And Then There Were Nun

 The Hobbypocalypse rides again!

For those not familiar with the term, last year I, Stylus, participated in a 'Tale Of Four Gamers' style challenge with DZTV regulars Brapscalion, Sultan and Monkey. We each have to paint 250pts of a new 40k army for six months, vlog our progress and have an almighty battle at the conclusion.

The best part is, Hobbypocalypse is a community challenge, which means anyone on the Deployment Zone Discord can play along

I had great fun doing it, and my Creations of Bile army owes its existence to it.

So we've started all over again for Season 2 (the first fun-filled vlog is now live) and, this time, I've turned from the light of Chaos into the perfidious Imperium - I'm doing Adepta Sororitas.

I've had a hankering to do Sisters of Battle ever since the fantastic new range of plastics was released a few years back. But it struck me as an army that is numerous in models, not cheap to collect, and with a lot of detail to attend to. 

All these factors don't add up to an army you can do on a whim, but now I have the Hobbypocalypse boot to motivate me!

Another unforeseen bonus: if I'd started collecting Sororitas for myself, I would have absolutely gone for the 'standard' look (which I love), but as a piece of entertainment, my slapdash efforts at the Order of Our Martyred Lady wouldn't cut it. So I had to engage my imagination.

As a tangent, before I'd even started 40k (when we were all in the throes of Warhammer Fantasy), one of my first questions was: "which army is most like Wood Elves?" (I'm sure this was to Kraken's horror).

... and with light ranged troops, fragile melee units and some beefy monstrous-type creatures, I think Adepta Sororitas fall into the category nicely!

So I went with the idea of Arboreal Sisters of Battle (I have a whole narrative about them I'll come to in subsequent posts), which allowed me to try out a whole new green scheme for them, as a Ordo Minoris, and give me another run out for my precious dead leaf litter flock.

It also gave me an excuse to dig out more PuppetsWar heads - these hooded ones give a perfect 'forest ranger' aesthetic (I'm planning to use the stormbolter sisters for Dominions - when I get enough of them - so they'll be scouting up ahead).

The core of this first batch is the Combat Patrol box (which is an excellent start), and was augmented by a generous gift of more Sisters from Sultan. This gave me plenty of basic infantry, with the drawback that there was a fair amount of duplication in the monoposes.

Luckily, you can work around that. In hindsight, I could have been more creative (I was still learning my way through the kit), but I managed some simple changes, like the one above - turning the 'Flamer Sister atop a burned heretic' into a Sister Superior on a felled Plague Marine.

For the paint scheme, I wanted something fairly quick and simple (I do have to meet a monthly quota after all), but wouldn't obscure all the lovely detail.

My solution was a black undercoat, then an all-over drybrush of leadbelcher, followed by a glaze of Militarum Green contrast on the armour (avoiding the raised details, so they stayed silver). Then layering of green on the robes, and picking out the weapons, purity seals and hair.

• Armour: Black undercoat, Leadbelcher drybrush, Militarum Green contrast
• Robes: Caliban Green base, Loren Forest layer, Straken Green highlights
• Reverse-robes: Naggaroth Night base, Genestealer Purple layer
• Bolter casing: Baneblade Brown, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Skin (light): Bugman's Glow base, Cadian Fleshtone layer, Kislev Flesh highlight
• Skin (dark): Rhinox Hide base, Mournfang Brown layer
• Hair: Khorne Red base, Jokareo Orange layer, Fire Dragon Crimson highlights
• Purity Seals (wax): Naggaroth Night base, Genestealer Purple layer
• Purity Seals (paper): Zandri Dust base, Screaming Skill layer
• Wooden icons: Steel legion Drab base, Agrax Earthshade wash

I think the real secret of this army look is in the Dead Leaf Litter bases (the same kind as I used for my Wood Elves, how it all comes around), although I also added some purple and red flowers here and there, so add some more colour and variety.

Speaking of colour and variety, all the Sister Superiors (and eventually, characters) have heads from Necromunda (mostly Escher, naturally), which gives some additional character. The one on the right has also acquired an Imperial Guard power sword (I don't have access to all the lovely extras from the multipart Sisters kit).

As you'll see, I've gone with almost exclusively bare heads for the rank and file, allowing me to differentiate more elite units with helmeted heads in the future.

But that's my first month underway, and with three Troops units in the bag, I've already eaten all my vegetables!

One more model and the month is complete!