Horus Heresy Project: Saul Tarvitz Complete

Saul Tarvitz will be representing my army in it's Loyalist Phase
 

I made better progress than I expected on this conversion. Originally I never intended to build a Tarvitz or an Eidolon in the early stages of my army planning because they didn't have a model. My reservation was mainly due to the perceived work that I would have to put into a conversion that I would be happy with. I decided to do some research online out of curiosity. Luckily other people had taken this on before me and my conversion is based off of what a few people have already done. It looked easy enough so why not? I'm glad I went ahead with this project.

Most of the mini is composed of the Space Marine Master of the Fleet. I did minimal sculpting for the hair. The sword arm is a standard marine chainsword that I cut down and added an Empire Wizard sword to. The pauldron comes from the larger Chaos Space Marine bit. I shaved it down in places and green stuffed the gapped areas along the upper ridge. I added an Emperor's Children brass etch icon as a finishing touch. The backpack is an extra Mark IV space marine backpack from one of the marine kits I ordered from Forge World.

Horus Heresy Progress Report

Hello readers, if you had been checking up on my posts you my remember that I begun work on the special characters out of the Heresy list for Emperor's Children. Since I wanted to take Saul Tarvitz early on in my gaming events I have been putting a lot of work into him in particular.

I'm nearing completion on the painting portion and so far I like my choice of colors

This is the Saul Tarvitz artwork that I referenced in my conversion and painting steps
 

 I decided to paint some parts separate in order to reach hard to brush areas of the model. I try to avoid painting in pieces when possible due to the extra work, however I will make exceptions if it will affect visible areas of the model.

Another unit being worked alongside Tarvitz is a unit of Assault Marines. I have decided to go assembly line style with the unit in order to speed up my painting. I often don't paint assembly line style, but I should employ it more in the future.

I'm about at the half way point of painting this unit

I look forward to showing off the finished minis in the near future and hopefully this will be inspiration for others to get more painting in.

Keeping The Motivation Alive

Got a big hobby project and feeling the motivation waning? I have found over the years of building armies and playing miniature games that it’s easy to lose motivation when working on a big army project. This is more so for me because I am into multiple game systems (Flames of War, Warmachine, Epic, Malifaux, 40K, and Fantasy) and sometimes I even have more than 1 faction for each game system. I usually make good progress in the beginning, but about a month into the project I start to lose that steam. I have found success before on occasion and I want to share what has worked with me and some people within my gaming group. These two steps have been helpful for me:

 

1.       Break any large project into manageable chunks and set a realistic deadline to achieve a fully painted unit or points goal.
2.       Celebrate your recent achieved goals by playing a game with the minis you just put so much time into.

 

Additionally it really helps to have other people that are willing to take on a similar project with you. It could be for an escalation league where every month you all meet up and play increasingly larger games with your new army. Starting campaigns where each battle result carries over into future games is also a great motivator. I can’t overstate the importance of having a goal in mind.

 

In my kill team game against the Salamanders this lone marine lay in ambush on turn 1

 

 

What I am currently working on is not only a costly project, but time consuming. I am building a Heresy Era Emperor’s Children army at least to 2000 points. This involves purchasing a lot of Forge World minis which I have a budget for, but I have to be smart about what I purchase. I have to be interested in painting what I’m buying so my army might not be the most competitive, but it will definitely look great on the battlefield and be fun for me to play. My gaming group just celebrating the first leg of our escalation league and played 200 point kill team games with our heresy armies. It was a great way to get some games in with our new (and costly) minis and everyone is excited to continue on to our next goal of 600 points.

 

In turn 2 against the Salamanders I had secured an objective moved in for the kill on the right flank

In my 2nd kill team game I fought against a force of Dark Angel veterans in a Rhino. My marines are taking cover against incoming plasma.

I had to play defensively since the Dark Angels had mobility over me. I was hoping my lone haywire grenade toting marine would get to take out that Rhino.

 

After a night of gaming my Emperor's Children were defeated in both of the games I played, but I still had fun showing off my work. I look forward to fielding them in greater numbers when we moved on to standard battles.

 

Warhammer Rumours, Changes, and How To Deal With It

Oh what to do about changes to your favorite game or hobby...

 

There have been some rumors flying around to big changes to Warhammer Fantasy Battles, a game that I have played since 5^th edition and actually started liking since 6^th edition. I have seen many changes since I’ve been involved in this hobby and some have been positive and some not so much (still not happy with the current skirmisher rules). Despite my instant dislike of the prospect (if true) of moving the bases over to rounds instead of squares/rectangles I’m trying to take a balanced look of what that might mean. Will the system be more flexible/lenient for basing like early editions of 40k were? I remember when it wasn’t an issue to have bikes or daemons on rectangular bases. As a matter of fact you could still find old ‘eavy Metal pics out there showing the combination of basing styles. Back then daemons were only supplied with squares so unless you wanted to buy separate rounds then you just used what came with the kit.

 

Will I be unusable in future rules incarnations?

 

 

Supposedly, per the rumors using square bases won’t be prohibited. If this is true then that’s fine, but one of my concerns is how the community will adapt the increasing absence of squares over time. Last time I played in a tournament (which was a few years ago) basing standards were enforced for 40K, which meant I couldn’t use any of my old daemons unless I rebased my models. NO THANKS! I don’t know for sure what the GW stance of this was, but they definitely moved away from the tournament scene over time and the community filled the void. If I were a big tournament player these days like I used to be years ago I would be very anxious about what this could mean for my Dark Elves. I had recently put a lot of work into them and the idea of having a major change that limits how they play in the near future bothers me to the point of halting all planned work I was doing on anything Warhammer. 

 

Back in the day squares and circles fought side by side...

 

I’m at a just wait and see mindset right now. This could all be blown out of proportion and we could just be suffering from the “sky is falling" syndrome. One option that I’m considering is maybe sticking with my favorite edition of Warhammer. I still play AD&D 2^nd edition. I didn’t like what happened to 4^th edition D&D and was tired of feeling compelled to have to purchase the newest set of rules. I liked the wonkiness of 2^nd edition rules and I have a group who is willing to play them too. We make changes to the rules as needed to fit our group. If I were to do this with Warhammer I would miss out on some of the new shiny minis, but at least I wouldn’t feel like I had to buy a new edition every few years to stay current; just some food for thought.

Horus Heresy Project: Legion Centurion Complete

I had just completed my Emperor's Children Centurion recently and wanted to show it off. This mini was built mainly off of extra bitz I had sitting in containers. I thought that it might be a good idea to have and HQ option for lower points games where it wouldn't make a lot of sense to field one of my legion's higher points options.

I took this pic after I was complete with assembly

In my previous article I went into detail about the helmet conversion. It was a bit of extra work to do, but I think it fits the look of the Emperor's Children well.

Horus Heresy Project: Lord Commander Eidolon in Work

I began work on my Lord Commander Eidolon conversion at the same time as my Saul Tarvitz conversion. I had a lot of ideas running through my head on this one and ultimately decided to go with the jump pack upgrade. I wanted to give my assault marines some added punch and Eidolon would be a great addition to any unit. I felt that I had to have him doing a death scream and luckily I had a space marine bit that would work perfectly. I only had to sculpt some hair which wasn't too difficult to do. There aren't too many descriptions of what Eidolon looks like and I wasn't going to go with his card artwork, which looks ridiculous.

My Eidolon will not be sporting this hair

In the Horus Heresy novels he is described as being tall for a space marine and has features similar to Fulgrim. He is supposed to have a lot of embellishment on his armor so the Palatine Blade body will work nicely.

I hope to have him finished in a month. Once he is done I will be posting pics as usual.

Horus Heresy Project: First Unit Complete

I have reached a landmark in 30K army project. My first troops choice for the Emperor's Children is now fully painted and decaled. This was a fun unit to paint. With 50/50 mark 4 and mark 3 armor it wasn't too tedious that is sometimes the case with most marine armies.

I had to do some touch up on the decals to make them stand out more. I usually add a thin coat of white paint onto white decals.

My army will likely be played as loyalists in the beginning where the units will have a mish-mash of armor and markings. As I build it up to larger points values I will have it form into a traitor force that is more cohesive in unit structure.

Horus Heresy Project: To Be Loyalist or Not...

 

 

 

 

 

One of the cool things about building my Heresy era Emperor’s Children Legion is the availability of Loyalist and Traitor characters. I would eventually like to build them all up giving me versatility of going with either side.

 

 

So much easier to sculpt hair when the head is separate.

 For this article I wanted to show off my Saul Tarvitz and Lord Commander Eidolon. The Saul Tarvitz is very close to other conversions I have seen online, which uses the body of the Space Marine Master of the Fleet. I did some additional putty (green stuff) work on the head to better match the artist rendition of him. The other bits include a standard space marine arm with added Empire wizard sword. The pauldron on the right arm is modified by shaving is down in places and adding putty over the gaps.

 

 

 

Overall I am satisfied with the assembly. I will give an update on this once painting is complete. In my next article I will detail how I built up Lord Commander Eidolon and a basic Legion Consul with spare bits.

 

I used the crest from a Warhammer Slaanesh Champion and ground it down to fit the Mk 4 helmet

The backpack is an old Chaos Space Marine Backpack that I chopped up.

 

 

Horus Heresy Project: Emperor's Children Troops

I’ve been putting some consistence work into my Horus Heresy era Emperor’s Children Legion over the last month and a half. I had some basic ideas of where I wanted to go with this army since in playing a Legion Astartes list you have an army capable of being fielded in many different ways. In a previous article I showed off some of the assembly steps and prototype paint scheme. I have neared completion of my first 10 marines wielding bolters. As my army progresses I want to make it more of a mid-range/assault based army. Eventually I want to field my Primarch Fulgrim and he is built for close quarters fighting. Units that I am in process of building are assault marines and Kakophani.

 

 

 

I really like the Liche Purple scheme washed with Leviathan Purple. It slightly differs from the Forge World guidelines which call for Hormagaunt Purple. After I get all the paint down I apply my decals. The use of Microsol has helped with application. It softens the decal allowing it to attach to the curved surfaces of the pauldrons easier. Just brush on a thin layer right before setting the wet decal on the surface. Soak up the excess while positioning the decal where you want it and voila!

 

 

Microsol used in conjunction with waterslide transfers saves on much frustration!