Heresy Era Iron Hands - Army Pic Ahoy!

A very [insert your preferred festive greeting] to you all! Hope that as the year draws to a close, all of you lovely readers out there are warm, safe and happy!

I've had a few days off from work (or as near to a day off as I can actually get) and in between doing some last minute shopping and whatnot I pulled out all of the Iron Hands that have been painted so far, and took some time to update the painting chart.

I didn't realize quite how much infantry there was until I laid it all out! Big units seem to be the order of the day in 30k, with the weapons available, casualties come fast and furious. I avoided the lighter transport vehicles for that very reason, the two tactical squads are carried to battle in Land Raiders instead! The Sicarans are designed to take care of the massed enemy infantry, and should be able to knock out any skimmers and light vehicles. A pair of Contemptors (one Mortis with the Kheres cannons and one 'vanilla' with Lascannon and Powerfist) were thematically appropriate, as the Iron Hands are known to utilize them heavily. 

The Iron Father and the Terminators are slated to get a Caestus to transport them around, but for now will be relying on the 2-in-6 chance of the warlord trait providing them Deep Strike. Most terminators in the heresy-era ruleset do not get the Deep Strike special rule as standard, which came as a surprise. The army also includes a 20-man unit of quasi assault marines (one of the tac squad options is to replace their bolter with a close combat weapon for free), who are joined by an Apothecary to help keep 'em in the game with FnP. Ferrus will usually join that unit as well, as he's too bulky to ride in the Caestus with the terminators.

Surprisingly close to the finish line with the army! One ten-man squad of vets, the Caestus, and a pair of counts-as tarantula turrets that are still inbound and it'll be complete! ...Until I get a unit of Immortals.

...And maybe a Spartan. Hah!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Of Cataphractii and Characters

Got some good headway on the batch painting, but decided that after getting all the base black and iron on the models that I would just paint them up in units of ten. I think that the terminators and veterans in particular would benefit from some more individual effort.

That said, I pulled out the terminators and got the white weapon housings and leather laid down on 'em. I also added some cog-tooth pattern to the right shoulder pad and left knee to help Iron Hand 'em up a bit. So far, so good!

Speaking of terminators, I finished up the Praetor a little while back but realized I hadn't actually taken any photos of it. Rather pleased with him, went with the basic blue on the power cables and thunder hammer, and went with a reddish-orange glow on the Volkite weapon based on the cover art from Tallarn:Executioner.

While I was about it I also banged out an Apothecary for the army, went with the color scheme laid out in one of the old compilation books from the RT era - Primarily the default legion paint scheme, with a white helmet, backback and right arm/shoulder pad. Think it worked out pretty well!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - A mess of infantry painted

One of the things about heresy army lists are the big ol' units of marines - it's pretty common to see them in groups of twenty, which meant I had a whole mess of 'em to do for the Iron Hands. I decided on one unit of Tac marines armed with bolters and one unit with bolt pistols and chainswords (the poor man's assault marines). They lack jump packs, but are almost half the points cost!

I'm waiting on the new Iron Hands Legionaries sets to arrive so I can finish off the Vox, Vexilla and Sergeant for the unit (hence the two half-built models and the blank base), but other than that, they're pretty much ready to rock!

I had some issues with the FW order that was destined to become the second squad, so in addition to the sergeant, vox and vexilla, I also needed to wait for the replacement bits to finish off a few 'regular' marines as well. Still, 31 done is a nice feeling!

  

My buddy Dave was kind enough to let me have one of the leftover thunder hammer bits he'd ordered from MaxMini for his Salamanders, which I think has a much better heresy feel to it for the Praetor than the previous modern era hammer I had on there before. I also added a servo skull to act as his cyber-familiar (grants an additional +1 to his invulnerable save) and some cog-tooth inserts for the shoulder pads. Helps drive home the Iron Hands look pretty well, I think!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Sicaran painting in progress and Praetor build

Made a little more headway on getting the Sicaran battle tanks painted, got the edge highlighting done and started blocking in the areas which will be white on the weapon housings and icons and put the first brown on the tracks to help define them a bit. So far so good!

Not sure if it needs more white, I'm considering doing the sensor housing on the front of the turret in white as well, though that sort of goes against the "weapon housings in white" theme I've been going with so far. Thoughts?

  

Started building the legion praetor as well - Iron Father Vladek Kraal. Pretty straightforward build using the FW praetor in Cataphractii terminator armor and the thunder hammer from a modern era terminator. The servo arm came from Bitspudlo, and I'm planning on replacing the hammer head with one from MaxMini once my friend Dave's order arrives and I can pinch one from him.

The army is really starting to come together now - I'll snap a couple army pics soon to see how it all looks laid out so far!

Heresy Era Iron Hands - Iron Father painted

Thoroughly excited about the upcoming Horus Heresy: Massacre book from FW, and I'm happy to report that the army I had planned actually plays to the strengths of the upcoming rules. I'm notorious for jumping the gun and building models that end up being non-viable in the new codex!

While I'm told there is to be a Cataphractii-armoured Forge Father character released some time in the near future, I wanted to finally get around to painting a model that has been lurking on the painting shelf for nearly a decade - the old limited edition Iron Hands Forge Father!

 

I'm not totally sold on the power axe, it feels a little flat. I was worried that blue blades may be too overpowering, but this may be too understated. Much like the earlier models, I went with a blue spot color, with just a couple little touch of yellow bits here and there. There was plenty of pipes and cables to pick out!

 

In game, this will be the army's praetor, armed with a master-crafted bolt pistol, a paragon blade (S5 AP2, Instant Death on to-wound rolls of 6) and a servo-arm. rounded off with artificer armour, an iron halo and a cyber-familiar, giving him a 2+/3++ save. He'll be trundling along with 9 Gorgon Terminators in a Spartan. Should be a scary unit!

Got the first half of the army ordered (all of the infantry, and a pair of Land Raider Phobos) and just waiting final shipping confirmation. Really looking forward to getting stuck in on 'em!