My Exorcists: A Side Project

Painting silver all the time can get monotonous. I've been building a force of Adeptus Astartes for the last year or so. Supposedly (maybe) they are a successor chapter of the Grey Knights (possibly), so this makes them relevant enough to talk about on my GK blog (more than likely).

From a recent game against Chaos Knights.

Running Grey Knights all the time can be exhausting. I love them so much, but their rules are undeniably dated and underpowered. It is a constant uphill battle playing with the Sons of Titan. Space Marines, however, are in a very powerful place right now. Every now and then it feels really good to break these boys out and win a game or two.

Company Champions are rad as hell.

The Exorcists are a Chapter that was created during the 13th Founding (also known as the Dark Founding, for reasons). They were created by the Ordo Malleus (probably) for the express purpose of combating daemons. It is rumored that they are a direct descendent of the Grey Knights, but obviously there is no way to confirm this since both the Grey Knights and the Inquisition seal all records referencing this kind of thing. SPOOKY SECRET PROJECTS.

Upon their induction into the Chapter, an Exorcists aspirant is forcibly possessed by a daemon. An Ordo Malleus Inquisitor then lets the Space Marine hopeful suffer and struggle for a minute before excising the neverborn from him. If he survives, he moves on to become a fully blooded battle-brother in the Exorcists. If he dies, well, sucks.

Their home world's name is Banish and they are essentially invisible to daemons because each Astartes has survived a direct intimate encounter with a rude denizen of the Warp. They cover themselves in scripture and occult symbols and 

I thought this was all super cool. A year or so back I'd decided I was going to start a Space Marines army and I thought the Exorcists seemed like the Real Deal. I have a force of Grey Knights and Ordo Malleus Inquisitorial units so this seemed like a natural extension.

A live feed from a battle against the Thousand Sons.

 I've loved painting them. The bright red is such a stark difference from the silver I am painting with my Grey Knights, and the focus on powerful ranged combat is a nice gameplay shift. I love setting up some tanks and dreadnoughts in the backfield supported by a Captain and a Lieutenant (ugh! Rerolling wounds is so nice! someday Grey Knights good rules maybe). A gunline castle is super fun to run when you're used to assaulting everything and praying for 9" charges.

Smashy Terminators.

Veteran Brother-Sergeant Khurshid of the First Company.

I have a lot more I'd like to say about my Exorcists, but I'm a little drunk at the moment and words escape me. I just wanted to share pictures and enthusiasm. Some day I will make a dedicated 20,000 word post about these boys.