Sons of Horus

With Kill Count done and dusted and a month until Eastcon I once again contemplate the stupid.

Painting a footslogging marine army in very little time. A month sounds reasonable until you look at my wife and I's schedule til then... UGLY! Never the less I really feel like churning something out.

With that I present you with the Sons of Horus...



I've done the Black Legion and I have the parts to do a pre-heresy Luna Wolves army (including custom shoulder pads)... I am looking to churn out something in between. Heresy era Sons of Horus. I pulled out my old copy of Space Marine (the original epic game) and the pictures are nothing short of inspirational. I used to stare at those pictures and read the little stories over and over as a kid. Looking at the rules just inspired me all over again.

Now I pulled out my marines and discovered I have an entire Rogue Trader era marine army is bitz. All metal that is. Not one plastic marine (except for a few scouts)...

Here is an old page from dwarf that shows what I mean:


Now I have found a really good easy paint scheme that matches the middle of the road fluff. Sons of Horus were originally black with green according to Space Marine. Then they turned metallic sea green in the codex articles in Dwarf. On the cover of the new Heresy novels they are grey... I am leaning towards the metallic green.

Here is the guide I like:
http://www.mywargame.com/2010/03/20/painting-metallic-pre-heresy-sons-of-horus/

Anywhoooo. I am thinking lots of foot sloggers but I do have RT land raiders, rhinos, a dread and a land speeder.

List to come soon.

B

Below is the painting guide mentioned above:

The Luna Wolves, and their later incarnation as the Sons of Horus, are one of the First Founding Space Marine Legions who get a lot of attention from pre-Heresy fans. Despite this, there is little official material from GW by way of a guide to their appearance. As the Sons of Horus, we’ve got no officially-painted miniatures and a handful of textual and artistic references.

My inspiration comes from the illustration in the Index Astartes article and a handful of references to the armour being a ‘metallic sea green’ in colour. I should mention that I've since seen a handful of examples painted using a Vallejo colour which is a very close (non-metallic) match for the Index Astartes illustration and looks good, although the precise name of the colour escapes me. The Collected Visions art books depict them in various tones, from pale green through green-grey to a very dark, almost black grey tone. I suppose one way to look at this is it leaves a lot of freedom for us to interpret things our own ways.

Here I’ve painted one of the classic Mark III ‘Iron’ armour models, with a plastic oath paper (purity seal) glued onto one shoulder pad. In hindsight this may not have been the best choice, as the casting is quite old and some detail is eroded, but hopefully you’ll agree that the method works well enough. It’s also quite fast, so you can assembly-line the painting to a reasonable degree.

I painted this using Citadel paints from GW; I actually started this figure with the old inks before I'd got the current range of washes (this style of painting was what inspired the metallic Thousand Son which I previously posted), although I've painted a few more and you get the same effect with the new washes, so I've used the names of the current paints for ease-of-use. Anyway, on to the pictures! (Camera’s not great, but I’ve done my best.)

1. Prime the model in black. Inclement weather means I did this by hand, but I’d recommend a spray primer for a smooth finish.

2. Basecoat the armour with Dark Angels Green. I used a tank brush for this; it doesn’t have to be neat.

3. Now we’re into highlighting. Mix about 1:1 Dark Angels Green and Mithril Silver and heavily drybrush the armour. After this, drybrush a further highlight with almost pure Silver. If you have more time or patience you could either layer highlights or use more shades when drybrushing, but I like to be quick. The model should look more silvery at the end of this stage than you want it to when finished.

4. And now some shading! I use an approximately 1:1:1 mix of Dark Angels Green, Dark Green Ink (try Thraka Green with the new washes) and Blue Ink (try Asurmen Blue), slightly thinned. Apply a thick coat over all the armour to deepen the colour. Sometimes I apply a second wash of this, if it is still too pale. Tank brush time again, again.

5. Now I paint on a highlight to cover any raised or particularly uneven areas. I mix Mithril Silver and Dark Green Ink to get a pale colour best described as ‘minty’, and paint it on lightly with a small drybrush or a fine detail brush depending on the area in question.

6. Now we paint all the easy stuff. Black is Chaos Black, highlighted with Adeptus Battlegrey. Red is Mechrite Red, highlighted with Blood Red and then washed with a mix of Chestnut and Black Inks (or Devlan Mud ). The oath paper is Scorched Brown, highlighted with Bleached Bone and Skull White with Chaos Black lettering. Brown stuff is Scorched Brown, highlighted with Dark Flesh and then shaded with the Chestnut/Black Ink mix (or Devlan Mud). Metal is Boltgun Metal, highlighted with Mithril Silver, then shaded with an ad-hoc mix of browns and black.

7. Some icons. The right pad gets a Tactical arrow and III in Roman numerals. The left gets my attempt at a Sons of Horus Legion badge. These are both freehanded in Chaos Black with a fine detail brush.

8. Next, some weathering. This and the battle damage are inspired by Iacton and Apologist. The whole model is coated with a slightly thinned layer of Devlan Mud, which makes the armour look slightly worn and discoloured.

9. Here we add a little battle damage. Look, for example, at his left hand, shoulder pad or eye. The effect is for armour that’s chipping off. Paint a little Scorched Brown over places where the paintwork might flake (e.g. the rims of armour plates), and then Chaos Black thinly over most of this. Then dab over the Chaos Black with Boltgun Metal. You can then add mud to the lower legs: drybrush with Dheneb Stone, and then Scorched Brown.

10. Base and you’re done! I use Calthan Brown, drybrushed with Bleached Bone, and finish with some static grass.

My Favorite Kill Count Armies

Kill Count had 66 players this year (2 dropped out during the event. 66 is the final number). There were some tremendous looking armies there. Sadly my pictures of Cane's Wolf Wing came back white and Craig's blood angels were blurry again. Anyway here some of my favorites from the weekend.

Craig's Blood Angels... If you click the pictures get bigger. Notice the drop pod is torn up from the dread ripping its way out! AWESOME!





Finally got our new family camera to replace the one that went to pieces on us. Sadly I got it after Kill Count. These are hopefully the last of the phone camera shots I will be sharing.

Wes's Imperial Fists... It is worthy noting that no foundation paints were used in the painting of this army. NONE!



Leigh's Deathguard... Pretty good for two weeks painting... Leigh you make me sick... :)





A Very nice Krieg army. Done realistically.




Ben's Night Lords. Sorry the picts are blurry. This army is priceless...




Adam's Pyre:



A random and nice puppies army:


With Eastcon less than a month away (another 1750 tourney) I am back in the groove with my next project...

And away we go!

Kill Count

After weeks of preparation Kill Count was upon us. Last Saturday morning I pack up my army (no small feat with 7 Valkyries) and headed off to a local suburb (Moonee Ponds) for a weekend of beer, warhammer, and general shenanigans. As I have posted my list earlier and many pictures of my army I will straight into the nitty gritty.

Game 1: Despite the TO declaring a week before the tourney that there would be no grudges for Kill Count I ended up playing my mate Liam (the guy who I was trying to grudge). As I had never played Liam and I really hadn’t played against Tau in 5th ed I was really excited about this game.

Liam won the roll off with a Dawn of War deployment. Two objectives were on one side of the board and one was on the other. Mission. Have more objectives than your opponent. As Liam had a lot of scary guns in his list I outflanked my whole army. In his deployment and first two turns Liam castled his forces in the centre of the board so he could shoot me and then move on to claim the objectives later in the game. My turn two: It all comes on and with the astropath’s rerolls with outflank I was able to put my whole army on the side with two objectives. To some up. I rolled one flank and kept going. At the end of the game I had three objectives and Liam had none. Marbo was a star in this game. He threw his demo charge and killed most of a pathfinder squad and a broadside. Because he went to ground the other broadside didn’t fire turn three. A huge advantage to me. Liam was a great opponent and I look forward to a rematch soon.

Game 2: A few weeks back some of you will recall I played in a 1000 point tourney using Space Wolves. I played Dan’s orks there in round two. Once again round two rolls around and there were Dan’s orks. This game is fuzzy. I got first turn and lined up against his vehicle heavy orks. Rolled his multiple units of koptas and a truck with its contents. I had really hoped to do more with my alpha strike and this would come back to hurt me later.

At one point he called a Waaagghhh and his warboss and nob mob fleeted into my three valk unit needing 6’s to hit and wrecked all three. Some times squadrons suck.

I achieved my secret objective of kill points and being in his deployment zone. Sadly his charge allowed him to assassinate my commander and he held the centre of the board. Tie game.

Game 3: I had never played tourney regular Matt Mitchell before but I had played the nurgle daemon army he was using before and it rolled me in 4 turns. 4 monstrous creatures and epidemus… Nurgle daemons otherwise.

Matt made rings of daemons around the objective which was in an alley between two buildings. I pounded the stuffing out of the army and killed most of it (including most of the scary stuff) but I could not move within an inch of his models. Had there been one more turn I would have easily had it. As the game ended early. Not to be. Matt played brilliantly and I should have started on the board to get more shooting time in. Marbo did sweet F all for a 2nd game in a row.

Beer… Sleep… Public Transportation and I was back for day two.


Game 4: HOLY CRAP! I was facing a Wolf list with four HQ’s including two rune priests with the lightning that kills valkyries dead power and two units of long fangs with rocket launchers. CRAP! Had to figure this one out. Then the mission arrived. Kill points… Good, I am good at that. Then I find out the mission has special kill points where troops were one point. Elites and Fast two points each. Heavy Support count as 3 kills points and HQ 4. SWEET! Then my opponent gives me first turn… HAPPY!

I alpha strike massive amounts of his army off the board before his turn one. He could not recover and I spent the game eating the rest of his army as his reserves came on piecemeal. 23 kill points to 3. OUCH! Great guy. I felt super bad.

Game 5: Wolf Wing. If the last wolf list was scary this one was truly frightening (for me anyway). Logan. Lots of termies with combi-meltas and combi plasma. Dread with assault cannon, Vindi and Land Raider Redeemer.

My opponent got first turn and so I out flanked. Like Liam he castled in the middle of the board. I got three Valyries, Marbo and the Dettas behind his land raider on my turn two. I dismounted everything and fired. I wiped out Logan, his squad, his land raider, the vindi and a pile of termies. Holy crap my dice were hot and his were horrifyingly bad! I was killing termies in droves with lasguns. Throw enough mud at a wall and something will still so I was expecting a few… I was killing whole squads. Not supposed to happen. My opponent concedes two turns later with 5 termies from three squads left. Rematch Linsay?

Game 6: I played BBDave’s Valkyrie list. He had 5 valkyries to my 7 and he had marbo, straken, lots of demo charges, and tooled up everything. It was an interesting contrast to my list. He got first turn. I outflanked but came on piecemeal because of his advisor (who cancelled out mine). Grrr… Great game. He had me at the end of turn 5. I had him at turn 6. So it was natural that after turn 7 we were drawn. Great game. I learned a lot about my list as he had been playing it longer (I didn’t know valkyries had smoke launchers! AWESOME!).

Had a great weekend, playing great guys. Got comp hit a little but not as badly as I expected. Came 9th (out of 66) overall with 89 out of 120 battle points. Sam (the TO) did a fine job of setting up a great atmosphere and a smooth running tourney. I am seriously considering already what to take to Killcount next year.

Til next time gang…

I LOVE THE SMELL OF PROMETHIUM IN THE MORNING!!! (Smells like VICTORY!)

Ok... 7 Valkyries are done. 66 Guardsmen done. Astropath done. Three objectives... DONE!!! Thank God!

I started the planes by hitting them with army painter green spray. I followed that up with a liberal application of devlin mud. I panel painted the green using a mix of a variety of foundations and lots of snot green. I highlighted that with the same colour with a healthy dose of bleached bone.

Didn't have time to snap proper pictures but it had been so long I thought I would get some shots in of something. Here are a few shots of a few of the valks...


I added free hand eagles to the sides of the cockpits and roman numerals on the wings to match the squads inside. (I was having a hard time keeping track of who was in where.)



I also spent a great deal of time highlighting the scopes all over the front of the valkyries. Hope the pictures does them justice.



After watching the helicopter scene from Apoc Now a few too many times I know what my objective had to be. A giant speaker that I can plug my IPOD into. That is right kids... Flight of the Valkyries will be playing during army presentation time. I painted the Eagle motif on the side to match it to the army and a this side up.




My wife will be happy that our living room will stop looking like this:



Off to the tourney this weekend.

A Review of Raven Guard Shadow Captain Korvydae

Well after what felt like forever I got my forgeworld shipment. Good stuff ll around. I got 6 packs of vets with shotguns, some respirator heads, more Blood Angel brass etch and this fine gentleman:



OK OK I know I am not likely to ever use a thunder hammer on a power armoured independent character. Can you say killed before you swing? I know I can. Anyway. I love beakie marines and when I saw this model on the new release pages of the forgeworld site when I was placing an order anyway... I just had to buy him.

Review time. The detail on this model is truly astounding. It is so minute that I am afraid to paint it. I haven't been afraid to paint a model in something like 10 years. It says "Mortis" on his holster flap. Amazing detail. On top of that I really like the way they were able to pose him. He looks like he is actually running. Sometimes you get stuck with a 2 dimensional model with metal and some plastic models. This guy gives me chills. Ok... Sounding alittle too much like a fan boy but I am really excited about this model. (He does come with more purity seals that he knows what to do with though! Thankfully half of them come off the model to start with... I'll be going for a slightly less pure version.)

I really want my valkyries to be done so I can paint him... for an army I don;t have... sigh... Speaking of the army I really like that all of the Raven Guard stuff is beakie helm and matching armour. It is studded on one shoulder pad and even on this guy's backpack. It is a nice touch that differentiates the army on the table top... In a word... I like...

He does have some unfortunate mold lines on his shoulder pads (at least mine did) BUT otherwise the model was relatively mold line free. Nothing is warped which is a nice change from my last FW order. My main gripe is that it took ages to get him... As I wrote before I hate waiting... I really do...


Anyway... Til next time gang...

Back to The Guard (and some new daemon news)

Spent 4 hours last night touching up chips adding unit roman numerals to my Aircav Guard. It was really nice to take a break from painting valkyries! (I will be back to the flyers tonight though!)

Anyway... Here are some shots...

The first shot shows my Command Squad sandwiched between two squads of vets...
(CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE)

The second shot: three vet squads

Here is where I tried to take a picture of the roman numerals I painted. I really like the way most of the numbers came out but none of the phots worked out. The camera does focus nicely on the troops in the background though so please excuse my hand!


As you can see I really like the SWAT/ Special forces look for my guardsmen. I have another 60 or so painted to this standard and I am really looking forward to a daemonhunters/ inquisitor release to muck around with these boys in a new list. Wonder what a storm raven would look like in the green/red camo scheme? Hmmmmm...

Anyway.... DAEMONS NEWS!!!

The shop I was painting at had some of the new daemon models. I really like the new plastic juggernaut sprue that has five jugger heads, 6 bloodletter heads and arms for rank and file crushers as well as command crushers all in the box for three bodies.

Even better is the new plastic daemon prince. While I hate all three heads the model comes with the rest of the gear is sweet. You can easy go fantasy or 40K with this bad boy and he has three sword arms and multiple empty arms. I have a few of the meatl ones floating around in bitz and I will buy the plastic one just to get bitz for those boys. I will have to sculpt helmets though...

Anyway... off to the football...

More Bugs

I got some emails asking for closer pictures of the bugs soooo here they are.

As stated before the gaunts and stealers have 5 shades of grey. The stealers have 4 shades of purple and the Raveners have 8 shades of grey! And yet they still look flat with my camera... We have a new one coming literally in the mail. Hope to have most of the picture quality issues solved then...

Hormagaunts:



Terrible photos of the Genestealers... The highlighting is just coming out and I tried taking these photos at a local shop...



A few photos of 80% done Raveners:



The WIP Spore: