Creating the CM

Based on the backstory, the Celestine Monks are a band of disfigured Ministorum Priests who were subjected to gene seed experiments by a rogue Adepta Sororitas convent. The Sisters attempted to make Space Marines out of the priests, and clad them in stolen Grey Knight armor that they had repainted red and black. Of course this is a great cover for the real reason for the Monks' existence: I like the Sisters of Battle as an army, but their models are expensive and look pretty much like crap. I needed an excuse to use converted GK models to stand in as a male SoB army, and so the Celestine Monks were born.

Creating basic Monks was not difficult. GW has made significant strides over the last few years in making truly interchangeable plastic parts, especially for various Space Marine models. I took a few boxes of PAGK with bolters and bolt pistols from basic Space Marines, along with a few converted pieces to stand in as flamers and multimeltas.

In the above photo you can see the Incinerator being used as either a flamer or heavy flamer, and a converted psilencer chassis with multimelta barrels taken from a vehicle sprue. The squad leader, or Circutor, has a bolt pistol and power maul taken from a Blood Angels sprue with all of the BA symbols shaved off.



The photo above shows a WIP of a monk with a Simulacrum Imperialis, made from various bitz. The Simulacrum helps with Acts of Faith, but costs points and if lost, makes any other Acts of Faith impossible for the rest of the game, so it's fairly vulnerable. Most of my rosters don't include these but I thought I should have a neat conversion just in case I decided to take one or three.



Figuring out a color scheme proved difficult, mostly because I've never painted Space Marines before, and I was worried that they would look like all the other marines out there. I opted for a dark silver rub, to represent the stolen Grey Knight armor the crazy Sisters tried to paint black for their new chapter. I kept the red, gold, and other highlights dark to keep with the dirty worn ominous theme I was going for. The bases in this photo are only temporary, the army stands on ruined temple bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures.

Here's a photo of a full squad of Monks with a Priory Rhino, custom Repressor, and an Avenger Strike Fighter overhead providing some close air support.