I’ve recently joined a slow-grow Crusade campaign through a local gaming club (Rotten Seagulls Wargaming) to try and help me make some proper progress on getting my Emperor’s Children tabletop ready.

The campaign starts at 500pts (rather than 1000pts) with the points climbing 250pts a month and in the New Year, celebrating the culmination of the campaign with a 2000pts tournament. There’s also a painting competition each month which, in particular, I’m hoping will help me get some momentum going.

I thought it’d be fun to keep a track of my Crusade Force, their background and my hobby progress on here and to share it with you.

One of the first additional requirements for extra points in the campaign was in creating some background for your Crusade Force. I very much picture my Emperor’s Children army as being a (fragile) alliance of warbands and where I’m starting the force is with the first of those warbands – The Ensemble led by the Lord Kakophonist Virtuoso Xiortes…

As Xiortes stalked through the ruins of Tymurus Tertius, he acknowledged with some small measure of regret that this portion of the song was drawing to its conclusion, the distraction of this coda all that now remained of this movement. No matter, he could feel the next great swell of music calling out to him but it wasn’t of this moment and nor was it of this dying world.

There were some who called him The Composer, but even he lacked the hubris to claim this piece as his own. Besides, this song didn’t need composing; it was the song of the death of a race and the birth of a god. A song that already was and always had been and yet, paradoxically, didn’t all compositions need to be played in order to truly exist? Slaanesh was the song and the song was Slaanesh. He played as an act of worship and to ensure that his god was born and always was… No, his chosen name was Virtuoso. He brought the song to life and with exquisite skill he might add. Of course, he elevated its performance into true art by adding those embellishments that only he could – little touches that accentuated the genius of the original composition and ensured that his signature existed forever more within the fabric of the piece as it echoed on through eternity. The song was holy work and its continuation consumed his every thought.

A bass note disintegrated the ruined corner of a building nearby and what was left of his face smiled beneath his rebreather mask. There was still a little life in this section of the piece yet. Two troopers of the Planetary Defence Force fled through the ruins driven from their cover by the sonic assault, their senses overwhelmed but for the drive for self-preservation. Serron, First Oktavist of the Second Choir, stomped after them, his Blastmaster quickly charging psychosonic energy for another volley. Xiortes closed his eyes in bliss as the air around him reverberated with the violence of Serron’s solo.

“Masterful work, brother!” He howled over the vox as the troopers became mere powder that danced on the tremors of sound that still buffeted the air where they had stood but a moment before. He noticed Daemonettes dancing through the ruins, calling out to any who still hid there, entreating them to join their waltz. The handmaidens of the youngest god were often drawn to his work and he was honoured that once more, they graced his performance with one of their own.

“Lord,” the prompt came over a private vox channel from the vessel The Phoenician’s Disdain, hanging in low orbit waiting for new prey. “We’ve picked up an auspex reading at the edge of the system and been hailed with a holographic transmission. It’s encrypted with Legion cyphers and addressed to you”

“So, already we progress to the next verse in the song…” he mused aloud. “Relay it to my location.”

He gestured to a serf, a heavily modified mortal who was a living breathing transmitter and receiver. He had burned through a great many over the centuries of his existence, but timed the moment of each painful demise to perfection, their screams adding to the harmony they had supported him in bringing to life. A harsh screech of binaric indicated the signal had been received and a holo-emitter that that had long ago been fitted into the serf’s occular cavity came to bright life and he winced, a pain memory attached to the gaunt features of the holographic face being beamed before him.

“Spider,” he growled.
“I would ask that you address me by my rank of Chief Apothecary!” was the terse reply. “The time has come for you to pay your debt to me, Xiortes.”

Virtuoso Xiortes laughed. He had not expected that it would be the Chief Apothecary, Fabius Bile, who would bring him to the stage for his next performance.

The first chunk of my Crusade Force will look like the below:

The Ensemble
Army: Emperor's Children
Detachment: Carnival of Excess (450pts)

Virtuoso Xiortes - Lord Kakophonist (70pts)

The Handmaidens - 10 Daemonettes (90pts)

The First Choir - 6 Noise Marines (135pts)

The Second Choir - 6 Noise Marines (135pts)

First painting target is to get the Warlord for the force painted so, going to start working on Xiortes soon. One massive challenge is I’ve still not managed to make up my mind on a colour scheme. Next update soon!