Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Armies on Parade family photo!

I recently finished off the last of the models I had assembled and figured a family photo of what's been painted up so far was in order. Packed everything up and popped over to the local GW to put them in the Armies on Parade lineup and snapped a few pics!

There's actually quite a few of 'em once I got 'em all laid out! Fairly infantry heavy so far, but I find it's good to crank out a mess of infantry and leave the big toys for later. Still plan on adding more to the force, and there's quite a bit still awaiting assembly, but we're looking at about 3500 points complete already!

Couple off-angle shots as well - Pretty happy with how the greens turned out across the force, and I'm rather enjoying the various spot colors here and there, the hot oranges pop nicely against the cooler tones of the armor.

Updated the painting chart and really pleased with how it's coming along! Still a few things on the ol' wish list to order up from Forge World once the new rulebook drops, and a couple models still awaiting assembly in the Closet of Doom. However, I'm thinking I might switch gears for a bit and work on a different project for a little while to recharge the batteries after all this green!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Contemptor and Predators Waterslides and Weathering!

Really been enjoying working on these models and am nearing the finish line! I took advantage of a brief break in the weather yesterday afternoon to get the initial sealant pass on the models and once it had dried set to with the waterslide transfers and weathering! The initial pics of this stage against the green cutting mat I work on looked poor so I broke out a little parchment paper and made a poor man's photobooth (needs work, I know).

The contemptor got a transfer on the kneepad and top carapace, and a few chips and scratches here and there - I generally go with the "Less is More" philosophy, and try to apply the weathering to locations that would theoretically be getting bumped and bashed.

The Plasmacutioners got much the same treatment, with a couple eye motifs, and the "XVI" legion numerics, followed by some sponged-on weathering using Vallejo Beastly Brown, followed by a sponging of Gunmetal, then some highlights in Shining Silver on the hard edges. I tried to pick out the 'underside' of some of the weathering here and there with the Vallejo Tank Crew Highlight to give them a little extra depth.

Second verse, same as the first! Once the chipping was on, I thought I'd add some mud/dust along the bottom of the tank to represent the churned-up earth. Went with the same colors I'm using on the bases, and tried to do a streaky pattern to represent the grime spattering backwards along the hull as the tank rumbles forward. I think it needs a bit of sponge work to break it up a little and add a bit more texture, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along! Probably one more quick session and then just a holding pattern for a break in the rain to do the second sealant pass - after that, the water effects and grass tufts for the dreadnough base and they'll be complete!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Contemptor and Predators "Off the factory floor"!

A little cleanup and basing session last night brought the models up to what I call the "fresh off the factory floor" stage, where they're ready for the initial sealant pass in preparation for the waterslides and weathering steps.

Went with a muddy blasted urban scheme for the base, with the brickwork in a lighter sandstone color to give it a little pop. I'll be adding in a couple tufts of grass, and have ordered up some of the Secret Weapon water effects that I'll be adding at the verrrrry end after the final sealant pass (as it sounds like the spray sealant may mess up the look of the water).

Spent some time cleaning up the most egregious sloppy edge lining on the predators, and added in the various lights and lenses. Naturally now that they're ready for the initial sealant pass, it's forecast to be rainy and chilly for the next several days. Curse you, mother nature!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Contemptor and Predators painting begins!

Got a surprising amount of brush time in over the weekend and managed to get some good forward motion on the Contemptor and Predators. Huzzah!

Really quite happy with the green tone, though as usual my edge lining needs a little cleanup. On the upside this go-around the main armor color doesn't include a wash step which means I can use the mid-tone green to go in and clean up any slop in later stages. The seafoam green uses the Vallejo USMC Tank Crew Green (70.319) as the basic midtone, with a 50% mix of tank crew and black as the undercoat and the Vallejo USMC Tank Crew Highlight (70.323) as the, well, highlight. Couldn't be simpler!

The plasmacutioners got the same treatment while I was about it, and then I started laying in the secondary spot colors, with a dark grey/storm grey/black wash on the black areas, the usual ice blue/guilliman blue wash on the blue areas, and then a white undercoat/hot orange/orange fire on the plasma coils which I really think sets off nice against the green!

Still a ways to go before they're ready for the initial sealant pass prior to waterslides and weathering, but I am really digging 'em so far!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Justaerin Terminators built!

The first Box o' Joy arrived from Forgeworld yesterday afternoon, and was waiting for me when I got home - It's Christmas in September!

This order included a whole mess of infantry upgrade kits, a unit of Reavers, a unit of Justaerin and a Contemptor dreadnought. All the big tanks will be arriving in a second order that will be arriving in a few weeks (as apparently several of the models on that order are on a 10-day delay).

After work I cracked open all the blisters and got everything washed, soaked and scrubbed and laid out to dry. A fiddly business, but important to do when working with resin models!

Later in the evening once the models had sufficiently dried off, I couldn't wait to get cracking on some infantry and decided to start at the top and build the Justaerin Terminators! Kitted this unit out for vehicular destruction with a pair of Multimeltas and a generous mix of power- and chain-fists. This does mean they miss out on the Merciless Fighters rule (as that only applies if the models haven't already fought at initiative step 1), but I plan on doing a couple squads of 'vanilla' cataphractii with lightning claws to take advantage!

While I was about it I finished the builds on the Plasmacutioners, adding the dozer blades, headlamps and a radar dish and searchlight to give 'em a little more visual interest!

Lastly I cracked open the army list again and did some wishlisting and updating of point values to see where things stand - Naturally it bloomed to a 5000 point force almost immediately! At this point the meat of the army has either arrived or has been ordered and on the way, with one more order to go including Horus and a Damocles on the HQ side, and a couple more fast attack choices with a Xiphon for some air cover and a unit of Outriders mostly because I've never built or painted them before. As good a reason as any, right? Gotta say I'm really excited for this project,  the green/black scheme of the Sons of Horus are going to be a welcome change of pace from all the red and gold of late!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Project planning, and first models!

As I have alluded to recently, the next Horus Heresy project in the hopper is a Sons of Horus force. I place the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of Dave Taylor, who shared his SoH paint recipe for the recent NOVA Charitable Foundation raffle army and after painting up a helmet in that scheme being held by one of the Thallax models I'd done, and subsequently a test model, I was hooked!

Whenever I start a new project I pencil together a quick painting chart to get a feel for what the army structure may look like and figure out what I have on-hand and what needs to be ordered. In this case I thought I'd do an Armoured Spearhead force as a counterpoint to the recent Orbital Assault Thousand Sons list. The RoW requires all infantry models to be mounted in a dedicated transport, and gives the option for any unit that could take a Rhino to instead be deployed in a Land Raider. As the Sons of Horus are known for their brutal assaults, I knew that I needed to run the Phobos variants to take advantage of the assault ramps, and while the Mk.IIb Land Raider from Forge World has a little Heresy flavor, what really sealed the deal was the unveiling of a new set of track kits from Blood and Skulls industries, providing wrap-around track sections akin to my beloved Proteus models!

I have a trio of these kits winging their way to me as we speak, and picked up a pair of the Mk.IIb Land Raider kits from the FW booth at NOVA a few weeks back, can't wait to get 'em combined! I'd placed a FW order a week or so ago for the majority of the infantry bits and kits that I'll need to get rolling (and have gottend a shipping notification that they're on the way, woo!), and will have to place one more order in the upcoming weeks to pick up the last of the requisite models including the big man himself, the Abbadon/Loken set, a Spartan and the third Mk.IIb raider. Not a lot of models, but it's going to be a pricey order!

The force is also going to have a strong plasma element to it - I'm envisioning using a hot red/orange on the plasma coils to set off against the cooler seafoam green of the armor, and as such I dug out a couple tanks that have been lurking in the Closet of Doom for years. A pair of Predator Plasma Executioners! I'd run a pair of them in one of the earlier iterations of the Thousand Sons and they were pretty fierce - I'd picked up a few more intending to use them on the recent Thousand Sons force but when I switched gears to go Orbital Assault with 'em they ended up languishing in a box instead. Happy to have a chance to use them in the new SoH force! Still gotta get the tracks on them, but other than that they went together like a dream - only had to break out the heat gun for one side panel, everything else lined up really well. Hoping to get the builds finished over the next few evenings and get 'em primered over the weekend. Maybe get some paint on 'em too!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Predators and Scorpius painting continues

Managed to sneak in a couple more hobby hours and put some further work into the rhino variants - so far so good! Still more detail work to go, then it'll be time to figure out the weathering.

Sticking with the relatively limited palette that was used on the spireguard with bone, blue and gold. So many rivets, makes me shudder to think how many are going to be on the new Falchion !

While I was about it, I'd knocked together a quick sorcerer to act as an HQ choice in the short term while I scheme on how to do up some convincing character models (or wait for FW to do some). Started blocking in the basic red on him before having to call it a night. So far so good!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Predators and Scorpius painting begins

Been getting beat up by Real Life(tm) for the last several weeks, so there hasn't been time for hobby stuff of late. Snatched an hour after work today however and banged out the base red on a trio of heavy support units!

Standard red recipe - Dark Flesh basecoat, heavy drybrush with gory red followed by a lighter drybrush of blood red, and then the whole shebang gets a wash of carroburg crimson. These will need to dry for a while, but next up will be the bone color step. Going to be doing the various inset panels on the front and sides of the rhino chassis, as well as the weapon housings on the turrets - looking forward to getting stuck in!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Heavy support assembly

Haven't had a great deal of hobby time over the last week, Real Life(tm) has taken more than its fair share! Nevertheless, I've slowly been soldiering on behind the scenes on the Thousand Sons and figured I'd share some build pics.

First up is a whirlwind scorpius, I absolutely love the homage to the original missile launcher from good ol' RTB-01. In fact, I plan on including a heavy support squad armed with missile launchers to match!

I'm also pretty jazzed with the deimos predator executioner. Love my guard executioner and figure it's a no-brainer to have one crewed by marines!

I actually liked it enough that I'm going to have a pair of 'em! This one is built as a command tank for what I eventually plan to make a three strong squadron. The deimos kit was actually surprisingly easy to build, I have to say it was probably the most trouble-free design from FW that I've built in quite some time.

While I was about it, I also banged together a couple lascannons for the Spireguard, using some leftover bits from the Iron Hand sicarans, and the carriages from Curious Constructs which I think work a treat!

The majority of the army is still on hold while I await the bases - my indecision has meant that while I have all the bits to make the models, I have nothing to actually put them on so I've been in a holding pattern, argh. This coming week brings the release of the Imperial Knight kit, so expect to see some towering monstrosities here this weekend!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider and Rhino Complete, Predator Pics in Progress

To start with - Holy cow, this is post #199! I'll have to think up something cool for 200...

A little bit of brush time allowed me to finish off the Land Raider and Rhino that I've been working on for the Thousand Sons, as well as getting the Predator almost caught up.

 

At the moment I tend to paint all of my models as though they just came off the showroom floor, but seeing such awesome weathering techniques displayed by Several Awesome Bloggers, I'm rather tempted to delve into utilizing some weathering powders and such. Still a bit hesitant to do so, but I'm planning on picking up the Forge World Imperial Armor Model Mastercraft book as I hear it's an excellent resource.

 

I utilized the advice from Ron over at From The Warp regarding transferring a printed symbol onto a model as a template for painting. I printed out a sheet of Thousand Sons symbols from the BoLS .pdf download section, and cut one out that was the appropriate size. Once I coated the back of it with graphite (aka scribbled all over it with a pencil) I then flipped it over onto the top hatch and traced over the symbol with a ball point pen. The graphite was transferred to the hatch and I was able to use it as the template to paint in the symbol. Not perfect, but from across the table it looks pretty decent. I'll be honing that technique quite a bit over the course of the army I'm sure!

Finally, the Predator is almost done. I still need to work on some detailing (the scroll, a couple lenses, etc.), and figure out where I'm going to put the legion symbol. It was suggested to me to try and set one over and across the two front hatches, but the attempts I made looked pretty terrible and I ended up erasing/painting over the pencil lines. I may just do the bit nova on the rear hatch and a smaller one on the white mantlet on the turret autocannon.

I'm definitely enjoying the paint scheme more and more, and one of the best things about painting tanks is how, when you're done, it appears that a huge chunk of the army has paint on it! ...Of course I'm sure I'll be grumbling about the scheme when I'm up to my ears in 40 tactical marines. Heh.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Predator and Rhino painting in progress, part 1

While I was about it, I got the red on the Mk.1c Predator and Rhino kits I'd picked up from Machinator at Blood and Skulls Industries. The red followed the same recipe (Dark Flesh, Red Gore, Blood Red, Baal Red), I am quite pleased at how well these hearken back to the original kits, while maintaining the somewhat more 'chunky' current-era models.

 

At this point all three tanks are at the same stage, next up is going in and re-blacking all the appropriate areas, then start the detailing process on the trim and doors. I'm still pondering how best to distribute the white and gold trim colors however.

 

I find if I go with too much gold, they start to look more like Word Bearers, so I guess I need to ensure there's sufficient fields of white to balance it out. On the Rhino, I can do up the side doors in white with the red starburst symbol, but I'm not sure about the Predator. Definitely open to suggestions at this point!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Mk. 1 Rhino/Predator kits, first builds

As I've felt that I've made great strides in painting the Dark Eldar, I rewarded myself with some build time! Over the last year or so I've been gathering bits and pieces for use in the Heresy-Era Thousand Sons that I have planned. Recently I picked up some rather brilliant resin add-on kits from Blood and Skulls Industry to turn a current-era Rhino into a nice approximation of the old Mk. 1 version.

I ordered five of the Rhino upgrade kits (which are a limited run not sold on the eBay store, contact the seller for info and availability) as well as a trio of Predator kits (Also known as "Liberator" turrets and sponsons on the Blood and Skulls Industry site), and set about cleaning up the extremely manageable flash and gave 'em a good wash. The Rhino kit consists of two replacement side plates, a new front plate, a pair of hatches each mounting a bolter(ish), and the iconic round doors and exposed exhausts. The Predator Kits had a pair of side sponsons designed to interface with the Rhino kit side plates, and a rounded top turret very reminiscent of the original Mk.1 Predator kit. The sponsons and turret also have pre-moulded spaces for rare-earth magnets for ease of weapon swaps.

 

Unlike the Chapterhouse kits, these kits did require a bit of work on the modeller's part to prepare the Rhino for the side plates. This means the existing exhausts must be cut away. I used a very thin-bladed and tiny-toothed hobby saw, which for the most part cleanly cut away the exhausts. After that it just needed a bit of a sanding to smooth out the various rivets and the side plates are mounted flush to the newly-flat panel..

 

Once that was taken care of however, the rest of the kit goes together like a dream. I decided to go ahead and permanently mount the Lascannons and Autocannon armaments to the two turrets, but will be magnetizing the side sponson guns (onse I get a pack of the proper-sized magnets). The one thing that I do really like about the chapterhouse kit that isn't included in these kits are the front and rear grillwork that really help drive the Mk. 1 look home. Luckily I have several sets to pull bits from.

 

I realized that one of the things I failed to buy prior to the recent price hikes are, unfortunately, enough Rhino kits to apply these upgrade kits to. That being the case, I decided I'd just start off with one Rhino and one Predator until I can take out a bank loan to buy another three Rhinos...