Finished upgrading another Raptor Squad
8 of the Raptors are upgrades (new weapons, decals, banner, arms, etc) and 2 are new models (champion and plasma gunner)
Raptor Aspiring Champion Macabre Harvest is a rarity among House Nightfall's Night Lords for three reasons.
First, she is a worshipper of Slaanesh. Most Night Lords do not worship Chaos. Instead they see Chaos as a tool to be wielded. But Macabre Harvest regularly sacrifices victim in the name of Slaanesh and hopes to someday become a Slaaneshi Sorceress. Consequently, the Atramentar and the Traitor Guard Enforcers. House Nightfall's security arm, keep close watch on Macabre Harvest to ensure she does not corrupt her fellow Chaos Marines. She has too many supporters on House Nightfall's Council of Eight so they cannot execute her outright.
Second, Macabre Harvest was never human. She was once an Aeldari Ranger acting a scout for her craft world. But she went Rogue and eventually found employment within House Nightfall. Her fierce nature and proven combat ability ability convinced the Council of Eight that Macabre Harvest should undergo the Mercantile Trial of Blood, the series of tests and transformations House Nightfall applies to a mortal to make them an Adeptes. Macabre Harvest, despite her weaker Eldar constitution managed to survive these trials. She became a Legionary in the Jackals Squad. After years of service as a Jackal, Macabre Harvest was promoted into the House Nightfall Raptor Cult. And, years later, after serving as a rank and file Raptor, the daemonic faction on the Council of Eight pulled some strings. And, lo and behold, Macabre Harvest was promoted to Aspiring Champion of her own Raptor Squad, Death from Above.
Macabre Harvest is secretly serving as a spy for the daemonic faction. She uses her worship of Slaanesh to aid her spycraft. Someday she hopes to become a great sorceress. And, who knows, perhaps someday a seat on the Council of Eight will be hers and she will then be able to truly serve Slaanesh.
Third, as a long-lived Eldar, Macabre Harvest once met Conrad Curze back before the Horus Heresy. She is tight lipped about what was said during her exchange with the dour Primarch. But tumors abound that he foretold how the Rogue Eldar Ranger would someday become a Night Lord. At any rate, she uses the fact that she once met the Night Haunter as a way to impress other members of House Nightfall.
Helcaster is a sort of psychic blank. He has no mentalist powers of his own. But whenever a psyker comes near him they are unable to use their powers. Helcaster also forces nearby psykers to hear the screams and maddening silences, and cacophonic symphonies of the Void.
Any Psyker who remains near Helcaster for any length of time is doomed to go mad. House Nightfall's leadership will often send Helcaster and his fellow Raptors on missions to incapacitate and eliminate enemy seers. Many an Iron Priest or Aeldari Witch has been stunned and then massacred by the Helcaster and his Raptor brethren.
Veil Walker never speaks. And she dissappears for days on end. Only certain members of the Council of Eight know where she goes.
For Veil Walker can manipulate the vortices of the Warp to travel to any number of infinite plains. She speaks only an archaic tongue, a dead dialect of the fallen Krazalos Chaos Empire, and she only reports the results of her travels to Sorcerors Uros Kas and Bolivar.
House Nightfall gains greatly by Veil Walker's wanderings. She is the only one who can enter the dimension of their allies Ur Xenos species. She is the only one who can locate and beseech the great Doom Rider for aid. And she seems to know a great deal about the comings and goings of rival Mercantile and mercenary houses.
Nightsoul is not a Heretic Astartes per se. She is a young Witch from another dimension. She stole an artifact, a magical Claw, of great sorceress power from her mistress, the infamous Baba Yaga and then she fled to another dimension. Nightsoul stumbled across a Chaos Raptor and killed him in single combat. She then hoodwinked House Nightfall and used her glamor and witchcraft to pass herself off as a Chaos Raptor.
Will Nightsoul attempt to eliminate other members of House Nightfall? Will she attempt to find allies and ingratiate herself into House Nightfall? Or will she leave and wander the verse? She does not know. She only knows that someday Baba Yaga's Hounds will find her scent.
There's a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin' like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah
Riders on the Storm
-Riders on the Storm, The Dooupdraft,
Raptorian is a master of flying. He finds perfect freedom in becoming the best at flying as high as he can. These days he rarely sets foot on the ground, only briefly to kill or refuel. He prefers to be one among the clouds, banking and soaring on updrafts, for flight is sublime.
Bad Tidings is doomed. He is slowly being transformed into an elder being from beyond space and time. The Heretic Astartes has experienced visions of what is to come and he is filled with dread. But if he were to tell anyone he knows he would be handed over to the Enforcers and Atramentar and quickly executed. Bad Tidings indeed.
Tyridal was once a contented grandmother living on the House Nightfall capitol world of Ragnarok. She had served her time as a merchant explorer in the Ghoul Stars and also raised a family. Her only sadness in life was that her husband of many years, Pater Blood, had recently passed away.
But one day Tyridal received horrible news. Her daughter and her grandson had both fallen in battle. Both served in the Nostroman 9th Regiment of House Nightfall's Traitor Guard. The Debacle at the Planet Ocean Shores had devastated the Nostroman 9th with the survivors fleeing back to Nightfall-held space. And so Tyridal mourned.
But mourning was not enough. And so Tyridal petitioned her sub-house, House Nocht, for the right to avenge her daughter's and grandson's deaths by joining the Traitor Guard and fighting House Nightfall's foes. Tyridal was over a century old. So, normally, Sub-House Nocht would reject such a request. But they agreed. Who knows why. Perhaps there was a fierceness in Tyridal's eyes as she begged for the right to fight. Or perhaps it was the fact that Sub-House Nacht's leaders realized that a revenge-seeking grandmother could be turned into a public relations spectacle. Or perhaps the Chaos Gods intervened on her behalf. Perhaps all three reasons contributed to Tyridal's request being granted.
At any rate, Sub-House Nocht provided Tyridal with the necessary blood rituals and rejuvenat treatments so that she could become a hearty middle-aged warrior. For months she trained as a Nostroman 9th Chaos Militia trooper.
Then Tyridal first saw combat during a House Nightfall raid on the loyalist spire-planet of Ren. Trooper Tyridal personally assaulted and captured an enemy pillbox containing a dozen PDF troopers. She then flayed each PDF trooper alive and distributed their skins to her squad mates. Vengeance was hers and it was glorious. The raid was a success and Trooper Tyridal was promoted on the spot to Corporal Tyridal.
Tyridal served honorably in the Nostroman 9th for years. As a reward for her actions against the Tyranids on the moon of Ballard Prime, Sub-House Nocht petitioned the Council of Eight. They asked that Tyridal be allowed to undertake the Mercantile Trials of Blood, the arduous process by which a House Nightfall mortal becomes a Heretic Astartes. The request was granted.
While most who attempt the Trials fail and perish, Tyridal, feisty warrior and would-be grandmother, survived. She became a Chaos Legionary in the 3rd Battalion's Jackals Squad. She served with distinction for centuries and eventually joined House Nightfall's Raptor Cult. To Tyridal, vengeance is all, and now she soars through the Heavens on wings of fire avenging her daughter's and grandson's deaths with bolt pistol, blade, and meltagun.
Insidious Visions is a Disciple of Nightgaunt, House Nightfall's Dark Apostle. Night Gaunt is a Dream Master born from the Plane of Dreams. He is teaching Insidious Visions his craft.
And so, on nights of the full moon or moons, just before a Night Lords raid, Insidious Visions enters the dreams of an unsuspecting sleeper. He contorts their dreams into nightmares.
On the first few nights the changes are subtle, a mysterious shadow here, a far off cackle there. This is enough to disturb the dreamer, especially when they awaken.
Then it gets worse on subsequent nights. Insidious Visions can cause the dreamer to see mutilated loved ones, to look upon dark monsters with Cheshire grins, and to smell the scent of death itself.
The dreamer awakens in a near panic, filled with dread. And then the House Nightfall raiding party arrives. And the dreamer realizes the dream was merely an insidious vision of what was to come.
Flayer was once Harex, an Astartes of the VIII Legion and a member of one of House Nightfall's Chosen units, the Ravens. During a mission House Nightfall had been hired by another much larger Night Lords warband. The Ravens conducted an infiltration operating alongside their employer's First Claw of veterans.
The Ravens and First Claw successfully infiltrated the enemy headquarters and killed the leader. But Harex was mortally wounded during the operation. He was saved by the First Claws' Apothecary, Variel, nicknamed the Flayer.
And so when First Claw and House Nightfall parted ways, Harex adopted the moniker of his healer. He would now be known as Flayer. Flayer has since left the Ravens and joined one of House Nightfall's many Raptor Cults.
Enjoy the photos! Ave dominus nox!