Since I moved to Tumblr, my old posts became woefully underused and un-layouted. I’m planning on reposting some of them, beginning with the favourite below.

If you listen to random Warseer-kiddies and Jawaballs-fans, you’d be under the impression that Blood Angels are the ultimate Emo Space Vampire Kings. You’re wrong.

Let me make one thing clear. Even a blind idiot would see the vampiric theme of the Blood Angels. The point is that it isn’t their main theme. It’s a little icing on the cake, the tickling aftertaste of the wine.

Those of us whose cultural references stretch further back than the 21:st century will know two things. First is that vampires aren’t traditionally handsome and sulking: they’re monsters. We can blame Anne Rice for the whole emo thing. The second is that the Italians invented a (quite influential) period called the Renaissance. That was back in the days when people believed in angels. Artists during the Renaissance liked to paint things from the Bible* (surely you’ve heard of it), and their aestethic preferences were influenced by the ancient Romans and Greeks. Hence, they painted angels (and just about everyone else) with well-muscled bodies.

And that’s what the Blood Angels’ real theme is. Angels. Space Angels from the Renaissance. You’d have thought the wings were a dead give-away.

* As an aside, Sanguinius also has this neat sacrificial thing going on. Like Dracula. No, hold on. That’s not it. I mean like Jesus.