Some "Beakies" For XII Legion Astartes

XII Legion Astartes tactical squad in Mark VI armour - chain bayonets solve problems!

Posting things to the blog...once you take a break, it's sure easy to keep taking a break! So I haven't posted in a while - insert the usual reasons of life, work being busy etc. But I have been managing to paint, and finally take a few photos of stuff, and at last I'm getting around to posting some of those photos. Let's get started on the catch-up with this Space Marine tactical squad. They are clad in Mark VI "beakie" power armour and wearing the colours of the XII Legion Astartes, the World Eaters. These are multi-part plastic figures from GW's "Age of Darkness" setting.

A couple of the new grunts.

Some detail of the rear legs and power packs.

I have been a Horus Heresy fan pretty much ever since GW came up with the story. I started collecting the 28mm figures from Forge World back in March of 2014, more than ten years ago! The Horus Heresy was just going to be a small project...? At any rate, the World Eaters were the first Legion that I painted in 28mm, and those few squads became the first of what has since grown into a large collection of Horus Heresy figures from different Legion in different scales...these days the Sons of Horus are the main rebel faction in my collection, but I still have my World Eaters. They have been neglected for years now - the last model they received was in January of 2017. 

It is a golden age of lovely plastic "beakie" Marines, and I figured my XII Legion collection should have the opportunity to get in on the action. In particular, I thought the chain-bayonet accessory would go well with the World Eaters' approach to warfare in the far future - so here we have a basic tactical squad, sporting those chain-bayonet that really stand out as a symbol of the darkly whacky vision of the future GW has created.

Officer sporting the common combo of whacky comb, power sword and plasma pistol - note his slightly odd left leg.

View of the Sergeant's great, and the back of the Vox operator's kit.

Painting white armour is always a bit tricky - especially when you haven't really done it for seven years, but I have to credit GW's "Apothecary White" Contrast paint as being particularly useful for working these fellows. I also opted to use a lighter/brighter shade of blue for an accents on the shoulder plates and power pack. Otherwise, they match the look of my older figures nicely - a little battle worn and dirty, but avoiding the absurd blood-covering-everything Flanderization so common to the general portrayal of the World Eaters in the lore and in the game.

There was also an adventure with the Sergeant...keen-eyed visitors will notice his left leg has a knee plate, which is not a feature of the Mk VI armour. Well, when assembling this model, I sort-of-accidentally cut the leg off during an imprudent removal of components from the plastic sprue...to address this, I cut a spare left leg off an unused set of Mk IV plastic legs...hence the knee plate and leg studs. Far from the smoothest conversion, but like so many conversions, it turned out OK once painted up!

Handy decals to provide a Legion symbol on the shoulder plate and leg greave.

So that is ten more Marines to join the next XII Legion mass infantry assault on the gaming table. Maybe they need an APC to carry them? Will have to see about that...anyway, that is all for now. Thanks for reading!