Word Bearers Horus Heresy 30k Project: Converting Tactical Squad and HQs part 1

I had a few games on the weekend with some mates starting off a slow grow 30k campaign with my Cult Militia (totally chaos crazy cult themed too) and got inspired to make an allied Traitor Legion force to go along with them. After mulling over some of the fantastic pics coming out of Adepticon and the bits and pieces I had lying around I figured I could attempt to replicate the success of a Word Bearers force that Ryan Kimmel had with his and put my own spin on it.

So I happened to have 3 sets of the 40k Dark Vengeance chaos sets lying around in a cupboard (don't ask) and heaps of left overs from a couple of Betrayal at Calth sets as well, the perfect storm! I wanted these to represent post Calth fully corrupted Word Bearers and more specifically in game terms Dark Channelling tact or veteran squads for the random buffs.

I spent allot of time cutting out helms and molded limbs from the snap fit dark vengeance models so I could include more notable B@C set weapons and helms to help the models fit into the theme and timeline better. A simple head and backpack swap along with weapons goes a long way, especially with previous static pose models.

 For the paint scheme I was aiming for very old corrupted dry blood look, I wanted the base armor colour to be very mute with highlights making the model look more 3 dimensional. This is only about 50% done but you get the idea. I have no idea what kind of base to do yet, although I do have a lava mat waiting for an army to match it.........

Night Lords Horus Heresy 30k Project: Converted Night Lords Breacher Squad and Caestus Assault Ram Part 1

Another month another project for my Night Lords 30k army. This month I am attempting to paint up a 10 man breacher squad and their spiffy punch a hole right in your ships side Caestus assault ram. As my forces theme is a loyalist faction of post Istvaan renegades with a space based raiding/corsair fleet I'm reflecting this with lots of boarding or orbital assault units and the Ram is right at the top of the list for awesome tied with the Kharybis Claw. So onto the converting!

 I started off with the basic conversions, so breacher torsos and then Night Lord terror squad helms, this is simple enough and will fit in with the rest of my infantry but I wanted to spruce up the coolest part of a breacher and that is the boarding shields. I raided my bits box for hands, feat, skulls on hooks/chains/and dangley bits. I also chopped up some smaller jewellery chains and stole a few spikes from the chaos marines kit. Chainglaive for the champion is from anvil industries this time instead of my usual custom job.

Time to prime and shade

 So priming and shading are the same airbrush recipe as before, black primer, white highlights from above and then 2 coats of Vallejo blue .004. I had a 3rd party drop pod lying around as well so used the time to give that a hit as well.

 

 Once the priming and shading is done its time to give it a quick seal with some kylon flat matt sealant, this is especially important with the Ram as I will have to handle this model extensively to be able to paint it and the coat of varnish will provide a protective layer for the paint and stop it rubbing or peeling when I handle it.  

 I use warplock bronze as the base for the metal trims and then hit it with a wash of nuln oil. you can see the difference here in this picture between the base colour and it washed. I also do the start of the base here as well as it helps me get a better feel for the scheme on the models as I am painting them and brings out the colours

 So far I have only done all the gold trims and the start of the death masks for the terror squad helmets but I think its coming together well. Hopefully I can punch the squad and maybe even the Ram as well before the end of the month, but that will have to be another update. As always any questions just leave a comment and thanks for reading!