Blood Drinkers Fandex

Today sees the inaugural post relating to my Blood Drinkers Fandex project; but wait don't those guys already have a Codex? They're covered in the Blood Angels one aren't they? Yes and yes and please stop typing to yourself it's unhealthy!

As I've mentioned before, I joined ranks with the Blood Drinkers in the time of the original Rogue Trader and since then I've collected pretty much every scrap of info I could about them. And they are just scraps, despite the Chapter being one of the blessed twelve featured within that hallowed tomes pages, they even had transfers (decals) in the MKI Rhino set don't you know; the Drinkers have spent much of their existence in the shadow of their now 'older' brothers the Blood Angels.

There has been the odd paragraph here and there in White Dwarf issues and Codex over the years, they even got a nod in James Swallow's rather underwhelming Red Fury;
but that was fine, all those gaps left a lot of room for me to fill with fluff of my own design.

Overtime I fused these nuggets of cannon information with my ideas, using the editing tools of the time, a sharp pair of scissors and a large pot of PVA; into a Fandex of sorts. Of course, if I had owned a DeLorean with a Flux Capacitor I would have known about Ebay and would now be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, having not chopped up my entire collection of Games Workshop published material.

*Sigh*

Anyway, flash forward to the now, the growth of the online 40k community has been immense with great resources for sharing and creating all manner of things related to our hobby; it's part of what dragged me back into gaming. I had just started getting actively involved with the Bolter and Chainsword forum when the 5th Edition Blood Angels Codex, written by Matt Ward was published. As usual the Drinkers got a paragraph or so, but then 'Villainy!' the Chapter was retconned out of the Second Founding.

Now I don't like to take the hobby too seriously, I wasn't about to start posting mutilated Ultramarines to Nottingham; but I do like a little continuity, daft though that may be in the ever changing worlds of GW and I was always fond of the Drinkers Successor Chapter status. So spurred on by slightly wounded pride, I dug out my scrap book and attempted to submit an Index Astartes article to B&C.

Unfortunately what started as grand plan to distill many years of work into a coherent article, turned into a bit of slog and although I appreciated the feedback from forum members; the constraints placed upon how an IA should look, what should and shouldn't be in one sapped the fun out of the whole endeavour, it just wasn't for me.

That's where this blog comes in, cos here I'm the boss; so in the coming weeks, months and possibly years with the rate I waffle and my ineptitude with editing software, I shall be creating a Fandex for the Blood Drinkers. For the most part the Dex will be a custom refurb on the Blood Angels Codex, the working parts will on the whole remain unchanged as they are obviously Son's of Sanguinius; but there will be a few mods here and there to lend a little extra character to the Chapter.

The main ingredient will be bag fulls of fluff, so if you're looking for a slightly different spin for your Angels army or you just like reading this stuff, hopefully the Dex should be worth your time. I welcome constructive feedback, but please bear in mind that as with all my projects, they are done for fun and above all for me.

Here's the front cover, which after many hours struggling to master the basics of GIMP seems to have come out pretty well.

Pictures featured 'Blood Drinker' from Warhammer 40,00 Rogue Trader and Blood Angels 5th Edition Codex cover art by Dave Gallagher copyright Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2010.
Fandex cover features 'By Lord Dante's Command' by Matthew Bradbury