Horus Heresy Project: Lord Commander Eidolon Complete

Moving forward with adding traitors to my Emperor’s Children Legion I have finally completed Lord Commander Eidolon! This project started months ago (original post here) and put on the back burner in order to finish some of my loyalist units first. Right now Eidolon does not have a miniature, but there are lots of great bits out there to convert him. I wasn’t too keen on some of the old artwork on him and preferred to base my conversion off of the descriptions listed in the novels (the few that exist). He is described as wearing ornate power-armour decked out in gilded decorations and is taller than most astartes. He also favours wielding a thunder hammer and has the patrician features of his Primarch Fulgrim. In addition to the descriptions I also wanted to give him a jump pack upgrade so he can join my assault marine squad and give them added value. He also employs the bio-modification bestowed by Fabius Bile, the death-scream. It is only fitting that I have him without a helmet so he can effectively use his sonic attack.

 

 

 

This conversion is an amalgamation of various bitz. The body is from a palatine blade, the hammer arm is from one of the chapter masters set, and the pointing arm and head is from the space marine command squad box. I used some of the Emperor’s Children brass etch from Forge World on the jump pack and left pauldron. The only part that I had to sculpt was the hair. I used green stuff for my sculpting.

 

I decided to do a fair amount of freehand painting because this is one of my HQ options and wanted it to stand out apart from the other marines. I attempted a marbling effect on one of the pauldrons because I thought that plain white would be too bland for someone like a lord commander. The opposite pauldron has the eye of Horus to show the bond between the two legions and the knee pad has an eagle’s head profile. I also added some line designs to the loin cloth.

 

 

Horus Heresy Project: The Kakophoni

The Emperor's Children Kakophoni are the newest addition to my growing army and the first exclusive traitor element so far. My intent was to start off with a core of loyalist units led by Rylanor and Saul Tarvitz and then finish the army off with all of the traitorous elements. I liked the idea of having some flexibility to play in support of either faction if I were to take part in any future campaigns.

 

 


I really enjoyed painting this unit up because it was nice change from painting basic legion marines. My army lacked long range anti-infantry firepower and the Kakophoni are designed to wreak havoc on infantry.

 

I have a 40k Chaos Marine army with some Slaanesh elements and wanted to show a progression from Proto Noise-marine to current Chaos Noise-marine.

Horus Heresy Project: Ancient Rylanor Completed

After many long weeks I have finally finished my Emperor's Children Rylanor the Unyielding. You can check out my original post here:

http://fulgrimsstage.blogspot.com/2015/03/horus-heresy-project-ancient-rylanor-in.html

I truly enjoyed building and painting this model. The Contemptor Dreadnought is one of my favorite models and the Emperor's Children variant is one of the most detailed. Rylanor is at the top of my list for most liked characters out of the Horus Heresy novel series and I wanted to make sure my table top version looked presentable. When considering how I would paint him I consulted some of the references out of Vol I, Betrayal.

Dreadnought image out of Vol. I Betrayal

I was impressed with the lion etchings in the knee joint so I did some freehand work in an attempt to capture this image.










I added a brass etch laurel on the left arm to set Rylanor apart from the other contemptor dreadnought that I am near completion on.

Now that I have completed the last elements of my loyalist Emperor's Children I will begin working on the traitors. I've painted enough Emperor's Children at this point where I feel comfortable enough to get Fulgrim completed along with his Phoenix Guard retinue.



Horus Heresy Project: Emperor's Children Xiphon Interceptor

I had just completed the assembly of the Forge World Xiphon Interceptor and I'm looking forward to getting this easy to assemble kit painted. I think the quality on recent FW products has improved considering the fact that my lascannons came nice and straight. I only have to fill some gaps in the wings and vertical fin.

I'm a big fan of brass etched iconography and added enough on so there would be no confusion as to which legion this fighter belonged to. I might add some smaller decals in places when I'm almost finished.

I decided to paint the pilot separately since I wanted to detail the cockpit interior

Rules wise I think this fighter will be a good counter to the Fire Raptor, which will be included in one of my friend's heresy army in the near future. I get a jink bonus for added defensive bonus and my rotary missile launcher rolls 3 dice instead of 1 on the vehicle damage chart.

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 Battle Report: 600 points

The Emperor's Children getting pwn'd

The Horus Heresy campaign moves onward! At 600 points my army is really starting to come together and have a unified look. Although I plan on using some Mechanicum allies down the road, right now I am running a pure Emperor’s Children army based around the loyalist elements. In my first 600 point game I faced off against some Salamanders that confused my army with the traitors so we battled and it was bloody…

My army consisted of Saul Tarvitz, 10 Legion Marines with power sword wielding sergent, and 10 assault marines with one basic marine wielding plasma in addition to a sergeant armed with a power fist.

I fought against a Salamanders army consisting of a bare bones Preator (using Pride of the Legion), 10 Legion Marines without upgrades, and 5 Firedrake Terminators.

Our mission was Hold the Relic and our deployment was long table edges. The terrain density was moderate.

Turn 1 was spent mainly in positioning. I realized that I deployed poorly since I was too spread out trying to cover objectives across the battlefield, while Matt (the Salamanders general) decided to group up his units together so they hit in unison.

Turn 2 I tried to pick off some of the Salamanders marines on the periphery with my assault marines. I got one kill (insert sarcasm)! In exposing my unit to return fire on the following turn I lost a whopping 7 marines due to Fury of the Legion bolter fire. I would say that from this point on it was an uphill battle for my poor army.

Turn 3 I finally got my other unit with Saul Tarvitz into firing range of the Firedrakes and I tried desperately to get a lucky kill. My assault marines that survived took to cover in order to mount a counter attack.

The Salamanders had already claimed the objective and were moving the terminators in to finish me off.

 By turn 4 the Salamander Fire Drakes Assaulted my Legion Marine Unit and hastily beat them down without suffering a single wound in the assault. Saul's Charnable Broadsword was not very effective against the terminators.

Without a realistic way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat I conceded victory to the Salamanders.




I try to use a loss like this as a useful lesson for the next game. I believe it would have been better to hold back my assault marines until later in the game instead of exposing them early to massed bolter fire. I definitely spread myself too thin and will keep that in mind when we play our Horus Heresy battle at 1000 points. I also keep thinking that my lack of Rhinos or Drop Pods is detrimental and may be including them in the near future.

Horus Heresy Project: Emperor's Children Chaplain

My Emperor’s Children chaplain is now complete. I originally wasn’t planning on including a chaplain into my army, but started to like the idea of having one because of some of the background in the early Horus Heresy novels includes an Emperor’s Children Chaplain by the name of Charmosian.

Chaplain Charmosian

Spoiler Alert! Charmosion dies in the battle for Istvaan III so I thought that my Chaplain would be his replacement in Fulgrim’s Honour Guard later in the Heresy.

I was able to grab an old metal chaplain off of ebay, which is no longer in production. I considered the new plastic version, but opted for the better priced option. I liked this particular model because it required minimal converting since his armour is Mk 6, very new during the Heresy. I added some etched brass on the banner and pauldron, and then painted in typical chaplain colors.

Forge World currently doesn’t have a heresy era chaplain kit so converting is really the only option right now. This was an easy and cost effective addition to my army and will add a bit of variety in my presentation.