Heresy Era Thousand Sons - 2000 Points complete!

Victory! The 2000 point army that's going with me to England has finally been completed! My good friend Dave made a carrying tray for me that fits perfectly into the travel case, and the army just baaaaarely fits on it.

I did spend some time going back through the infantry and painting all the shoulder pads with the appropriate symbols. That was tedious in the extreme, but the end result definitely makes the models look better.

30 some-odd little itty bitty nova bursts and arrows on the tactical marine squads. Oof.

 

The Jetbikes received the same treatment, though they got the crossed arrows of the Assault squads as opposed to the Tactical arrow.

 

I also added a bit to Ahriman, a nova symbol on his left shoulder pad and the cape, and the old-school "M" symbol the Thousand Sons used to use prior to their reunion with their Primarch.

While I was about it I pulled out the rest of the Thousand Sons that aren't making the trip. I was quite pleased to not that there's not really all that much more to paint!

I updated the painting chart accordingly, not too shabby! I'll admit I was a bit surprised to see the army total creeping north of 4500 points. Wasn't this supposed to be a little boutique army project? Heh.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sabre Complete, and Falchion started!

Greetings and salutations everyone - hope that the holidays have been treating you well! I'd like to start of today with a link to my friend's Blood Angel blog Ex Fide Vivo - after a long hiatus he's finally began painting again, and is jumping back in with a vengeance. Definitely worth a look if you're a fan of the Sons of Sanguinius!

I've had a few days off from work which has been spent painting. Lots of Datk Eldar and Thousand Sons in the queue of late, today's post is all about the big guns for the Thousand Sons. I'd picked up a resin upgrade kit for a Sabre Tank Hunter a while back and finally managed to get it finished up:

 

It's been too cold out to seal anything of late, so I may still go back in and add a few more details here and there as time allows. Moving on however, I thought I'd share the initial pictures of its big brother, the Falchion-class superheavy tank "The Eye of Magnus" that I've commissioned from the amazing Tom McBride aka Machinator (who is the designer behind most of the Rhino variants that I'm using for the army)...

 

The Falchion is the Heresy Era marine equivalent of the Shadowsword - obviously these are pictures in the very early stages of construction, but I have to say I'm giddy as a schoolboy to see it come together!

 

I'm really excited to see how it turns out, and very eager to get my hands on it once it's done to get it painted. I'll be sharing more pics as it progresses - More shots of the various Superheavy variants that Machinator has created over the years may be found at the Apocalypse 40k forums here. Definitely worth checking out!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sekhmet Terminators painted, and Sabre Tank Hunter built

Managed to get a little brush time in over the last couple days and finished up the Sekhmet Terminators for the Thousand Sons. Fairly straightforward update from the last post, I added loincloths to the models that could take them, and finished up the highlighting. I'm going with a bone-white color for the army using a Graveyard Earth > Kommando Khaki > Bleached Bone > White progression which, along with the crimson and gold, I think ties in well with the pseudo-Egyptian theme. Ordinarily I use a Shadow Grey > Fortress Grey > White progression which gives a 'cooler' white, but for these I like the warmer tone building up from an earthtone gives the models.

With another unit painted, I rewarded myself with some build time as well. Yet another tank to accompany the armored complement of the army, this is a Sabre Tank Hunter, armed with a Neutron Pulse Laser. During the Heresy, these tanks were rightly feared by opposing tank commanders, however due to their high technological requirements to maintain, many Sabres were re-armed as the more common Vindicator variant as the Heresy progressed.

 

The resin add-on bits were procured from a fellow Tempus Fugitive who goes by the name 'Da Vinci', whose work can be seen on several forums besides the TF boards, and he was a true pleasure to work with. I picked up a couple of these Sabre upgrade kits as well as a pair of Olympia Storm Tanks which are currently lurking in a box in the Closet of Doom. I'm really looking forward to building them!

For those of you interested in Heresy-Era gaming, Ulfhedin has been diligently working on a MASSIVE fandex for use during their campaign weekends that runs the gamut from the Great Crusade era all the way through The Scourging. At a whopping 103 pages (and counting) it's a fantastic resource for folks who are more interested in friendly games than hardcore tournament players. The penultimate edition is currently available for download HERE, and the campaign weekend pack that details the specifics of the games they'll be running on October 14th-16th is HERE. The campaign weekend takes place at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield, near Nottingham in England. I'm quite sad not to be able to attend this year (being a damned dirty Yank), but I've been scrimping and saving for a trip across the pond to participate next year!