Hungry Ghosts Chaos Squat 100: Col. Teckja Ras-El-Dugmit

Five years ago, a glorious new chapter in the history of the Squats opened up: The Hungry Ghosts Chaos Squats of Khorne blog. As one early commenter said, when I saw the name I thought it was a joke. Joke it was not. Now we break new ground with the introduction of the 100th Hungry Ghost, Colonel Teckja Ras-El-Dugmit.

Ras-El-Dugmit is the Hungry Ghosts version of Imperial Guard Special Character Captain Al'Rahem of the Tallarn Desert Tigers. Ras-El-Dugmit adheres rather closely to the illustration of Al'Rahem, considering the warping power of Chaos. We have the large overcoat and the sand-shielding goggles that came with Squat Guildmaster 2, and of course the mandatory Space Boots all but Tyranids must wear.

In contrast to Al'Rahem's puny excuse for a beard, Ras-El-Dugmit has been given a magnificently long flowing braid, as mobile as the desert winds he strides amongst. It is from one of the plastic Beastmen Gor heads. It also nicely covers up the Obvious Mistake that was made in not designing Guildmaster 2 with a proper beard to begin with. And that silly albatross around his next like he would ever consider getting on a boat had to be scraped off. Ras-El-Dugmit was given a lighter shade of the Hungry Ghosts hair color formula to signify his desert origins, the old Bronzed Flesh paint.

Ras-El-Dugmit's Plasma Pistol was made incalculably more awesome than Al'Rahem's, using the 40K 3rd Edition Chaos Space Marine Champion Sprue version with glowing veins of power and the early wisp of a plasmatic blast coming from the barrel. I think it is some bit of Wood Elf shrubbery, but can't remember.

From the side, we can see that Ras-El-Dugmit's attire is well integrated. One of the many Hungry Ghosts who do not use Squat arms cause they suck, Ras-El-Dugmit has the right arm of a plastic Necromunda Orlock Gang member from the mid-1990s starter box. It provides additional sweat-absorbing cloth beyond his headband (made larger with some green stuff below his cyber-bit on the right side of his head). The band does well as an emphasizing accessory for his bulging, if necrotic, bicep. Teckja also knows the Power of One Glove - Sham-On!

The matching cloth streaming from the Plasma Pistol comes from the less impressive source of a plastic Bretonnian Knight Head. Like Al'Rahem, Ras-El-Dugmit is equipped with shoulder armor. Not that that's not a common feature in the Grim Darkness of the Grim Dark Future.

Ras-El-Dugmit is sporting a fancypants Forge World backpack from a Krieg Engineer. More noticeably, while Captain Tallarn has a mincy little sword to dispatch his enemies, Ras-El-Dugmit has more fully committed with his entire left arm replaced with a huge Power Mace, the Maul of the Skull-Breaker. The yellow bumps are a reminder of all of the Mark 6 Space Marines that have been smitten by the Maul over the centuries. The circuitry of the cybernetic arm attachment region is guarded by a bit of plastic Empire Knight armor.

Said circuitry can be seen from the other side, and like the Plasma Pistol, the Maul also has nice little cylindrical bits to display the energy flowing within the weapon.

 Some may have noticed that Ras-El-Dugmit's dual-weapon arms provide a wide open stance, projecting outward and upward at similar angles. By now, we know that was intentional. So was the counterbalance. While the killing arms spread open like the wings of the angel of death, Ras-El-Dugmit is looking right at you. This was emphasized by ensuring that the long beard ran up at a contrasting angle to the arms, up to his face, and continuing upward by the addition of an antenna to the right side of his head (Battlefleet Gothic spaceship bit). In the middle, frame by the hair and head band, we have his goggle-guarded gaze. The lenses of the goggles have been painted the same bronze color as the pistol and Maul of the Skull-Breaker, while the exposed area of his face was muted with a ghoulish light blue-gray.

Then we have the cat. A reminder of the original Desert Tiger, as well as the GI Joe action figure Spearhead who was accompanied by a bobcat...

named Max. There he is, now working for a Rogue Trader Ork Runtherd, the one that's not in the Catalog (Ooooo....rare...). We also have some Orks from the days when, if you wanted your Orks to be insanely powerfully armed, you got it. These three came in a blister pack with another heavy weapon Ork with a Missile Launcher.

 This Max, in proper feline fashion, is walking near Ras-El-Dugmit, not with him, and not particularly interested in what our Chaos Squat is looking at. He is from a Grenadier Wizard's Familiar metal sprue, with the addition of a plastic monster-face collar from one of the old WFB Empire war machine accessories.

As the addition of our desert cat suggests, we can't have a miniature where all of the action is in the upper regions with a lonely ignored base.

So our base is filled with rubble. As in the original fluff, the Guildmasters were inexplicably aligned with the greasy Biker contingent of Squats, motor vehicle parts have been strewn upon the base. We have a wheel from one of the 1990s Imperial Guard Heavy Weapon platforms and a partially buried headlight from the old Squat motorcycles (actually miscast and not partially buried). 

Anyway, we know we can't have prominent angular alignments without circles. We learned that from Stonehenge. So our circular headlamp is set below the Power Maul, and given similar colors. The wheel is placed on the other side of Ras-El-Dugmit's beard, and directs attention toward the seam of his coat. Both the wheel and coat seam and buttons are painted in similar colors as Ras-El-Dugmit's goggles, to provide another source of attraction toward his gaze. Ras-El-Dugmit's head forms the most important circle of all, surrounded by the lesser rings.

Ras-El-Dugmit, like many of the other commanders of the Hungry Ghosts, is a Squat who will not be constrained by the boundaries of his base. Ras-El-Dugmit's right boot is set at the edge of the base, with the result that almost all of his right arm is beyond the edge of his base. His candy-corn colored antenna sticks out as well. And the old tire.

The result is that Ras-El-Dugmit is both backed into one edge of his base while jutting forth in contrary angles.

And a triangle emerges from the circles and dischordant lines. Ras-El-Dugmit was intended to be a simple conversion. But he is Master of All He Surveys.

And here is Ras-El-Dugmit joined by the other special characters, led by The Grudge Master. Who's that in the upper right? We will find out soon...

Chaos Squats 40K Special Character Chikibi Chhattisgarh, Hungry Ghosts Gunnery Sergeant, Volume II: The Title-Lengthening

Back from a word from our sponsor, but still scatterbrained. When Hungry Ghosts was in college, wearing our sponsoring Pantera Cowboys from Hell shirt, he was friends with a professor who enjoyed discussing Greco-Roman architecture (cause that was his job) and one such discussion topics was the "Yeshua ben Pantera" theory. For those lacking in Semitic linguistics skills, that means "Jesus, son of Pantera". 
The "Jesus, son of Pantera" theme had been in religious studies since the 2nd Century AD, and 'twas for centuries dismissed as pagan lies.
 Then came the construction of the Bingerbrück Hauptbahnhof at (for the time) the boundary of the Großherzogtum Hessen and the Rheinprovinz of Preußen in the late 1850s. This turned up a Roman cemetery containing a burial marker with an inscription belonging to a Roman soldier bearing the name

Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera

From Sidon, a city well known in biblical days, including for its place in Jesus's preaching tour of the region. Who is said to have lived 62 years, with 40 years of service in the Imperial Legions. But little else is known. Hungry Ghosts is also watching Die Römer im Südwesten (Germany) right now. Which is where Bingerbrück is. One of those places that are important that you've never heard of, Bingerbrück was the target of at least 7 major bombing missions in WW2.

 

Before...

 

 After.

Bingerbrück is the link from the left-bank Rhine railway to the Nahe valley railway, should one desire to travel from Mainz to Metz. Which is perhaps a surprisingly popular thing to do, or to prevent others from doing. Even the Swedes attacked in 1632.

Now that we have mentally traveled from the southeast frontier to the northwest frontier of Imperial Rome, when we last saw Chikibi ... he had been spontaneously mutated into another character,
Marbo Machinder

"strength in purity" the dwarf with the necrotic arm disagrees

 

There he is, coming through the door...

 

Here we have the left shooty-side of Chikibi. He is wielding a Las Pistol from the old Rogue Trader Squat/Imperial Guard weapons sprues (yes, sometimes someone actually uses one of them). Of course Las Pistols mostly suck, so Chikibi's humanoid wrist is wrapped with grenades...

 

 ...all the way...

...around.

Now you're thinking "Hey, sure he's got four arms, but two of the three others have skull-crushing claws and the other has a gun so big it needs its own character sheet strapped to it. So what's he going to do with those grenades?"

If Chikibi is somehow reduced to relying on his grenades, he will use his Chaos Gift of Sheer Anger to ram that fist into whatever passes for a mouth of whatever put him in the state of Sheer Anger, always hits/no saves, and pops the pins with his Willpower.

He's been told the arm will grow back. It will grow back.

The weird shape of Chikibi's shoulder-region made finding the right bit of armor not a problem at all, because I used another piece from the Ancient Skeleton Army sprues.

Cavalry armor breastplate!

http://solegends.com/citcat19912/c20334plasticskelarmy-02.htm

Didn't even have to change the rotation from the sprue.

So our crunchy-crunchy claw-arm has a wide range of movement available through the waist ridge of the plate, while the las-grenade arm pokes out as intended by the Undead, the left arm side. Chikibi's head can rotate about thanks to the curved edge for the right arm, and his rounded sack full of sugarplums and children's dreams is accommodated by the neck section. A frame joined unto a fearful symmetry.

 

The symbol on the breastplate is a variant of one of the Hungry Ghosts symbols:

But even with the smallest tip pen, it still looks a bit crammed, and is nigh impossible to photograph well.

Here we have an older picture, before the addition of the symbol. It is not terribly satisfactory either, with its expanse of red. So what to do here...

More pictures: With The Grudge Master

 

 Catchin' Orks

 

 Combating the Other Green Menace,

well, mostly brown, in this case.

The Grudge Master fears no flame.

Winters afoot...

A Word From Our Sponsor With The Grudge Master

Hungry Ghosts is cranky today due to elevated pain levels that are being very resistant to combative maneuvers. So we will take a small excursion to focus on one of the background players on the Hungry Ghosts team (literally).

 Continuing the tradition of using ancient t-shirts that no longer fit, this year's Hungry Ghosts troopers have been displayed on a 1992 Pantera Cowboys From Hell shirt.

 Wie So... our former field of battle was a Judas Priest Painkiller shirt, from 1990.

But this Rider of the Metal Monster, Breathing Smoke and Fire, due to incarnation in form of a nylon-cotton blend, got rather icky after two years in a basement apartment in Chicago.

The replacement comes from the tour supporting Pantera's second album, Vulgar Display of Power.

This album was renown for, in addition to general awesomeness, the name of its 4th song. Coincidentally, such is the default mood for the Hungry Ghosts army. Though The Grudge Master confidently brings it to a new level of power.

 Purchased at the September 4 1992 concert at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan (opening act, a then-unknown White Zombie), Hungry Ghosts wore this shirt at the start of his orientation at college the following day.

This shirt is also the "Diamond" / "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott Memorial Shirt. A powerful influence on the heavy metal guitar sound for over a decade, Dimebag was murdered by an audience member at a Damageplan concert in December 2004 in Columbus Ohio. Three others were killed and seven wounded among the band and audience who did not refrain from acting:

The gunman,  Nathan Gale, shot Abbott 3 times to the head, the third shot killing him instantly. Gale continued shooting, killing three others and wounding a further seven. Gale fired a total of fifteen shots, stopping to reload once and remaining silent throughout the shooting.

Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, the band's head of security, was killed tackling Gale, as was Alrosa Villa [concert hall] employee Erin Halk. Audience member Nathan Bray was killed while trying to perform CPR on Abbott and Thompson. It was rumored that one crowd member leapt in front of the gunman, saving the lives of several band members. Damageplan drum technician, John "Kat" Brooks, was shot three times as he attempted to get the gun away from Gale, but was overpowered and taken hostage in a headlock position. Tour manager Chris Paluska was also injured.

Seven police officers came in the front entrance, led by Officer Rick Crum, and moved toward the stage. Officer James Niggemeyer came in through the back door, behind the stage. Gale only saw the officers in front of the stage; he didn't see Officer Niggemeyer, who was armed with a shotgun. He approached Gale from the opposite side of the stage to avoid hitting the hostage and fired a single shot just as Gale looked towards Niggemeyer, striking Gale in the face. 

(Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimebag_Darrell).

 

Continuing the spiral of history, Dimebag Darrell and the other members of Pantera recorded Light Comes Out of the Black with Rob Halford of Judas Priest for the 1992 soundtrack to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.

Historia Squataticus Supplement: Squats Summary from 1994 to 2004

A Comparison Squats material and game-design decision-making from 1994-2004 in White Dwarf and The Citadel Journal (Historia Squataticus Appendix 1)

This table provides a year-by-year summary of the treatment of the Squats from the release of Warhammer 40K 2nd Edition in 1994 to the final reference in 2004. Both 40K and Epic are included in this comparison of White Dwarf and Citadel Journal information.

Living Ancestors Never Forget

Year	White Dwarf	The Citadel Journal
1994	Frequent Epic, not much 40K.	Same as White Dwarf
1995	Continued Epic without new minis, not much 40K.	Continued Epic, including 40K/Epic crossover rules
1996	Incidental Squats 40K & Epic but no really bad news until end of year's report that the new Epic 40,000 would not have the Squats included at the start.	Frequent 40K and Epic material
1997	Only incidental pictures and references, reported as a former army when Epic 40,000 appears in Spring.	Squats Army List for Epic 40,000 published, reports that Squats left out because they could not get them right in time (same with Epic Knights) but high level of response from Squats generals demanded an “unofficial” list until an official army list was developed. Squats rules included in 40K and Necromunda articles.
1998	Febuary issue (217) notes that greatest concern from Warhammer players is “What's happening to the Squats?” but does not address the issue. Later in the year, 40K 3rd edition is announced without any mention of the Squats, but it also massive underestimates of the impact on usability of older models and units, Squats or nots.	Squats featured in several articles for Warhammer 40K, but a Convention Report from late March states that the decision to exclude the Squats from Warhammer 40K 3rd edition has been made, but that they are planning to revive them for 4th edition. So it seems likely that the decision to keep the Squats out of 40K 3rd edition was made in late 1997 or sometime in 1998. We can speculate that the decision evolved from trying to reintroduce the Squats to Epic 40,000, but cannot be certain, and there are no known prototypes or unreleased Epic Squats items from the late 1990s. There are also no known 40K Squats from the time either, the 8 Warhammer 40K 2nd edition Squats were done in 1993 or 1994. But it also clear that GW did not plan on totally eliminating the Squats in 1998, and instead hoped to bring them back to Warhammer 40K (eventually) and Epic 40,000 (hopefully sooner).
1999	Nothing	Discussion of how to use Squat miniatures in Warhammer 40K by Jervis Johnson, Warwick Kinrade, and others. Squats are mentioned in all but one of the 1999 issues. Johnson reports that Squats have been left out of 40K 3rd Edition because the designers have failed to come up with enough good ideas about how to make them into a distinct and coherent army. The general recommendation is to use Squats as Imperial Guard stand-ins or as units within human-dominant IG armies.
2000	January issue (240) features the “Eaten by Nids” customer-service fail by whoever was responsible for the Letters page.	Mostly comments in letters from readers.   However, the final issue from the year reports that Epic Squats infantry sprues are available again; the metal vehicles have likely been continuously available as well.
2001	Nothing	Just one comment in a reader letter.
2002	Nothing	The last year for the Citadel Journal, with Warwick Kinrade mentioning the Squats “Counts As” article from Issue 33 (Late Summer 1999) as a favorite.
2003	Nothing	Citadel Journal no longer published.
2004	Increasingly jittery denials of Space Skaven fail to fully assuage guilt over treatment of Squats, leading to an editorial error in the February issue (289) leaving a reference to the Squats of the Forge World Golgotha being conquered by Ork Warlord Ghazghkull Thraka due to insufficient support from alleged Imperial allies. Warhammer 40K 4th edition is released in the fall with no revitalized Squats.	Citadel Journal no longer published.

The Grudge Master Remembers.

Warhammer 40K 25th Anniversary Squats Grudge Master II : Based and Debased

The Hungry Ghosts have a tendency toward elaborate basing, and the Grudge Master is no exception. In fact, the Grudge Master's base is integral for Anniversary Grudging purposes. It also takes the signature base-bits-sprawl over the edge to new levels.

As we can see, the front of MSgt Grevess's base features heads of great enemies. Prominently spiky is an Ork Nob severed head, who also shares the Hungry Ghosts' love of skull symbols (let's face it, just about everyone in the 40K universe has a skull fetish). The Orks were the last to mention the existence of the Squats in the 40K universe. Despite the enmity, the Squats must grudgingly note that minor respect in their Book of Grudges, though the mocking term "stunties" was used (White Dwarf 289 p.108, Feb 2004).

A second Great Enemy appears to the right, a severed head of a Genestealer, of the early 1990s plastic variety. The color scheme is a reversal of the Grudge Master's, a slippery blue hue pocked with red and yellow pustules. 

 Peeping out from the side is one of the cute little Skaven rats that come with the Hell Pit Abomination.

And another little rat on the other side. Both bear the same fiery fur that marks the beards of the Hungry Ghosts.

We can see that the severed Genestealer head has left a sticky mess on the floor. Another mess was the moulding of the teeth - no gaps between the right and left sides, just big creased mashing surfaces like wooly mammoth molars. Seems that Genestealers crush their nummies instead of tearing them apart as Imperial propaganda would have us believe.

The rats rest upon the hands of former allies, one upon the gloved hand of a Space Marine and the other on the putrid rot of an Imperial Guard meatshield. The hands of those who offer false friendship are severed like those of the thief: indeed the theft of trust can be worse than theft of gold. They are left for the vermin to do with as their dirty little minds see fit.

So too with the cast-off weapon of the enemy. The bastardized version of the lasgun given to the humans by the Squats as a welcoming gift to a dangerous galaxy points to the past, broken as the promise it symbolized.

But what can you expect from a species with such a tiny skull and tiny brain? Seriously, though, GW design team, is that a child skull? Monkey? Pixie? Khorne is not impressed.

Our Grudge Master, so fraught with symbolism already, has more symbolism to unleash. From above a carefully crafted Chaos symbol is revealed, the diagonal axes formed by severed heads paired with severed hands (and pointy rat snouts), skull embossed arrowheads upon the Grudge Master's shoulders, and lastly the barrel of the lasgun pointing behind while

Facing forward is the skull, bedecked with golden laurel wreath, dedicated to Lord Death, whose fires glow from within. Death will come to all, to some it will come soon, from the Grudge Master.