Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Reaver Attack Squad painting begins!

Just a quick hit this morning, been having some work done on the house which has meant the hobby loft has been challenging to get to. That said, it was nice enough outside to primer some models and I got the greens down on the Reaver Attack Squad!

It's mentioned a couple times that the Reavers tend to wear a darker green livery than the rest of their legion, and I tried to take the recipe I've been using down a couple tones. They will end up with red shoulder pads as well, which I think should look pretty cool and help tie them in with the Justaerin and the veterans. Really liking the Maxmini jump packs - They are a nice nod to the modern-era chaos raptors versions!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Abaddon and Justaerin complete!

Took advantage of a couple nice days over the weekend to finish off some models and make a start on some others!

First up is the rather awesome Abaddon vs. Loken vignette - This was one of the models that I have always wanted ever since it was released and it was an absolute blast to build and paint!

Rather pleased with how well the Secret Weapon bases match up with the FW set, and am looking forward to painting up Horus and his rather cool architectural base soon!

"Give up, AnnLoken! I have the high ground!" ...I'll show myself out.

The big A (hole) himself, Abaddon the ever-so-slightly myopic, apparently. Might have to go back in and fix that left eye.

The Justaerin are some very cool models, and really show off the brutalist nature of the Sons of Horus. While the power axes that come in the kit are undeniably cool, I prefer my terminators to carry chainfists and power fists.

It's hard to argue with a terminator toting a multi-melta, and I figured the anti-tank nature of the weapon was a natural fit with all the other armorbane chainfists!

A parting shot of Abaddon and the Justaerin. In most games they'll be teleporting into the fray, but for those times where the terrain (or available points) allow, they'll also have a Spartan to roll around in. The archmagos of the Luna manufactorum has been putting off its assembly, claiming delays in the receipt of appropriate doors prior to commencing fabrication of the vehicle. (It's not that I'm dreading the build and am procrastinating, noooo sir.)

In non-heresy news I have put together a couple Chimeras as a small commission for the fine fellow who ended up with a goodly chunk of the Mordian 7th, the inestimable Zzzzzz of Devos IV. It'll be a nice break from painting the black and red of the Justaerin to paint up some guard vehicles in... Black and red. Argh!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Justaerin Terminators painting begins!

Just a quick hit today, was out sick yesterday and while recovering I did get a little brush time in on the Justaerin terminators and the big man Abaddon himself (well, second-biggest man behind Horus).

Pretty straightforward scheme in basic bad-ass black, coupled with the deep dark red I've been using on the rest of the SoH force. Still need to go in and add all the boltgun metal and a little bit of my usual ridiculous blue power cabling. I think I'm going to do the Powerfists on these guys in metal rather than blue, as I think it'd be a bit too jarring. So far, so good though!

Dreadtober 2017 - Osiron Dreadnought Complete!

Made the push over the last couple days to finish off the Osiron dreadnought, as having the deadline for Dreadtober bearing down on me got me motivated!

The dread was well past the halfway mark as of the last update, so it was mostly the addition of little details and cleanup here and there. Laying in the colors on the base really helped bring the model into focus!

The addition of the blue and green works well from a color theory standpoint, but boy am I weary of painting Thousand Sons - They're still my favorite legion, but let's just say I'm not ready to do a fifth iteration of the army quiiiiiite yet. Back to the Sons of Horus, and soon a foray back to the namesake of the blog as well!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - More characters and terminators painted!

While technically I should be working on finishing the Osiron for Dreadtober, I couldn't help but acquiesce to the siren call of Chaos and work on a few more Sons of Horus as well. Ostensibly switching back and forth between projects has really meant "let the dread sit there while you polish off more SoH." Heh.

 

First up is a model not intended for use in the force, Garviel Loken. I'd considered rendering him down for bits, but in the end thought it would be cooler to build out the full vignette between him and Abaddon. It's an interesting sculpt with a vast sense of motion to it!

Next up is the Forge Lord, or "Doctor Hexapus" as he was dubbed by a friend of mine. Need to dig up my Mechanicum waterslide transfers for his shoulderpads and shields, but overall rather pleased with how he turned out!

Continuing on with the Terminators, the Primus Medicae is definitely a polarizing sculpt. I'll admit I was pretty cold on it when I first saw it (not that it stopped me from picking up two or three of 'em), but after painting him up I've actually turned around on it and kinda like it!

The force needed a Librarian of course, and I was jazzed to finally get a chance to use the event-only model that had been lurking in the Heresy box for years! Another polarizing sculpt that I've grown to love once he was painted up.

Can you have too many terminators? To take advantage of the Sons of Horus's 'Merciless Fighters' rule, a unit of lightning-claw armed Cataphractii were just the thing. I'll likely do five more, but I'll need to order up more shoulder pads first as I'd used most of the second five I'd originally ordered on the other characters instead. Doh!

As a reward for all the painting I did get a little build time in and put together a Reaver assault squad. I knew I wanted to give 'em jump packs (as it makes them Bulky which will help them outnumber their opponents for the Merciless Fighters rule), and the MaxMini packs do the trick nicely!

Of course that means it was time to update the painting chart and I'm pretty happy with the progress so far! About 1500 points painted up, a few more on deck and a couple more models that have yet to be ordered but the project is humming right along!

Dreadtober 2017 - Osiron Dreadnought painting continues to continue...

A couple weeks in to October and I haven't gotten as much done on the Osiron as I probably should - Deadline is bearing down on us! That said, there was a little forward progress and I got the force blade greened up and ready for detailing. Don't forget to check out http://dreadtober.blogspot.com/ for more dread-y goodness!

Laid in a couple more colors as well, but nothing worth documenting. I will say that painting this guy has been challenging, I really have army fatigue with the Thousand Sons, and the Sons of Horus have been way more exciting to paint. A whole mess of pics of the boys in green coming soon!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Veterans and characters painted!

Squeaked in just under the wire over the weekend, and managed to beat the weather rolling in this morning. In typical Colorado fashion, it was 75F degrees yesterday, and today it's 32F and snowing. Knowing it was bearing down on us I was head down all morning and finished up the various models to the point where I could seal 'em!

The first of the 'main characters' for the force, Maloghurst the Twisted bears a legion banner - while it's a cool sculpt all gathered into his fist, it does make it pretty challenging to add details to. Managed to trim up a Sons of Horus transfer and manage to get it to lay into all the various folds of the cloth.

The Master of Signals is a nice utility character. Able to call down an orbital strike, as well as granting various buffs to squads that he joins, he's useful in a number of situations. He's sort of ideally paired with a heavy support squad, so I suppose I ought to make one!

Next up are the two Veteran squads, and I'm pretty pleased with both of 'em! In looking at the pictures I needs to swap a couple troopers between the two to spread out the 'chest eye' models and balance out the unit members.

Overall I'm really happy with how they turned out, and as you may be able to see I experimented with some water effects on the bases to represent them slogging through a muddy battleground. The bases from Secret Weapon lend themselves well to it, with most of them having some undercut sections that can be filled up to the lip of the base with water. Good stuff!

Dreadtober 2017 - Osiron Dreadnought painting continues...

Another quick hit today, while the Sons of Horus continue apace I switched gears briefly and added the gold and expanded on the white trim undercoat on the Osiron when those colors came up in the hopper.

There are dozens of other awesome dreadnoughts getting worked on this month - definitely worth checking them out! Here's the link to the challenge tracker blog: https://dreadtober.blogspot.co.uk/p/dreadtober-2017.html

Behind the scenes the Sons of Horus are nearing completion, pics to follow soon!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Forge Lord built!

Just a quick hit today - Though there's been some progress, there hasn't been much worth photographing on the painting side over the last couple days. However, as a bit of a reward for cranking away on the models I did do a little build time and put together another Cataphractii-armoured character for the force - A Forge Lord!

Every time I go to a convention I've tried to pick up a couple of the event-only models but haven't really used any of them for the Thousand Sons as they don't match the aesthetic. Now that I'm working on the Sons of Horus, they're all finally seeing the light of day! This one comes standard with a thunder hammer and a combi-volkite which is a frankly useless combi-weapon, so it was swapped out for a basic combi-bolter. The addition of a cyber-familiar and a couple mechadendrites and he makes a more than passable Forge Lord for the force! Rather like how he turned out, and am quite looking forward to getting some paint on him!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Vets and Characters painting begins, and a few more builds...

Bouncing back and forth between projects this month is helping keep things fresh and the painting servitor has been operating at peak efficiency! Got a fair bit of brush time in over the last couple evenings and made some headway on the veterans, Maloghurst and the master of signal.

Started off by giving the models an undercoat of 50/50 Black and USMC Tank Crew, to give the models a nice base for the green to highlight up from.

Next up was a generous drybrush of straight USMC Tank Crew, concentrating a bit heavier on the upper surfaces. Maybe it's the year or so of painting nothing but reds but I gotta say, I really like this green!

Time for the edge highlights! After the stylistic experiment of the recent Thousand Sons, I wanted to get back to my preferred style, and all the armor plates were picked out in USMC Tank Crew Highlight, again concentrating primarily on those edges and surfaces that were exposed to an overhead light source. Also roughed in the reds on the topknots and banner.

The reds were given a wash and highlight pass, and then I went back and re-blacked all the weapons and shoulder pads which cleans up the models dramatically. The black was then given the initial highlight pass with a 50/50 mix of black and Sombre Grey. Starting to come together now!

The second box o' joy arrived yesterday containing, among other things, some legion upgrade kits (shoulder pads, helmets, etc.) and I set to SoH-ing some event only models I've had kicking around for ages. First up is a Primaris Medicae, in a Cataphractii variant suit of armor. He'll be joining the squad of lightning claw terminators planned for the force.

Next is a traitor terminator librarian. I didn't end up using him in the Thousand Sons army for obvious reasons, but he's gonna fit in fine with the Sons of Horus!

Last but certainly not least is of course Ezekyle Abaddon, the not-quite-the-despoiler yet. He'll be leading the big ol' squad of Justaerin Terminators, and will be transported to the fray either via teleportation or in the belly of a Spartan Assault Carrier. There's a model that I'm not particularly looking forward to assembling!

While I'm definitely going traitor with the force, I have always wanted to build and paint the Abaddon vs. Loken duel vignette, so there will be one loyalist when all is said and done!

Dreadtober 2017 - Back to the old scheme

Just a quick hit today - As the current Thousand Sons force hasn't been sold yet I figured I ought to go ahead and match the Osiron dread to the old paint scheme so I can sell them all on as matching lots. Dragged out the gold and clear red and got down to it!

Nothing super fancy quite yet, got the basic red on, and started by picking out all the areas intended to be white with a medium grey color. Against the reds of the armor even this color ends up looking almost white, and means that I can work up with a few lighter greys to give it depth and highlight. Once that's done I'll move on to the gold, which on this model will be a significant amount of real estate!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Veteran squads and characters built!

So I'm planning on bouncing back and forth between the Dreadtober painting and continuing on with the Sons of Horus, as I'm just so jazzed to be working on 'em! Over the weekend I couldn't help but do a little building and put together a couple infantry squads to balance out the recent vehicles.

One of the characters for the Sons of Horus is Maloghurst the Twisted, (deep breath) Cadre-captain of the Sons of Horus, Bearer of the Eye, The Shadowed Hand, and Equerry of the Warmaster. An interesting character, he's both a Praetor-class character allowing the use of Rites of War and also a standard bearer, carrying the Legion Standard - making any astartes units within 6" Fearless. He also makes Veteran squads and Reaver Attack squads Troops choices. On the other hand, any unit he joins cannot Run or make Sweeping Advance moves, and only wears power armour rather than the usual Artificer plate. He does get a Refractor Field though which helps! The model is a mix of parts, based mostly on the Narik Dreygur model, as the face closes matches the one in the book, and the somewhat awkward pose makes him look a bit ungainly as he's described as well.

While I was about it I dug out a Master of Signals model, which is a prerequisite for using The Black Reaving rite of war - not one that I expect to use that often but it's nice to have options! Pretty straightforward build with the addition of a SoH shoulder pad, and a radar dish swap for a little extra visual interest.

There are several options presenting themselves making Veteran squads Troops choices, so I figured I may aw well go that route to begin with, and put together a pair of 'em. Used the leftover bits from making Maloghurst to bash together the two veteran sergeants, and mostly because I love the look went with a pair of the under-slung missile launchers as the squad's specialist weaponry. Definitely a callback to the old, old chaos renegade models.

In order to give 'em a little extra brutalist flair some of the models were modeled wielding their chainswords and one-handing their bolters, opening up the poses to see the rather cool SoH torsos. I'm scheming on building out a few extra standard troopers and a couple Nuncio-vox operators to allow the units to run as basic tactical squads (dropping the missile launchers), and the leftover missile launcher from the set will also be built as a sergeant variant to allow them to be run as a Heavy Support squad.

Dreadtober 2017 - The dreadnoughtening!

It's that time of year again! Dreadtober 2017 is shaping up to be a big one - Hobbyist extraordinaire and all around fine fellow Todd Sherman has taken up the gauntlet to help run this years festivities, may the Emperor take mercy upon him!

Naturally I didn't think my cunning plan all the way through and just days before the event was to begin I finished up the Sons of Horus dreadnought I'd been working on. Can't claim that as a success, so I cast my eye across the shelves and it settled on one of the leftover models from the recent Thousand Sons force that had never gotten beyond the build stage.

The beautiful Osiron dread never quite fit into the force as by the time I'd settled on the Orbital Assault list, the Dreadnought Drop Pod had gone out of production on the FW site and there's been little to no word of its return. Looks like we have our dread to work on for Dreadtober!

Todd has set up a blog to help track all the awesomeness at https://dreadtober.blogspot.co.uk/ - go check it out, and by all means if you have a dread you've been wanting to finish (or dread finishing) join in the fun!