Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Family Picture

Spent the day doing chores and cleaning the house. While I was at it I took some time and laid out the painted Thousand Sons:

Quite pleased with how the army is coming along! Still a few units awaiting assembly and painting, but this is definitely a good core force to build from...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Javelin Landspeeder Squadron Qaa painting continues

Not a lot of hobby time recently but I did spend a little time working on the 'magic script' for the Thousand Sons:

Pretty happy with it - essentially it's Daedric, upside down. No real sneaky messages in there however, it's essentially gibberish. Might have to come up with some snarky ciphered sentences on the rear ramps on the Predators or wings of the Lightning, "If you can read this, you have too much time on your hands". Hah!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Electro Avatar painting begins

Just a quick hit today - While I had the blue paints out, I took a quick break from all the Thousand Sons red and laid down the base colors on the Electro-Avatar for my Adeptus Mechanicus army. I'd picked this up long ago in the Tempus Fugitive days, so unfortunately I have no idea what it'll be used for in the current FW ruleset. Nevertheless, I'm putting together a little group of adversary models for my upcoming Rogue Trader campaign (pics to follow), and this guy will be one of the "final bosses" due to a radical tech priest causing mischief on a Necron tomb world. "Calm yourselves. There is only a 0.000000000002% chance of the shard-form overcoming the restraint device." [KLAXON ALARM MAYHEM]

I'm a big fan of the idea that there is a quietly sinister undercurrent of Necron technology underpinning the techno-sorcery of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and with a quick symbol swap on the torc it was ready to go. Next up is some gold/bronze, but I want to keep the OSL look so I'm planning on trying to just paint gold into the 'shadowed' areas of the torc and faceplate as a sort of reverse-OSL to begin with, and if that looks terrible, then it's paint it all gold and re-apply the blue. We'll see how it goes!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Javelin Landspeeder Squadron Qaa painted

While I was working on the Lightning I quasi-batch painted the Javelins at the same time. They're essentially at the same spot - ready for transfers, freehand and (eventually) weathering):

Went with the standard color scheme, there were plenty of panels to paint in bone, but I didn't want to over-do it. I think it strikes the right balance overall, though!

I started the freehand work on 'em, the usual "XV" went on one side, and I'm planning on doing some runic script on the other side. Possibly do the nova on either side of the engine housing in the back, as well. Started pulling everything back out of the foam trays to do a family shot - there's a surprising amount done at this point!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Primaris Lightning Fighter painted

Been cranking along on the bolter and chainsword painting challenge and recently finished the paint job on the Lightning fighter that will accompany the Prospero Spireguard contingent of the Thousand Sons army.

 

I have to say that while I really dug the old Lightning (and am bummed that FW has apparently discontinued it), I absolutely love this model even more! It definitely is more stylistically related to the Thunderbolt, and has a much more menacing look overall. I tried to mimic the blended red that I did on the Crimson Hunter from a while back - it ended up being a little more streaky than I hoped, but it sort of gives the model a sense of motion.

I went with a blue/grey underside, to help the plane blend into the sky from the ground, and absolutely not because I royally screwed up the blend on the bottom when I was originally painting it red. No sir!

The pilot, while cool, didn't really fit in with the rest of the infantry style so I tried my hand at the artificial horizon look. In the heresy rules, the lightning has the option of taking either a regular pilot or a battle servitor so the opaque canopy lets me choose whichever one strikes my fancy at the time.

Still have to work out the waterslide transfers and freehand work, but at this point it's painted, sealed and ready to receive!

Terrain - Warboards city blocks

Spent a little time cleaning up the hobby loft (it was getting out of hand) which freed up the table enough that I could set out and snap a few pics of the new table covers! A while back I'd paid in to a Kickstarter that was doing some tabletop fold-out gaming mats that had caught my eye. As is usually the case with KS projects, significantly past the original release date they did finally arrive, and I was able to lay 'em out and see how they looked!

All told there are four different 2' x 3' fold out sections, which can fit together in a few different arrangements covering a 6' x 4' table. I grabbed a couple pieces of terrain to see how they'd look on the boards - rather pleased with 'em! I forgot to take pics, but the back sides of the boards also have further maps, two of them have a cave complex and two have a space-hulk-esque ship corridors sort of thing going on. Useful for RPG games, as well!

Due to the delay, the fellow who was running the KS effort gave some of us the option to get a spare board, and I picked up the space board for use in the Rogue Trader campaigns. All in all I'm quite happy with them and I'm looking forward to getting a game in on the new city streets!

Agents of the Imperium - Expeditionary Navigator painted

I was getting a little weary of painting crimson, so over the last few mornings I've worked on Fortunato Locarno instead! He's going to be part of my Thousand Sons force so I needed to tie him in thematically, but I wanted him to have a contrasting color scheme - Good ol' Tzeentchian blue and yellow it is, then!

  

House Locarno assigned Fortunato to the XV Legion in the early days of the Great Crusade and he served with distinction, showing an almost preternatural ability to guide the Thousand Sons vessels to their destinations swiftly and unerringly. Afforded training by the Corvidae Cult, he gained unprecedented prognosticative powers, however in later years dark whispers that his abilities were enhanced via dark pacts with servants of the Architect of Fate proved to be all too true...

I'm not completely happy with his shoulder weasels (which thanks to Dave Taylor, I can't get out of my head). I wanted to go with the blue-white similar to that found on the Sons and the Spireguard, but I'm not fond of how the spots turned out. Not sure how to save it without overly gumming up the details with overpainting, though. Hrm...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Terminator Squad Phosis built

I managed to get some build time in over the weekend and put together Terminator Squad Phosis. 9 Terminators in modified Saturnine-pattern armour using Grey Knight legs and arms (Titan is a moon of Saturn, so I've always assumed the GK armour is what FW refers to when they mention the Saturnine pattern) and resin torsos, shoulder pads and heads I'd picked up a while back but never got around to using.

The intent is to keep them as basic as possible (combi bolters and power weapons) in order to keep the cost of the squad down. The whole unit clocks in at 305 points, which isn't bad at all! I intend to do a unit of Cataphractii terminators to act as Magnus' personal honour guard The Scarab Occult, but I'm holding out hope that FW will make them (as they've been cranking out legion-specific terminators for many legions).

Agents of the Imperium - Expeditionary Navigator Fortunato Locarno

A friend of mine was able to attend the recent Heresy Weekender in Nottingham and was gracious enough to pick up one of the event-only Navigators and mail it (along with some other event goodies) across the pond to me. Woo-hoo!

  

I've always loved the lore behind the Navigator Houses, it's a fascinating sub-culture in the 40k universe - they are inextricably woven into mankind's history and exploration of the galaxy, and they have incredible power and influence that they can bring to bear. This fellow will be joining my Thousand Sons army as Expeditionary Navigator Fortunato Locarno - whom I envision as being the great great (great great etc) grandfather of Lustram Locarno, the navigator called out in the RT-era rulebook.

He'd also sent along a couple of the event catalog pamphlets which to my surprise actually included rules for the Navigator! Granted, they were written for use with 6th ed, so some of the rules don't really apply anymore - still, he'll be a fun addition to the army!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Characters ahoy!

I'm finding I'm not enjoying painting the Javelins as much as I might have expected, so I set them aside for a bit to work on a couple characters instead. I'd laid the foundational red, boltgun metal and gold on these three models when I was working on the blocks on infantry, so it was mostly a matter of working on the details! First up is the initial sorcerer for the army, Ankhu Anen:

 

FW recently FAQ'ed the horus heresy army lists, downgrading the maximum mastery level to 2, which makes running a Thousand Sons army a little tough using the vanilla legion rules. No matter, I'm sure that they're get a boost when the book is released. ...In two years. [sad trombone]

 

Next up is Siege Breaker Megiddo, who will be joining the missile launcher-toting heavy weapons team. Granting Tank Hunters to the unit as well as the opportunity to fire on any units who happen to deep strike nearby? Yes please!

 

Lastly is Apothecary Thothmes, who will be joining the 20-man tactical blob squad, providing them with a much needed feel no pain save. No real surprises there, pretty much every heresy army I've ever seen includes at least one 20-man tac squad with an apothecary, it's just the done thing.

I'd mentioned not enjoying painting the Javelins, but that's mostly due to not finding a great way to hold them while painting - they're a little too heavy to try and pin onto a painting handle, and a little too irregular to delicately hold in hand comfortably without risking putting a finger or palm into a previously painted area that hasn't dried thoroughly. Nevertheless I've managed to get the gold on and start blocking in the areas which will be leather and bone. Not too far to go now!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Javelin squadron Qaa begins

Got some hobby time in over the weekend and got a start on the trio of Javelin land speeders planned for the army. I'd picked up these initially early on in the Iron Hands frenzy but decided they didn't fit the aesthetic I was going for. I'd built one to completion and primed it just to give the kit a try (had never built one before) but it turned out to be such an easy kit that I went back and finished the other two while the primer was drying on the first!

First thing of course is to lay down the base reds and metals. One exceedingly messy couple hours later, they're all up to snuff. I took a recommendation to keep the crew separate for painting, and they may even fit when it comes time for final assembly. We'll see!

Rummaging around for some bases to stick them to, I ran into a couple cavalry bases. I haven't played fantasy since ~1993, which means these bases have been lurking in the Closet of Doom for over twenty years. ...Yikes!