Sons of Horus Reinforcements - Tactical Support Squad

"Prepare for Hope, my friends!"

I'm back from another refreshing visit to the Lake, and managed to get a bit more painting done at the cabin.  Continuing a theme seen for most of this summer, this post contains still more reinforcements for the XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus.  This is a 10-man "tactical support squad" in Mark III power armour and equipped with Volkite Calivers.

Sergeant and comms trooper

Tactical support markings courtesy of the "Betrayal at Calth" decal set

The models have embossed shoulder plates with Sons of Horus iconography and the two command models have upgrades from the Mark III command pack. The decals are taken from the "Betrayal at Calth" pack.

Mark III power armour marines sporting Volkite Calivers

You can see a bit of the weathering powder I used on the legs to give a bit of a dirty, mid-battle look

I painted these models using the higher-speed approach found with this GW tutorial.  I find it is still rather faster and more efficient than my previous plodding with glazes, but painting Mark III armour sets is a generally slower process than the smoother, less-segmented Mark IV armoured figures in that tutorial.  This was one of those little projects that became a real slog I couldn't wait to get finished...the Mark III armour is my favourite look for Horus Heresy marines, but all the segmented sections and gloomy, ominous-looking plates that look so cool can be a bit slow under the brush.  I'm glad they are finished!

The Volkite Caliver is a fun bit of fluff from GW's Horus Heresy setting, a weapon with a lineage tracing back to the Emperor's wars of unification on terra, and even serving as the original main armaments of the Space Marines before the Legions got too large for the Mechanicum to supply them, meaning they became a more specialized support weapon among the Legions.

The Mark III Marine - my favourite power armour, but kind of a pain to paint...you can't beat the pseudo-medieval look of the segmented, riveted plates

In the game they are a lot of fun to use.  I have a squad armed with these weapons serving in my World Eaters collection, and in several games these fine weapons have made mince-meat of pinheaded loyalist fools.  I definitely figured the Sons of Horus needed something similar in their ranks!  This group will have fun accompanying the regular tactical marines, hammering away at the deniers of hope and change who sadly plague the galaxy...

The Volkite Calivers are not the best assault weapons - they can't fire effectively on the move (the Volkite Charger is useful for that). But the Calivers are pretty deadly on the defense, with a long range, high strength and a high rate of fire, and a little bit of rule fluff that scores extra hits when the other side fails their saving throws ("deflagrate" - sounds painful).  The weapons hit hard, and don't have the stupid "gets hot" rule to bother with. These guys can spend the first turn getting into a decent position, then spend the game covering an assault or defense.  Having 10 of them helps to smother the enemy, and gives some sustainability in the game in terms of losses as they will certainly draw some fire. 

Ready for action in service of the Warmaster, Humanity's last hope...

Ten of these Volkite Calivers should dish out some serious abuse toward foolish, "Emperor"-obsessed loyalists

As the fall approaches my run of painting reinforcements for the Sons of Horus is nearly out of gas...since July I have finished about 50 Marines to join my XVI Legion collection - just about half a company!  I am looking forward to getting these figures out on the table sometime soon, and hopefully provoking a round of collection escalation from Dallas and/or Byron...

There are still more sitting Sons of Horus in the painting lineup (including some more chaps in Mark III armour) that I hope to finish shortly, but it will soon be time to take a bit of a break from painting 30k...Byron already has a head start on one little project I have in mind - stay tuned for more...