World Eaters Horus Heresy 30k Tactical Squad WIP

What to do with the spares from Betrayal at Calth.......World Eaters! so when I originally purchased two Calth boxes it was to all go towards my Night Lords project but after receiving some assorted World Eaters pieces I am now split right in half with what armies I am building, Psychos and Sociopaths. So after experimenting on a paint scheme and method with some Red Butcher test models I needed to start to fill out some troops choices so I can play some games with the World Eaters.



I am about 50% through this 10 man squad and I can honestly say while painting white is rewarding it does take a hell of a long time to do it properly. This squad still needs all the clean up on the white done, weapons and accessories complete but defiantly seems to be pulling together. I have gone for a very clean looking World Eaters and will only be doing weathering on character and big pieces to start off with, then once I have a playable force I may go back and weather the grunts later, but there are soooooooooo many weathered 30k forces out there at the moment I like have the shiny new look in my armies.

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Calth Terminator Lord and Chainglaives

I have had the Betrayal at Calth Terminator Lord sitting half assembled on my bench for a while now, silently judging me for not completing him while I work on other stuff. So today I decided to finish him off as well as the second lot of five Calth Terminators I had spare as well. I am upgrading all the characters/Sargeants in my force chainglaives because they look cool and are ok on the table top as well, who doesn't love the odd rending attack!



This is just before base coating and shading, I chucked on a spare Volkite charger because they are all through my terror squads and heaps of fun, and then just carved away the chainfist on his left hand and made a Chainglaive out of tooth pick, spike off a random chaos bit, and a chainsword blade from a chaos space marine. I did the same with the terminator Sergeant's weapon as well. I also chucked on some parts from the 40k Chaos termies sprues on the unit to fill them out with the weapons I wanted.



All primed and shaded and ready to be painted now! Time off over the Xmas break will be well spent I think



Got my Sevatar almost complete now as well, just the scenic base to go. Merry Xmas and happy new year!

World Eaters Horus Heresy 30k Red Butchers Test Model WIP

So I stumbled across some World Eaters units and now I am compelled to paint them, especially the Red Butchers because they are some of the coolest Terminator models around. This test model is pretty much a proof of concept for the incoming army which will just start off as a quick 1000points for ZM.

The Paint proccess was long but fairly simple:

1- Airbrush on black basecoat
2- Airbrush on at 45 degree angle grey to shade the model
3- Starting from a top down angle Airbrush on a smooth white coat
4- Airbrush white on any raised areas that will stand out
5- Agrax Earthshade wash into all the recesses
6- Edge Highlight/clean up with White over the ENTIRE model (this takes some time)
7- Metals and weapons in any color or combination you like.

You can see in this other photo the huge difference that no wash VS wash in the recesses makes, I tired blue and black washes but it just didn't give me the gritty look I was after.

Slaanesh Chaos Space Marines Test Models Painting with some Bling

So being the typical hobby butterfly I am skipping from project to project looking for something sweet for my next fix is just how it goes. I have always wanted to do a non typical paint job on Slaanesh marines as pink, bright pink, dark pink and maybe some black seems to be the staple. I have a few dark vengeance models laying around and decided to see what I could whip up.


 I went for a really gold trimmed blinged out look with a bone/cream base. I think I need to work more on the recess shading but the theme works well across the marines and the cultist.

Khorne Daemonkin 40k WIP: Flesh Hounds, Test Models and a Khorne Lord on a Jugger

So while all this Heresy business is going on I have been working on a 40k Khorne Daemonkin army as well. I really don't like the older and well out of date GW flesh hound sculpts and as every good Daemonkin general will tell you Flesh Hounds are the work horses of the army. With Scout, beast, move through cover, good formation rules that give hammer of wrath attacks and being able to have them bubble wrap a lord on a jugger is awesome.

So I grabbed a bunch of alternate models from puppetswar and got to work Khorning them up to match my silver, bone and red scheme for the army.



A completed unit of 5 only 11 more to go!


And the lord that they will be escorting across the battlefield as quickly as possible, he is only 50% done but coming together ok. I used terminator legs and chucked on the AOS Khorne standard bearer body with a quick head swap.

A whole table to primed models done as well, note the horde of cultists.....mhmmmm cultists!

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Terminators, Raptors and Sevatar

My current Night Lords project focus is on filling out some of the fun slots of the army and also the most fun to paint. Using the same base coat painting technique used on the tactical marines I developed I started filling in details on a squad of Raptors, Terminators, a Contemptor and even the man Sevatar himself. These are all a work in progress, only about 50% completed



Contemptor and Raptors still in the very basic stages of painting. The Raptors are covered in little details and will take a fair amount of time just to fill in each one, very cool.


Sevatar is chugging along, only about half way done, this is a really fun model to paint. Have left him off his scenic bases for the moment, will magnetise them soon.

Night Lords, Zone Mortalis and getting stuck in a doorway

So I had the pleasure of playing on a really sweet Zone Mortalis board done by a fellow gamer Scott from 2nd Legion. This is only part of a huge ship based Zone Mortalis project Scott has done and is a dream to play on.


The Laser cut flooring and wall sections made with GW building walls/flooring terrain pieces really pop and make it feel more real. We played a 4 man Zone Mortalis with Night Lords and Space Wolves vs Alpha Legion and Word Bearers. Stars of the match were the Gal Vorbak murdering everything and my Contemptor Dread getting stuck in a door on a difficult terrain test because he was too fat and being immobilized all match!


For anyone stepping into 30k and and the Horus Heresy for the first time Zone Mortalis provides a really good entry for game play. Small focused games 1000 points or under are quick and crazy affairs. Once you start chucking in some interesting scenarios from the red books and using the random effects and terrain modifiers it feels like old space hulk! It is also a really good way of running campaigns and forging a narrative which I think 30k really excels at and 40k is somewhat lacking in spirit at the moment.

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Learning to love lightning

So the one of the biggest things for me to learn with this project is lightning patterns on armour. After watching some videos and looking at the different ways other painters had implemented this I decided on a thick/stand out from the table top version. I wanted something that when I was playing it was easily seen and didn't require a up close high focus camera shot to be appreciated. After a few test runs at it I nailed it down to a 4 step/paint process which I can do batches of models with.



Fairly happy with the result I applied this to a few more models

Now to the whole tactical squad

Next on the list, Terminators!

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Basecoats and a Test Model

So now I have assembled the core of the Night Lords force from the Calth set its time to basecoat and get the first bits of shading done. After visiting a fellow gamers place and him giving me a whirl on his airbrush set up I was hooked and promptly went out and got an airbush myself. This project is my first go at utilising the airbrush for basing and shading an army. Primarily I wanted a darker more midnight Night lords armour colour than is usually seen, but at the same time I wanted to try and have some transition/shading.

I picked up a Vallejo Model Air starter paint set and it came with everything I am going to need for a couple of projects in the future as well. Base coat was of course black, once this had dried I did a 45degree spray of white on the top 15% of the model. This was a thin and selective coat which will give hopefully a smooth transition for the blue once it goes on top of the balck/white pieces. The blue used is Vallego 004 - Model Air Blue.

With this done it was time to try a test model and see if the overall feel of a darker Night Lords paint scheme actually works.
I think it turned out ok, now all I have to do is try and learn how to do lightning bolts on the armor..........time to watch some painting tutorials and thin my paints.

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Betrayal at Calth Converting and Starting an Army

Current work in progress project is a 30k Horus Heresy Night Lords army, looking to paint up and convert a flexible 2k force that I can change up to play on any given day. The group of guys I regularly play and hobby with are starting to get big into Zone Mortalis as well so hopefully I can get a board done up once the army is finished.

So to start with I picked up 2 Betrayal at Calth boxes, the Night Lords force will use up one box as the core of my army and the 2nd box will be canabalised for conversion and filling out the optional units. Whatever is left over will go towards the building blocks of a possibly World Eaters Zone Mortalis force!

So to start off lets get to the best part of the Calth boxes, the Contemptor Dreads! I saw bit of downplay of these models pre release due to the static nature of the pose, but as any converter knows a few quick cuts in the joints here and there and its an easy fix. I also wanted to change the helm on one and was able to cut up a Bloodthirster of Khorne's arm guard for a easy skull helm.


I will magnetise the arms eventually but waiting on a new set of slightly larger magnets to arrive. Next was too Night Lord the models up a bit, a few chains, skulls, etc.


With some Night Lords esc additions to the Dreads I also made some Chainglaives for the unit champions as well as a head and weapon swap on the Chaplain so I can use him as any of the other HQs choices as needed.