A Tale of Heresy Gamers. Part 3: CRUNCH TIME.

What is the Tale of Heresy Gamers challenge?

This is the Warlord’s journey. The path of power, or of ruin. We’ll be charting army selection, choice of units, painting woes and victories! We’ll be capturing every triumph and misfortune of coming to grips with a new system and a new force. This will be a series about the collecting of a new army for Horus Heresy 2.0. It will focus on the collecting and painting side of things, but we hope to bring you some insight into how the collection plays on the tabletop. Charting the development of an army from conception to finish is one of my fetishes, and I get to indulge in it with all my friends.

Want to join in? Read how at the bottom!

Let’s see what our warlords have done this month.

LOYALISTS

This month has been busy not only with work but hobby as well! At the outset of the month, I launched the #PushforBetaGarmon Global Campaign and that took a lot of my month managing that along with doing the podcast circuit after it picked up way more steam than I could have imagined!

After that, my S/O was on vacation so I wasn’t able to airbrush as much as I would have liked so – after dropping and destroying my Artificer Armour version of Kasparion – I kitbashed Kasparion in Terminator Armour (Read on next month for a bit more on Kasparion!). Once I had him in all his resplendent glory, I certainly couldn’t let him go it alone (it’s dangerous after all!).

I put in a heavy weekend worth of work and constructed one hell of bespoke command squad to magnify Kasparion’s already intimidating presence. I’m sure you can pick out a lot of the pieces in this honour guard – indomitus torsos add some diversity and bulk to the artifice of otherwise generally bland terminator plate while Pheonix Terminator legs add some additional filigree that not only add to the status of these venerable warriors but tie them a little closer to the history Kasparion’s forces shared with the Emperor’s Children on the Great Crusade. 

And while I haven’t had a chance to finish even getting the red on these fine warriors yet, I hope you enjoy the individuality sculpted into each of these Chosen of the Legion. (Hopefully we see them all gain character in an FAQ so they can up their punch with Blades of Perdition!)

‘Into the fires of battle, onto the anvil of war’

Welcome everyone to the third exciting installment of our journey together into the depths of Nocturne. Having completed my list and got out of my modeling comfort zone last month, this time I’ve really worked hard on getting paint to plastic and got that infantry, the backbone of any legion, whipped into shape. This month has not been without its challenges, firstly finding the time to paint as a Dad with a busy and somewhat demanding preschooler, I seem to be interrupted a lot and spending my time watching children’s TV rather than painting. However, I feel overall I’ve kept the look and theme consistent by completing them in stages ensuring continuity throughout the force.

My biggest personal challenge this month was trying out freehand flames. The first couple of layers I put down left me very unsure I’d done the right thing but trusting the process I feel that the final result was well worth the time, effort and trepidation I felt in the undertaking. I also found getting the faces and bases to stand out quite a difficult task, both are almost entirely black and it can be such a tricky colour to highlight and make eye-catching especially against the riot of colour in the armour and flames. On the faces I pushed the highlights as far as I felt I could without taking them out of the black and into blue or grey, and used the moulded detail such as comms kit to add interest with dashes of silver and red. On the bases I went to town with the black sands of Istavan V by using Hera models weathering powders, recommended to me Lil Legends Studio, to create burning embers around the rocks. Finding ways to introduce colour and texture to dark themes is essential if you want to create an army that stands out on the table.

Considering I am creating such a small force with no hint of rank and file tac marines, I want every model to stand out, we are the first company after all. With every model in Cataphractii Terminator armour this is in itself a challenge. Converting each model has been part of it but also finding ways to add unique details to really bring out a sense of personality and individual traits, for me makes the game much more epic especially when I’m taking models off the table. There are no red shirts here.

See you all next month for vehicles.

‘Into the fires of battle, onto the anvil of war.’

VALIDATE ME INTERNET!! MAKE ME FEEL TALENTED!!

Hi all, Rob from Edge of Empire here, hoping you’re all coping in the ferocious heat the Northern Hemisphere has been experiencing. It’s been warm. Very warm! Luckily my workshop in the Garden is comparatively cool even in 40 Celsius (something I’d prefer to never have found out but there you go.)

The title phrase there is in this missive specifically at Myles’ request following my bleating it out (tongue firmly in cheek) in the project discord whilst bemoaning the fact that while I’ve achieved loads since the last update in terms of output I’m reticent to spam loads of pictures of it all in a way that could be construed into a plea for praise.

I don’t do praise. I’m functionally incapable of dealing with it. That’s not a humble brag; its Autism. 

Anyway, my point is that while I appear to be racing away with the challenge; the most artistic part of the force I’m collecting is the art of compromise. Its been done simply and quickly, no super advanced techniques or overly artsy processes. Its far from perfect and I don’t feel it would match up to the dizzying heights of talent the rest of this group genuinely exhibit. 

That said I’m happy. The box is painted now. I donated “el-hairdo” (the Imperial Fist Praetor) to a friend as I had no use for him & replaced him with a Terminator praetor from Forgeword. So in that extent I have completed the number of models in the box. Three units of ten Seekers, ten Tactical Support Marines, ten Terminators, two Praetors, one Dreadnought and one Spartan.

Following the 18” rule I think they look alright. Doing them in bulk has let me keep a nice unified look across them which does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to army painting. They’re neat, they’re simple & the colours are effective. I’m not going to compete with these guys in this group, I could *maybe keep up with some of them over a single mini, but over 3000 points? “On that day Baldrick, Satan will be skating to work.”

The day this gets posted I’m expecting delivery of a Sicaran which will be converted into an Arcus & after that a Land Raider Proteus will complete the 3000 points, I appear to have inadvertently ended up 2 models away from finishing the project by month two….. that’s ok, it gives me plenty of time to go back & add additional things to the models currently listed as ‘complete’. 

That said I’m happy. The box is painted now. I donated “el-hairdo” (the Imperial Fist Praetor) to a friend as I had no use for him & replaced him with a Terminator praetor from Forgeword. So in that extent I have completed the number of models in the box. Three units of ten Seekers, ten Tactical Support Marines, ten Terminators, two Praetors, one Dreadnought and one Spartan.

Following the 18” rule I think they look alright. Doing them in bulk has let me keep a nice unified look across them which does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to army painting. They’re neat, they’re simple & the colours are effective. I’m not going to compete with these guys in this group, I could *maybe keep up with some of them over a single mini, but over 3000 points? “On that day Baldrick, Satan will be skating to work.”

The day this gets posted I’m expecting delivery of a Sicaran which will be converted into an Arcus & after that a Land Raider Proteus will complete the 3000 points, I appear to have inadvertently ended up 2 models away from finishing the project by month two….. that’s ok, it gives me plenty of time to go back & add additional things to the models currently listed as ‘complete’. 

Infantry almost there in this video, just some some black oil wash to do, leather sword hilts & some heat staining. 

So that’s where I’m at really. I’ve made great progress but that’s because each of these individual troopers has probably received less individual TLC than those under the ministrations of my coconspirators. I’m sure they’ll be fine & just grow up to be full of issues. (Oh wait, they’re Dark Angels… ‘full of issues’ is built into the Gene seed)

Either way I’m having fun with them which is the most important thing. 

If there’s anything anyone would like to know you can ping me a message on Instagram @edgeofempire or just poke Myles & he’ll pass it on no doubt in his sleep deprived caffeine addled-new-parent way. (Probably painted in Kimera colour violet)

I do have various wips etc of the force as its rattled along this month but they seem a tad redundant now things are tabletop standard ready. If anyone has any specific requests for them then please just let me know. 

Until next time then folks. Take care. R 

Well guys it’s month 3 and to be honest I feel that this month has gone the way of the Dodo and has vanished before my very eyes.

Before writing this article I have been panicking about how little I have achieved this month, especially when you look at what the others have done. This is something that you shouldn’t do, comparing progress can end up disheartening and this can add pressure on you for something that you do for fun. I myself have a lot currently going on in the real world and with the army, I’m doing it is a dream project that I have been waiting for since I was a child so I don’t want to rush it, or have the feeling of being rushed.

I’m taking my time with this project, every model will be individualised whether it’s a Wolf pelt added or a tooth necklace, maybe just a different head. This will slow down your progress, but it’s still progress. 

Currently, I class myself still in the planning process of this project and this has slowed me down. I’m starting to build the army slowly, but I have to source so many different parts and models that I need to complete this project and a few questions have arisen that I didn’t think about straight away. I’m taking a nearly 30-year-old army and trying to 30k it, now what do you think of when you think of 30k?

Personally, I think of big units and even bigger tanks, but will that give me the look I’m after? Then I have the thought of how close I want to copy Kim Syberg’s army, this sounds really stupid when I’m writing this, but it is a thought that has caused me to struggle with it.

Basic troops, in the White Dwarf article there are 10 Grey Hunters and 5 Blood Claws with Jump Packs is the foundation of this force. Ok, so my first thought is I will do 10 Grey Stalkers and 10 Grey Slayers, let’s break that Squad down even more. It’s made up of 2 different marks of armour, but not evenly.

We have 7 of one Mark and 3 of another, if I’m to make the squad bigger how will I break that down? 15 men could end up as 5 of one and 10 of the other, that doesn’t sit right in my head, 20! I’ll do 20-man units of Stalkers and Slayers. That 14 and 6 could work.

Now do I max out every squad?

This could have the impact of not creating the look I’m after. Am I overcomplicating it, keep it simple. Start off with doing the legal amount you need for the squad and add from there. This is an ongoing project, not a once-and-done project.

So to help me keep on the straight and narrow I have done an army list. This is the foundation of what I want to achieve. Writing down stuff helps put you in a good place, it’s a goal that I now feel comfortable with and this will be a good way of seeing where the start is and the finish.

Now it’s time to put the work in. Oh yeah, I also put together these dreadnoughts using Lil’Legend’s HOW NOT TO POSE YOUR DREADNOUGHT video.

Soldiering On

After completing my test model last month, it was time to go full steam ahead and start applying my chosen recipe to start painting the army in full. I decided to attack the most intimidating units first so that I could get them over and done with. For me, that was the larger models: Domitars, Castellax and Vorax!

I’ve made great progress: The Domitars & Castellax are fully basecoated and have their decals on. To complete them I just need to apply oil washes, weathering and final details. The Vorax are only slightly behind, they need a few more metallic colours added, and then they will be ready for decals (note to self: buy more Micro-Set!).

I probably would have got a lot more done this month, but for two things:

• The UK heatwave. Ugh! Trying to paint anything in that heat was a pointless effort. I’m actually surprised that my FW Resin models didn’t soften & deform in the heat!
• Liber Mechanicum. The Liber Mechanicum rulebook was released on 20th August. Whilst I was initially very excited to get my hands on the Heresy 2.0 rules for my new army, it seems on first glance that the faction as a whole has taken a massive hit. Cybernetica Automata are no longer the close combat monsters they once were, and many other units and weapon profiles have been seriously downgraded. Overall it’s a massive disappointment for me. I was building this Cybernetica army to shore up a weakness in my Iron Hands army (close combat), but it now seems that the units I have chosen – and the faction in general – are no longer capable in that area. This is compounded by a number of typos and mistakes in the English version, which do not seem to be repeated in the German version. It’s such a massive shame, and I’m not seeing much other than disappointment from the Mechanicum communities on Facebook and Discord. I can only hope that somehow they play better than they currently seem on paper, otherwise this finished project may just end up sitting on a shelf gathering dust..

Anyway, onwards & upwards as they say! I’m going to try to get all these units finished in the next couple of weeks, and then get started on the infantry!

Until next time, Ave Omnissiah!

It’s been so hot! This is likely not news to you of course but the past few weeks have been too hot to paint. My wet palette dried up like the seas of terra and my airbrush clogged worse than the toilets on the Terminus Est.

Despite these set backs I’ve managed to find ways to keep productive. I built a few squads and transferred the tactical marines to their proper bases in the cooler rooms downstairs when I couldn’t paint.

During a brief respite in the heat I was able to smash out Zephon and the Kratos- the first tank I’ve painted in a long while and the first one I’ve ever painted using an airbrush.

I’m quite pleased with how the Kratos came out and happy with the blends and weathering which were possible with the airbrush. I need to get the other weapon options finished now as it’s all magnetized so I can swap load-outs.

Next up I have two terminator squads and a heavy support squad to do. I’m hoping to have gotten at least one game in with the Blood Angels by the next time I check in too!

Here’s to a cooler September!

 

Okay so let’s start this thing. First I have to say… the right yellow is my bane, my nemesis and my greatest desire. I’ve stop-started on Imperial Fists too many times over the years because of my ability to consistently execute the right yellow. I have a deep seated revulsion of pale and desaturate yellows, you know the type, they look green in a certain light (especially flash photography), and don’t even get me started on the horrors of yellows over a black undercoat (you’d be surprised what you can achieve over a black basecoat – Myles)

[(Picture of unfinished breacher here) caption: My old yellow – note he has been pin washed with a reddish brown!]

See I like a warm yellow, golden and toasty, almost orange but very much not orange, and I honestly thought I had my colours down. But the thing is my scheme, it didn’t scale well. It had too many steps, it was very involved going back and forth over the same surfaces, and it took too long. It had… well, 10 steps for just the yellow. I’m not exaggerating. If I’m honest I was never going to have the willpower to do that across an army.

Look, people in the past have said to me: “just do a yellow wash/clearcoat/shade over white” so many times. They have all been utterly and entirely wrong, they just didn’t get it, and their Imperial Fists to me looked like the things of nightmares. Or Lamenters. But now, at the onset of a new army I needed a yellow that worked for me, that I could do relatively quickly and easily. And hey, the paints out there and available now are just better, I mean the new Contrast Imperial Fist paint is showing some great results. So this month… I’m doing science. Yellow science.

YELLOW SCIENCE – TEST MODELS

I recommend painting test models. Throw in some wild cards for tones and schemes that you don’t know or think will work, it may surprise you. I did that for this project uneventfully, so I’ll skip those. What did surprise me… was that the preshade I always used in the past was quite poor for what I wanted to achieve now.

I assembled my dudes, primed them a light grey (seriously, Tamiya fine primers are the bomb) and then hit them with either a brown or a pink. My logic was that a red brown would leave a slightly warm, dark tone under a translucent yellow, perfect for a high contrast finish, while pink on the other hand would show up a nice deep orange warmth and stay nice and bright. So I did 3 types of preshade for each yellow I used – brown, pink and a mix. My preshades were deliberately a bit extra white so I could see the yellow easier, but basically it’s a basecoat of a colour with a highlight of white over the top – the white will bring out the yellow at its purest.

Then I picked some “transparent” yellows – for this army, I want to use paints that are already thin, so I don’t need to mix up batches or manage the viscosity in every airbrush cup. Inks and contrasts were ideal for this. I’d never used any of these paints before, but could tell by eye they were going to be what I was after.

Some of these came out wonderfully. The plain brown preshade really failed me though, which was the last thing I expected. The pink preshades were really sharp which I didn’t expect and I would recommend them. To achieve that little depth though, the mix is the winner. It’s still really hard to call the final scheme, but for me the Indian Yellow has a warmth to it I really love, and I suspect will allow me to use a much darker pin wash and push the contrast that way – my only concern is if I use a brown in the shadows it may push the warmth into orange town, so maybe the Yellow Orange is the one to go for. By the way, the Liquitex used here is specifically “Yellow Orange Azo” – I don’t know what an Azo is, but they have a non-azo yellow orange and it’s actually just pure orange ink when applied, which I found out the hard way (wild card tests etc).

So my results weren’t entirely conclusive, but they helped me to get closer to what I wanted. Are they as good as my old complicated scheme? Potentially. Were they a hell of a lot easier and faster to execute? Absolutely. There’s always some compromises to be made, but these ones are smaller than I imagined they would be, and I’m quite happy with the results. Next month maybe I’ll even finish all these guys as a squad.

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TRAITORS

THE FACELESS KNIGHT. 

I’m the sort of person who eats dessert first. Not for me the slow and steady march of progress. Slogging through troops to tanks to characters. Nope, I’ve gone straight for the head (Horus would be proud).

This is my rendition of Horus Aximand (a conversion of the Faceless Knight made of Lil’Legend events). I’ve personalized the model by adding a cloak and sculpting fur around the shoulders. I’ve also changed a few details from the original box art like the shoulder guards and face. I’m collecting the Sons toward Keith’s event held next year – the Return to Isstvan V campaign held in Cardiff.

Not pictured are the 40 troops in various stages of building, a Kratos undergoing decal treatment, and a Dreadnought marinading in oil (paint). The nature of this next event means I need to start thinking BIGGER about my Lord of War. Horus would be nice, but I’ve painted a few of them, and it feels like a given. I need something larger. I need more dessert.

If you’d like to read more about the Facless Knight check out this much larger article!

HI Guys

Its the second month of the blog and I’m finally off the mark! After last month’s false start due to a myriad of life events, I’ve managed to get this Tartaros terminator squad completed.

Four of the squad are armoured in the standard war gear options we see on Horus Heresy Terminators, however, the squad leader I modeled with a Thunder Hammer and “storm shield”.

As i mentioned in my initial blog post, this force started off life as Zone Mortalis strike force and the idea was to give character and HQ models some ZM accouterment to fit that theme even though it will have no in-game effect. Whilst I’m not convinced it’s worked particularly well, I’ve stuck with it for now, given that i did the assembly and do the initial airbrush stages 2 years ago.

I’d like to think I’ve been able to refine my airbrushing technique in the last two years, so whilst I’m happy with colour selection for the force, I’m keen to see how the upcoming units look with fresh coat of paint that’s not two years old!

The army will be quite elite, so now that I’ve got 2 squads of terminators completed, I’ll be adding a unit of deadly Night Raptors for next month. I’m taking a pretty holistic approach to building the army and with all the lovely plastic kits being released and the tonnes of new ones on the horizon, ill be spoilt for choice In deciding what i want to add next! Let’s hope brush skills are up to the task. Until next time,

AVE DOMINUS NOX!!

Hello Traitor and Loyalist a like, it’s your boy Craig. It’s been a busy month for me, with vacation with the family and work being crazy, this heresy train slowed down, but didn’t stop. There have been some changes to my color scheme again, but this time I have found my color.

I wasn’t happy with the purple I thought I was going to commit to. It didn’t photograph well, it had very little depth and all in all it made me question my choice in the Emperor’s Children legion. This all change while scrolling through Instagram one day and I came across an Emperor’s Children painting tutorial by @elminiaturista. The color scheme was simple and very eye catching. I had all the paints I need to do a test model of my own and I got to work immediately. Wow did it turn out well, it was a great bridge between 30k EC and the colors we know the EC to use in 40k. Dark purple under tones with a vibrant pink highlight.

Once I had the got the technique down, I went to work painting. The first model I finished was my Leviathan dreadnought. I redid all the purple armor plates in the new color and man did it turn out well. I went from dreading painting my EC and almost changing legions completely, to loving the way they look and, in my opinion, thinking that this may be one of my best-painted models and soon to be my best-painted armies. 

With the Leviathan dread done and base coat on 20 marines, 10 Palatine Blade, my Contemptor dreadnought, and my Praetor (Joseph Noir), my Emperor’s Children are well on their way. With Alex and my first game with our new legions fast approaching, be sure to check out the Death and Betrayal podcast to hear how it all went down when Kasparion and Joseph meet face to face, not as friends, but as enemies for the first time.

SUBSCRIBE TO Lil’LEGEND YOUTUBE. LIVE STREAMS. GIVEAWAYS. TUTORIALS.

Unfortunately it’s do over month for me (SAD FACE). Next month I plan to poison all sorts of civilians with war crome grade weaponary!

Finally I got around to actually finishing parts of my project! It only took 3 months..

The 5 man Recon Squad was so much fun to paint and I’m already looking forward to painted the remaining squad in my box of opportunity, though it will probably be a while. Also might end up being Seekers or something else instead, mass Nemesis Bolters is the cowards weapon.

I’m going to an event in Sweden this October called MWW6 (Malmö Wargaming Weekend) and in the Player Pack everyone was asked to bring a “Remembrancer” model for one of the missions. Considering the Sons of Horus killed all* of the Remembrancers of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet during the Betrayal at Isstvan III, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but then one of my good mates offered to give me his Davinite Lodge Priest which he had bought on some Facebook trading group years ago. So I did a little conversion and added the “Vexilla” so he wasn’t too well armed and painted it up in a weeks time. Was an amazing model to paint and so happy I got the chance and I’m very pleased with the result.

Since then I’ve just been trying to survive the heat while also getting a little painting done on the first 10 Tactical Marines. As you can clearly see there’s still some way to go, but they are well into the “ugly” stage of the project but I’m beginning to see a snippet of light at the end of the tunnel now. I’ve always hated batch painting and this has already reminded me why several times. I’m glad I decided to only finish 10 at a time or I might have been dead already.

The event is still a few months away and I hope I manage to get most of the tactical marines done before we packup and leave for Sweden.

Time will tell.

Until nex time
Chris

* Well, most of them

This month I painted a Terror Squad for my Night Lords. I have had the Age of Darkness Box sitting in my closet for months now, crying out, begging to be painted. So I finally opened it up, played with the whippy sticks for a while, then pulled out a sprue of infantry.

When I was building this squad, I really wanted them to have character. Painting a lot of basic line infantry is totally fine; but I wanted these guys to be unique. They’re elite fear inducing Night Lord infantry after-all. Guys like Lillegend and DornsArrow are really good at adding small, impactful detail to their Sons of Horus. In particular I really like their lodge coins. Lodge Coins, are a uniquely SoH bit so I made Tarot Cards for my Night Lords as a stand-in. The sons of Nostromo are notoriously superstitious and, along with their primarch, believe in and use divination; hence their obsessions with covering their armor in tarot cards. Along with their cards I added the usual strips of flayed flesh and skulls.

For their loadout I decided on 5 rotor cannons and 5 volkite chargers. On the table-top, an unsaved wound from a rotor cannon forces a pinning check with -1Ld from the shell shock rule. This paired with leadership penalties from Night Fighting and Fear make them an effective weapon for the 8th legion. The downside is they are only S3 so you are wounding most units on a 5+. I think sticking atleast 5 rotor cannons in a squad is the sweet spot between cost and effectiveness for forcing a pinning check. Then you may as well loadout the rest of the squad with an ok cheap gun.

I also put a free tutorial together for painting my NLs using this squad. This can be found at http://www.loyalistsareboring.com/.

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If you would like to join the journey please write an introduction to your project and post it up on your social media with #taleofheresygamers. Every month keep apace with the warlords in creating your own collection.

For the Warmaster.

For the Emperor.