Gaunt's Ghosts was one of the most influential 40k novels I ever read.
It wasn't the first one (that would have been too easy.) No, the first 40k novel I ever read was "Black Sky, Dead Sun," of the Ultramarines series. And I had no earthly idea what was going on. Think back to your introduction to the 40k fluff. Mine was a book about two "Astartes" who were exiled from some "Chapter" thing, and a demonic train murders everyone on their spaceship and.... Well, it's a pretty twisted and confusing introduction. I fell in love with it anyways.
It was awhile before I picked up The Founding (the first Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus), but 40k was never the same for me after that. As a history buff, the Imperial Guard were an INSTANT hit, naturally. If you put World Wars I and II, Aliens, Vietnam and Starship Troopers in a blender, it would Probably spit out the Imperial Guard. And those are only the most obvious ingredients to the mix. But before I read any of Dan Abnett's books, 40k fiction in terms of the Guard had been a real let down. It fit the universe, but it really didn't Feel epic. In my mind, IG fiction should be breathtakingly epic. I wanted a novel about the Imperial Guard to be awe-inspiring in its' scope. I should hear the thunder of cannons, the roar of tank engines and the tramping of a million pairs of boots. I guess the problem was how glaringly obvious it was that none of the authors had any military experience at all.
Dan Abnett doesn't, but he could have fooled me. The battles took my breath away. The scenery so well written that I could visualize all of it in my head. It felt like I lost friends along the way, gained new ones. I felt the thrill of victory and the sting of loss, all flowing from the pen of the man who made 40k feel like a reality instead of just another shoddily written novella about space grunts.
I wanted something vaguely approaching realism. (Yes yes, I know. It's a game with Space Elves and Space Orks and Space Bugs and Space Marines and Demons and Warp Magicks etc. So sue me, a varied and silly universe is no excuse for shitty writing.)
And Dan Abnett delivered. The entire Gaunt's Ghosts series explored the Guard from a dozen different angles, showing us the ins and outs of any number of regiments, fighting on scores of battlefields. He wrote about something besides Space Marines. His characters were utterly human, and it sucked me in.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, no other Black Library author has inspired me as much as Dan Abnett. He's inspired me to write, inspired me to play, and (the focus of this blog,) inspired me to paint and model. That's what this is about.
I'm going to build and paint forces from the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, which if you didn't know, is the area of operations for the Tanith First and Only, along with a few billion other Guardsmen and allies and of course, their foes.
The Tanith First and Only, of course, will feature heavily, but not exclusively. The Blood Pact and Sons of Set are the biggest obstacles to the Ghosts, and the crusade as a whole, but what about the Zoicans? I want to build some Infardi zealots, as well.
And the Tanith didn't fight alone. It's funny, as a True-to-the-Throne Guard player, that I expect building cultists and Chaos troops will be easier than making other Imperial Guardsmen. But I'll take a whack at it, eventually. The Jantine Patricians, Volpone and Vitrians, eventually, although I expect that they'll be tricky. The Hyrkans are some troops I very much look forward to building and painting.
The rest of the Imperial forces are fairly vague. There are Cadian and Mordian regiments in the theater, of course. Lots of armour, too, but I don't think I'm going to cover that.
Anyways, perhaps next time I update this I'll have some pictures. I don't know if anyone's even going to read this, but what the hey. This project really is for me more than anyone else, but if someone out there enjoys this or is inspired by this, then I like to think that I've done my part to spread a little interest.
