Tuesday 17 February 2015

From GregB - 30k Sons Of Horus Space Marines (50 Points)

Prepare for getting the sh*t kicked out of you compliance - Sons of Horus in MK III power armour from Forge World
After a lovely week off visiting the Desert Cities of Southern California, it's back to the hellish winter of the Canadian Prairies - but also back to the painting that helps me forget about it! This entry is another group of figures from GW's Forge World subsidiary (or division or whatever) - 10 Space Marines in Mark III armour from the Sons of Horus, the 16th Legion.  These figures are for GW's Horus Heresy setting, generally referred to as "Warhammer 30k".

Rivets galore!
Officer on right, communications trooper on the left
In contrast to the Mark IV armoured marines of my last entry, these Mark III troopers have a more menacing and proto-medieval feel to them.  The armour is covered with extra plates, is segmented in the back, and the helmet is darker and more ominous with a "face plate" that would not look out of place in the late middle ages. Many rivets are visible.  I quite enjoy how they look.

Horus' lads prepare to unleash a burst of fire

In hindsight I wish I had ordered more figures wearing this type of armour - I like its look a lot more than that Mark IV power armour (which is still very nice).  The Mark III seems more ominous - the joyless, faceless grim legions of the Emperor's Great Crusade, coming to wreck your shit bring you into "compliance".

Lots of segments in the armour - a very proto-medieval feel to the design
The squad has two special weapon troopers - one with a missile launcher, and the other with a melta gun (a short range, high energy weapon for knocking out armoured opponents, be they vehicles, infantry or otherwise).  The design of the missile launcher is lovely - an homage to the "shark fin" style of this weapon from the original RTB 01 Space Marine box.  The Forge World guys have done these little nods to the early history of the sculpts again and again throughout this figure range, something I definitely appreciate about it.

"Let's hug for Horus!"

The embossed shoulder plates are awesome...and terrible, in that once you start with them, you can't stop using them...
This group is meant to represent a veteran squad - in the 30k rules, squads to not typically carry any special weapons with them - there are whole other squads for that work, after all :) But as "veterans", they are able to add a couple of special weapons to the group, mimicking the more common 10-man squads of Warhammer 40k's more "current" iterations.

Bit of a view of the comms pack in this photo
The officer (with the wacky comb on his helmet) has a small standard mounted on his backpack, and is wearing a "power fist", a big augmented armoured glove that would have some kind of power field around it to assist in the smashing of his enemies, likely in the face.  He is accompanied by a communications trooper, who has a modified helmet and backpack.

Good ol' "Shark Fin" style missile launcher

"I can see his house from here..."

I used decals throughout where I could, with very mixed results - the bronze does not come off of the green very well.  I also tried to weather them up a bit - again, the results are mixed in my opinion.  My sponging approach, which works so well on larger vehicle models, is harder to apply consistently on these figures.

Marine with melta gun
Proudly loyal to humanity's last hope - Horus the Warmaster!
These 10 figures should net me 50 points.  Now to get back to the painting table - when you take a week off, you sure fall behind in the Challenge!


From Curt:

Greg, these guys rock. Like you, I really like the whole medieval esthetic of the Mk III armour with its segmented plates and slightly baroque detailing. Your green and brass motif works very nicely with this force, especially with leaving the faceplate as simple, flat steel. My favourite model of the group has to be the trooper with the old school rocket launcher - I have great memories of that initial boxed set and always loved the design of the old 'shark fin' launcher.

'This Hug for Humanity is brought to you by Horus - A Force for Change...'

19 comments:

  1. This certainly seems to be 40K day.

    Nice painting Greg :)

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  2. The rust effects and the weathering on the metals is fantasic!

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  3. Very nice, great weathering and realistic finish.

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  4. Absolutely lovely and I now know that I need to get my 30k stuff off the painting table and onto here. I really like this armour too and the bare metal works with it perfectly, excellent work indeed.

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  5. These are the nicest space marines I have seen in a long time. I am almost tempted to search eBay and start a unit. But I already know how that ends.

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  6. These are great, love the way the green and brass go together.

    Ian

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  7. Very nice Greg! I'm trying to resist the 30k bug, these make it hard to do so. If I do make a force of loyalist marines drawn from the traitors, it will entirely be your fault! ;)

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    1. Come on David - give in! You can practically hear Horus plotting right now...

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    2. Gah!!! Foul seductive whispers from the Warp! ;)

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  8. Horus for Hope! Great, great work and lovely figures. You are making it hard to avoid 30K indeed. Especially since I read yesterday that GW is coming up with 30K plastic sets.

    Are these as big as the newish GW plastic marines? One of my big problem usually is my old Rogue Trader stuff looks puny next to the new stuff.

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    1. Thanks very much! These models are as large as the "current" plastics, and in fact one nice thing about that is that your bits box for any existing Marine collection will fit in nearly perfectly.

      These Mark III Marines are even bulkier, so a little chunkier than the "current" plastics.

      All of this will be quite large next to Rogue Trader-era stuff.

      I have not heard anything re: 30k plastic sets - GW's business side is so utterly tone deaf I would find a development like that quite shocking (hey - people seem to like these, maybe we should make it easier and nicer to get? duh, me not sure...)

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    2. Well apparently the Forgeworld 30K is selling like hotcakes, so much so that even the blind-deaf corporates running GW have noticed.

      - All of this will be quite large next to Rogue Trader-era stuff. -

      Boo :-(

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    3. I hope GW doesn't do it as pretty much everything they touch turns to overdesigned sh*t. They should leave the cool toys to the 'adults' at Forgeworld and muddle along with their Playmobil-designed 40K.

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    4. Why do you think I do Oldhammer? ;-)

      In those days, "the toys were designed for the adults but played by the kids too". Just as it should be.

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    5. Indeed, I totally agree.

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  9. Nice painting on those gothic space sci-fi armour wearing dudes from a Galaxy far away in the future. Cheers

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  10. Beautiful work Greg. Really evocative of the whole 30K Horus Heresy look and feel...

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  11. I honed in on that shark-fin missile launcher right away too. It's really so iconic. All hail Horus!

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  12. I really like the green and brass. I think all the weathering looks good.

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