Painting Challenge Submission #5 - Space Marine Praetor, The "Axehole"

Meet "Axehole" - the new Sons of Horus Praetor. Figure from GW.

Building on the Space Marine tactical squad from my fourth submission, here we have a Space Marine "senior officer". As the Space Marines of GW's 30k setting broadly copy/parody the military terminology of the Roman Empire era, the senior officers of a Space Marine Legion are "Praetors". This is a multi-part plastic figure from GW, a counterpoint/accompaniment to the "Sword Praetor" I painted in the fall of 2022. This guy is painted in the colours of the XVI Legion Astartes, the Sons of Horus.

Those armour studs seem more like the early onset of some loser Nurgle disease...

While I cannot stop raving about how much I love the new plastic basic "beakie" Space Marine kits, my views on the plastic Preators which accompany them in the box are much more...specific. The new regular Marines seem to have been carefully and lovingly sculpted by someone with a strong appreciation and affection for the old-time-era of Rogue Trader and the original "Space Marine" game. The new plastic Praetors, however, lack this affection - indeed, it is almost as though some 9th-edition-40k-is-so-awesome-intern who writes for SpikeyBits somehow snuck into the studio and included this design in the new lineup without any grownup noticing. 

Carrying a few skulls to battle...as one does...

The skulls...the goofy axe...the out-of-proportion arms (look how short they are - how does he even swing that axe), the studs on the armour which look less like armour studs and more like the early onset of some loser Nurgle-type infection, the impossibly large cloak...if there is one thing a 30k fan dreads, it is the notion that the 40k people in the GW studio might get their hands on the design of the figures. While this fellow does have a "beakie" helmet, he does seem more 40k than 30k. When I first saw these new plastic Praetor figures, in my head I nicknamed this version "the axehole" and I find I can't shake that notion...

A multi-part plastic cloak! WHAT A GREAT IDEA. NOT.

An additional gripe about these models is that the cloak is multi-part. WHY? Who has ever been out there, working on the cloak of a 28mm figure, and saying "Gee, it would be great if this cloak was multi-part, because I have always wanted to spend my scare hobby time glueing small pieces of a cloak together!" NOBODY WANTS THIS. Sigh.

One other frustration with these new Preator figures is the built-in terrain. GW is getting worse and worse for this. Attention figure designers: don't make terrain as part of your models! You think it makes it unique, but instead you ensure they all look the same across all collections, while making it harder for me to match the look of the rest of my army! Nobody buys a figure because it is standing a piece of f*cking rubble! Stop it!

"The Axehole" takes position to encourage his troops...

These new plastic Space Marine officer models are intended, I believe, to be faction-agnostic, as in you could paint them for any of the Space Marine Legions. The Axehole, however, seems to only have one side in mind. Given all the skulls and other nonsense, this fellow does seem to already have decided that "it's time for a change"...so I painted him up for the Sons of Horus. It seemed about right...he will stride around the battlefield, hoping to intimidate people with that axe, as his arms would be too short to actually hit anything with it in a battle...

Points wise, this is a single 28mm figure, so only worth five points. But he is "skull efficient" - seven skullz on this nutter! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more...