 2010 is how awesome the idea of “The Lost and the Damned” actually was. Granted, when Codex Eye of Terror was released, the whole idea of an army made up of traitors and mutants was probably mostly GW’s attempt at getting people to buy a half baked mutant kit, hastily thrown together from Zombie, Catachan and Ork boy sprues. But then, the Blood Pact happened. And Forgeworld released their gorgeous Renegade Militia. And so when I got back into cutting up little toy soldiers, it wasn’t long before I thought about building at least a small Traitor Guard/LNTD force.

Now the easiest way of going about this would doubtlessly have been to just buy some Cadians, the FW Renegade milita conversion kit and be done with it. But while I love the FW kit and think it’s among the greatest stuff they have ever released, that would have seemed like a bit of a cop-out to me. So, with the ambition of converting those models myself but with no good idea in sight, I put the project on the backburner for a while…

…until a visit to the FLGS saw me buying a box of Cadians and old Chaos Marauders on impulse. And when I got home, I started kitbashing them into my version of Traitor Guard soldiers. Not a very original recipe, admittedly. But then, it was down to me and my bitzbox — just the way I like it.

I took inspiration from a couple of sources, although my main points of reference were the Vraksian Renegade Militia and Dave Taylor’s fantastic Blood Pact models. I was even tempted to start a Blood Pact force myself for a while, but then decided on a more “undivided” look in order to be more flexible. I wanted the models to be usable with the old LNTD list, but also with the current IG book as well as FW’s Vraksian Renegade Militia rules. So I started off by building a Platoon Command Squad for my traitors. Here it is:

From left to right, we have a medic, company standard bearer, commander, veteran with special weapon and a traitor with voxcaster. I also built a psyker, while I was at it.

The models are fairly simple kitbashes, using parts from the Cadian shock troopers, the WFB Chaos Marauders, Marauder Horsemen, WFB Warriors of Chaos and WFB Empire flagellants. I wanted my traitors to have an unkempt, feral look to them, but to be at least partly identifiable as former Imperial Guard (or at least PDF). Take note that there is very little fluff in place at this point. Basically the only thing I have decided as of yet is that these guys will be known as “Urash’s Marauders”.

Let’s take a look at the different models in the command squad:

Company Standard Bearer:

This guy was strongly influenced by the standard bearer from Dave Taylor’s Blood Pact. He uses mostly Cadian parts with a couple of armour plates and bits to give him the suitable Chaos look. His head is possibly the greatest head from the Empire flagellant kit. His standard was originally a WFB Ogre standard.

The colour scheme for these models took me quite a while to figure out. I knew from the start that I didn’t want to make them look too comic-book-evil by using lots of red and black. Instead I went for pale skin, a dark grey uniform (unchanged from their loyalist days) and a couple of red and bronze accents to show their new allegiance.

I am not very good at freehands, so I was elated that Dave Taylor did a very nice tutorial on how to paint a stylised chaos icon. I used it to paint the standard. I liked the result well enough, so I decided that I would use the motif all over the army to tie them together visually.

Company Commander “Lord Urash”

I wanted this guy to look pretty imposing, so I used a daemonic looking sword from the Chaos Marauders and a Terminator’s power fist on him. The latter one also shows how Urash’s marauders tend to steal everything they can use off the bodies of their fallen enemies. I also added small horns to him to show how the powers of Chaos have already started to corrupt him physically. To imply that his sword may be of daemonic origin, I added an OSL effect to the runes on the blade.

Traitor with Plasmagun

I like this guy a lot! I think is has to be the helmet. Or the pose. Anyway, his Plasmagun was spliced together from a regular Bolter and a Khorne Berzerker Plasma pistol. While I am fairly reluctant to actually use Plasma weapons on the table due to their tendency to blow up in your own face, I always relish the occasion to add a little visual “pop” to a model by painting a small OSL effect on its Plasma weapon.

Traitor with Voxcaster

With the rest of the models looking fairly primitive and feral, I thought it would make sense for the guy with the Voxcaster to carry some kind of war drum. That way, he would use his Voxcaster not only to relay orders, but also to drive the Marauders forwards with the beats of his drum.

While the sculpt of the Chaos Marauders is a bit on the old side, the kit is still worth it simply because of the amount of stuff you get: There are lots and lots of weapon options, and multiple sets of the bitz used for the command squad. With just one box of Chaos Marauders, I was able to not only built a lot of traitors, but also use the additional bitz to give icons to the different squads. And I still had quite a lot of leftovers for my World Eaters too!

Traitor Medic

I really went to town on this guy! I thought about how the forces of Chaos might influence a medic, and I decided to build a character with a suitably demented look. In my imagination, he may be fairly good at patching up the wounded, but his fascination with the human body has also led tim to start collecting body parts he considers to be “interesting specimens” from the dead and the dying. That’s why I gave him a couple of grisly trophies as well as a stained butcher’s apron. I also added a gagged head from the flagellant kit — maybe he is as dangerous to his own as to the enemy, so the Marauders have decided to gag him, lest they get bitten.

Traitor Veteran/Bodyguard

I wanted this guy to look like a true barbarian. In the half baked idea I have of my traitors’ fluff, they were originally a regiment of the Imperial Guard that was reinforced with a lot of recruits from a primitive world in order to compensate heavy losses. Then, the traditions and beliefs of the new recruits began to slowly overwhelm the other soldiers’ loyalty. So I wanted to have some models that almost looked like Cadians, while others would show their primitive origins more clearly. And this guy definitely fits the latter category. Not much else to say, except that I am quite fond of him for some reason.

Psyker

What self-respecting force of traitors would be complete without a psyker? The model itself is a standard Empire flagellant, although I attached a couple of chains that are floating, held aloft by his psychic powers. To enforce the supernatural look even further, I added some jagged rocks to his base. They look like they just erupted out of the ground due to some witchery. They were carved from leftover sprue, by the way.

Originally, I wanted to give him glowing eyes, but unfortunately many of the flagellant heads have no eyes (or at least no eyeballs) to begin with. So I went for blood running down his cheeks instead – the power of the Warp probably caused his eyes to burst in their sockets…

And with that, my command squad was complete! I also built two squads of traitors and bought a set of four Ogre Kingdoms Ironguts to convert some traitorous Ogryns. I may also add some kind of vehicle to my Traitor Guard at some point, although I am not sure if I want to expand them into a force of their own. Until now, they have seen action as allies to my World Eaters during our campaign. But if the new Chaos Codex actually has an option for cultists and/or traitors, these guys could indeed prove to be very useful!

Anyway, I’ll show you the rest of my traitors some other time. Until then, why not let me know what you think of my command squad?

In any case, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!