Heresy Era Dark Angels - Army ready for NOVA!

As of the last post, the heresy era Dark Angels are essentially as done as they are going to get, and everything required for use at NOVA coming up at the end of August is ready to roll! I rather liked how the recent pics with the white background turned out, so figured I'd take the opportunity to reshoot the rest of the force similarly! Already droned on enough about them in previous posts, so we'll let the pictures flow:

HQ

TROOPS

ELITES

FAST ATTACK

HEAVY SUPPORT

A big ol' box of joy arrived from Battlefoam yesterday - took advantage of the 4th of July sale and re-upped my selection of pluckfoam trays. Now to fix the little niggling details that taking/reviewing/posting these pics have shown me (ain't that always the way?) and get 'em packed up for NOVA!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Vortigern's Lost Lions army planning

With the successful sale of the Thousand Sons and Spireguard, I had some funds to spend on a new Heresy project. Initially I had planned to do some more Imperial Fists, but thought it would be a better exercise if I tried a legion I've not dabbled in before. After reading Black Legion, I figured it could be entertaining to build a force around the idea of Vortigern's Lost Lions, a group of the Fallen that survive the heresy and end up joining up with Abbadon following the scouring and the Legion Wars. Figured I'd do a force representing his warhost during the heresy, but generally run them as traitorous Calibanite DA. Not a whole lot done beyond planning and the first few test builds so far, but I have a whole raft of packages arriving over the course of last week and this week!

The plan - Keeping things fairly generic while awaiting the actual book drop later in the year (fingers crossed), in the interim I figure one can't go wrong working on the basic troop types while waiting to see what specialist units the new book will bring:

Knowing that the Dark Angels are known for using a lot of old, dangerous and esoteric weaponry, I did figure on doing a couple Tactical Support Squads, one with Volkite Calivers and one with the DA-only Plasma Repeaters. In order to differentiate them from the ordinary plasma guns, I figured I'd use the recent Primaris Hellblaster guns. A little trimming was required but they fit onto the Mk.III plate reasonably smoothly. The addition of some FW shoulderpads and heads and the first squad is coming into focus!

I'm leaving the backpacks separate for painting as a change, and am scheming on doing some experimentation with some new painting and weathering techniques on the force - Haven't fully decided on what exactly, but may try out some weathering powders and/or some of the technical paints from GW for mud and slop. Also scheming on doing some greenish-tinged black with the hope that it won't go full Necron/Tron on me. I rather liked the look of the end result on the youtube tutorial here and am looking forward to giving it a try! ...Well as soon as the weather yo-yo's back up a bit warmer, got a lashing of snow and cold over the last few days. Ah well, more time to build stuff, right?

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Volkite and Plasma and Melta, oh my!

Another hectic week I'm afraid, but did manage to sneak in a little hobby time here and there. I had quite a bit in a half assembled state as I'd run out of heads and was eagerly awaiting a box of joy to arrive from FW, bearing the newest book Inferno as well as a number of upgrades and add-ons for the burgeoning Thousand Sons. The box was waiting on my doorstep earlier this afternoon and after some frantic soak and scrub I managed to finish off a couple more squad builds for the force!

First up is Tactical Support Squad Tolbek, armed with Volkite Calivers. I've always loved the good ol' Martian heat beam, but this is the first time I've actually done a unit of them. I enjoy making ridiculous sound effects in-game, so I'm looking forward to saying "CHOOM!" in upcoming games (being the official volkite noise).

Next is Heavy Support Squad Khalid, bearing plasma cannons, and wearing the heavier Mk.III armour which I thought suitable for them. The Thousand Sons also gain the option to upgrade any plasma cannons to Aether-fire ammunition, which grants them Soul Blaze. "FOOM! Crackle, sizzle, pop..."

 

The final bit of the building frenzy is the first of three Javelin Attack Speeders. They're kitted out for tank hunting, swapping out the default heavy bolters for Multimeltas (leftover from the pintle mounted weapon sets I'd picked up for the earlier Imperial Fists, fortuitously), and rocking a twin-linked lascannon. This one vehicle throws out both the "HISSSSS!", and the all-important "FREEEEM!".

Updated the painting chart, and realized I'd forgotten to en-capitate the Sky Chariot riders, but was pleased to note that with 3 exceptions the bulk of the army is in hand and well on the way to viability for some test gaming and painting (once we get a break in the chilly weather to primer, that is).

Speaking of gaming, I'm actually getting a game in over the upcoming weekend (GASP!) trying out some Zone Mortalis for the first time, on some kickstarter terrain that I'd built ages ago but never actually used. Should be fun, I'm playing a force drawn from the Imperial Fists for Adepticon, and will be facing off against some heretic Word Bearers. Pics to follow!

Heresy Era Imperial Army - Prospero Spireguard Rotor Cannon support squad

While the Spireguard was initially intended to be a predominantly "Armoured Company" type force (to contrast against the heavily infantry-based Thousand Sons from the previous incarnation of the army), from a gameplay standpoint having only the bare minimum of two troops choices is less than ideal. I'm hesitant to go hog-wild and build a whole bunch of new models however, as I'll inevitably make the wrong assumptions and build a mess of models that won't be viable with the upcoming lists from Inferno (the next Heresy book from FW).

However, I did have a squad of Spireguard armed with Rotor Cannons built with the very basic starter paint job on 'em, and with the weather being so nice I figured I'd finish 'em off over the weekend!

Pretty straightforward to knock them out, and gives the army another Troops choice to hold objectives. While the Rotor Cannons aren't particularly high strength or low AP, nine of 'em certainly drop a lot of dice when fired - sometimes quantity has a quality all its own after all! Now it's just a matter of starting to fiddle with army lists. I have to come up with a 1000, 2000 and 2500 point list for the upcoming event - looks like there's just shy of 3000 points built and painted (granted, 615 points of that is the Stormhammer) so there may need to be some further models built and painted to make up the numbers. I have had a hankering to add a trio of Sentinels to the force...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sorcerers and plasma support squad painted

Was going through and organizing the photo albums on my 40k repository site and I realized that I hadn't posted pics from the Sorcerers and plasma squad yet - so hey, free post! The first sorcerer on deck is Khalophis, captain of the 5th fellowship and member of the Pyrae cult. I didn't want to go with red flames as I felt they'd just blend into the reds of the armour, so in keeping with my 'keep the color count down' theory green warpfire it is!

I'm not particularly happy with how the gold works against the white loincloth, it's something that's been bugging me about the scheme on all of the character models I've done thus far - thinking I'm going to make them red instead, which should 'pop' against the white a little better. I want to try some OSL, but I'm just terrified of mucking it up. With all the washes and whatnot, any over-spatter will be essentially impossible to correct. That and I'm not entirely sure which shade(s) of green and in what order/intensity I need to be using (though I have a good working understanding of where to apply it and where not to apply it). More research is required!

 

Next up is Phael Toron, captain of the 7th fellowship and member of the Raptora cult - He gets to stomp around in the one leftover suit of Terminator armour I had from the 9-man squad, and I tried to tart him up a bit with the force axe and the beaky helm (as a nod to his cult affiliation). It was after the fact that I realized he's in the exact same pose as the sergeant in the terminator squad. Doh! I'm thinking I'm going to have to figure out a way to bodge together a transparent telekinetic shield effect attached to his outstretched hand. Even more research required!

Last but not least is plasma support squad Jafari. I realized a ten man squad would be over 300 points, which is a bit much for a unit in power armour that has a tendency to be just as dangerous to itself as it does the enemy. This marks the completion of all of the Thousand Sons infantry in the army!

Still a metric boatload of Spireguard infantry to go, though - not out of the woods yet! I went through and rearranged the guard units to match up with the current rumours and photos from the FW events. Looks like the "lasrifle sections" are a base 20-man squad (which seems reasonable what with that new transport mentioned to carry 20 men), so once the bits showed up in the mail I started building, only to realize that somewhere along the way I miscalculated and I was three sets of legs and a whole mess of heads short. Orders from Secret Weapon and Perry Miniatures are winging their way to me as we speak though! The army and weapons arrived from Anvil Industries, so I'm hoping to be able to spend a little time building the Adsecularis units over the weekend (though their heads have yet to arrive)...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Plasma Support Squad and Terminator Sorcerer

Not a lot of hobby time overall this weekend but I did manage to sneak in an hour's worth of build time and put together the plasma-armed support squad for the Thousand Sons. Pretty straightforward, was thinking about doing a full 10-man squad but the unit gets ridiculously expensive at that point. Figure 5 is just about right!

I've also been poring over the army lists to see what I can come up with for the Feast of Blades event coming up next month. Seeing as the actual special rules for the Thousand Sons aren't going to be available for quite some time, I'm thinking that there's one thing that really makes them stand out, and that's the use of Sorcerers. Considering running a trio of 'em for the tournament, two in power armour attached to the tac squads, and one in terminator armour to accompany squad Phosis into battle.

Enter Malagor Auramagma! I had a few leftover terminator bits from the earlier squad build, and kitted him out with a curved axe-head that hadn't been included in the unit build previously, as well as one of the bird-style helmets to help him stand out. Quite looking forward to painting him soon (assuming Real Life(tm) lets up a bit)!