Word Bearers Horus Heresy 30k Project: Word Bearer Cataphractii Terminators Conversion

What to do when you have some spare betrayal at calth terminators lying around? turn them into dirty traitors and convert them with dark angels terminator bits of course!

These guys were a combination of the deathwing 40k kit and the calth cataphractii termi 30k kit. I took the front of the deathwing models and shaved the back so it was flush with the rear torso of the cataphractii kit. Also I had to cut away most of the leg to chest lug off the cataphractii kit because it no longer fit in snug with the new converted torso or robes. 

Paint was done with a airbrush base of black, then top down highlight of white, then mahogany red, then top down highlight of a crimson red then washed with drakenhoff nightshade to blend it all together and give that darker look I have been chasing with the rest of the army.

Night Lords Kharybis and Dreadclaw, Word Bearers troops and Scoria works in progress for multiple Horus Heresy projects

Busy couple of weeks and finally got my Night Lords forge world drop pods in the mail so I was keen as beans to get these at least built this week and base coated. Also while I was waiting with baited breath for them to arrive I was working on some more dark channeled Word Bearers troops because why not!

So the Kharybis and Dread claw are pretty challenging to assemble but a real pain to paint. The multiple legs, fins and spikes make for a real paint to try and get smooth total coverage on all the panels in 1,2,3 or in my case 4 passes............

My Word Bearers desperately needed more bodies after putting together and painting all those tanks last time, so I cranked out some more conversions based off the dark vengeance and betrayal at calth boxes.

And to round it all off I got a little bit more work done on Anacharis Scoria, woo!

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.........

Dark Angels Horus Heresy 30k starter force Calth set WIP Part 3

The 30k Dark Angels force I am currently converting and painting for an upcoming doubles torny has had some progress this weekend. I have started work on the 2nd squad and the Delegatus HQ model in the painting department, and have started applying some Legion icons and suitable Dark Angels bits and bobs from the 40k range onto a couple of vehicles.

I am attempting winter/partial snow themed bases, currently waiting on some winter themed grass tufts to fill out the bases. Snow effect is achieved by globbing on some PVA craft glue and dusting the base with GW snow effect, please note you will need 2 or 3 passes on an area or blob to fill it out and make it look proper snowy, a single pass will leave the snow looking very thin, and allow time for the PVA to dry between each pass.

The Delegatus HQ is coming along. Having real trouble with the power weapon as I still can't decided if I should go the lazy road and tape it and do the force weapon airbrush trick or try and up my game and manual do wet blending by hand. Can't wait to have a crack at doing up the vehicles, I have a Sicaran, Rhino and potential a Whirlwind to do before the end of February!

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.

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.