The Scarab and his Heavy Support Squad

After what feels like a long hiatus with no new models to post, I finally completed a small unit: a Heavy Support Squad for my Sons of Horus. 

The lascannons came as a pack of five, but the squad looked a bit puny. After looking in the book and seeing that the sergeant has the option to swap the heavy weapon for wargear, I decided that adding an extra body would give the unit more staying power on the battlefield and be a fun opportunity to build a character that would give the unit some more personality as well. His nuncio-vox is useless at the moment due this army not having any deeps striking units (and I assume they would not normally want to arrive next to a heavy weapons squad in their own deployment zone anyway), nor do I have any barrage units yet. He can have an augary scanner which gives some interesting abilities such as not allowing infiltrators to deploy within 18" (which is rare since they can only do so if totally out of sight of the entire enemy force anyway) and the ability to Intercept any enemy units arriving via Deep Strike within 18" (which would be fairly easy for an enemy to avoid most times since it is such a small range, but could be useful in certain scenarios). So realistically he is there mostly because he was a fun conversion to do and he just makes the squad look better.

I used the Sons of Horus torsos on this unit since they hold their weapons low enough to make them visible. To extend my bits box and make more models from what I have, I used two sets of MkVI legs from the old WH40k plastic tactical marine box set. I added some studs to fit better with the rest of the MkIV armor in the unit. For one guy, I drilled shallow holes and glued in 1mm diameter glass beads. These are a consistent size with the rest of the armor but are a pain because of the drilling. For the other set of legs, I used 2mm diameter half-dome plastic nail art beads and glued them directly on the legs. They are much easier to apply but also much bigger than the studs on the official models. I can justify it on this guy by saying they used large studs on purpose to give his legs more weight for stability when firing, perhaps, but I probably will not do a lot of models with that technique. I also used a less common variant of the SoH MkIV shoulder pads on the unit and added a few decals on the other shoulder pads.

The sergeant is known as The Scarab, a moniker he obtained after the grueling battle of the Mankorin Heights during the Great Crusade. His unit was stationed on a rocky outcrop atop the heights and weathered wave after wave of enemy dive bombing runs. His augary scanner allowed him to spot the pattern in the dive bomber attacks and then direct his unit to frequently intercept the fliers before they could drop their cargo. Although his squad took heavy casualties during the day-long battle, they accounted for five bombers shot down. His praetor at the time bestowed the sobriquet Scarab on him because of the way his artificer armor protected him from the repeated bomb blasts and the way his unit seemed to roll the sun across the sky that day, eliminating everything in its path with their lascannons. He now bears several scarab emblems on his ancient plate as a mark of honor and distinction. 

It feels good to make some progress on this army again. I love the color scheme of the dark green with bright edge highlights in the classic 'Eavy Metal style mixed with the black and brass. I just need another unit of troops and an HQ before I can get them on the table in a standard Force Organization Chart, or just the HQ for a Zone Mortalis game. Next I have a veteran tactical squad built that is ready to be primed and painted as soon as I get the chance.