30k Specialists for Imperial Fists

Master of Signal and Legion Champion for the VII Legion Astartes - figures from Forge World.

I continue to fall behind on postings for the Blog, and am trying to catch up a bit on that this week, starting with this post, which features more 30k content. Here we have a couple of "specialist" figures from GW's 30k figure range - a "Master of Signals" and "Legion Champion". These are resin models from Forge World's 30k figure range, painted in the colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists.

"Uh guys, there are, like, a LOT of them coming to the walls...just saying..."

If you are one of those non-bot visitors to the Blog, and have visited these online pages previously, you may be thinking to yourself, "hey didn't he already paint these figures?" and you would be correct. I have painted up this pair of figures for the Sons of Horus previously. I really like the "Master of Signals" figure in particular, and since he was sold in a pair with the sword-wielding "Champion", I have several versions of both of these figures.

"Even with the enemy bombardment, we are still getting three bars of signal here in the palace..."

You can see that I continue to struggle in attempts to properly paint the raised detail of the embossed symbol for the Imperial Fists. Maybe I need a new brush? Yes, I'll just blame the brush....

I have opined at different times on the approaches to painting the yellow armour of the Imperial Fists. In this case, I opted once more for my standard "build up from black basecoat" approach. This has problems, but in the case of these models, it wasn't too bad, as they had a fair bit of space - gear, kit, armour decorations etc - that were going to be black, so it was kind of a 50/50 trade off, and bringing the yellow spaces "up" was not as difficult as it would be on, say, the newer Mark VI figures.

"This crazy sword stuff seems to work out for Sigismund, so maybe I'll give it a try..."

The "Master of Signals" has some specific abilities on the gaming table, but more generally, I love this figure for a sort of general looks-cool-factor that appeals to me. It makes sense that, in a detachment of Space Marines, there would be one with specialized communications equipment, with relays back to orbiting warships, of in the case of this fellow in VII Legion colour, back to the various critical command nodes of the defenses on Terra, maybe even the fabled "Bhab Bastion" where Lord Dorn oversees the (pointless) efforts to hold back the (very noble and well-dressed) forces of the Warmaster. 

The armour is a mix of Mark III, Mark IV and custom bits...and he has a particular scenic base that is pretty nice.

He gets a decal for his Legion symbol...only so many of those embossed ones to go around...

Healthy amounts of weathering/chipping applied - making a last stand at the Imperial Palace is a dirty, dusty business...

The "Legion Champion" can stand in for all sorts of different possible officer/leader figures which can be fashioned in the various 30k Space Marine army lists. The Imperial Fists are all about being stoic, following orders, and standing atop well-built walls and shooting enemies, but they are also home to Sigismund and the specialist units which ultimately emerge as the 40k Black Templars. As such, I thought it would be good to have a sword-wielding nutter among the ranks of the command for my small-yet-growing VII Legion detachment. 

So that's two more yellow-clad defenders for the doomed defence of Terra. Stay tuned for more - hopefully shortly - thanks for reading and for visiting!