Place Your Bets Now! (Grimdark WIP) (Patreon)

Hello!

Russ poses are here!  So instead of the usual redshirt diorama, I thought it would be cool to do a re-enactment of the famous duel between Leman Russ and the Lion (really lucky how they came up in back to back Grimdark months).  The duel occurred during the Great Crusade when they were on a joint campaign against the Dulanians, a human splinter civilization that refused to join the Imperium.  The Lion promised Russ he could kill the 'Tyrant of Dulan' but due to a Wulfen issue, Russ delayed the final assault and the Lion killed him instead.  Russ was super pissed about this because he swore an oath to take the Tyrant's head so the Wolf King started a fight.  While the duel was pretty epic, it never got properly resolved although some interesting tidbits came out of it.  

Remember in the first Lion WIP, I mentioned that he managed to disarm Russ?  Well, Russ' response was to chuck the Lion into a wall, smack a spectating Dark Angel around to steal his axe and continue the fight.  The Wolves actually still possess this stolen axe.  They even renamed the weapon and bring it to honour duels against the Dark Angels just to troll them.  Those cheeky rascals! 🐺The Blood Ravens approve. 👍

Anyways, I made a bunch of poses for Russ that include his entire weapon repetoire.  I'm not sure if this is true, but I've read that Russ is THE best Primarch in one-on-one fights against his brothers.  He is statistically likely to beat all of them on the tabletop because his weapons are so cheesy.  Take that as you will.  I also included a bearded version of Russ for all the TTS fans out there.  

One of the poses I wanted to highlight is him using a spear (called the Spear of Russ but eventually revealed to be Gungnir).  There's actually an interesting in-universe backstory to this spear.  It started out as sort of a joke in the William King era of Space Wolf novels (Russ once tried to throw it at the moon when he was completely sloshed).  But in the Horus Heresy, the spear actually turned into an important plot item.  For starters, it was crafted by the Emperor and given to Russ personally (no other Primarch got a weapon from Big E so that's interesting).  The spear is also the twin of another wielded by Constantin Valdor called the Apollonian Spear.  What's notable about these artifacts are their abilities.  Valdor's spear will reveal truth to the wielder about any victim they kill with it.  Russ' spear will reveal truth to the victim themselves.  This became important in the Horus Heresy when Russ wounded the Warmaster with Gungnir which had far reaching consequences later.  There's a lot more to the spear than I can fit into one post but I just wanted to explain why I included this pose.   

Still working on the Silent King pose and the variations.  He'll get his own platform which I'll show later.  I have been working on the Khorne attack pose but he will probably only be ready during Fantasy Month.  

Also, I've been advised by experts of the Angry Company's ban policy to alter the Thunderhawk design.  They've managed to keep me out of their crosshairs for a while now so I take their warnings seriously.  But I'll try to keep the profile alterations to a minimum.  To compensate I'll also include a 'junkpile' archive community members can use to kitbash the flying brick, not matter how it turns out.

Fantasy Month voting is still up so feel free to cast your vote!