The Feast of Fluff: Results!

The judging for the Feast of Fluff contest is complete, and we’re now ready to announce the winners! First, I’d like to thank everyone who participated – we got some seriously great entries, and determining winners was genuinely tough. But the judges have spoken, and here we are.

A quick recap of how judging was done: Three judges, including myself, independently judged the fluff entries on three criteria: artistic merit, originality, and technical merit, and miniature entries on two: originality and artistic merit. All of these were scored from one to five, totaled up, and then the final score for each entry was the average of those three overall scores.

The contest had ten entries, which represent a truly massive amount of work on the part of the people who put them together. Again, I’d like to thank everyone who entered. While we don’t have room to post all the entries, I think they all deserve a brief mention. We had (in no particular order):

• The tale of Sir Gordon of House Hazamel, and how he earned his Knighthood fighting Tyranids on the sands of a moon of Gratox.
• How the Kroot learned to fly on borrowed wings (who needs Vespid anyway?)
• The tale of the Sunz of Mork, a warbiker mob that has plagued the Imperium from Armageddon to Ryza.
• The epic (and I do mean epic) history of the Kingbreakers Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, from the tragedy that almost broke their Chapter to their eventual rebuilding.
• The diary of Lady Commissar Ariadne of the Ixion 12th Dragoons as her regiment gets embroiled in the schemes of a mysterious member of the Inquisition.
• An account of the Adepta Sororitas Order of the Crystal Rose, and their struggle to keep a flight of Avenger strike fighters in the air with only faith, gumption, and some “unofficial” documentation.
• The sundering of the Iarr Kuras Craftworld and the cataclysmic changes that steered its people to their present path.
• An encounter between Mad Mek Screwbitz and the Inquisition, each with their own unclear motives and thoughts on a particularly crude heart transplant.
• A scene of gore and prophesy as the fallen Librarian Tarchon reads the fate of his corrupted Captain in the entrails.
• The saga of the Blood Bedouins, a successor Chapter of the Blood Angels, whose history stretches back to the darkest days of the Horus Heresy.

We narrowed these down to three winners. Chapter Master (the best overall in both categories), Chief Librarian (the best fluff entry from not the Chapter Master) and Master of the Forge (the best miniature entry who hadn’t won in another category). Without further ado…

Chapter Master: The Kingbreakers.

The fluff for this entry was clearly a labor of love – inline pictures, a custom background, and a narrative clearly born from some excellent games. To my mind, its an example of the heart of our hobby – a living narrative, built from interactions with your local group, epic moments, and the occasional crisis of “Well, how do I explain this…”

Truly a worthy force to be housed in a Kaiser2 case with their choice of trays inside, courtesy of our contest sponsors from KR Multicase.

Chief Librarian: Ixion 12th Dragoons

The fluff entry for the Ixion 12th Dragoons was a great read, detailing both the trials and tribulations of an Imperial Guard regiment sent on Crusade, and also a Commissar’s growing unease with their mysterious and powerful Ordo Originatus (a Inquisitorial rabbit-hole if there ever was one) benefactress. It has all the usual twists and turns you might hope for (no spoilers) and some compelling characters to boot. Hopefully, when next the Ixion 12th marches to war, they’ll enjoy doing so on a 6’x4’ F.A.T. Mat of their choice, courtesy of our sponsors at Frontline Gaming.

 

Master of the Forge: Shaper Prince Anak Proon of the Kroot Korsairs

I can’t say when I started this that I was expecting to get a Kroot mercenary decked out in an Eldar Corsair jump pack, brandishing a cutlass and a shuriken pistol. Besides being just a well-done entry overall, it’s creative, unexpected, and well converted. The fluff entry was fun as well, playing on the innate cleverness and adaptability of the Kroot, who should never be underestimated.

Their forces will be bolstered with a wins a $25 voucher from Secret Weapon Miniatures, and their enemies shall know their death has come when they break out a set of custom templates from Greenman Designs.

Congratulations to our winners!

But they’re not the only ones going home with prizes. Secret Weapon has provided us with a discount code for readers of our blog (HAMMER15) which I highly recommend for picking up some resin bases, scenery bits, weathering powders, etc. Additionally, every contestant will be getting a voucher from Greenman Designs, and we have two additional raffle prizes: another full template set from Greenman Designs, and some Hero Holders from Mechanical Warhorse.

The respective winners of those prizes are the Sunz of Mork and Divination!

Congratulations to all the winners – I’ll be getting in touch with everyone soon to get their prizes sent out.

I’d also like to thank my fellow judges, and of course, our sponsors for providing such amazing prize support: