Heresy Era Word Bearers - Army Complete!

Another army complete, and likely to be sold off without ever actually hitting the tabletop? Seems that way! The Word Bearers army that I'd initially planned for Adepticon proved to be thematically incompatible with the events that I'm participating in (hence the recent World Eaters). Nevertheless, in the background I have been chipping away at 'em and with the delivery and subsequent painting of some last remaining bases, the army is complete! Figure I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Argel Tal

Kor Phaeron and Erebus

Zardu Layak and his Blade Slaves

Legion Chaplain

Gal Vorbak

Cataphractii Terminators

Apothecarion Detachment

Cortus Contemptor Talon

Assault Squad

Tactical Squad

Ashen Circle

Sicaran Venator

The all important painting chart!

Pretty happy with how the army turned out, and am a little bummed that it won't get any table time at Adepticon. Such is life, however! They'll be going on the auction block soon enough to help fund the next project - What that may be remains to be seen, but there's a non-zero chance that it's going to be a return to the Benevolent Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor, if the recent upcoming release reveals are anything to go by...

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Taerrax Termites and Praetor built!

After all the painting of late I thought I'd reward myself with a little build time! Earlier in the week a box o' joy arrived from Forge World, containing a trio of Taerrax Termites (say that five times fast) - While I was initially apprehensive of building the new kit it ended up being a breeze!

While I was about it I decided to take a stab at building a Praetor for the force. While I've already painted up a few characters, I haven't been totally happy with them as they're essentially just 40k-era models with a lick of black paint and a head swap. Something a bit more bespoke was in order!

Introducing Vortigern, praetor of the Lost Lions warhost! Made from a whole mess of different bits, he definitely has more of a Heresy vibe to him and better suits the era. Fairly standard loadout with a Paragon blade and combi-plas - Hard to go wrong with the classics. Had to do a little greenstuff work to marry up the Deathwing blade to the Cataphractii plate, and swap the combi-plas over to the left hand and am pretty jazzed with how it turned out!

Wanted to bling him out a bit more than the other terminators he'll be joining, and was pleased to find a spare Custodes cape fit on the model like it belonged there. I managed to snap off some of the sensors and whatnot along the top of his armor, so need to sort out some replacements, but overall I am pretty pleased with him!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Characters and plasma repeater support squad(s) painted!

Got a fair bit of brush time in over the last few days, as well as some cool new gear - A good combo!

I wanted to do a few placeholder character models for the Dark Angels while I await whatever new models may drop with the release of the next book, Malevolence. The two Dark Vengeance models got a helmet swap and some Mk.III backpacks to heresy them up a little, while the chaplain basically just got painted as-is. Even so, they're a little over-blinged which reads as a bit more 40k in general. Nevertheless, quite pleased with how they turned out!

The plasma support squad was the initial test of the paint scheme using the Vallejo range of substitute colors for the armor, and while they worked out reasonably well, I ended up buying some Incubi Darkness and Kabalite Green which are both about a step darker and will hopefully not be quite so stark on future models.

Still researching how I want to do the heraldry thing with the models. As a nod to the fluff, all of the models in the army will have the green right shoulder pad to represent them being Calibanites (and as such filthy dirty traitors, as the situation demands). I'm thinking of going with a common heraldic design to denote squads, with some additional personal heraldry on occasional other areas of the armour. Most of the color plates seem to suggest a mix of red slashes, black and white checkerboard and bone, so will have to experiment with various combinations thereof! So that said, the two squads above aren't done per se - still a fair bit of work to go, but as a proof of concept I think we're on the right track!

You may have noticed a bit of an increase in the quality of the photos due to the acquisition of a proper light box (finally). I've been experimenting with backdrops and techniques over the last several months as you may have noticed, and finally broke down and bought a Foldio 2 based on the comments and reviews of several fellow bloggers - thus far I have to say I am quite impressed! The adjustable overhead lights make getting good bright white light at the intensity desired, these were taken at about half brightness as the full chat was blowing out the pics. The translucent material of the box itself means that I can position my stand lights to either side and get some nice secondary diffusion. Now if only buying new gear automatically granted a commensurate boost in  painting skill! Hah!