Firstly, here is a look at how my Trello board is standing:
The first thing I did last week was spray paint all the remaining Terror Marines and the Terminator sergeant. I’ve had the Battles in the Age of Darkness box set sat around since it launched (which was about two and a half years ago) and only finished constructing the Spartan at the end of last year. This is a sorry state of affairs, and one of the reasons why I’ve become very hesitant to pick up these big box sets. The Heresy set is particularly problematic because it really lacks variety – I understand that the original concept was to have two forces in the box facing each other down, but I don’t know anyone who has built it in that way. 40 Tactical Marine bodies are a lot for anyone, especially when contrast, drybrush and done isn’t really an option. I possibly also haven’t helped myself by committing to painting the lightning pattern on the armour of all the Terror Marines.
This was one of the main reasons I got a bit burned out painting when I tried to clear out the backlog last year. I mentioned last week that I was trying to clear whole units over the days of the week and characters and vehicles on weekends. Most of you probably already know this, but it is not a good approach to painting Space Marines of any type, requiring considerable amounts of trim, sharp highlights and careful shading to look good. Although the results on my Night Lords were broadly acceptable, I quite quickly fell behind the target pace on the project and found it to be quite demoralising (although I suppose that is quite on-brand for the legion). For this year, I have set my Night Lords to have the most granular targets, with only up to around 4 models per group. I really want them to look intimidating on the tabletop, and I actually think I’m beginning to get there.
With that in mind, this week I completed a Headsman with a Chainglaive and 3 Terror Marines with Volkite Chargers.
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| The Headsman |
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| The Terror Marines |
I am mostly avoiding using contrast paint for this project as far as possible – I’ve used a little Skeleton Horde over Wraithbone for the skull symbol on the shoulder pads and the bone areas on some helmets. The blue is Night Lords Blue (shock horror!) highlighted with Kantor blue and Alaitoc blue, while the red is Khorne Red, highlighted by Evil Sunz Scarlet and Fire Bright Red. Everything has received a wash into the recesses with Nuln Oil. One of the things I really enjoy about painting Night Lords is the lightning pattern flickering across the armour. It’s one of the main markers of the legion and really cuts through the otherwise very dark colour pallet for the legion. I am generally not good at freehand, but having practiced it across about 40 models now, I think it’s actually looking pretty good.
Considering the project as a whole, the idea is to play a very on-flavour Terror Assault list, with lots of pinning weapons and fear causing units, but minimal scoring capacity. Currently, my 1500 point list consists of a Praetor, a small unit of Terminators, 3 units of Terror Marines and a Contemptor Dreadnaught for some punch. Those of you who know about the heresy will note that I’ve abandoned the concept of Line units completely. What I would say is, pinned units (and dead units) can’t score, so the plan is essentially primary denial, and then try to outscore the opponent on secondaries. Is this a good plan? Absolutely not. Is it lore-appropriate for the Night Lords to abandon their actual objectives in favour of causing maximum terror? Completely!
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| The full unit of Terror Marines |
I still have yet to play a game of the ‘new’ edition of the heresy with my Night Lords, despite the rampant speculation of a new edition of the game around the corner. I am a little sceptical of this, mainly due to the fact that the first edition of the Heresy lasted considerably longer than a typical edition of any other GW game. I also feel that not much has actually arrived for the game since the big relaunch, particularly in terms of legion-specific units. While I understand the need to get more of the resin core heresy range into plastic, I think having to share the spotlight with Legions Imperialis and the last year being full of quite niche Mechanicum and Solar Auxilia releases, in an already niche game system, has not been good for my excitement about the game. That’s not to say these releases weren’t quite cool in their own way, I just feel that most heresy players are drawn into the setting by the big legion-on-legion conflicts, rather than these quite peripheral players.
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| The full unit, after playing with the modes and filters on Haoyang's camera |
Anyway, with that mini-rant out the way, we’ve reached the end of this week’s blog. Next week I think I will be painting the first batch of Imperial Navy Breachers, in an effort to get the unit done in time for the next 40k game day. Until then, I hope you have a fun and productive week of your own hobby!
Ben
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