Hopefully you’ve already met Rogue Trader Aurelia St. Lucia, and learned the story of her dynasty’s glory – and its downfall. If not, head over to The Fall of House St. Lucia, and discover the dire straits in which Aurelia finds herself.
This post is all about the miniatures!
The Rogue Trader
Aurelia was a fun miniature to make. Her legs (and a bit of the tails of her coat) are from a Raging Heroes kit. Her body, right arm, and telescope are all scratch built, from green stuff and styrene. Her sword, of course, is from the Imperial Guard Command Squad kit; it represents the arm she lost in a boarding action while serving in the Imperial Navy, and I felt it made a nice utilitarian contrast with her otherwise ostentatious outfit. She has a Dark Eldar head, topped with a scratch-built bicorne hat. The cherub from the Empire General kit, augmented with a more suitably 40k servo-skull head, bears a pennant of ornately embroidered silk in House St. Lucia’s azure.
Dramatis Personae
Given the loss of the vast majority of her house’s flotilla, Aurelia isn’t attended by high-ranking dynasty officers; her retinue includes no cunning diplomats, resplendent warriors, or wise counsellors. Instead, she’s attended by a hand-picked few of the Cerulean‘s humble crew. Each bears somewhere about their person the abated arms of their liege – a small shield, quartered white and azure.
The Voidsmen
The humblest members of the Cerulean’s crew (until I start in on the lower decks, that is), these two were the first models I made for this crew, and they set its tone. On hand I had some Genestealer Cultist bodies, Skitarii arms and weapons, and some fantastic diving helmet heads from Andrew May’s Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter. Styling spacesuits after 18th/19th-century diving suits seemed a perfect fit for 40k’s anachronistic setting!\
(In fiction, I’m justifying the profusion of Skitarii weaponry among the crew with the idea that House St. Lucia has worked closely with Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator fleets in the past – I’m picturing a contribution to the house voidsmen’s armoury being payment for services rendered, or settlement of a favour owed)
These chaps were one of those enormously satisfying builds that just seems to shoot together of its own volition, and they set the tone for the whole project. I’ve only built two so far, but I could cheerfully make a whole bunch of them – and may do, yet!
The Quartermaster
Here’s a figure whose inspiration you’ll spot immediately! As soon as I’d finished the ordinary voidsmen, I knew I wanted a bigger, heavier figure to accompany them, and Bioshock’s Big Daddies were a perfect fit. I started with a Necromunda Goliath body, and added a GSC seismic drill for a 40k take on the Big Daddy’s drill arm. The helmet is 100% scratch-built; I sacrificed the end of a pipette I used for paint thinner for the dome, added some thin slices of brass pipe for the lenses, and some carefully bent brass wire for the cage. A green stuff mantle around the helmet and a flamer-canister air tank finished the build off.
The title “Quartermaster” is one thing I’m not quite settled on. I was thinking of the early nautical use of the term (as opposed to an army quartermaster) – a petty officer responsible for maintenance and discipline aboard ship, and for leading boarding actions in combat. Otherwise, I considered simply going with “Protector”, the original titles of Bioshock’s Big Daddies – or possibly referring to him as a Delta-grade voidsman, in reference to Bioshock 2’s Subject Delta.
The Navigator
For the Cerulean‘s Navigator, I started out with the Astropath from the Astra Militarum Regimental Advisors kit. From there, I started planning out more and more extensive modifications – until in the end I just decided to remake him from scratch! The robes are GS’d from scratch, topped with a GSC torso and a pair of Skitarii arms, one with its matching pistol. In the other is a staff made from some styrene rod, plus the ubiquitous but still wonderful Empire Wizard staff topper. The glass dome helmet is just a ball-ended push pin.
The Medic
For the crew’s medic, I’ve leaned much more heavily on GSC parts; the only exceptions are the helmet slung on a belt-strap, the Skitarii hand-scanner (intended as a medical auspex, linked to the diagnostic unit and rack of phials on his back), and his satchel (scratch-built from a few offcuts of sprue and styrene). I imagine him to be more or less what he looks like – a fourth-generation Genestealer hybrid, an affliction concealed from the rest of the crew, perhaps unknown even to himself. The freehanded tattoo on his forehead might conceal surgical scars from the removal of some betraying cranial ridges – and it’s a nod to Dr. Yueh of the Dune books, another treacherous medical man with a forehead tattoo proclaiming his loyalty.
The Tech-Adept
The final member (for the moment) of the rogue trader’s retinue is the crew’s tech-adept. Not a true Priest of Mars, but a lay adept – a technically-minded member of Cerulean‘s crew, inducted into the outermost mysteries of the Martian Cult. I imagine him (and others like him) carrying out the ship’s more hands-on upkeep and maintenance; tasks too important (or requiring too much dexterity and coordination) to entrust to servitors, but too menial for the true acolytes of the Machine God. To reflect this role, I’ve given him a fairly basic and utilitarian servo-arm, and a profusion of tools, wire, cable, and an auspex; I’m sure he clatters as he walks.