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Glory for the first man to die! Charge!
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Karak Norn Clansman #4794

Premier for Astro-Ungarian Infantry Conversions

Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen! General von Dorfenhötz and his murderously optimistic plans are coming to the grim darkness of the far future near you. Prepare for glorious festive balls, uniforms with class and armies poor in morale and equipment. Brace yourselves for noble finery, gambling, partying and embezzlement. Stand to attention at the incoming footsteps of shrieking incompetence, lack of supplies, misery in the field and grand offensives cooked up by an energetic moron and unbreakable optimist. And gaze at the moustaches on display!

The Imperial and Royal forces of glorious Astro-Ungaria are being shipped out to serve the Divine Imperator and the Mortal Duarch of their homeworld. In large numbers will they march, underfunded, underequipped and with faulty training. Following the cult of the offensive, they will rush like heroes into the jaws of death, and die as martyrs like wheat before a scythe, to the clinking of crystal glasses in luxurious bunkers behind the line...

How does it feel to serve a rotting Imperium?

Euphoric!

These are the first Astro-Ungarian conversions for my friend J.A.B. Much more will follow:

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Ferd42, pawl liked this
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pawl #4824

Custom Custom Custom
You never fail to impress, good sir! 😁
Is there anything in particular planned?
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Karak Norn Clansman #4957

@pawl : Thank you kindly!

You bet! :grin:

Astro-Ungarian History Extracts

My friend JAB has written some background for Astro-Ungaria. Expect more writings from us in the future:

- - -

Featuring prominently in the myths of the Astro-Ungarian people is a figure almost as synonymous with heresy as the Devil Lorgar: Robou Gildemann.
Myths hold that this apostate turned against the Emperor and Divine Horus in the later days of the Devil Lorgars' heresy, creating a pocket empire for himself as the Ruinstorm tore the firmament in half and cut of Astro-Ungaria from the greater Imperium. Legend holds that the first Duarch fought such devils as the Angels of Blood and Darkness that were sent to tempt the Duarch and Astro-Ungaria into damnation.

Astro-Ungaria held firm against these threats and when the Ruinstorm lifted they rejoined the greater Imperium, fully integrating after the scouring of the traitor Astartes legions.
Astro-Ungaria officially refused to recognize Horus as a traitor, arguing the Emperors' perfection and the fact that Horus had been His favorite son. Indeed, the cult of the Emperor had a seat in Astro-Ungaria in all but name even then, and had not been subverted successfully by the traitors.

It comes as no surprise that Astro-Ungaria embraced the Imperial Cult openly in its earliest days as state religion.

There have been many attempts to clear up Astro-Ungarian misinterpretations regarding the events of the great heresy war but they have been largely futile. It makes little difference to all but the most stubborn of priests - Astro-Ungaria is but one of thousands of worlds with a regrettably confused view of its past.

Ultimately the truth is of little consequence, as it should be. It is enough that the Astro-Ungarians pay their tithes.

Astro-Ungarian records of their past are almost exclusively dated after the Age of Apostasy.

Comparisons to records kept by Vostroya and Krieg support claims that Astro-Ungaria was brought into Compliance by Horus yet stayed loyal during the Heresy. Simplification, rewriting, and incompetence seem to have caused the misinterpretations we see today.

There can for example be little doubt that the mythical Robou Gildemann is none other than the thirteenth primarch Roboute Guilliman. The "pocket empire" is obviously a fanciful misconstruction and likely refers to Horus' own empire of traitors, though somewhat comically the Astro-Ungarian governor officially refused to even consider the possibility that Horus had in fact turned traitor, instead blaming Lorgar - correctly - and "Robou Gildemann" - incorrectly.

The "Angels of Blood and Darkness" must surely refer to the Word Bearers Astartes though one would be forgiven for thinking of the Blood Angels and Dark Angels. There is plenty of evidence that the crimson-painted traitors as well as both legions of the Emperors' Angels were active in close proximity to Astro-Ungaria before and after the Heresy. The term "Angels of Blood and Darkness" is therefore likely to be another error or perhaps just coincidence.

- - -

"I have had the honor of being attached to the Royal House of Astro-Ungaria for many standard years and witnessed their training regimen with my own eye and the one granted to me by Mars many times.

The Astro-Ungarian conscripts strike imposing figures. They train in firing drills, endurance and weight lifting to reach the pinnacle of Human strength, physical and mental performance. They are arrayed in ranks clad in grey blues and rich browns. They wear many hats. Their mustasches are immaculate."

- - -

"Their are trained to fight as dictated by the Duarchs of old: with honor, in ranks, singing praise to He on Terra and they on Astro-Ungaria.

By far my favorite thing is their first taste of combat. In a few weeks, hundreds of well-fed boys are whittled down to a few dozen empty-eyed, starch-emaciated men, their optimism and ideals scoured by the brutal reality of war.

I laugh heartily at my recollections every time. Look at this pict here. You can see the horror on this younglings' face as his comrade is being dissolved by tyranid hyperacid. Look at his eyes!"

--End of transcript. The monologue ended as the whole room burst into incoherent laughter--

--- From the journals of Sergej Volkondrov, former Vostroyan attaché to the Royal House of Astro-Ungaria

- - -

"The Royal House vehemently rejects any and all claim from Macragge that Astro-Ungaria was at one point part of the 500 Worlds.

The Duarch refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the Tetrarchy instated by the so-called "Primarch Roboute Guilliman".

The Duarch will not meet with Tetrarch Felix. The office of Tetrarch is a lie. There is not, nor has there ever been a "Lord of Vespastor"."

"After careful consideration the Royal House can confidently state that there is some evidence that Roboute Guilliman could indeed be a primarch and son of the Emperor. The Royal House will appoint a commission to review the evidence further.

In other news, the Royal House has formally declared a crusade. This coincides with the larger "Indomitus Crusade" launched by the greater Imperium that citizens may have heard of. We look forward to having siblings from other worlds fight and learn at our side. For Astro-Ungaria! Prepare for mobilization."

"Do not be alarmed by the fleet in orbit. If you see space marines or foreign guardsmen on our streets, know that they are merely here to remind themselves of the glory and power of Astro-Ungaria, the Emperors' own second favorite planet, jewel of the galactic east!

Pay no heed to rumors that they have come to remind us of our place in the Imperium, for our zeal is unmatched on this or any side of the Ultima Segmentum. If you hear these words from the Emperors' Angels or foreigners, know that they speak in jest or that you misunderstood, as is to be expected, unused as most of you are to exotic accents. If a planetman says anything to the effect they are a seditionist, liar or fool, all of which are punishable by immidiate conscription into a penal legion."

"As a reminder of the duties of penal legionairies, should anyone need it; know that you will be expected to face career prospects such as tyranid biomonstrosities, plague warriors, ork beastmasters, and traitor astartes terminators. You will perform these duties armed with spare lasguns, sharpened toothscrapers, and rolls of paper."

"Espandor and Iax lie in ruins. Beautiful worlds with hardy peoples. They will take centuries to recover, if they ever do. Yet monuments to mankinds' timeless weaknesses and failure such as this endure. There is no justice in this galaxy except that which we make ourselves."
- attributed to Tetrarch Decimus Felix as his flagship Lord of Vespator hung in orbit above Astro-Ungaria during a diplomatic mission to hold Astro-Ungaria accountable for withholding forces from the Indomitus Crusade.
The mission was unofficially named "the Second Compliance" by ship crew.


- - -

Astro-Ungarian Guardsmen

The well-dressed ragtag regular infantry of von Dorfenhötz's massive army marches forth under the stern gaze of a political officer of the Imperial Commissariat. Herded into the slaughter like sacrificial lambs, their warcry rings out: "For the Emperor and the Duarch!"

The Guardsmen are converted from hard plastic German infantry in winter coats of the Second World War, with Cadian arms. My friend bought them from a mate of his, who had started to convert them into Valhallans before that project was abandoned. Now, they shall serve the Duarchy. Power to the Golden Throne!

The Cadian arms and historical bodies were not a perfect fit. Some carving and filling with green stuff was needed. Notice the Genestealer cultist heads, a sign of Imperial incompetence for lacking the medicae capacity, equipment and knowledge to properly discover alien hybrid infiltration of the Astra Militarum.

Note the randomly distributed group of five fluff balls on a string on some miniatures. This is an award for good marksmanship. Astro-Ungarian soldiers, for all their flaws and shortcomings, are still known for their accurate shooting skills.

I decided to add a field curator of souls to each squadron, as a watered-down Ministorum priest. Sure, the rare few command squads might sport some lonely robed priest in tabletop games, but I wished to infuse this Imperial Guard army both with a heavy dose of Austria-Hungary and the fanatic Imperium. Notice the sleeve bands on the field curators, as per military priests, rabbis and imams of the Königlich und Kaiserlich (K.u.K.) army. Also note the purity seals scattered throughout the troops. To add some confusion by overlap of specialist roles, I made one of the field curators his squad's flamethrower man.

The sergeants sport tasseled bands hanging from their chainswords, as will the officers of the army. Yes, they are deliberately meant to be a hazard, dangling about and ready to be snagged into the teeth of the roaring chainsword. The Imperium is sclerotic, so do not aim for polished efficiency if you can depict ineptitude and parochial superstition. The original head of the sergeant of the fez squad accidentally fell off and was lost on asphalt, despite thorough scanning. Thus, a new head had to be sculpted for him. Note the medals on the shoulder pads of the sergeants.

The vox-caster men are a result of frugality. I had two vox-casters for three models, so I cut one in half, pinned antennae into the bottom half and sculpted greeble over both halves.

Speaking of tightwads, every single Guardsmen sport patches on his uniform, and many sport unpatched holes from shots and shrapnel. The underfunded and poorly equipped regiments of Astro-Ungaria will of course salvage all uniforms from corpses, send the human carcasses off to the grinder for starch, and have the soldiers or workhouse slaves patch up the proud uniforms of the Duarchy in sweatshops on an industrial scale. Waste not, want not! How many times have not commanders dumped their casualties into mass graves, only to have to dig them up to requisition the corpses' uniforms after some years of total war?

As a Kriegsman once put it, on fighting alongside Astro-Ungarians: "It is like being shackled to a corpse."

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Karak Norn Clansman #4960

Glory to the First Man to Die!

Reyhan Cicek made his kith and kin and clan proud, for he was the first to fall in brave combat as the 78451st Astro-Ungarian Infantry Regiment charged over the top into the hellish maw of Archenemy fire during the Iscarpian offensive on Istria III, Pannonian subsector. As life was blasted out of the dutiful Guardsman's spasming body, his squad's curator of souls could be heard crying:

"Glory to the first man to die!"

The cry was taken up, first by Reyhan's Hosnovician squad, and then his entire company as the fiery yell spread from lips to lips of comrades in arms. Hot blood rushed through their veins as squad after squad shouted his warrior glory, before the cries were drowned out by thunderous artillery fire, and only painful shrieking remained.

For the Duarchy!

Ave Imperator!


- - -

All in all, the Warlord Games greatcoat German grenadiers of the Second World War that my friend acquired from another pal numbered 29 bodies. Now, that is one body short of 30, which means that one Imperial Guardsman had to be sculpted from scratch. And so this one was quicksculpted. As is ordinary for all my sculpts and drawings thanks to a poor grasp of size and eye-measurement, his arms and head are larger than average. Clearly, this stalwart soldier of von Dorfenhötz's host has inbred mutant blood running in his veins, yet such hushed-up family shame can be redeemed by dying for the God-Emperor of Holy Terra, enthroned in heavenly splendour upon the Golden Throne of hallowed myth.

Ave Humanae Imperium!

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Karak Norn Clansman #5117

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Misassignment

"Salve. Colonel general Károly von Pflanzer-Nádas, commander of the Imperial and Royal Astro-Ungarian LXXXIII. Army Corps, noble servant of the Duarchy and officer of His Divine Majesty's Astra Militarum?"

"Correct, protasekretius. Explain this ill-uniformed commotion at once! What is this armed rabble you have dragged in?"

"As per the filed request of general Kaspar Klausner-Varešanin of the Imperial and Royal Astro-Ungarian 973rd infantry division, under your august command no less, in the fullness of time this entire regiment of replacements has been transported and assigned to your Corps, colonel general. You are called upon to sign this reinforcement acquisition form in quadruplicate and imprint your signet ring in hot wax on each parchment copy to satisfy Departmento Munitorum protocol, colonel general."

"Replacements! Those are clearly offworlders, and filthy ones at that, protasekretius. Is this a form of joke?"

"The Departmento Munitorum do not administer wit, colonel general. That is outside our jurisdiction and permit. And strictly against Adeptus regulations, for the record. Last notary in the armaments requisition bureau to voice an ill-opportune quip of blasphemous nature was sentenced to death by a thousand paper cuts at the hands of his colleagues, though I am informed that the execution of said sentence required closer to seven thousand administered cuts by paper edges to achieve the desired lethal outcome. Nevertheless, justice was served, for thus perish the wicked. Thus to your question the answer is a negative, colonel general. These are your assigned reinforcements."

"But check their homeworld, man! Are my Corps to become some ad hoc jumbled-together mess of forces from all over the Segmentum? Things are surely not yet that dire. Protasekretius, I refuse to believe that this tanned and slovenly riffraff could possibly have hailed from my dear Astro-Ungaria."

"Objection duly noted, colonel general. The documentation states without doubt that this force, the 44th regiment of infantry, originates from your planet of Strayah-Ungaria, colonel general."

"Surely you mean Astro-Ungaria, protasekretius?"

"Strayah-Ungaria it is, being a legitimate variant spelling, colonel general."

"I am aghast, protasekretius! You offend the honour of my homeworld. If you were a man of action I would challenge you to a duel on the spot. Or drink you under the table. Indeed!"

"Take heed, colonel general! The writing do not lie, for it stands here in black on white, as true as the Emperor's holy light, colonel general. It is an indisputable fact, colonel general. The Departmento Munitorum cannot object to every misspelt name, wording error and quaint variant spelling out of dialect and individual excentricity produced by the milling herd of plebs and august nobles, colonel general. Unforgiving penalties may apply to such writing mistakes for us Imperial servants within the Adeptus Administratum, yes! Yet the herd of semi-illiterate subjects which it is our responsibility to administer can not be scrutinized and penalized thusly, colonel general."

"What-"

"And as to the topic of misspelling in particular and indecent paperwork in general, then by the God-Emperor of Holy Terra as my hallowed witness do I swear that you Strayah-Ungarians have proven a poorly organized asset to the Imperium, with sloppy spelling and wild variations in naming conventions all over the desk! Your scattershot misnamings and filing havoc are almost as bad as your casualty rate, by the Emperor's teeth! This is the truth and pardon the spittle, colonel general. If your ilk kept your writ in as fine an order as you do your starched uniforms and waxed moustaches, then by the saints would there be rigour and order in the buraeux whenever your parchments show up in the tray, colonel general!"

"You dare-"

"Yes. Quill. Sign! Colonel general. Signet ring. Seal! Colonel general."

"In that case I will grudgingly sign, seal and file a formal complaint, protasekretius."

"Complaint denied, colonel general. Proper equipment for undertaking a ritual procedure of formal complaint is not present in our field cabinet and can not be retrieved in time within the next eighteen Terran hours due to fuel shortages and signal breakdowns, colonel general. Your complaint will as such expire unanswered, and thus no ink will be shed over it as per the statutes of the Parchment Savings Decree of 912.M41, paragraph § 47, colonel general."

"Enough of this rigmarole! Begone from my sight you maggot-suckling scrivener! Hand me the papers and let us be done with it, protasekretius."

"In His name."

"The hell it is! As to you, colonel Jezza Joe, fate would have it that you are to serve and die alongside the Emperor's finest soldiery here on the Ligurian front. Indeed. We are the Duarch's very own Astro-Ungarian Imperial Guardsmen of the LXXXIII. Army Corps. Consider it an honour, colonel. Pray often, wash regularly, carry yourself with upright dignity and obey your superiors without question at all times. Welcome, colonel. Ave Imperator!"

"G'day mate. From Strayah with love like a fething wocker, cur'nt gen. For the Empie!"

- Anecdote from Marija Svoboda's autobiography Through Eyes of Aide-de-Camp, literary work approved by planetary censors in 942.M41 and published in Low Gothic on Astro-Ungaria by Printing House Ginzkey of Hive Zweidorf


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Heavy Weapon Horse

In the grim darkness of the far future, ignorance informs imagination.

Behold! The Imperium of Man. The defender of our species. An empire of a million worlds and countless voidholms, the Imperium of Holy Terra and Mars stretches thin across the galaxy. Besieged by aliens and monsters, it is beset from within by rebels and worse. For ten thousand years has this rotting edifice of human limitations endured, in the name of a silent Emperor.

For all the resilience and rebounding might of the beleaguered Imperium, the true state of human affairs in the Age of Imperium is not to be sought amid heroics and brilliant deeds, nor among miracles and lives of bottomless faith. Nay, instead let us brush aside the propaganda and the stories Imperials tell themselves, to look instead with open eyes on what the Imperium is, and what it can never become.

The Age of Imperium for humanity is characterized first and foremost by wasted potential. The golden pinnacles of cunning knowledge and plenty that was the Dark Age of Technology came crashing down in a calamity that nigh on wiped the human species from the stars. Its scattered remnants for the large part persisted as utter savages among the ruins, in the shape of cannibal tribes ferociously raiding each other and looting the scraps left over from the failed promises of better times. Man slew man, and woman harrowed woman, and child strangled child during the fathomless desperation of Old Night. And all was fell.

The Imperium began as a promise of rebirth, an iron fist crushing all opposition to both establish cruel unity and grasp for a better future. Yet the renaissance brought about by the Emperor of Man and His all-conquering Legions was but a gasp of a few centuries. Dazzling were their conquests, and impressive was their restoration of human fortunes across the Milky Way galaxy. Yet for all the shining works, recovered knowledge and real hope of the early Imperium, this ruthless colossus of war and subjugation sowed the seeds of human doom. Granted, the gargantuan civil war of the Horus Heresy destroyed much precious tech-lore and scarred the Imperium forever, yet even the fratricidal rage and maniac killing during the Horus Heresy paled in comparison to the smaller wars of greater consequence that the infighting Legions had already waged during the Great Crusade.

For the early Imperium did not only bring feral survivors and scavengers into the Terran fold, but it did also brook no competition. In the long run, the worst crimes of the Great Crusade was the brutal annihilation of all alternative sources of human regrowth, gathering all future paths for humanity across the stars to converge on the one road leading from Terra unto damnation. Such advanced human civilizations as the Interex, the Olamic Quietude, the Diasporex and the Auretian Technocracy were all stamped out by His Legionnaires. The seeds of these interstellar cultures were never allowed to grow and spread and shape the fate of mankind across the galaxy in competing power blocs. Thus was the destiny of all humanity bound to that of resurgent Terra by strangling her daughters in the cradle.

The immense physical might and quantity of forces available to the High Lords of Holy Terra should not be allowed to mislead us from the real state of affairs of mankind, for the truth of the matter is that the children of Old Earth during the Age of Imperium has sunk into an irreversible death spiral, where quests for knowledge mean only digging up the technological fossils of brighter ancestors, and never the toil and ingenuity of innovation and discovery. In this morass of ever-worsening demechanization, suffocating bureaucracy, frothing fanaticism and schreeching inefficiency, dysfunctionality is king, and the worsening of all mankind is his command.

Here, in a fortified madhouse straddling the stars, the last strong guardian of humanity is also its insane captor and hostage-taker. Here, in a demented cosmic realm worshipping human primacy, human power in the Milky Way galaxy has undergone a baleful decline through fivehundred generations of wasted development on a million worlds and innumerable voidholms, all under the aegis of the Adeptus Terra. Here, in the monstrous tyranny and bane of innovation and scientific rediscovery known as the Imperium of Man, will you be able to find every self-deprecating absurdity imaginable to mortals, as the fundamental mood of the human species has soured to a dull bitterness spiked with hatred, even as its faculties has boiled over in a fever pitch of savage zealotry and self-righteous bloodletting.

And so blessed machines designed by clever ancients will fail, and eventually no one will remain who can repair or build the lost machines anew. Where machines fail, flesh and will must pick up the slack. Where machines break down, men and beasts must heave and pull for all that they are worth. The Imperium can never become a pinnacle of human achievement and genius invention in the fields of science and technology, for it has shunned that which makes man truly great in the world, clinging instead to parochial superstition and the wreckage of bygone makers.

One example of this demechanization and reliance on throwing bodies on a problem can be glimpsed on the planet of Astro-Ungaria, where a peculiar solution to a lack of mobile heavy firepower has seen parody become reality, in the form of heavy weapon horse teams.

Let us glance on Astro-Ungaria, a civilized human world of majestic rivers, great mountain ranges and an endless tide of squabbling tribes and sects. Predominantly of a Catholodox persuasion within the Cult Imperialis, this world of misery and splendour is ruled by the mediocre potentate titled the Duarch, a Planetary Governor of an ancient dynasty who reigns over the Imperial and Royal domains of Astro-Ungaria for the sake of the dear homeworld and Holy Terra alike. The Duarchy is characterized by internal strife held together by ancestral loyalty to the ruling house, and faith in His Divine Majesty. All of the Astro-Ungarian military is chronically underfunded, and has gained a reputation for widespread incompetence, constant shortages, stulted leadership and screeching dysfunctionality, all of which is barely held together by a mass of manpower, solid infantry marksmanship and excellent artillery.

The aristocratic officers of the Astro-Ungarian military are renowned for their splendid banquets and parties, with fine chocolates and waltzes accompanying wonderful dresses and uniforms seen gliding over polished dance floors. Indeed, a great many Astro-Ungarian officers tend to act like characters out of operettas, putting great stock in their lineage and standing among peers as well as in their physical appearance and pleasant conduct at social events, while paying less attention to the operational arts of militaria. Do you suppose that the Astro-Ungarians will be as brave in war as they are licentious in peace? A sinspeech whisper joke that refuse to die continues to claim that Astro-Ungarian colonels will be more concerned with winning the next card game than the next battle on the frontline. Likewise, other banned jokes remark upon the ability of officers to always acquire fine liquour, no matter the dire straits of shortage or encirclement by the foe. The officer's mess cannot be allowed to disgrace the honour of the homeworld, even when Astro-Ungarian soldiers have to dig up old mass graves to scavenge uniforms off the rotting corpses of their fallen comrades.

The logistical malperformance and organizational chaos of most Astro-Ungarian regiments within the Imperial Guard tend to be matched by their wasteful and rigid approach to war, carried aloft at bayonet point by an unbreakably optimistic spirit, faith in the offensive and the dreams of grand sweeping battle plans hatched by a noble general staff that does not possess the equipment and trained forces necessary to carry out their overly ambitious visions of glorious offensives. Indeed, the Astro-Ungarian Planetary Defence Force and Imperial Guard could very well have been strong armies, if given sufficient funding and vastly increased mechanized forces. Instead, the haphazard force structure of Astro-Ungarian units tend to revolve around massed infantry, a love of cavalry and a good artillery corps which often end up carrying the rest of the Astro-Ungarian army on its back.

The better trained soldiers of the Death Korps of Krieg have repeatedly concluded that fighting alongside Astro-Ungaria is akin to being chained to a corpse. It is an overly harsh judgement, but nevertheless an exaggeration built upon truth. The corruption, ineptitude and lacklustre performance of Astro-Ungarian regiments within the Astra Militarum has been repeatedly noted by the Departmento Munitorum, yet ultimately Astro-Ungaria provides plenty of loyal and valiant manpower, while the shoddy combat record of its Imperial Guard forces is nothing out of the ordinary compared to a majority of Imperial worlds and voidholms, once the facade of Imperial invincibility is seen for what it is. And so the farce that is Astro-Ungaria at war continues to waltz on, to the tune of great bombardment.

The underfunded nature of Astro-Ungaria's soldiery means that they will be fine for parades, with military orchestras of the highest calibre, yet their more sophisticated equipment will always be sorely lacking. One example of an attempted solution can be seen in the crude arrangement known as the heavy weapon horse teams, which combines a love of horses with an undying military optimism ill suited for the reality of advanced warfare.

The phenomenon of heavy weapon horse is not just that of one or more pack-horses carrying a disassembled piece of heavy weaponry. It is instead a seemingly logical evolution of pack horses carrying around heavy weapons, which grants mobility in the field and makes away with the trouble of unloading and assembling the heavy weapon by instead attaching it fully assembled to the horse, to be fired virtually on the move if so desired. The use of heavy weapon horse teams originated in cavalry heavy stubber units after the Age of Apostasy in order to make up for a lack of light vehicles, but has long since spread to a fair number of infantry and dragoon regiments.

There is something to be said for horses, no matter their innumerable drawbacks compared to machines. The horse is an organic walker adapted for rough terrain. Such equine transport requires no fuel, and in lush landscapes the beasts of burden may prove self-feeding. Even so, the tradition of using horses as hooved weapon platforms amounts to a maladaptation, even a blunder, yet such crude fixes through rudimentary means are only growing more common across His astral dominion.

The horses used for carrying heavy weapons will usually be immensely strong Ungarian draft horses, descended from small breeds favoured by feral steppe nomads during the Age of Strife. The Ungarian draft horse is not a gorgeous and agile Viepizzaner breed by any means, but a stout workhorse favoured by agri-serfs and robotniks in mountainous regions. No matter the continent and region from which they hail, all Astro-Ungarians take pride in their horses, and their regiment tend to sport a great number of horses for logistic duties.

Heavy weapon horse teams will invariably sport spare horses to allow for shifts of rest by switching over the heavy weapons between horses, and likewise there will be pack-horses to carry ammunition and spare parts. A lack of horses for spares and ammunition transport will result in officers arranging for conscripts and press-ganged menial civilian thralls to pick up the burden usually shouldered by strong horses, thus producing the sight of flocks of human porters lugging around heavy weapons adapted for equines to carry.

Hard to hide, heavy weapon horses are trained to lie down on command, and they are likewise drilled to walk into a hail of fire when prodded. It is rarely worthwhile to armour the horses, given the heavy loads that they already carry, and thus the fine beasts will be completely exposed to all the lethal dangers of the battlefield. Heavy weapon horses are trained to be accustomed to the noise of battle, and they often turn deaf from the din, and sometimes they turn more or less blind by flashes from energy weapons. Crafty crew may occasionally fashion blinders and dampeners for the eyes and ears of their horses, yet such kit for creature comfort is not regulation standard within the Guard.

Some Astro-Ungarian units sport strange, alien mounts and draft animals, all of which are used alongside horses for heavy weapon carrying duties. Aside from horses, other Terran-derived beasts of burden include mules and camels.

Many Astro-Ungarian regiments have seen their Sentinel scout units replaced by unwieldy heavy weapon horse, in a dysfunctional cutback which makes sense on paper. After all, both cavalry and Sentinel walkers are used as scouts since horses are fast, right? And the Sentinel is armed with a heavy weapon, correct? Thus, a horse with a heavy weapon equals the function of a Sentinel in an Imperial Guard order of battle, but has the advantage of being much cheaper, being able to replenish its own numbers to some extent and being able to feed off many kinds of vegetation for refueling. Therefore, a heavy weapon horse can fill a Sentinel's role, according to certain myopic bean-counters in the Deptartmento Munitorum, who will wave off the problem of the heavy weaponry burden considerably slowing down the horse.

Occasionally, heavy bolters with their short barrels will shoot off the reins of the carrying horse, to speak nothing of bloody accidents involving heavy bolters and scared horses throwing their heads into the line of fire.

Horse mortars, on the other hand, tend to sport flimsy support legs to save the horse from the worst excesses of recoil, but the tight requirements for ease of mass manufacture and the ever-worsening Imperial tendency for retardation of equipment quality means that mortar horses will invariably suffer horrendous back injuries, unless the crew take rare pity on their loyal beast and goes through the trouble of unloading the mortar to be fired on the ground instead of from horseback. Such kindness is extremely hard to find amid the traumatized cruelty that reigns supreme across all human cultures in the Age of Imperium, for evil begets evil. A rare few mortar horses will be fortunate enough to have bionics implanted into their spines and legs, yet such enchancements through technology is usually seen as an unnecessary extravagant lavishment upon a mass of meat that will soon be consumed in the flames of war anyway, just like the rank and file soldiers who will soon need to be replaced due to heavy attrition. Better be frugal instead.

The use of heavy weapon horse teams in the field have proven an inefficient employment of resources, yet even flawed approaches may sometimes yield results no matter how underperforming, and sometimes the weakness of a doctrine may be hidden among the titanic casualties in offensives that cost hundreds of millions of lives. What is one more waste of life and material amid a mountain of corpses and vehicle wrecks? And with so many outlandish regiments with wildly varying combat doctrines and equipment, why should the heavy weapon horse be singled out as particularly problematic when other regiments charge into battle wielding dual swords?

Ultimately, heavy weapon horse teams have for the most part proven a debilitating and atavistic part of warfare across the Milky Way galaxy. Sometimes, such as in forested terrain with the element of surprise being on the Imperial side, heavy weapon horse has bitten hard and kicked well, yet more often than not their contribution to battle may be found in the rotting cadavers of equines, the scrap remains of equipment and the torn corpses of soldiers strewn across battlefields under strange skies. Yet to their callous overlords and dominas, Imperial subjects and horses are nothing but faceless numbers in a broken equation of increased input to feed the meatgrinder. It may be abominable, yes, but who will even care?

And so ever-more primitive solutions will be found for problems caused by the senility and sclerosis of a demented interstellar civilization that amounts to a sinking ship. Where machines have decreased, the increased use of warm bodies must compensate for the loss of mechanical capabilities. Thus the heavy weapon horse phenomenon is just one of endless other examples of technological regression and debasement of knowledge, that slowly grinds away all the wonder that ancient man ever achieved across the stars in his time of power and wisdom. Eventually, his degenerate descendants will succumb to their retrograde ways, for the etiolation of technology has robbed mankind of any chance whatsoever to survive the overwhelming tide of horrors about to drag our species into oblivion.

Man may be a creature of unbounded potential, yet the cosmic dominion that he has fashioned in the name of an undying god has effectively drained all potential dry, leaving nothing but a crumbling husk where once ancient man boldly reached for the stars and stood on the cusp of unlocking the secrets of creation self. All that is left, is inept rage.

And so the heinous cruelty that man is capable of in the Age of Imperium is matched only by the dilapidation of knowledge and technology, upon which all of man's future hopes rest.

Such is the depravity of our species, on the brink of doom.

Such is the fate of mankind, in a time beyond salvation.

Such is the end that awaits us all.

It is the fortyfirst millennium, and there is only shortcoming.


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Astro-Ungarian Heavy Weapon Horse Teams

Inspired by this photograph of a pack-horse from an Austro-Hungarian cavalry machine gun detachment, my brother proposed that my friend JAB could have heavy weapons all mounted on horses. And not just as pack-horses to move the heavy weaponry around to then unpack and assemble on the ground, no. But as mobile tactical horse heavy weapon teams. After ordering 28mm historical pack-horses, drilling and pinning a lot, the result turned out ludicrous with the bulky Warhammer 40'000 Imperial Guard lascannon and autocannon on the obviously very strong workhorses.

Still, my plan for the mortar team was to have a pack-horse standing to the side, with a mortar assembled on the ground. The impact of a mortar recoil right into a horse's back was too crazy for me to wrap my head around. Yet my brother persevered, and insisted that I just mount the mortar on top of the horse, and perhaps add a pair of flimsy metal support legs or hindleg bionics as a cheap and shoddy excuse for animal maltreatment of the highest order. Hesitant to go all the way, at first I did drill holes into the pack-horse to have a tall air mine launcher (luftminenwerfer) standing on the ground, straddling the horse without actually punching into its back with the full force of mortar recoil. Alas, my brother found my faith lacking, and finally convinced me to go all the way. Thus his vision for the painful mortar horse became a miniature reality at last, although he thought the addition of a second pair of support legs was too advanced and costly to fit his cheap bonkers parody idea.

The legged mortar piece itself took some work, but was great fun to build. Note all the rivets and small details scattered about it, ready to fall off as you handle the model in games in the future. This was staunchly prevented by carefully smearing super glue in a thin layer over and around all such exposed and vulnerable details, taking care not to let super glue build up lumps. The tool used was a lot of tiny strips of ripped newspaper. Take note of this method of reinforcing by super glue for your own handsculpted details on converted miniatures, but do avoid it for sculpts intended for casting.

As to the bases of the heavy weapon horse teams, I sacrificed a lot of green stuff to hide the moulded bases of the metal horses. In many otherwise excellent historical miniature armies out there, the moulded bases are clearly visible around feet and hooves, despite flock, sand and modelling grass trying to hide them. Even when hobbyists have gone to the trouble to fill out the edges of the moulded base with modelling putty or filler, many other hobbyists can often spot the mound that just so happens to be placed under the feet or hooves, all across the army. In order to combat such an impression of artificiality, I applied green stuff generously over the base to create a random spread of lumps. Hopefully it will work out fine after painting.

I barely tinkered with the poses of the crewmen. The old Cadian heavy weapon teams have some decent but limiting poses for arms. I pondered cutting up arms and hands and remodelling many of the limbs for a more lifelike impression of a heavy wepon team at work, but ultimately I decided against it for the sake of speed. My friend JAB hopes to use his Astro-Ungarians for a tournament in the autumn of 2023, so better go for mass over individual quality. All crewmen were pinned onto their bases, since nothing must be allowed to go missing should the model be dropped by accident in the future. Make it durable like a Dwarf! I mean Squat. I mean Kin. Despite the model in question being a mere frail manling, and not a stout and rotund creature approaching a perfect sphere in bodily proportions.

Flora and fauna was sculpted onto the bases to fill out the empty space. The lifeforms were made slightly alien, but nothing fancy. Again, the aim was speed, not complex layers upon layers of details. The tendril plants were made by twisting thin wire, pinning the foot into the base and shaping the loose branches. The entire organism was then covered with super glue and dosed with baking powder. Details were sculpted, such as the drip ends on the tendrils. These were then given a strengthening cover with super glue applied with bits of paper to ensure they may never fall off the model no matter the wear and tear.

Great thanks to Anzu on Chaos Dwarfs Online for gifting us with a wealth of Imperial Guard bits to help the Astro-Ungarian army project along! The heavy weapon horse conversions have been slowly cooking over months, and has allowed for destressing amid many tasks.

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Karak Norn Clansman #5123

Astro-Ungarian Tank Riders

"Sure, it's a shot-magnet and they'll spray us off from the hull like lich-lice. But it beats walking!"

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For my friend's army of Astro-Ungarians, I was full of conversion plans for Imperial armour based on the 1911 Austro-Hungarian patented concept tank (Kampfwagen), the Burstyn Motorgeschütz. I would convert every single tracked vehicle with trench-crossing limbs on small wheels, and magnetize them for ease of storage. Oh yes! These hopes and worksome tasks were dashed when my friend JAB concluded that it was not essential for the Austro-Hungarian feel of his Imperial Guard host, and it would be more trouble than it was worth. Wacky headgear gave more than cumbersome tank attachments.

To compensate, I bought some German Stug riders from Warlord games as a present for JAB, and converted them into Astro-Ungarian tank riders in the darkest of futures. By borrowing a page from the Second World War I hoped to at least reinforce the impression of a swarming horde of massed infantry, suffering from a screeching lack of mechanized transport. Alright, my friend's tanks would not have trench crossing limbs, but they damn well would have tank riders teeming over them like freezing rats hitching a ride. I particularly look forward to add tank riders as company to the exposed heavy stubber gunner standing on the outside of the new Rogal Dorn tank's turret, Sherman-style.

By desiring speed and preservation of their own energy, the tank riders make themselves prime targets to be washed away in blood from the vehicle on which they hitchhike. Not blind chance, but He on Terra will decide who survives this baptism of fire.

Ave Imperator.

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Astro-Ungarian Regimental Standard

Behold! This fine fellow is the Astro-Ungarian Regimental Standard Bearer Landgrave Aleksandar Carolus Petr von Wochenschlaussen. A heavy smoker and a dashing ladies' man famous for his amorous dance moves in the Duarchal palace balls, Aleksandar is currently engaged to Baroness Freyda von Lónyobkowicz, thus bearing prospects of marrying above his inherited station in life. Court gossip has it that half of the von Wochenschlaussen noble house are open polygamists, in decadent aristocratic defiance of local commoner mores and customs. Yet such rumours of pleasure cults and debauchery among the better castes of ostentatious Astro-Ungaria are always rife on this civilized world, as the topics of dirty plebeians will ever swirl with wiffs of court scandal and romantic trysts between noble bedsheets. Perhaps it is best to dismiss such loose talk as nought but nonsense.

On the one hand, the lazy layabout Aleksandar von Wochenschlaussen has been described as a shallow socialite good at mingling with fine amasec in hand, and fit for little else. Yet on the other hand, he has likewise been described as someone willing and eager to engage in lengthy philosophical discussions when in the company of learned peers, thus displaying some depth of thought and self-taught grasp of logic, on an unquenchable though meandering quest for knowledge and understanding. The son of a disdainful widowed father, the cultured Aleksandar has found refuge in the warm embrace of women and in the escapades of authored stories and philosophical speculation.

Too poor to afford a power sword, the tall Landgrave Aleksandar carries a mundane blade of mere plasteel, polished to a gleaming sheen so as to produce brilliant flashes when the sabre is pulled from its scabbard. Of the two, Baroness Freyda is by far the better shot, and a much more active hunter. Friends of the couple will occasionally quip that her consort at least excels in the virtue of humility.

In battle, Regimental Standard Bearer von Wochenschlaussen is best seen inside the thick fortifications of a heavily reinforced underground bunker, handsomely resplendent in his parade uniform, lit lho-stick in hand and beautiful lady at his side. Naturally, the obstacle of troopers in the field not being able to see their securely hidden flying regimental colours is remedied by the use of a swarm of servo-skulls, who both take pict and vox captures of the heroically posing Regimental Standard Bearer, and project them in cheap hololithic displays out on the battlefield. Such fine inspiration for the enlisted soldiers in lethal danger cannot be found in every Astra Militarum regiment hailing from the one million worlds and innumerable voidholms of His Divine Majesty's sacred astral domains. Truly, Astro-Ungaria remains a loyal and valiant marvel of the Imperator's Holy Terran demesne.

For the Duarch! For the Emperor!


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This quicksculpted model is not for casting, but for use in my friend JAB's budding army of Astro-Ungarians. It is a parody version of our friend Deviatecod, accompanied by his girlfriend.

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Karak Norn Clansman #5131

Astro-Ungarian Medicae Superiocrata

Tremble in fear, o naïve Imperial subjects! Bow low and heed these words about the nurse in your midst:

Aemmalia "Apothecaria" Embla-Lazic is officially known as a gifted member of the Officio Medicae, bearing the rank of Medicae Superiocrata.

Unofficially, she is a heinously cruel drug-ganglady hailing from Necromunda, wanted in four Sectors and currently operating under the disorganized aegis of Astro-Ungarian Imperial Guard regiments, where she commit baleful experiments and unspeakable organ theft in the field.

It was not difficult for such an infamous organized crime leader to infiltrate the Imperial and Royal host of von Dorfenhötz. Even following the Ljubljeburg disaster, when a freight ship smuggling Aemmalia's nefarious narcotics crashed into Hive Ljubjeburg and took the lives of two billion people, since the helmsman had gotten high on his own supply.

In Astro-Ungarian service, the undercover narco-queen has kidnapped the nobleman Arvid von Kvinnesamme-Jusic. Arvid was made into Aemmalia's consort at gunpoint, and has since become her aristocratic front figure and plaything.

To come under Aemmalia's syringe and scalpel without witnesses present, is to enter the nether circles of hell itself. Many a wounded brave warrior of Astro-Ungaria has ended his days cursing the day that he was born.

For Astro-Ungaria and Holy Terra! In Nomine Imperator!


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This sculpt is a parody version of a friend, who is the girlfriend of another friend. In reality, she is of lean build, but the twisted thick wires used for this sculpt accidentally turned the miniature stocky. As any Dwarf player worth his salt knows, stocky equals mighty, so that is appropriate. She is meant to be paired with her boyfriend on horseback.

The miniature could be used as a Regimental Enginseer in JAB's Astra Militarum army, or perhaps as a medic in a secondary command group.

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Karak Norn Clansman #5159

Navis Imperialis Officer

Flag-Lieutenant Matteus Ripanus is a fleet officer attached to the Astro-Ungarian Imperial Guard host of General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz. In the noble company of these Duarchal crustlubbers, this energetic voidborn man has seen his swashbuckling skills go to waste amid an endless line of balls, parties and cardgame sessions. Since the general staff of von Dorfenhötz tend to spend its time muddling through plans and hosting festivities down in heavily fortified bunkers, the only chance for Ripanus to swing his cutlass or draw his laslock pistol has been in sparring matches and comradely training duels against Astro-Ungarian officers. As a rule, Imperial Navy officer Matteus has found the Astro-Ungarian officer caste to be more adept at drinking and socializing than they are at swordmanship and other combat skills.

Worse still than their deficit in martial prowess among the fighting officers of the Duarch, is the apparent lack of strategic acumen, grasp of logistics and stringent organization. As the Naval attaché to von Dorfenhötz' staff, Flag-Lieutenant Matteus Ripanus has discovered a myriad of unexpected shortcomings, and the list of observed unprofessional flaws in Astro-Ungarian staffwork grows with every passing cycle, to his horrified fascination.

For instance, Naval advisor Ripanus has arranged for dozens of orbital bombardments at the request of the Astro-Ungarians. Each time communication on his end has followed strict protocol, and he has promptly fed orbiting officers time and coordinates, provided to him by the Astra Militarum staff officers of von Dorfenhötz. Such coordination has often fallen short of their real targets, and Lance strikes and Macro cannon shells have struck into masses of Astro-Ungarian troopers with alarming regularity. On closer inspection, such events of mass self-inflicted casualties will often have been the result of sloppy schlamperei handling on the Astro-Ungarians' part. Mixing up various lines of enemy and friendly defences alike is a common occurence, as is handing out faulty timestamps, or not counting with the time needed for friendly forces to advance from one point to another under enemy fire. The mistakes are as endless as they are surprising and born out of petty mediocrity.

It is all a maddening carousel of errors, which no amount of triple-checking and vox-calling frontline officers for confirmation seem to be able to halt. Even when the Naval attaché has managed to catch two or three errors by going out of his way to make sure everything is in order ahead of bombardment, some new mistake will pop up and go all the way up the chain of communication to result in wasted bombardments and horrendous friendly fire incidents.

The resulting cost in human lives and even materiel is of little concern to Imperial commanders, but the lack of bite in coordinated orbital bombardments has blackened Matteus' record and seriously hampered his career. Other dark spots in his professional record has appeared as regard coordinating starship deliveries of supplies to von Dorfenhötz, for logistics remain a weak spot indeed among Astro-Ungarians, and to be saddled with them for a Naval officer is to be thrown into a dead-end of ingratitude and constant mess. As such, Ripanus' superiors have unofficially punished the Flag-Lieutenant by keeping him attached as an advisor to von Dorfenhötz indefinitely.

After many Terran months without being rotated away from the hard-drinking crustlubbers, the realization that he would have to suffer the misbegotten planning of Astro-Ungaria at war, finally broke down Matteus Ripanus' steely self-discipline. Thus he became shackled to a corpse. Embracing the easygoing and endless socializing of these aristocratic worldlings, Ripanus has turned from a grim glare of a man hidden away all tense in a corner, to becoming the life of the party. If the Emperor wills it, then duty will rest and jovial fun will be had. And so a voidborn workhorse who used to live for precision in his craft has turned native, and has adapted to Astro-Ungarian ways by relaxing and mastering quips and jokes where once he poured his hours into charts, firing tables and orbital calculations.

For the Duarchy!


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This Fleet officer sculpt is a self-portrait, for Johan von Elak's army.

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Astropath

Guillaume Electricsson of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica is a much-abused Astropath attached to the general staff of General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz, an Astra Militarum commander cooking up fanciful sweeping plans of strategic maneouvers which his underfunded host of valiant but sloppy Astro-Ungarians are chronically incapable of realizing.

On top of the nerve-wrecking lurking horror and the extreme strains of delivering telepathic messages through the Empyrean, Astropath Electricsson has had to hone his bodily balance in the company of Astro-Ungarian officers. The reason for these demands on his sense of balance comes down to sloppy thinking on the part of the Astro-Ungarian general staff:

After all, since the signal sometimes seems to be weak in their customary bunker, so the officers will have the chained Astropath mounted on a marble pedestal in superstitious imitation of the lengthening of antennae for wireless vox communications. That ought to improve the signal!

Much of the time, the non-seeing Guillaume is utilized as much for keeping up with the newest scandals and highlights of courtly gossip at home on dear Astro-Ungaria, as he is used for sending and receiving military messages. It is strange, but true, that many valuable psykers ritually blinded on Holy Terra by the searing light of the Master of Mankind Himself will often be used to send trivial messages of no value for the running of an interstellar empire. Mediocrity reigns supreme in the Imperium of Man.

As is common among Astropaths, the bodily functions of Guillaume Electricsson will often cease to work properly during particularly strenuous mental rites of relaying messages. For this reason, Guillaume is equipped with hoses connected to pump machinery and liquid tanks. At least he has been spared the indignity of a drool cup screwed onto his chin. Likewise, an arcane encryption engine will be plugged into the Astropath's skull prior to message rites.

On rare occasions, blind Guillaume has been known to catch strange messages not meant for him. It is not known if these crazed messages are encrypted signal traffic from the Inquisition or similar shady organizations, or if they represent the deranged ramblings of fell spirits. During the latest such occasion, Guillaume in his trance entered a state of ecstasy, and rambled uncontrollably for fourteen Terran minutes straight. The garbled phrases spat out by the strained Astropath included such mysterious combinations of words as "of course dragons shed their skin", "eat its heart to become it" and "no, they are mine!"

While this dangerous psykic spasm played out, Astro-Ungarian officers and their hangers-on eagerly flocked around the wyrd Astropath to bet on how long his babbling would continue, or even bet on him dropping dead, succumbing to madness or suffering a worse yet fate. For some reason, the laughing and jesting ladies and noblemen did not seem to consider the stark risk of Daemonic possession or Warp implosion which could have engulfed them all in its hellish claws. Yet the lucky one need no wits, and so their disregard for the perils of the Warp cost them nothing.

Although the shackled Guillaume Electricsson cannot see the bemused ridicule heaped upon him during staff parties, he can sense and hear it all too well. It is not the refined cruelty of sadists, but the low background noise of everyday human spite, conceived with little cunning and little effort. The uncaring petty malice of so many staff personnel and their spouses and mistresses and servants claws at Guillaume's heightened psyche like nails on a chalkboard, and their nonchalant enjoyment of each others' company while at the same time only having the social refuse Astropath present for jokes, spit and japes, has submitted Electricsson's mental resilience to a daily grind. A grind which will eventually reduce the enslaved witch Guillaume to a broken wretch, fit only for the Emperor's mercy to end it all.

Is there anyone so lonely as the outcast in the midst of unwelcoming jolly company?

Ave Imperator!


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This sculpt is a parody of a friend of Johan von Elak. The miserable background do not reflect the jolly nature of said friend, but the bleak lives of Astropaths in the darkest of futures.

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Vostroyan Attaché

Major Evgeny Stroganof Ryabets of the 331st Vostroyan Firstborn Astra Militarum regiment is of noble stock, hailing from the quarrelsome aristocratic House Ryabets on Vostroya. The Ryabets high-born clan own giant hab-blocks in the Smoglands and are thus hated slumlords among the low-born manufactoria workers of Vostroya's 4th Managed Zone, an odium which their lavish patronage of the Grey Lady's Cathedral of blessed Saint Nadalya has not managed to wash away. The Ryabets family likewise owns vast mining complexes on Vostroya's only moon, Turtolsky, and their Highest Elder hold some influence within the homeworld's oligarchical ruling council known as the Techtriarchy.

As a child, the sporting and impressionable Evgeny grew up on abundant rote learning of Vostroyan patron Saint Nadalya's sacred text, the Treatis Elatii, which helped turn him into a fierce adherent of the orthodoxies of the Imperial Creed. As an eager juve not afraid of bruises and beatings, Evgeny managed to learn as many as 11 out of 37 forms of the martial arts ossbohk-vyar before coming of age, a remarkable feat. Evgeny Stroganof Ryabets started out his military career as a Shiny rough rider, and rose steadily through the ranks through hardy campaigning and social influence. The grizzled man has especially marked himself out as an expert on mountain warfare, and is preternaturally skilled at skiing. Major Evgeny is known as a jolly fellow to his social peers, but is a stern disciplinarian to the low-born zadniks under his command.

Major Evgeny Stroganof Ryabets was chosen to become a Vostroyan military attaché to General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz' general staff, as a reward for his dutiful service. With his home regiment, Major Evgeny was known as a hard-fighting and hard-working officer, as diligent in his craft as he was skilled in the saddle. In the chevek company of the jovial and waltzing Astro-Ungarians, the swashbuckling son of House Ryabets has turned into a hard-drinking party animal, all loud and rough while he swills amasec, vlod and more luxurious hard liqours. His favourite drink remains the famous rahzvod, a strong alcoholic beverage distributed as common rations among Firstborn soldiers and Vostroyan labourers alike.

The Vostroyan attaché is an expert gambler, and has won many piles of Throne Gelt from his Astro-Ungarian colleagues over cards and various other games of hazard and chance. Nowhere is the famous life-long luck of Major Evgeny Stroganof Ryabets more evident than in his ample use of an heirloom plasma gun. After all, it takes just one overheating shot to finish off the daring liasion officer, yet so far his trusted weapon has always served him well. Unbeknownst to this fortunate son of Vostroya, there exist several standing bets among Astro-Ungarian officers on how long it will take before Major Evgeny's beloved plasma gun become the bane of its possessor.

A favourite pastime in von Dorfenhötz' command bunker is to bet on how many rounds a very drunk and hard-swearing Major Evgeny will manage to make on the iron-shod rockrete floor while eeling about and flailing around on skis meant for snow. Sometimes, the hangers-on of the Astro-Ungarian officers will arrange sofas, carpet rolls and other furniture into bumpy slopes and obstacle courses to add spice to the khekking spectacle. Much merriment and alcohol-fuelled laughter has been had thanks to their offworlder guest's antics, and popular applause will inevitably be roused once a frustrated Major Evgeny yells out his eccentric warcry to the floor: "I will Vostroy you!"

While the courage and martial skills of Major Evgeny has never been in doubt, his time as a liasion officer to the Astro-Ungarian host of Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz has seen a cultivation of the festive sides of the Ryabets character, one which has seen untold kinsfolk drink themselves to death back home on frigid Vostroya. At the very least, the comradely socializing among Astro-Ungarian officers has never seen anyone remind Major Evgeny Stroganof Ryabets of his homeworld's ancient shame, or of the Vostroyans' duty to expunge this stain upon their honour and reputation through constant toil. Easy-going Astro-Ungarian aristocrats are not too concerned about shame or toil, after all.

In Nomine Imperator!


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This sculpt is a parody of my little brother, known as EEJR online. He excells at play-acting Vostroyans. The skis are a reference to his inherent mastery of skating on ice-crusty snow.

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Primaris Psyker

The quiet and mysterious man known as Sebastokrator Venäläinen is a Primaris Psyker in the sworn service of the Adeptus Terra. This powerful sanctioned psyker is an aloof soul, battling titanic Empyreic forces within his mind every day without even betraying the inner struggle by a single twitch of muscle. Many wyrds and psykers are known as crazy wrecks of nerves in thin human skin, yet the strong Primaris Psyker Sebastokrator Venäläinen seems to bear his psionic burdens with a stoic resilience that has impressed many an experienced Inquisitor through the years.

Still, such self-control and silent mastery of the arcane does not spare the Primaris Psyker from the ever-present fear, hatred and loathing that human cultures all across the Imperium has in store for witches of every kind, be they sanctioned or destined for the pyre. This, too, is borne with silent toughness by Sebastokrator.

As a shackled juve dragged from the Black Ships, the Scholastica Psykana of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica put the captive Sebastokrator Venäläinen through arduous trials. He endured grinding mental endurance regimes and had his mind probed by high level telepaths, who searched for any weakness in the promising thrall Sebastokrator's mental armour. Other tests involved forced duels against cadres of battle-psykers, with supervisors constantly watching how resilient the psyker's mind was against the perils of the Warp. At long last, the enslaved Sebastokrator Venäläinen was deemed to be a psyker of the highest quality, endowed with a stability of mind that made him fit to be elevated to the rank of a Primaris Psyker.

The final steps of the Primaris Sanctioning Rites involved deep mental conditioning and the engraving of protective wards and runes into Sebastokrator's skull. For solar weeks on end was he subjected to these intrusions, while being submerged in a dream-like state and being goaded with pain and pleasure stimuli. At the end of these dangerous proceedings emerged a sanctioned psyker worthy of the title Primaris, and so Sebastokrator Venäläinen tooks his place as an approved servant of the Emperor, with all the perks and independence that his lofty rank granted him. Ever since, the Primaris Psyker has gone about his assigned duties and carried out an unknown number of top-secret missions for the sake of the cosmic dominion of the Golden Throne on Holy Terra. And all the horror and corpses left behind in his wake has so far not left a single visible scar upon the calm visage of Venäläinen.

For the moment, Primaris Psyker Sebastokrator is attached to the Imperial and Royal host of General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz. Yet even the steely self-discipline of Sebastokrator Venäläinen has been dented in the company of Astro-Ungarians, as evidenced by the Primaris Psyker taking up drink for the first time in his life. The combination of alcohol and psychic powers is a potent and lethal one, but it has never crossed the minds of the officers of the Duarchy that it is a combination to be avoided. After all, the uncharismatic Primaris Psyker might be a shunned recluse, but it makes things easier when he, too, is imbibed with fine spirits. How else are they to endure his presence? Drink makes everyone run smoothly, according to an old Astro-Ungarian piece of wisdom.

When in the company of von Dorfenhötz' general staff, Sebastokrator Venäläinen will usually stand back and listen in silence, his large nose jutting forth from the shadows like the beak of some predatory avian creature. Occasionally the unassuming Primaris Psyker will offer his opinion and advice on some matter of planning, which will often startle nearby staffers who had forgotten that the damnable wyrdling was present. At such occasions, hands and fingers will dart up in warding gestures to deny the witch, before the ladies and gentlemen catch themselves and pretend as if nothing was wrong and they had not just acted out of instinctive revulsion.

Needless to say, Primaris Psyker Sebastokrator will not attend the bunkered general staff in the midst of battle, but will be sent out on important missions, to roam and wreak havoc as the battle-psyker himself deems best for the interests of the Imperium. Oftentimes, the field officer which Sebastokrator Venäläinen is attached to will treat the arrangement as mere a formality, and instead of directing this powerful Imperial psychic asset, the officer in the field will usually allow the silent Primaris Psyker to go about his business undirected by military professionals, guided only by the invisible hand of the Emperor, as it were.

This freedom of action is granted not only because the general staff of von Dorfenhötz would rather not keep the weird Primaris Psyker in their company down in their command bunker, but also because most Astro-Ungarian officers have little idea of what use they could even get out of the strange psyker. Best just to let the witch wander about of his own volition and do as he please, until he rotates out to his next assigned duty or is found dead in some crater.

Ave Humanae Imperium!


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This sculpt is a parody of my friend Deviatecod's little brother, known as Sinistrus online. A good chap. He would have been a Gnoblar in Warhammer Fantasy.

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Astro-Ungarian Colonel

Colonel Graf András Petr von Böhbenmann is the Count of Grevéberg, Honorary Pfamp of the Golden Order of Saint Günther and the legitimate contender to the disputed title of Arch-Earl of Spritzenhaufen. A fun-loving Astro-Ungarian servant of the Emperor, von Böhbenmann has found his soulmate in Gräfin Liběna Mila Moroznich von Lamberg, to whom he is engaged. This couple can always be relied upon to be the life of the party. Ding-dong! Touch the tralalalala!

Graf András is the favourite drinking buddy of Herzog Victorianus Friederererenrich "Gamen" Neumann, and their drunken orations are infamous across three continents at home for their meandering speech and overblown arrogance. When drunk on amasec, ale, imported machpagne or the finest of wine, the two noble friends will frequently begin spitting on the underclass, both figuratively and literally. Indeed, their liveried bodyguards and junior staff members have often had to work hard to prevent a mob lynching of the two jolly drunkards after their esteemed saliva has landed upon the heads of lowborn scum.

The drunken escapades of von Böhbenmann do not stop there, for indeed they have become legendary far and wide upon fair Astro-Ungaria and beyond. Even distant voidholmers close to the Ghoul Stars have heard of how the Drunken Count smashed out his teeth while riding wildly on a dirtbike through the streets of Pfraag-Schlossburg, which led to Graf András installing a most golden garniture of false teeth and exotic ivory for that shining smile under the festive lumens.

Drunk like a lord, many other anecdotes can be told about the joy and merrymaking of Count von Böhbenmann and Countess von Lamberg. Tales are told by high and low alike of the times when the Drunk Count danced on palatial roofs, hunted by his retainers and bodyguards, who had to jump from gargoyles to buttresses as they chased the singing nobleman across domes and gable roofs. The stories about von Böhbenmann are legion in number. For instance, the blue-blooded party animals of Astro-Ungaria will often joke about that one time when an intoxicated Graf András tried to eat five cheese-dripping grox sandwiches by chewing around the hidden location of a slice of salty cucumber laced with a mild poison. For each sandwich, this cherished suicide cucumber managed to show up in new locations every time, and every bite into the toxic vegetable slice sent the good Count into a fit of vomiting. Much amusement was thus had in highborn company, as the Emperor intended.

The high spirits of civilian festivities has translated well to military service, for the easy-going aristocrats that make up the officer class of loyal Astro-Ungaria would rather waltz than brood. The sloppy schlamperei culture of the Astro-Ungarian armed forces leave plenty of time for fun and games, and so Colonel Graf András Petr von Böhbenmann has found that the hardships of starship travel and campaigning out in the field on strange worlds has been compensated by the merry atmosphere and generous drink that is to be found in the staff of General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz.

Graf András carries an artificier-crafted dagger and prized plasma pistol while in uniform, both of which he won at card games. The pompous Count von Böhbenmann's heirloom power fist carries the ancient mark of the Moon Wolf, symbol of Astro-Ungaria's patron saint the Divine Horus, who according to the fair world's legends faced down the Devil Lorgar side-by-side with the Emperor Himself. For some reason this treasured ur-myth of the Astro-Ungarians meet with frowning disapproval or much worse from offworlders such as Ecclesiarchal priests or members of the Imperial Inquisition. Yet somehow this quaint belief of Astro-Ungaria has so far managed to escape a bloodthirsty purging and suppression, probably because the critical orders got lost in Astropathic transmission or disappeared due to some misfiling by an Administratum clerk. And so the sclerotic mess of the inept Imperium ensures that heretical beliefs of yore survive in pockets across the Milky Way galaxy, akin to a sprinkle of living time capsules.

To Astro-Ungaria's noble castes, life is often a party, and Graf András has warmly embraced this jovial spirit. Occasionally, Colonel von Böhbenmann will even do some proper commanding of his regiment, the Astro-Ungarian 1993rd Infantry Regiment of His Divine Majesty's Imperial Guard. He has carved out a reputation for himself as a sterling drillmaster of the Astra Militarum, making his Guardsmen perfect the art of marching for parade. Under von Böhbenmann's command, the smell of freshly polished boots, picked flowers, frothing amasec and newly starched uniforms will never leave the unit while on garrison duty or when resting behind the lines. For all their glorious appearance, however, the soldiers of the Drunken Count's Own regiment tend to be slaughtered like cattle once out on the frontline, as a bloody reminder that gallantry and offensive spirit do not make up for a lack of competent command and murderous firepower.

Fortunately, such a baleful fate has so far eluded von Böhbenmann, who prefers to stay one inch away from battle, since he believes there is a fifty percent chance to be killed in the field. For Colonel Graf András and his retinue is securely locked away inside a fortified command bunker. Here, the staff of General von Dorfenhötz will plot their overly ambitious plans and uphold their homeplanet's finest traditions of revelry, as befit their highborn status. The Astro-Ungarian army has taken it to heart that alcohol best grease the wheels of Imperial high command, and no titled soldier is better suited to make other officers feel at ease than Colonel Graf András Petr von Böhbenmann, the Count of Grevéberg, Honorary Pfamp of the Golden Order of Saint Günther and the legitimate contender to the disputed title of Arch-Earl of Spritzenhaufen.

And so the Astro-Ungarians at war party on, to the clinking of crystal glasses and the frantic vox-calls of frontline units screaming for reinforcements and the urgent correction of friendly artillery fire landing in their own trenches. Cheers!

Ave Imperator.


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This sculpt is a parody of a friend and his girlfriend. Cheers!

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Astro-Ungarian Master of Ordnance

Master of Ordnance Boldizsár Vilim Sándor von Heinrichi-Andortopf is a Duarchal artillery officer and member of the lower nobility on Astro-Ungaria. A professional artilleryman married to exactitude and precision, Sándor is on paper an expert in his craft.

Just as his superior, General Hanz-Konrad von Dorfenhötz, is in theory a strategic mastermind excelling at aggressively breaking through the lines and surrounding the enemy with sweeping maneouvres. Just the same, Master of Ordnance Sándor is in theory an expert at synchronizing a rolling curtain of creeping barrages with infantry advancing close behind. In practice, however, both officers fall short of their brilliance on paper, and both have produced mountains of corpses to prove it.

It is not so much material flaws that hamper the performance of Astro-Ungarian artillery directed by the Master of Ordnance, for the gigantic Szköda works on the fair homeworld produce excellent artillery pieces, even when the preserved technology level is of low stature. The quality is brilliant. Indeed, von Dorfenhötz is rumoured to have commented: The army of Astro-Ungaria have ninetynine problems. Artillery is not one of them.

Instead, it is lacking communications and faulty doctrine that so often drags down the efficiency of Astro-Ungarian artillery, making it merely decent where it is well possible for the artillery to rise and be superb if optimized. For instance, Astro-Ungarian artillery is often placed as close to the front as possible to increase its range. This makes its capture by the enemy an easy feat during grand offensives of the vile foes of the Emperor, and especially so since Astro-Ungarian Guardsmen would rather make their shelters comfortable and homely with flowers and planking inside, than toil away at digging multiple lines of trenches for a strong defence in depth.

Other doctrinal and communication dysfunctionalities haunt the Astro-Ungarian forces when on the offensive. While a rafale, or storm of steel, is easy to execute by merely pouring in shells onto enemy lines for days on end in a hammering, dumb fashion, it is not a winning artillery technique, since most of the foe will survive the initial bombardment and take cover, while the shrapnel that so tears flesh is useless in destroying enemy fortfications and razorwire.

More advanced, a simultaneous barrage against the enemy trenches and against a line further back has the potential to both suppress the foe and prevent the frontline troops from emerging from cover, while also hindering reinforcements from approaching. It is not a brilliant technique, although creeping barrages moving in a shredding curtain ahead of advancing friendly infantry do hold some promise. Likewise, leaping barrages have some utility, for they jump between bombarding enemy trenches, to shelling targets further back, to once again pouring ordnance on the trenches.

Master of Ordnance Sándor is a master of the creeping barrage, but the artillerymen under his command is not always so skilled. Often, the creeping barrage will go too fast and rush ahead of the advancing infantry, allowing enemy survivors to pop out of cover and gun down the Astro-Ungarians in no-man's land. Othertimes, the creeping barrage that should roll at marching speed ahead of friendly infantry, may go too slowly, and rip apart one's own line of advancing foot soldiers. Othertimes, precision is lacking, or too many of the shells are hastily produced duds, some of which explode akin to landmines when friendly Guardsmen step on the duds.

Still, for all its failures, the Imperial and Royal artillery under Sándor's command has achieved some notable success. The cannonstorm on Bucharia IX caught the cream of the separatist forces at their most vulnerable moment, as they amassed outside maglev stations for their offensive, and Sándor won a Bronze Orb of Ordnance as he directed dispersed clusters of artillery batteries to fire on the same location without warning. Thus a purple medal was won by turning seventythousand enemy assault infantry into mincemeat by a surprise bombardment, and von Dorfenhötz' optimistic overconfidence in his Duarchal army's combat power swelled further still.

One major dampener of the Astro-Ungarian artillery's potential is a weakness in communications. All too often, it becomes impossible for units to contact each other or command staff once battle rages. Cables get torn by shelling, and wireless vox signals may likewise be disturbed, especially so by means of electromagnetic pulse kit. And if contact can be established at all, the messages will often be patchy and tinny, since the vox equipment and sonic membranes of the Duarchal forces of Astro-Ungaria is of a very shoddy quality, yet another victim of the deterioration of human technology in the Age of Imperium. Evidence of this poor state of tech can be found on the Master of Ordnance's personal gilded vox-caster, which is equipped with a hand crank. This crank has frequently to be turned by sweating underlings to provide any signal whatsoever for the haughty artillery officer while Sándor commands the batteries from down in von Dorfenhötz' fortified bunker.

Even if messages do come through without any important parts missing, the information itself will often be flawed, since artillery spotters with their rudimentary equipment and lackluste training will often provide faulty coordinates. One eternal problem that plagues the artillery forces of Astro-Ungaria is its primitive technology and doctrine of forward deployment to maximize range. This has resulted in high casualties among artillerymen and forward observers, which has prevented a virtuous cycle of accumulating experience from breeding better expertise in an upward spiral of improvement. After all, with so many trained veterans dead, Astro-Ungarian Astra Militarum forces must rely on freshly trained personnel to plug the gaps and do as best as they can, and often corners must be cut in training due to underfunding or for the sake of stressful front emergencies shouting for more men at once.

As to friendly fire casualties among infantry and armoured forces from ordnance, it is of no matter. For Sándor, it is obvious: The sky on Astro-Ungaria is blue. Gravity pulls you down to the ground. The air can be breathed. And you bomb your own men in war. It is nothing to fret about. Just reload and fire again.

And so, a grinding war there will be, wherever Sándor puts his foot down. Embrace the gruelling war of attrition, and let war be decided by logistics and industrial output. Let the shells be rationed and stored up, and then rained down like hellfire from the skies. Artillery is the king of battle, the great slayer of warriors, and its roar will never turn silent as long as Master of Ordnance Boldizsár Vilim Sándor von Heinrichi-Andortopf directs the big guns of the Duarchy on distant worlds and voidholms alike.

Ave Humanae Imperium!


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This sculpt is a parody of a friend's friend, one well versed in military history.

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Hobby Workshop