Inferallti Hussars Transport and Heavy Flamer Squad

 A while back I started a new 30k Army based on the Imperial Militia and Cults army list for Horus Heresy based on the "Old Hundred" regiment known as the Inferallti Hussars. The army list allows for extensive customization in the form of Provenances of War that bestow special stats and bonuses usually in exchange for certain restrictions. On of the options is survivors of the dark age. For people unfamiliar with Warhammer 30k, it follows a period known as the Age of Strife which saw the technological achievements of the previous era largely lost. however, not all societies fell quite so hard and some remnants maintained more advanced technology from a bygone age. Rules wise this Provenance provides +1 to all units armour saves, representing more advanced armour. This rule also allows you to take rhino's and a Land Raider Proteus as a dedicated transport! Thematically, I wanted to add both to the army. I painted up a rhino a while ago, but kept putting off the Land Raider. Last week I finally managed to get to it.

I also painted up a heavy weapon squad. The army list allows you to field a base squad of 5 heavy weapons. The options include all the usual options for an Imperial Guard army with the addition of heavy flamers! With the survivors provenance, they get a 4+ save too. I used a 10 man squad of Forge World Solar Auxilia flamer section mounted 2 to a base.

I doubt this army would perform well against any of the Space Marine Legions, but that's fairly thematic. It sucked to be a normal dude fighting alongside superhumans.

Thanks for visiting

August Projects

It's been a few weeks since anything's been posted, which is failry typical of August. I haven't been idle however and I wanted to show some of the things I've completed / been working on. First up is the Arachnus Heavy Lascannon Bettery for the Deredeo Dreadnough for 30k. Greg was kind enough to entrust me with his 30k Alpha Legion prior to his move to Toronto. This included a Deredeo Dreadnought with weapon arms fully magnetized! I decided to up gun the dread and picked up the heavy lascannon battery from Forge World. It's a higher strength lascannon for taking on pesky loyalist tanks, which my Imperial Fists have a few of. The magnets lined up failry well and my paint job blends in ok with Greg's I think.

Next up is a Land Raider conversion I built for a yet specified 30k legion. The kit is the standard Land Raider from GW. The tracks, side sponsons and top plate are from Blood & skulls Industry. The kit serves as a replacement for the top hull plate and tracks of the land raider to make it fit with the 30k vehicle asthetic. It's well thought out and mostly fits together smoothly with the plastic kit. The only issue I ran into was that the wrap arount tracks left a space that was too narrow to fill with a single link of the tracks. I had to shave down two track pieces to make them fit. It came out fairly well and you can't really tell the difference. It should be noted that this is not a "cheaper" option unless you already have a land raider sitting around. It is cool though and worth getting if you feel comfortable sorting out the track issue. Don't expect this to be painted in the near future, I just wanted to show off the build!

In non-GW gaming, I picked up Stargrave when it came out and it's got me raiding my bitz box and pile of shame for appropriate figures for crew and creatures. I located a suitable figure to represent a bounty hunter who periodically appears during a game and hunts one of your crew. The model is from Copplestone Castings.

Finally, I completed a bunch more Battle Fleet Gothic stuff. I have two more cruisers and a squadron of frigates from Vanguard Miniatures for my Imperial Fleet. These are resin and require very little cleanup. I really like his stuff and I hope he branches off into chaos stuff at some point. I also received a bunch of ships from fellow conscript, John C. He had a bunch of models from the predecessor of BFG, Spacefleet. They're solid peweter and placing them on a plastic flight stand was a bit tricky. I have no idea how long these models languished on John's shelf, but BFG was new when I was in High School and Spacefleet was before that, so long enough I guess. I painted them up so quickly that I forgot two of them on my shelf! I refuse to let them linger for another 20+ years and promise to paint them ASAP. These ships will be used as transports and troop carriers for BFG games.

Well that's it for summer 2021! They don't last long in Canada and I can already feel the chill in the air. Hope everyone stays healthy and hopefully we can game this fall/winter.

Templar Brethren

It's been a busy summer this year. I took a long block of Holidays off in July and the family spent a chunk of it at a cabin in Whiteshell Provincial Park. I took some stuff to paint, but progress was slow. Work itself has been busy with little opportunity for time off and the spare time that was available was used for things other than painting. With all that being said, I still managed to complete another unit and vehicle for the Imperial Fist Legion. The Templar Brethren have been pending since I started the army. They were left as a reward for hitting the half way mark with the army.
I used the Mark IV armor as they are supposed to have the best wargear available. According to the fluff, they are the elite of the Legion and dedicated to close combat. These guys would eventually become the Black Templar during the second founding and turn into a fundamentalist cult army burning all non-believers in their wake. It's the stuff of nightmares and I could see how a chaos cultist may convince you that grandfather Nurgle has 'something' for that 3rd degree burn you're sporting. The Templar Brethren seem to just like to sword fight.

 

 

 

 The Land Raider was originally bought for my 40k marine army. It has parts from Chapterhouse Studios (now MIA it seems) to give it the Heresy look. The Raider, along with a Storm Raven (also with C.H. parts) were just sitting on the forgotten pile when I clued in that they could be re-purposed for the Fists. I didn't bother stripping the model and just hoped the detail wouldn't be lost. I think it turned out all right.

I still have more Imperial Fists to paint, but I plan on taking a bit of a break and work on some units for Kill Team.

Sons of Horus Land Raider

Veteran marines from the 16th Legion on maneuvers with their new ride

It has taken over a year, but my Horus Heresy forces finally have a proper vehicle! This is a Land Raider Proteus from Forge World, painted to accompany the Sons of Horus into action against the dupes of the False Emperor. 

I took this photo to make sure I was able to mount the tracks properly for both sides

WIP progress - I was thrilled to have the tracks mounted on until I started priming...

So far, with the exception of El Booze, and Ferrum Mori, my 30k painting efforts have been concentrated on infantry - various foot slogging Marines as well as some Solar Auxilia.  But as you will see in a battle report that I expect Dallas to post here shortly, infantry alone can't always get the job done.  It's time to round out my Heresy forces with some vehicles, and the Knights and Titans are a little too unbalanced to set up for our Thursday games.

Ring mount for the sponson - one section gave way during the prep...f**k resin

The Land Raider Proteus is a wonderful model design from Forge World, a shout out to the original Land Raider plastic models from the Rogue Trader era.  When I think of the Horus Heresy games that I played with the "Space Marine" and later "Epic" games, Land Raiders were always prominent so I really wanted one to accompany the Sons of Horus and their friends on the table.

WIP - the green is down

Painting the lascannons separately is highly recommended

 A vehicle model from Forge World is always a fraught experience.  The designs are (for the most part) lovely, but the quality of the casting can be hit and miss.  Further complicating matters is the utter lack of instructions.  I have heard many horror stories in particular related to the Land-Raider-based vehicles, as the design of the model is open to rage-induction depending on how reliably the resin was cast.

Lucky for me this kit was relatively well cast. I had a problem with one of the lascannon mounting rings - it was laughably thin and a chunk came right off during assembly prep. The other challenge was the side doors - they barely fit, and it was more than a matter of a mis-cast - they were flat-out too big, and I had to do some carving to get them to sit in the recess of the side of the vehicle.

Ready to roll!

Figuring out how to mount the tracks was also a bit of a puzzle, but I was able to sort it out.  I was lucky, the tracks were straight and well-cast, and the track channels were cast properly and so the tracks fit! 

Twin lascannon sponson, ready to dish out abuse to the foolish adherents of the False Emperor

Chuffed about getting the thing put together, it wasn't until I started painting that I realized I had messed up - I should have left the tracks off for painting.  Getting the black primer into the recesses of the tracks was a huge pain in the a@@.  If I do another one of these, the tracks will wait and get a separate paint job on the side.

At least I was smart enough to leave the lascannon mounts and cow catcher aside to paint separately.

I'm sure the Sons of Horus use "green" bio fuels...

The painting results on this overall were...OK...I used the same greens and edge highlighting I have been doing on the Sons of Horus marines and while I looks alright, it's not as smooth as I would wish it to be.  I will probably have to break down and try and airbrush at some point if that is something I'm really interested in achieving...

Heavy bolter mounted on the command cupola

The decals are from the Forge World Sons of Horus decal sheet - the big "eye of Horus" symbols turned out great, but the roman numeral legion markings silvered up like crazy!  There is always something that comes up when painting a Forge World vehicle...you can still see the damn silvered reflection in some of the photos when you look at the "XVI" near the front.

Anyway, I sorted the decals as best I could, and did some hard core weathering - lots of sponge chipping, weather powder, and even some oil paint! However, I noticed that the Testors Dullcote tends to wipe out the effects of weathering powder, so I may have to go back and add a bit more. But overall it still turned out OK, well enough to roll out on to the table and get shot up in the first turn. 

Wheels are better than heels!

Of course a single vehicle still leaves my enlightened supporters of Horus short when it comes to transport - I hope to add some more conventional Rhinos, and maybe one or two more terrifying vehicle bits from the Legion armory.  But it's great to have this vehicle done and it will hopefully inspire more progress on some others.  Horus for hope!