Dark Angels Horus Heresy 30k starter force Calth Set WIP Part 2

Time to get painting on my 30k Dark Angels force I converted last update. Long weekends are conducive to getting painting done, So I got about half way through 2 tactical squads. Please note these are not finished, still heaps of work and details to go, including way to much edge highlighting!

Started some work on the Delegatus as well and the second squad still has a ways to go, hopefully this scheme comes out well on the table top. My biggest concern is there are heaps of other legions in 30k with black armor with white or red details so I went with the green shoulders to really make it obvious they are the 1st legion. I am really keen for my forgeworld upgrade kits to arrive so I can have a crack at some veterans and command squad, robes for everyone!

Dark Angels Horus Heresy 30k starter force from the Calth Set WIP

When I think heresy and I think loyalists, I think Dark Angels! from the very fist old school art pieces to the cool old style heresy armor the Dark Angels have always been at the top of my list of cool dudes fighting for the Emperor. I have a quickly approaching doubles tournament looming and one of the rules in the player pack is yes you can run traitors and loyalist as allies but as per the allies chart it will mess up your ability to work with your opponent and even affect what troops are scoring! With this in mind and my partner running loyalist Salamanders I needed to finally branch out from the traitors and take my first steps into loyalty to the big E.

The force I need to put together is only 850points, small and hopefully easy to get painted asap. One of the big problems with Dark Angels is that there really is no rule set for them yet and probably won't be for some time until the lads at Forge World get around to including them into a book and that will be aaaaaaaaaaaages away. So in light of this I am just going to run them with the vanilla Age of Darkness right of war but try and get the Dark Angel feel from the paint job and then modeling options. 

I have the brand new 30k Dark Angels heads, shoulders, and chests ordered but I am not confidant that they will arrive in time and I really want to get a fighting force done asap so I can start getting in some practice matches. In light of this I have just chucked a whole bunch of bits from the 40k Dark Angels sprues on the Betrayal at Calth tactical marines and try and theme them up a bit. I did not want my normal tac marines to be covered in robes and dripping in icons, these guys are the grunts. The veteran and command squads will get the whole nine yards but for line troopers they just get new shoulder pads and the odd bit of bling.



The Centurion or Delegatus is of course robed with just a quick back pack swap from the space marine commander kit and a Calth set leader helm, this will help tie him to the rest of the characters in the force

I have chucked in some hooded helms here and there and a few purity seals as this legion used to be the Emperors personal legion in the very beginning of the crusade, you know 1st legion and all that jazz. So I thought they would have a few more purity seals/oaths of the moment than you usually see on heresy marines.



So there you go, the very first baby steps to a workable Dark Angels 30k force, HQ and 2 Troops. I will be sticking with the black armor with silver, red and maybe some bronze trimmings as well as some cheeky splashes of good old Caliban Green here and there. Now all I have to do is actually set in stone my army list and decide on the vehicles!

World Eaters Horus Heresy 30k Contemptor Dreadnaught from the Calth Starter Set WIP

The Betrayal at Calth set has been a god send for a lot of us who were on the cusp of getting into 30k but just couldn't take the last step into committing a ton of cash into Forgeworld resin crack. I bought 2 sets for my Night Lords but decided half way through I could branch out into some angry lads from the World Eaters as well. Previously on this blog I converted both dreadnaughts from the sets into 1 Mortis dual Kheres dread and 1 Dual fists dread, and now after recovering from eating way to much over Xmas I found some time to put the first stages of paint on the punchy dread.



Both arms are detachable and the right fist is magnetized at the shoulder to be swapped with other weapons as needed. The chain of skulls on the front of the hull is from the Khorne Age of Sigma set, and the skull faceplate is from a spare wrist guard from the new bloodthirster greater daemon kit. This guys is about 60% complete, now I have to do all the little details and cleanup of the whites and highlights.

I also completed my Tactical squad I was working on finally from the last post apart from transfers and maybe filling out the bases with some more details.