a 40K 2nd edition heretic

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m participating in a Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition Army Challenge, in which I have, like a fool, undertaken to tackle the Chaos Cult army.

As part of one of the additional “hobby bingo” challenges, I’m going to write up a character from my army and tell you a little bit about him!

anselm mortsafe, demagogue of chaos

The younger son of a wealthy noble family, Anselm Mortsafe joined the Imperial Clergy as much out of obligation to his family’s political influence as out of piety. He served capably but without distinction for several decades, and it was not until he was reassigned to a shrine in a lonely desert frontier province that anyone noticed anything strange about it.

Anselm’s model is a Brother Battle from the Fading Suns miniature line.

The shrine of Saint Thecla was concerned a prestigious assignment within the Ecclesiarchy, largely for historical reasons. It had once been an important pilgrimage destination in a bustling town. Now, thanks to the arrival of more popular saintly cults from other worlds in the sector and the drying up of the local aquifer, the town was struggling and the shrine had fallen into disrepair. Still, because of its antiquity and official rank among the world’s shrines, it was seen as a bit of a plum — a well-paid sinecure in a sleepy town, ideal for clerics who preferred to read or even jet off on trips to the capital.

Anselm, however, focused his attention on restoring the shrine. It was painstaking, time-consuming work, mostly alone on the edge of the windswept desert. It was then that he began to hear the voices. Voices that told him that the shrine was neglected because the planetary administration was corrupt, that the true Emperor did not approve of the rigid hierarchies of the system that ruled in his name. Voices that told him that there were powers beyond those he could observe. That the Emperor craved blood sacrifice. That what he understood to be reality was a scab on the wound of the cosmos.

Voices that told him to kill.

Anselm spent his family’s wealth not on fine wines and elaborate robes, but on a big shipment of second-hand chainswords, which he handed out to the lost and the mad who flocked to hear his sermons and receive the bread he offered freely. He taught them the rudiments of combat and the eccentric tenets of his new faith. And when they were ready, he led them to war.

Anselm Mortsafe’s Chaos cult bears some resemblance to the more traditional faith of the God-Emperor, and a cynic would say that it is hard to choose which bloodthirsty band of religious fanatics one would prefer to fight. Still, those who spend a long time listening to Mortsafe’s preaching do begin to … change. And Mortsafe himself has some abilities he did not originally possess.

Anselm Mortsafe, Prophet of a New Faith (56 points)

M 4 WS 5 BS 5 S 4 T 4 W 2 I 5 A 2 Ld 8

Anselm wears a suit of carapace armour and is armed with a plasma pistol and a power sword. He is protected by a Daemonic Aura.