Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Scarab Occult and Sorcerers

First up, I'd like to plug my friend's blog Ex Fide Vivo - he's recently posted pics of his completed Sanguinius and it turned out simply fantastic!

Not a whole lot of hobby time recently, Real Life(tm) has kept me pretty busy. However, I did get some more paint on the Scarab Occult and Sorcerers for the Thousand Sons. Not quiiiiiite done, but pretty darn close - there are a couple things I notices in the pictures that I need to go in and fix. Curses!

First up are the Scarab Occult, the honor guard squad that will accompany Ahriman. Armed with force weapons and a fearsome array of psychic powers, and wearing Artificer armor, they are a rather nasty unit on the tabletop. I'm not especially happy with the purple robes of the company champion and believe I'll be swapping it for a blue robe. I also realized I'd neglected to add the scarab on his breastplate that I intended to cover up the DA symbol. D'oh! Should be an easy fix though.

In addition, I'm including three Sorcerers to the army, with the intention of attaching them to various units for a little extra psychic support. In looking at the pics, I think I need to go in and add some white runic script to their cloaks similar to how I've done Ahriman and Magnus to tie them all together. I also need to clean up the eyes a bit, the one on the far right is definitely a little sloppy. Oops!

Speaking of Real Life(tm) endeavors, my band has recently gotten our first CD mastered and we're in the process of getting the first print run done. We've also got all the final tracks up for free download on our site here. May not be to everyone's taste, but hey - free music!

...And no, that's not a picture of us. Well, the guy in the middle is our drummer, but the pic was taken almost 25 years ago!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - 2000 Points complete!

Victory! The 2000 point army that's going with me to England has finally been completed! My good friend Dave made a carrying tray for me that fits perfectly into the travel case, and the army just baaaaarely fits on it.

I did spend some time going back through the infantry and painting all the shoulder pads with the appropriate symbols. That was tedious in the extreme, but the end result definitely makes the models look better.

30 some-odd little itty bitty nova bursts and arrows on the tactical marine squads. Oof.

 

The Jetbikes received the same treatment, though they got the crossed arrows of the Assault squads as opposed to the Tactical arrow.

 

I also added a bit to Ahriman, a nova symbol on his left shoulder pad and the cape, and the old-school "M" symbol the Thousand Sons used to use prior to their reunion with their Primarch.

While I was about it I pulled out the rest of the Thousand Sons that aren't making the trip. I was quite pleased to not that there's not really all that much more to paint!

I updated the painting chart accordingly, not too shabby! I'll admit I was a bit surprised to see the army total creeping north of 4500 points. Wasn't this supposed to be a little boutique army project? Heh.

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With the trip to England rapidly approaching I did a little spelunking in the Closet of Doom for some odds and bobs I could auction off to raise a little extra spending money for the trip.

First up, and the hardest to part with is one of my last three King Russ tanks. This particular one has had the turret assembled and primered, but the main hull is unassembled. The final two will be used in my next Ad-Mech army, I believe. The person who made these casts hasn't produced any new King Russ tanks in well over five years, as I understand it the molds were damaged or lost, based on my most recent conversations with him (admittedly several years ago now).

Next are the remnants from my old Vostroyan army, consisting of 20 assorted infantry models and two sprues of three casualty models. They are by far my favorite metal guardsmen that GW has ever done, and I'm quite sad they aren't still making them. Hopefully they'll come in handy to some Vostroyan player out there!

Somewhere along the way I ended up with two signed copies of the Siege of Vraks Part 1. I don't really NEED two copies, so...

 

Finally are a pair of old metal Master of the Ravenwing box sets (auction 1, auction 2). I picked these up waaaaay back when I first started gathering bits for the Thousand Sons, but they've been passed over in favor of the Zealot Miniatures versions that I ended up using.

Over the next couple weeks I'll likely be putting up a few more buried treasures wrested from the depths of the Closet of Doom (provided I'm not buried under an avalanche of boxes and bits)!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider Spartan Painted

Finished up the paint job on the Land Raider Spartan this week, gave it another light wash of Baal Red to darken it a little, and finished off the detailing and shading.

 

All in all I'm quite pleased with it, It really fits in well with the rest of the army, and gives the 20-man Legion Tactical squad a transport option besides the Gemini Drop Pods.

 

I'm working on coming up with some banners for the beast, based on what was previously provided to me by the incomparable LuckyNo.5!

With the trip to England fast approaching, I risked a delve into the Closet of Doom for some things to auction off. I'll be posting a few treasures tomorrow, including something special!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Spartan painting in progress

First off, let me start by saying that it's 2/1/12 (at least for my American readers), and as such I would be remiss if I didn't suggest listening to the linked song today! For those of you across the pond, I suppose I should have mentioned it on the 2nd of January! Heh.

With that out of the way, I thought I'd put up a few pics of the Land Raider Spartan, now that I've managed to get some paint on it. All in all it's coming along fairly well - I'm pleased with the look even though it is quite obviously a scratchbuild.

Side by side with a 'real' Mk.I Land Raider the differences are rather obvious, but I'm hoping I can downplay some of the more obvious shortcomings in the painting process. One thing I have noticed is the paint tone is quite different between the two tanks which I imagine is partially due to the cardstock nature of the Spartan. I'm going to have to give it a second wash of Baal Red in hopes of darkening it down a bit.

The mix of old style construction and new-era bits does at least tie the two tanks together thematically, I'm fairly pleased with how that's come along so far. Still a fair bit of painting to go of course!

As the spartan is going to be the transport for one of the legion tactical squads I went with the big arrow on the top hatch (as I'm doing something similar with the Rhinos). Overall the spartan is quite a bit longer than the base Mk. I, as is befitting a vehicle with a transport capacity of 20!

So far so good, though it does make me itch to do a proper Spartan build, but finding both a Mk.I Land Raider and Rhino unassembled is a long shot, not to mention also likely being cost prohibitive... Ah well.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Magnus the Red complete

While looking around for something (anything) to do rather than finish up the very last little tiny bit to do on the 2000 point army I'm taking to the Tempus Fugitives event in March, my eye fell upon the Primarch of the Thousand Sons, Magnus the Red. He, too, was partially painted, so it wasn't a big deal to get him finished up, and snap a couple pics of him alongside the recently-completed Sekhmet:

Magnus is described in the various novels as being a giant, even among his fellow Primarchs, and the model certainly doesn't skimp on the size. I ended up having to mount him on a 60mm base, and he's almost 75mm to the tip of his axe! He makes even the massive Sekhmet Terminators look tiny.

  

I tired to give him a ruddy, reddish skin tone, which turned out all right. Originally I'd painted him up with white robes and red runic script, but they just looked terrible so I did a little repaint and swapped the colors for red robes and white scripts which ended up looking a little better. I also went with a nice big wolf pelt cloak to tweak the nose of our local Space Wolf player. All in all, it's not my favorite Primarch model that's out there, but it's what was available. He won't be part of the army I'm taking to England, but nevertheless it's good to get him done and out of the way!

The rules that I'm using for him are from the Age of the Emperor expansion pack available from the Tempus Fugitives site here:

The Primarch Magnus the Red, the Crimson King

WS BS S T W I A LD Sv

10 4  6 6 6 6 4 10 1+/4++

Upgraded Unit Type: Heavy Infantry

Wargear
• Primarch Armour (The armour provides a 1+ armour save [remembering that a roll of a 1 is always a failure], the Relentless special rule and a 4+ Invulnerable save.)
• The Red Staff (Master crafted force weapon)
• Psychic Hood

Ever Onwards! Magnus can never capture or contest an objective. For him the road to victory rolls ever onwards.

Titanic Might: Such is the power of the Primarch Magnus that he may re-roll all failed rolls to wound with close combat and shooting attacks.

Loss of Control: Should Magnus be slain, a psychic shockwave pulses from the fallen Primarch and his body is magically transported away from the battlefield. The effect on his army is devastating. All Psykers on the battlefield (friend and foe) suffer Perils of the Warp. Beware: The flesh-change affects the Thousand Sons as normal.

Special Rules
• Fearless
• Independent Character
• Eternal Warrior
• Relentless
• Master Psyker (C:SM pg 86)
• Gift of Prescience (C:SM pg 86).
• Surprise Attack (C:SM pg 85)

Psyker Mastery Level X: Knows all Thousand Sons and Librarian psychic powers. Automatically passes all psychic test and cannot be affected by devices that affect psychic powers.

Channel for the Warp: Magnus may cast up to four powers each turn. Each power may be used only once per turn, and only a single power may be used in the assault phase. Such is Magnus' capability that he can use more than one psychic shooting attack per turn; all of which must be directed to the same target.

Cyclops: Because Magnus has a single eye, his lack of depth perception means that even with his post-human abilities he has a Ballistic Skill of 4 and may not re-roll to hit with any shooting attacks.

So he's a beast on the table top, but is a massive liability to the army should he be slain. As it should be, I suppose!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider Spartan Build

As I've managed to get virtually the whole 2000 point army painted for the Tempus Fugitives event in March, I thought I'd treat myself to some build time. Recently I came across a fellow on eBay who was selling off a cardstock/foamcore version of a Land Raider Spartan. I thought it looked like it might be pretty neat if I could detail it up a bit.

 

It showed up in the mail on Friday, and I got stuck in. I started off with chopping up a bunch of half-moon plastic rod to give the tracks that little extra to make them look like the original GW model's style. The Land Raider Spartan in the rule set that I'm using was armed differently than the way the fellow had it modeled, but the seller was nice enough to build one for me without any side or roof weapons so I could arm it as I chose. I needed to mount a Predator's single lascannon sponson on each side, so using a pin vice and an x-acto blade I carefully cut out the shape I needed and trimmed out the foamcore. The sponsons fit right in and I added the other side doors.

 

While rooting around in the various vehicle bits boxes, I came across an original Rhino's front light bar, so I cleaned up the front of the tank and trimmed the bar down to the correct size before gluing it in place. On the rear, I dug up some exhausts and a grill to give it a bit more character.

  

Once that was done, I fit it with a dozer blade, and added some power cables similar to the GW kit. The Termpus Fugitives list version of the Spartan is fitted with two Heavy Bolters on the battle deck, so a trimmed down version from a current-era Land Raider seemed to fit the bill. I was originally planning on using the pintle mounted Heavy Bolters from the Fortress of Redemption kit, but alas the Closet of Doom didn't see fit to give them up. Naturally, I'll find them as soon as this tank is painted!

 

After that I popped off the paper hatch that came with it and replaced it with a current-era Rhino hatch, and added a couple banner poles and called it a day. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out thus far, and I think it'll be a nice addition to the Thousand Sons as the transport for one of the 20-man Legion Tactical Squads.