Project Horus Heresy Dark Angels

My latest project is building a 1st legion army for Warhammer 30K, aka The Horus Heresy. Right now this has been my favorite Games Workshop game for the last couple of years because I love the setting and I also think it has the most balance out of all of their current major game systems as I write this.

The group of friends that I normally play with in the Pacific Northwest are starting a tale of gamers style of campaign where we build up our army in 750 point increments every other month. In my future articles I plan to capture those increments of the progress I make and showcase what my friends are also working on.

I chose the 1st legion for two reasons. I wanted a loyalist legion that had a portion of it that turned traitor, this was also a big factor in my 3rd legion selection many years back. I also really liked the background and look of the Dark Angels. I have been a fan from the earliest days of my introduction to 40k. Their newer 30k specific units look awesome so it was an easy choice for me to make.

Test model front view

Unlike my Emperor's Children project from previous posts, this project will have more planning ahead. I didn't really know what kind of army I wanted to build at first with the 3rd legion so I ended up building and painting units that I rarely use now. This time around I have a fairly good idea which direction I want to take this project and that will hopefully save me some effort.

I decided I wanted to do a Proto-Deathwing style army that included lots of terminators, therefor my army would use the pride of the legion rite of war.

Test model rear view

There are currently a lot of 3rd party conversion bits on the market to add a bit of customization to the various legions. I wanted to include some of these impressive 3d printed pauldrons on some of my terminator sergeants and command squad. These pauldrons come from Pop Goes the Monkey.

At 750 points I only have 12 models to paint, which will be an easy to achieve goal considering all the stay at home time I have due to the current stay at home orders issued across the US.

Two five man squads of Cataphractii Terminators, a Legion Delegatus (for the rite of war), and a Primus Medicae will be my first 750 points.

Emperor's Children Master of Signal

I thought I would share a project after a long absence of posts. After seeing how effective the Master of Signals is in previous games of 30K that I've played I decided that I could really use one myself. The barrage ability can be devastating to the other side and allowing one of my heavy weapon squads to hit on 2+ is the icing on the cake.

I wanted something a little different than the Forge World kit in Mk 4 armor. I am partial to Mk 2 so I used that for the body and an officer upgrade kit for the head. I prefer the slightly raised effect of etched brass for my characters so that was a must for this marine. The plasma pistol and the lightning claw come from the Mk 3 plastic marines. The finishing touch, which really makes this mini stand out as the Master of Signals is the backpack, which comes from the 40K Cadian infantry box.

My EC army has grown quite a bit in the years since I started on them in 2012 and I am very happy with the way they look, despite not winning very much. I plan on doing some follow up articles covering some of the challenges I've had and the solutions to those.

Horus Heresy Project: Xiphon Interceptor Complete

Emperor's Children Xiphon Interceptor

The Xiphon Pattern Interceptor is one of the newest flyers available to the Legions Astartes. I had just recently finished one for my Emperor’s Children and I am itching to use it. Typically I struggle in my 40K games when someone takes a flyer and I don’t quick have a counter to it in my army. For 30K I thought that I would go ahead and include one since one of my friends is planning on taking a fire raptor eventually. The Xiphon is designed to take out other flyers and it’s 3+ jink ability will help it survive against incoming fire.

 

 

 

This is the first model that I’ve used the Chemos Purple airbrush spray from Forge World. I was hoping that the color would be closer to Liche Purple, but it is noticeably paler, which is unfortunate because the rest of my army is painted in Liche Purple and I will likely stop building up my 3^rd Legion once my last paint pot runs dry. I went to great pains to ensure the techmarine in the cockpit was detailed, sadly it is hard to fully appreciate once the canopy is in place. I also added some weathering to the Xiphon too. I considered not doing so based on the Emperor’s Children meticulous upkeep of the aircraft, but it didn’t look quite right so after doing to paint chipping and exhaust effects I was much more satisfied with the end result.

 

 

Horus Heresy Project: Phoenix Spear Conversion

I was looking for a helpful conversion article on making Phoenix Spears because I was building an Emperor's Children veteran unit out of the Horus Heresy: Battle for Calth boxed set. I definitely wanted to have an outflanking unit of vets with a Phoenix Spear wielding sergeant that would strike vulnerable units unexpectedly. Sadly I found nothing so I started pouring through my bitz bin to see if I can throw something together.

After plenty of searching I decided to use a Dark Eldar Venom banner pole for the haft, a talos blade bit for the cutting edge, and a crozius bit from the BoC chaplain. After some cutting and gluing I had my Phoenix Spear. It is not quite as ornate compared to the Phoenix Guard termie's, but it fits well in the hands of a powered armor marine.

 Tactically speaking, taking some Phoenix Spears for your various sergeants and champions is a good idea when paired with the sonic shrieker upgrade. You will usually strike first on the charge at AP2, which will typically take out a few marines or win you a challenge. It is one of the few advantages the Emperor's Children generals have compared to the other legions.

Hopefully you know someone who plays Dark Eldar and has some of these bitz laying around. It was give you a cheap and effective upgrade for you Emperor's Children Legion!

Horus Heresy Project: Tactical Support Squad

My Emperor’s Children army continues to grow with the addition of a tactical support squad. Currently in 30k most armies that people are playing are marine legions. This may change down the road as 30k opens up to more xenos choices, but until then it is good to be running some plasma gunners in any army. This unit is quite high in points for just 5 marines so I’m looking at getting them a transport in the near future to give them some added protection and mobility.

 

As far as painting technique goes I’m getting more comfortable with applying some source lighting on my models. I like how the plasma coils pop out more because of it. I decided to model the sergeant with a combi-bolter because I wanted him to stand apart aesthetically and didn’t want to lose him to an overheating gun.

 

I haven’t used this unit in a game yet because I’ve been holding myself up to a very high standard of only using fully painted models in my 30K games so I’m excited to bring this level of firepower in. Hopefully I won’t suffer from plasma overheating to often!

Horus Heresy Project: Ancient Rylanor in-progress

I recently built up an Ancient Rylanor for my Emperor's Children army. I had tentative plans to include him in my army down the road, but a generous friend of mine donated his Emperor's Children Contemptor to me so I thought, "why not?" and started this side project. My loyalist Emperor's Children will be pleased to have Rylanor supporting them from here on!




Original Rylanor artwork

Rylanor doesn't have an "official" model, but he does have rules listed in Horus Heresy Vol I: Betrayal. He is equipped with a Kheres Autocannon and a CCW with in-built flamer. Building him was fairly easy now since I have built 2 contemptors before him. In my experience it's best to start with the feet first and work your way up. The Forge World Contemptor has excellent posability which is a blessing and a curse. I have had to break parts a few times just to repose it just right. It's good to be conservative with that super glue!

Since I didn't have to do a lot of conversion on the model itself I decided to add a more flare to the base itself. I liked the idea of special characters getting additional decoration in order to set them apart from the basic units of my army.

 

I might just move Rylanor up in the paint schedule since he is one of my favorite characters from the novel series. Hopefully I will have painted pics to show off here in the near future.

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.

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: 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!

 

Hobby Tip: Basing Before Primer Application

 

 

 

I have seen a lot of painting articles out there that call for basing the model as the last step. For a long time this is how I would base my own models, but I would often dust up my just complete paint job or splatter some base paint on a foot or leg unintentionally. This would cause unnecessary rework and I considered changing up the order of steps. I thought that perhaps basing the model would be more appropriate during the assembly step just prior to the primer. There are a lot of scenic basing techniques that follow this very method. If you are just following this simple process do your basing in this order and see if it improves the time it takes when the model is complete.

 

 

Termites that got the sand bath

1.       Apply a white crafting glue that is dilutable with water (Elmer’s works if you want a cheap solution. Use a standard brush (not your best) to spread in an even layer.

My slightly frayed glue brush

2.       Coat or dip in a sandy medium. I prefer the Citadel brand, but there are plenty of cheap options available. Lightly tap off the excess sand.

3.       Use about a 50/50 mix of glue and water. Lightly dab the mixture onto the sand to create a light sealant over the top. I usually apply this step fairly quickly after shaking off the excess sand because I can relocate grains of sand that ended up on the model back onto the base per my intent.

4.       Allow to completely dry before primer application

 

Hopefully these steps will save time for those of you new to building minis or those who are looking for different techniques.

 

 

The finished termite