Table Ready: Cypher – The Fallen Angel

[This post was originally posted to Otherverse Games & Hobbies as part of a series called Plastic to Painted, or P2P. You may see logos or references to this site and series]

On The Run and Out Gunned

Back when I was first building my Chaos Space Marine army, I had absolutely no idea what I was trying to accomplish. Like almost no clue. Well, I knew that I wanted an Iron Warriors army. Sure. Yet, I bought Kharne the Betrayer, Khorne Berzerkers, and Ahriman of the Thousand Sons. Very ‘Iron Within’. I was literally just following the destined-to-fail, ”if it looks cool, then I want it dammit!” method of army building. So it stood to reason that as soon I saw the model for Cypher, he was joining my “army” as well.

It also completely helped that Tyson had a Dark Angels army, and anything I could do to annoy him was always welcomed. In this case, it was taking a character that is a thorn in his Sons of The Lion’s side. Cypher. The Fallen Angel. This was around early 2000, as this pewter model released some time in 1999. At the time, this was one of the most badass models I had seen for 40K. And one of the better looking pewter models. Seeing as there were still Rogue Trader era models being sold.

Because I now had Cypher meant I also would need to throw together a squad of Fallen to further annoy Tyson. I mean to support Cypher. Not that he needs support. So I made a small squad of really ugly Fallen to go with him. And when I say ugly, I mean, they were bad. FUGLY. I am actually embarrassed. Seriously, to press this in more, I took some old regular pewter space marines, cut teeth from a hair comb off, glued them to the models, and called the comb-teeth ‘spiky bits’. That, was apparently the scope of my creativity. I am not proud. I won’t bother going into the “paint job” I gave them.

You know, to my(weak) defense, back then Chaos Marines were more or less defined by spiky bits. Spikes = Chaos. Hell, if you were a loyalist and got impaled by a spear or something, you now had spiky bits. And according to the math above, you are now a heretic. Congratulations! It’s the rules.

From the 1999 CSM codex

There were even bonuses if your models had spiky bits. Some people would model their stuff to look more like porcupines than soldiers and tanks. It was silly. I saw some downright insane looking porcupi… I mean Chaos Marines. So, with all that known, I guess you could add Fallen Angels to my World Eaters/Thousand Sons “Iron Warriors” “army”.

And I wondered why I never won a game. Hmm.


The enigma that is Cypher, former trusted son of Lion El’Jonson, has been on the run since the Horus Heresy. With The Lion’s sword in tow. Quite a long time to be on the lam. My Cypher model, in all his pewter goodness, would stay built but unpainted for almost 20 years. Not quite as long, but still an eternity. I attempted to paint him in 2019. But it didn’t go well. I had only returned to painting a few months prior. It would actually take a pandemic for me to break him out, strip the model, rebase it, and actually paint him up properly.

While I was rebasing him, I remembered all of the times his tiny base caused him to fall over. And I remembered how many times that fall would cause the Lion’s Sword to snap off. I must’ve re-glued that sword a couple dozen times. And most of that glue remained, until I stripped the paint off. The long soak helped loosen all that old super glue up.

I followed a basic Fallen paint scheme for his power armor. And I tried to mimic the Dark Angels Veterans for his cloak. I have nothing against the new Cypher model. I just don’t love it. Sure, it has an okay pose, and whatnot. But this old run-and-gun dual pistol design is classic.

Even though he is dropping heavy Sly Stallone vibes with his face.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
For a pewter model from the late 1990’s, this really has a lot of details.


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Robert

All of these are true except for one:

Robert is: a Hobbyist, a Music Lover, an RPG Gamer, a Mustard Lover, Chaotic Neutral, a Japanese Speaker, a Veteran, an Otaku, a Table Tennis Player, an Anime Fan, an Aviation Professional, a New York Rangers Fan, a Chaos Lover With Loyalist Tendencies.

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