And a Shadow Grows Across the Galaxy: The Sons of Horus

It is time to start preparing for the next stages of the Horus Heresy campaign for the Xhorik System with the ultimate antagonists, the baddest boys in the galaxy, the most feared and respected of the mighty Legions, the first among their peers: the Sons of Horus.

Horus led his long march to Terra with his Sons in the vanguard. Even before the Heresy, the Warmaster ensured his legion were the most well equipped and best supported of the mighty Legions. Combined with their fierceness, cunning and rapid envelopment tactics, no world could stand against them.

This tactical squad is equipped with very long daggers. During the savage murder of their brothers on Istvaan, they quickly learned that slashing with chainswords, although extremely deadly to lightly-armored xenos and humans, was largely ineffective against power armor. They found that a well-placed piercing attack from their long daggers was more able to exploit the weak points in the armor such as the neck and underarms. They also have an affinity for daggers from their culture of gang warfare on Cthonia. This squad uses their experience of how to best kill marines as an advantage against Loyalist forces that have never had the opportunity to fight against their brothers outside of training exercises.

The sergeant is a native of Cthonia and a veteran reaver of the first company. Larger than most of his brothers, he is a natural born killer that loves to look his foes his in the eyes when he kills them so he uses a ventilator rather that a full helmet.

I spent the last five weeks painting up this 20-strong Tactical Squad with veteran sergeant, vexilla, and additional close combat weapons. All that is left to do is the decals. I had a few of them wielding their swords with the blades down, ready to deliver a stabbing blow to a neck joint.

And the individual marines:

I had a few of them wielding their swords with the blades down, ready to deliver a stabbing blow to a neck joint.

I really like this kit allows you to model some of them aiming their bolters instead of always shooting from the hip like the old tactical marines

The vexilla needs a decal in the center and I need to try to write something on the banner. 

The ones using their bolters have their daggers strapped to their backs.

You can see here how the sergeant towers over the other marines. Unfortunately, the lighting and resolution make it tough to see the details on his artificer armor. 

I went with a darker, greener paint scheme rather than the more greyish sea green style. I also did not like the look of the red crests so I used black. I wanted to keep them looking very dark with a focus on green, black and brass. and I thought the red was too distracting. I went with a clean and shiny style rather than the weathered look of my White Scars. This is my first attempt at the "classic" 40k look of bright edge highlights.  As the best-supplied legion, I figure they will have access to new armor and replacement parts as needed.

After sitting and gathering dust for a year, it feels great to finally get a start on the Sons of Horus. They are definitely more fun to paint than the White Scars because getting pure weight is so difficult and unforgiving of mistakes. I'm looking forward to keeping the momentum going by mixing this faction into my painting rotation: White Scars, Drop Troops, Terrain, Sons of Horus. My goal will be to keep up that pattern so I don't get bored of painting any particular scheme and we keep a steady stream of new models and terrain coming for the campaign.