Quote: On Blame
“I’ve long since stopped blaming anyone else for my predicament; it makes it so much easier to deal with. Once you stop looking elsewhere for the reasons why crap happens to you, you realize it’s all your own doing, one way or another. Unfortunately, I guess that’s one of life’s little wisdoms that are denied to us until after we’ve made an important mistake. We don’t normally get the change to learn from it.”
– Lt. Kage, from “Annihilation Squad” by Gav Thorpe
Forces of the Imperium – Navigator, Citadel Miniature, Games Workshop
Made by Citadel Miniatures for Games Workshop in 1991.
D’onne “Mad Donna” Ultani,
Born D’onne Ulanti, she was the twelfth daughter of Sylvanus, Patriarch of the Noble House Ulanti in the Spire of Hive Primus on the Imperial world of Necromunda. Her destiny was to follow the course of all the noble daughters in Hive Primus, and to be married off for political reasons when the time was right, but life would take a drastically different turn for the Lady Ulanti.1
In order to keep her pure for the proposed future marriage, her father Sylvanus locked her in a needle thin tower on the outside of the Spire. What happened to her during her years of isolation out there no one will ever know. Some say that her father used to come into the tower and torment her. Some say that she could not endure living under the vast ceilingless skies of the outside.1
Whatever caused it, nobody could have guessed the extent to which her sanity had been affected. Her future husband had been selected and she was brought out of her tower to meet him at a dinner. The feast was lavish, consisting of foods from offworld served on gold-spun plates, and finest wine poured into crystal goblets. The dinner went well, and her marriage to Count Ko’Iron seemed certain, until they reached the fourth course.1
Calmly and extremely lady-like, D’onne stretched across the table and gouged out the Count’s eye with a silver fish fork. Guards charged inside the dining room to find her removing the screaming Count’s second eye, but could not understand what was happening or who if anybody they were supposed to shoot. While they remained uncertain Lady Ulanti took the prostrate Count’s pistol and shot them both.
Amidst all of the confusion, she was somehow able to escape the Ulanti palace, get past the wall into Hive City, and then continue down and down until she hit the bottom. In the settlement of Glory Hole she was taken in by an Escher Gang and so began a long and colourful career among the gangs of the underworld. Her reputation spread quickly, and her behaviour helped to give her the “Mad” monniker to her name. Anyone who got in her way was cut down without question, and one particularly unlucky Goliath was skinned alive. One time, after having a few too many to drink, she decided to remove her own eye because the barman had told her that she was pretty.
After some time she left the Eschers and then drifted around, running with Outlaws near the White Wastes. She led an Orlock Gang in search of Archeotech at Dead Man’s Hole and was the only member of the expedition to return adding a new aspect to her reputation, the question of whether she was extremely lucky, or cursed.
Bounty Hunters began looking for her and she quickly disappeared. The last time she was seen was in Two Tunnels with the Hunters still close behind.
Warhammer 40k Imperial Knight Titan
I had this guy up for sale on eBay. Auction listing is here.
This was the absolute crown of my Warhammer 40k Collection. Only seven of these were ever made. This were originally commissioned about 1990 by Games Workshop to be used as a display model in one of their stores. Made of resin, this is the last one created before the molds broke. I’ve fixed the air bubbles in the resin with “Green Stuff,” over the years and keep meaning to finish the paint job but never get there. Both the arms have been attached with magnets so that they can rotate.
I acquired it sometime in the mid 90’s and finally had to downsize in 2011. I would have loved to finish it, or even to have played it in a game, but neither of those things ever happened unfortunately.
From the Warhammer 40k Wiki:
“A Knight is a small combat walker of the Adeptus Mechanicus that is one-man version of a Titan and is smaller than even the smallest class of true Titan, the Warhound-class Scout Titan used by the Titan Legions. Knights normally deploy in squadrons comprised of several of these war machines. The most common type of a Knight is about nine metres tall, with its head serving as the cockpit. Knights are the smallest and weakest of Mechanicus walkers, but they still are formidable and fearsome machines, all armed with an array of weapons beyond the power of even the strongest of Space Marines to bear.”
Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Tank Crew
