Word Bearers' Dark Apostle and Defiler 'Temple' by The Prophet
I've always liked the look of the Word Bearers. Visually the deep, deep blood red armour with gold embellishments made a good working colour palette. Not only that but any Chaos Legion that has the warped vestiges of a Imperial Chaplains gets my vote, representing the misplaced zealotry and devotion to the Chaos pantheon that the Chaos Gods lusts.
The Apostle leads his Host into battle chanting and yelling catechisms of hate against their enemies so proclaiming their divine right to victory. And this devotion to Chaos is where The Prophet's Word Bearers enter the frame.
We start with the Dark Apostle and his Annointed terminator retinue. There is a fair bit of greenstuff and kit-bashing going on here and its all been very well considered and put together. There are some very nice details that are easy to miss: the Dark Angels power weapon turned into a sinister looking scimitar, the halberd blades is cut from the plastic reaper autocannon. The Dark Apostle himself is based on the metal termy model with the addition of Chaos termy arms and a 'Crozius' made from a skeleton warrior spear, power shaft and fantasy chaos icon. The arms have all been magnetised which allows total freedom in the unit's weaponry that includes combi-meltas, combi-plasmas and a power weapon. There is also a heavy flamer, two chainsaws and two power fists. The models are also designed to separate completely from the bases to allow them to be swapped from round to square bases for Space Hulk.
Then there is the Defiler-Temple or Temple-Defiler whichever way round you want it. This incredible model has taken over two years of on and off building and when you look closely at the high standard of its conception and execution you can understand why. The centre piece of this temple features a summoning circle formed from various diabolical priest characters representing the main four Chaos Gods, surrounding a flaming brazier, within the flames the brazier is an emerging Daemon Prince.
Models are painted in a method that results a very 'grim-dark' dirty, grubby looking set of warriors — even the bases fall into the same muddied hues. The usual over the top spiky bits have been kept to a minimum as it was Prophet's intention to make the models look like an Imperial Chapter that has 'gone bad'. A good solution for the design of a DA Fallen army maybe.
A brilliant concept nicely brought to life that captures the essence of the Word Bearers.
