More Alpha Legion - Headhunter Squad

Elite units seek out fearsome foes in my...er...kitchen....

Well spring is finally here. Between that, and being busy with work (yay!) it has meant very little painting of late - certainly nothing like the pace driven by the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  But with the NHL playoffs on, I've been putting the brush to some more of the 30k stuff I meant to paint over the winter and another unit has been finished.  This a squad of "Headhunters" from the XX Legion, known as the Alpha Legion.

"Headhunters".  How charming! None of the Legions seem to have "Hope Ambassadors" or "Sun Sharers" as elite units, do they? Oh well...

Fancy armour and big guns...of course these guys would sneak around and "hunt" stuff, right?

Space Marine Legions are big, sprawling entities, with many different troop types and vehicles to choose from.  Among these is a "Seeker Squad", a notion of a specific squad meant to take out high-value or high priority target units or personalities. They have fancier bolt guns and some extra ammunition types to choose from. It's kind of silly, in that you would think troops tagged for that work would be smaller, sneakier sorts and not giant brutes with heavy armour...but hey, it's 30k!

These are resin conversion kits from Forge World, based on plastic Mark IV power armoured Marines

As usual the sculptors at Forge World really hit this out of the park - I love all of the ornate details, legion symbols, fancy bolt guns and particularly the amazing torsos and helmets - lots of optics, and several modified "beakie" style helmet

The Alpha Legion sort of takes the "seeker squad" concept to the next level with these "Headhunters".  The models are plastic Mark IV Marines with conversion kits from Forge World which make the armour quite ornate. I don't know how you sneak around the battlefield with that kind of get-up, but I really liked how they looked and very much wanted to add a squad to my Alpha Legion force.

Transfers from the Forge World decal sheet

Another view of some of the conversion bits

We await the arrival of whole new edition of the Warhammer 40k rules, so who knows what these fellows will actually do or be able to do on the table - not that I worry much about it.  I just look forward to getting them into a 30k game sometime this summer!

Horus for hope!

This more or less exhausts the initial group of Alpha Legion models I had assembled last fall...there are about 40 foot models and one dreadnought. They have no vehicles yet, so I might turn to that next.  But then I may also wonder towards the Burning of Prospero...I was never very keen on that part of the Horus Heresy story, but I have to say, following some suggestions from my friend Curt, I think it might fun. Who knows? Anyway, I hope everyone is having a decent spring, and enjoying any nice weather that might be available while keeping the paint brushes warm...