World Eaters Legion Tactical Squad

World Eaters preparing to share the "Imperial Truth"…for now...

Here is a finished tactical squad of World Eaters Legion Marines from Forge World.  The marines are wearing Mark IV power armour and carrying "Tigrus" pattern bolters.  

I used pigment powders to muck up the white armour a bit

In the Legion army list, the tactical squads are equipped with bolters, and can be as large as 20 marines strong. There are no special or heavy weapons (unless you want to tune up the sergeant a bit) - the special and heavy weapons follow along in their own squads. 

The cast shoulder pads are excellent - fun to paint and they really add a lot to the figures

The squad has one marine with a vox-caster.  I did not put the "vexilla" (a small back banner) on any of them as I find them to be a bit over-the-top, but I'm having second thoughts - I might retrofit one to one of these, or mount it up on a couple of spare figures. It seems silly, but they look kinda neat when I see pictures of them online.  Byron put one on his Death Guard officer and I thought it looked really cool…

The decals (some knee pads and the "XII" on the shoulder plates) are from the World Eaters decal sheet

The Legion marines have some kind of fancy rule that lets them double-fire their bolters under certain circumstances.  I don't know if it is actually impressive, but it certainly sounds kind of alarming in the rule book at least, a sort of minor-league blade storm for Marines.

It was slow going, but these guys were a lot of fun to paint

I have also finished a World Eater heavy support marine carrying a multi-melta.  He is wearing Mark III power armour.  Where the Mark IV armour looks pretty sleek and not too far off from the "current" 40k Mark VII space marine power armour suits, the Mark III almost appears medieval - it is very, very heavy/bulky looking with a lot more rivets and such.  It is much more evocative of the "Crusade" period of the Imperium. I quite like it.

Mark III heavy support marine with multi-melta

The Mark III armour is very, very ornate

I scuffed his armour up quite a bit, figuring it would be pretty old and heavily used by the time of the late crusade/Horus heresy.  He is part of a five-man heavy support squad - all armed with multi-meltas.

  

Extra ammo attached to the back-pack - you can see the heavy armoured segments a bit on the backs of the legs

Hopefully Byron will post some pics of his Death Guard guys soon - I have seen them WIP and they look great. Let the heresy continue to build…I will move on to my next Legion squad.

Legion Project WIP - Work, But Not So Much Progress

Tactical marines from the 12th Legion - the World Eaters

This "Work In Progress" post on my 40k Space Marine Legion project is mostly work, and not so much progress.  I am trying to get all of the models assembled and primed before I start painting them, but this has created a multi-week absence from painting anything, which makes me nuts. As a result I am doing a bit of both - building and priming a bunch of figures, and then test-painting one or two along the way for a break.

Sons of Horus tactical support marines wearing Mark IV power armour  carrying plasma guns

I have assembled the main chunk of the legion marines - 30 Sons of Horus, 27 World Eaters and 10 Emperor's Children.  I still have to assemble a couple of assault squads, some more heavy weapon gunners and some command figures yet to build and prime.  There is only one vehicle at this point - a Land Raider - but that is going to wait until most of the infantry are finished.  The Forge World vehicles for the Legion collection are, of course, amazing, but costly, so that "part" of the Horus Heresy is going to have to wait.

World Eater heavy support marines in Mark III armour carrying multi-meltas

Besides the initial intra-legion fighting on Istvaan III will be fun to play on the table as a mostly infantry affair.  For those who may not be familiar with the story, Horus' first step in his plan to take down the Imperium was to purge his own Legions of those who it was felt would not back his rebellion.  These "unreliables" from the four legions - the Death Guard, his own Sons of Horus, the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children - were all ordered into the "first wave" of the assault against the rebellious planet of Istvaan III. 

Sons of Horus heavy support marines rocking some heavy bolters

Horus let the first wave assault play out, then cut off communication from the first wave and bombarded Istvaan III with the chilling "life eater" virus.  The population was wiped out in minutes, the surface of the planet all but obliterated in an ensuing fire-storm, but many of the Marines of the first wave, warned by some stalwart loyalists, survived!  And boy, they were pissed off - betrayed by their own! So among the charred ruins of Istvaan III, a second wave descended to the planet's surface, intent on scouring the surviving loyalists of the first wave, finishing up-close what the orbital bombardment had started. The Horus Heresy was under way!

World Eaters Centurion (company commander) in fancy Mark IV armour

I imagine Horus, knowing what he had planned, did not place a lot of vehicles in amongst the first wave of troops - he would want to save those for his later operations. Horus' mop-up operations would likely use tanks and vehicles, but the loyalists were hunkered down in ruined urban areas to hold out, hoping to extract vengeance in a last stand.  For the rebels, there was only one way to get at the hold-outs, and Land Raiders and Rhinos would not necessarily help. So I imagine our first few Horus Heresy games will be mostly infantry vs. infantry, fighting amongst an urban setting so wrecked it makes Toxo IV look like an Amazon Forest nature preserve...and I can't wait!

Test models again - the chap with the crested helmet it the sergeant.  In the Legion army list, tactical squads can be as large as 20 marines!

I have finished five test models so far from the World Eaters Legion. I liked to think I am "used to" painting white (see here for an example) but I have been struggling with it on the Space Marines - power armour is of course very different from 18th/19th century Austrian uniforms. Duh - of course, right? In addition to the Testors Incident with the first model, overall I find the white so far looking a bit "chunky" or "chalky", a product of the thick pigment and (too)quick-drying GW paints on the marine armour.

Another view of the test models - you can see the decals on the shoulder plates a bit from this angle

So I am trying to thin down the paints with some kind of medium/paint extender. This sort of artsy stuff - the stuff most of you out there do routinely, I know - slows down the painting process a lot compared to what I am used to.  I lack the patience, and frankly the skill, to make use of these techniques in a way I feel is consistent and easily repeatable. On the other hand, the only way to learn is to try it out, right?

Comparison photo - I made an effort to thin out the paint layers on the figure on the left; still a lot to practice needed

I experimented a bit on a figure last night. It improved a little...hopefully practice will improve things, particularly the speed!  I believe moving over to Vallejo paints will improve things as well. We'll see!

I know Byron is working on some test models as well (in addition to a couple of final entries to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - I've seen the previews - they will be awesome - congrats and be sure to check out Analogue Hobbies for the final entries!) so watch this space for some spooky Death Guard...

And this project, like a good heresy, is starting to spread amongst other members of the group...I won't give anything away for now, but lets just say I think Horus would approve! Horus for hope (inside joke)! Keep your planning up, gentlemen...we will announce the action at the appropriate time...

New Insane Project - Legional Lunacy

Resin - the new crack.  Perhaps we can convince the government to give it away for free under the guise of "harm reduction"?

Say what you will about the pricing (no, really - we do elsewhere in this blog, so you should too), but Forge World seems to be last redoubt for 40k sculpters and designers that "get" the story.  The main GW studio still has its hits (like the pending new Imperial Knight - super cool) but seems to release a lot of turds as well (like this, and this, although perhaps these models grow on you after a while - that Marine flyer seems like it might work with some conversion). The Forge World team seems to have a good grasp of the real pulse of the 40k background, and nowhere is this more pronounced than their ever-growing list of Space Marine Legion stuff to go with the Horus Heresy. And so a New Insane Project for 2014 - Space Marine Legion forces for the Horus Heresy.

I know the FW books are super pricey, but this is probably the best FW book I've seen - worth it just for the fluff and pictures

Between reading Dan Abnett's books in the Horus Heresy book series and seeing a copy "Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal" I have been getting more and more inspired to do a Legion project. The opening salvos of the Horus Heresy on the world of Istvaan III provide a lot of inspiration, and Forge World sculpts are truly beautiful - and the range is very developed, as they have been adding new models and vehicles for years.  I remember working with the Elysian models and being very frustrated.  It's not perfect, but the castings seem to be a lot nicer now.  These Legion figures are a lot of fun to work with so far.

Mark IV Space Marines WIP - early assembly stage

There is quite a variety of armour types to choose from for your Legion Marines - from Mark II "Crusade" all the way to the Mark VI "Corvus" (which most would recognize as "classic beakie" armour). The packs are quite compatible with the existing plastic Space Marine bits and arms etc.  I have ordered some Mark IV armour suits & shoulder pads to represent both "sides" of the initial conflict on Istvaan III.   I also have a few Corvus armour sets as well.

I am thinking I will leave the Corvus armour to represent the loyalist Legions. The Corvus suits are not, strictly speaking, "Legion wear" as the armour is meant to be later along in the timeline...but I like to imagine the new suits getting churnred out just as the Heresy broke out, so only the "good guys" got much of it.   The Corvus armour is the armour I remember from that original "Space Marine" game, so it should be in there somewhere, as far as I'm concerned.

Mark VI "Corvus" Marines in production

I first came to the Horus Heresy storyline with the "Space Marine" game, and that vision has always resonated with me.  I like to imagine Horus and his traitors as more of an actual pseudo-political rebellion, in the sense that the supernatural aspects (demons, nurgle stuff etc) did not immediately appear, and the conflict was more of a brother-against-brother theme. Having Space Marines turn on each other is bad enough - why do we need to add a bunch horns and tails?

The Chaos Space Marines today are so spikey and skull-covered that they border on self-parody in my opinion. (YMMV - and let's face it some painters and modellers out there do amazing stuff with them, so what do I know, right?).  The Horus Heresy to me offers a chance for a more interesting "civil war", where the Emperor's pride and joy - his Warmaster, his very own Legions - turn against him. His Great Crusade is stopped cold. The Imperium of Man goes from unstoppable growth and expansion into a kind of plateaued, slow, stubborn decline as the worst war imaginable is fought across countless worlds, the Imperium split nearly in two, the Emperor nearly killed. Cool! Leave the demons to whisper in Horus' ear - they don't need to be on the table for this.

Remember these guys from the original RT rulebook? The Blood Angels looked awesome without wings and bonkers artificer armour etc. I've always loved this picture, particularly the dude with camo armour!

My plan is to start with some troops from the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children, with the latter two being small units that can either represent the (doomed) loyalists on Istvaan III, or combine together with the Sons of Horus to represent an allied traitor side in a game against loyalist forces in some other games.

Blood Angel marine WIP beside a completed-but-not-primed figure - both in "Corvus" armour

Lunacy loves company (is that right? I'll go with it) and I'm pleased to report that Byron has also tilted into the Legion Lunacy as well.  He has some Death Guard slowly taking shape - hopefully he will share a little bit of it on the blog too.  The great thing about the plot developments on Istvaan III is that the Legions were fighting within themselves - Horus was purging the "unreliables" - so you can mix and match whatever faction for whatever side you like.

Crappy photo - sorry - you can see the decal for the chapter symbol (a bit)

The Space Marine Legion army list is kind of off-the-charts bonkers. 30-man tactical squads, anyone? I'll say this - it does a fabulous job matching the vision of the Space Marine Legion - where a "Chapter" is just a small sub-force in an organization with thousands and thousand and thousands of Marines! In this context, whole ten man support squads armed with lascannons and other scary stuff (Volkite blasters, rotary cannons etc) seem to make sense.

But I'm not really getting into this to play within the context of the sixth edition rules - in fact Byron and I are conspiring on how to use Chain of Command for our Horus Heresy games.

I love that studded shoulder pad...

Anyway I've only painted a single figure for now - a test figure of a Blood Angel.  I find the Blood Angel background to be a trifle nauseating (oh, woe is us, we're so perfect and yet cursed, and our primarch has wings!) but on the plus side red is a favourite colour on mine, the Blood Angel Legion was at the forefront of the war against Horus' rebels, not least the seige of Terra and the Emperor's palace. And I always loved the photo of the Blood Angel models from the original Rogue Trader rule book (see earlier in this blog post).

So that's one loyalist ready....

It will take weeks, more like months, before these are ready for the table in any useful number.  But I'm hoping to bring the Horus Heresy to the Fawcett Avenue gaming tables this summer. Stay tuned!