Sons of Horus Reinforcements - Tactical Marines

Reinforcements for the cause of hope and change - Horus for hope!

After a long run of Epic 30k painting I felt it was time to switch back over to the "regular" 28mm size figures.  I have a large pending pile of assorted reinforcements I had been meaning to paint back in the winter for Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  Like always, I was diverted...but might as well get to this in the summer, right?

Legion vexillary - plastic figure from the "Betrayal at Calth" box set

I used a Sons of Horus transfer on the right shoulder pauldron

Every summer we take some time to relax at our cabin in the Sault Ste. Marie area and I took a bunch of these primed figures that I never got to back in the winter with me to paint.  Here is the first bunch - some plain-old vanilla tactical marines.

In 30k the Legion Marines can have very large, 20-man tactical squads.  These seem to do really well in the game, and they look cool, so I took 10 figures from a "Betrayal at Calth" box set, added some Sons of Horus bits, and designated them to join the forces of hope and change, to make a big 20-man tactical squad.

In the photos you will see there are only nine figures...I'm 100% sure I put together 10 of these models, but somehow...I lost one. So there are only nine of them...meaning I'm still one figure short of a 20-man tactical squad.  A 19-man squad will have to do for now.

Comparing greens...my old approach on the right - my new approach on the left.  I like how both look, but the approach on the left takes half the time, so it wins...

I have been painting these figures for a few years now, and my approach to the green armour has changed a bit over time.  I find it difficult sometimes to come back to painting a faction or collection after spending time on other periods/scales/factions, and I found it tricky to get the green to match.  I had been starting to use fancy techniques like glazing to try and fancy things up...but I also find glazing to be tedious, time consuming and difficult to replicate precisely over a number of figures.  And I don't think I'm very good at it...I would apply glazes, and it would look kind of cool, to be sure, but nothing like it should in the hands of someone with a real gift/talent for that approach.

Nine extra tactical marines...I need to find that missing model...

I came across this excellent video tutorial on the GW web site (one of a number of great video tutorials they have done).  It was a nice, simple approach to coming up with a good, clean look on the figure.  I was hooked! So I have switched to this approach - with one exception (you can likely pick him out in the photos), this bunch was painted using the approach from the GW tutorial.  No glazing. No airbrush. No zenithal anything.  Pretty basic, but it works for me!

Stay tuned for some more 30k reinforcements painted at the lake...