Finished - Ordo Malleus Heretical Inquisitor

In my last post, I spoke about a Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in Terminator Armor and eluded to my love affair with the Inquisitor Codex. Thanks to finishing the Eisenhorn books, after finishing the golden boy of a puritanical Inquisitor, my thoughts drift to what a heretical inquisitor would look like. I have had an extra Fabius Bile body that someone had cut the head off of and I have always wanted to make either a Fallen Dark Angel or an Inquisitor. Later, while working on my Iron Warrior Bikers made from Chaos Knights, I saw this Chaos sword that screamed to me "daemon weapon."

At this point the bits I had were dictating the rules for the mini. I knew he was going to be an Inquisitor in Power Armor with a Daemon Weapon. This is far from ideal as Inquisitors are only S 3 and T 3. Give them all the armor you want, but with those stats they are going to get eaten by any other troops in close combat. The Daemon Weapon is also problematic as the particular stats of it are randomly generated. You may end up with something little better than a stick or you may end up with a S 6 AP2 weapon. It is nothing to be relied on from game to game. 

I start to realize that I am making a mini that is just for fun to paint and look at and may never see play on the table top. In some way this is freeing. Now I don't have to worry about effectiveness and posts cost and can just do whatever I want.

I needed to finish collecting the bits for this mini. I entertained other heads like the Chaos Terminator Lord with re-breather. I liked this head as it has little humanity left to it and makes the mini feel more like a monster or machine than a person. In the end I went a slightly different direction. I had just completed a trade for a bunch of Dark Angel Terminator bits including lots of hooded heads. I like how a robed head gave the mini a sense of covertness as if the Inquisitor was ashamed of his fall to Chaos. I also liked how it tied into the robe on the mini.

I had an old Chaos Lord in Power Armor back pack with trophy rack. I would never have used this on a CSM Lord as it feel like it is cheep, cliche and a bad sculpt. Compared to the current CSM minis, the older minis and bits from 3rd Edition and earlier looks out of place. When added this the Inquisitor mini that I was building, it makes it look very menacing and overtly Chaos. That is also part of the down-side to using the trophy rack. Now it is harder to convince yourself that this guy is just using the forces of Chaos to fight Chaos and is clearly corrupted by it. 

For his left hand and arm, I was going to give him a needle pistol as it is a devastating weapon. It may only be a pistol but it always wounds on a 4+ and penetrates all armor. I also considered the Helrifle. At 36" S6 AP 3 it is a Marine Killer. I also considered the S6 AP4 Incinerator. There were too many possibilities and no real room to sink a magnet in the arm. In the end, I decided to leave the left arm blank and either take the ranged weapon for granted or model it on another mini as I did with the combi-weapon bearers. 

Painting

I took a lot of inspiration from the Fabius Bile miniI knew I wanted a coat of skins but I wanted it to be a little subtle and patchwork. I painted the coat in a typical parchment-style for me with very little Bleached Bone as the final highlight. I then used a similar technique to painting the underside of the pelts on my Space Wolves on some of the patches to represent new skin added to the cloak. 

The pouches and surgical instrument holder were painted like leather.

I wanted to do something awesome for the sword so I used a mixture of blue and green washes over a Mythril Silver base coat and then covered that with Interference Paint similar to how I painted the Horrors.

I kind of shot from the hip for the armor. I based it Mechrite Red and the washed it with Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil. After a brief touch up with Mechrite Red, I applied very little Evil Sunz Scarlet for hard edge highlights.  

Value

With all the converting and unique niche for this model, it is hard to estimate value. The base mini sells for about $20. This mini is missing the extra bits from that kit (pimp cane, pistol and chirurgeon) but has extra bits form other kits. I call that a wash. That paint job is decent and I would rate that at a 7/10 for me. I would value the mini at $40 for me but unless this was exactly what someone was looking for, I doubt they would pay that much. No one is going to be rushing out to convert minis like this up in a hurry.