Tag Archives: 30k

Age of Darkness: Horus Heresy Ultramarines

03 Friday Apr 2026

Posted by in Age of Darkness, Finished Work, horus heresy

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Given that the new edition of Age of Darkness has been released and I do fancy painting some Saturnine Terminators, I felt that I ought to complete the previous box first. Of course, it looks like a new edition of 40k with Orks as the protagonists is coming out, so that might have to be bought. I never did complete the Blackstone Fortress set either… oh my. So yes, these little bunch represents the other half of the set that I painted recently, the Sons of Horus. I decided to paint them as Ultramarines because in the initial Horus Heresy Calth boardgame I painted the minis as Death Guard and Imperial Fists instead of Word Bearers and Ultramarines. I just did what I wanted, what an anarchist! But since then I have come to appreciate the painting cue aspect of boxes. Having never painted smurfs before, apart from some Space Crusade marines when I first started painting again, I fancied a go as these guys. I am reasonably pleased with what has come out. I don’t think the edge highlighting is very good, but as a quick and dirty paintjob for the enjoyment of doing blue power armour for a change, yeah, its ok. Now where am I going to get the money for Saturnine….

Oh, and the other week I took the opportunity to visit Warhammer World and look at the exhibitions. Were some very cool dioramas there, including some lovely early ones. Needed more early minis tbh, and it would have been amazing to have one of every miniature ever made, but its definitely worth £8.50! I didn’t find the hidden assassin though.

Honoured Brother Tabascus, Ultramarines Legion Dreadnought

30 Saturday Aug 2025

Posted by in Age of Darkness, Finished Work, Space Marines

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We return today to the Age of Darkness, and my first batting on the other half of the (previous now) Age of Darkness boxset. The new one has now been released, and I am forbidding myself from buying it until I have completed the last one. Well, I’ve done the Sons of Horus and now I am doing the Ultramarines. But Doris, I hear you cry, the boxset was Sons vs Imperial Fists, why are you doing Ultramarines. Well, there is a slightly boring story there that I will tell you because that’s the sort of guy I am. The first Horus Heresy boxset was Betrayal At Calth many years ago. I bought it, but lacking interest in Ultramarines vs Word Bearers I painted them as Imperial Fists vs Death Guard. This time the Fists are getting a proper go, but I have some 30k Fists already, why not do something new? So I am, and as Fists got to be Ultramarines last time round, Ultramarines get to be Fists this time.

We start with a Dreadnought. I had fun building this guy, I wanted to see how much motion and action I could get in. Admittedly its not very Ultramarine, but this is one angry dread, he’s a pretty spicy guy as his honour-name suggests. So he has a tendency not to act as a mobile artillery piece but get in close and stompy. I don’t know what the chap on the base did to get stomped so hard, perhaps he is a cultist of some sort. Tabascus has been built so that most combos of weapons are possible, which is good, as too often I glue stuff in place and then wish I hadn’t!

The rest of Tabascus’ force will show up eventually, I am sure!

Descend into the Age of Darkness with the Sons of Horus

15 Saturday Feb 2025

Posted by in Age of Darkness, Finished Work, horus heresy, Space Marines

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The other year I realised that I had a build up of GW vouchers and so I jumped on Age of Darkness when it was released. This is a good example of Getting Over Excited Because Other People Are and Not Reading The Instructions Properly. Not that its a bad set or owt, this is a great set. The minis are fantastic and for GW it’s a decent price (interjection: have you seen Rogue Hobbies’ video on Gundam? I am not a GW hater but goddam when the relative prices of plastic sprues are compared it makes me piss blood. I cheered myself up by reminding me that I recommended that my father-in-law buy GW shares, and he is well pleased with the return and regularly praises my stock tipping skills so what comes around goes around and all that). No, not that at all, but because I don’t especially collect Horus Heresy minis and already have a massive pile of shame dreams. In point of fact, I actually thought that a) this was a game in itself, like Betrayal At Calth; and b) that this would be a limited edition boxset like Betrayal etc. Whoops!

When I did Betrayal At Calth I decided, foolishly in hindsight, to paint the marines as Imperial Fists vs Death Guard. This was because Imperial Fists are great and Ultramarines are dull, and Death Guard are super interesting and never get any love. Since then of course Death Guard have become their own Thing and I have loads of them and they’re a bit boring (in an entertainingly squishy sort of way). It was clear that Sons of Horus vs Imperial Fists was fun, but I’ve already painted a load of 30K Fists, did I want to do more? Well, I will worry about that later, I’ve never painted any Sons of Horus and considering I’ve got some Lupercal Green and Sons Of Horus Green sitting here crying out for use, let’s start there.

What can I say about these? I really enjoyed painting them and I think they came out well. I am very pleased with the Spartan because tanks are so hard to paint well if you’re a hamfisted spanner like me. The marines look good. I think I should have added some battle damage and dust to the marines, but its not a problem really. I am also pleased with the freehand Sons logos. All in all, a success.

Hunea’s Reavers, a Warhounds warband

10 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Chaos

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This is the second of the three pieces I’ve finished since March, an experiment that failed. Having painted a Night Lord next up on my journey through the Chaos Legions was World Eaters. Now the World Eaters started out as the Warhounds, and were blue-grey and white. When Angron took over he called them the World Eaters and reversed their colours. When Khorne took him over their colours gradully migrated to the red and brass we know today. So I thought that I’d paint a squad of each!

Hunea’s squad were based a long way from the rest of the Warhounds on garrison duty in a distant stronghold, with irregular updates by astropath. They followed at a distance the change from Warhounds to World Eaters, the butcher’s nails, the rebellion. They were able to hear the Legion break down into madness and bloodlust but not be part of it. Finally there were no more astropathic transmissions, the galaxy was at war, and the squad had to decide which side they were on. They decided that no-one cared for them so they cared for no-one, and started to carve out a petty empire for themselves on the edges of known space. After the heresy came the Scouring, and Hunea and his gang fled in the face of overwhelming Imperial retribution. They tried to use a warp storm to hide in and wound up in the Maelstrom where they made a base which they used to raid the Imperium and in which they gradually succumbed to the lure of chaos. They act as sell-swords and security detail for lesser chaos warlords in the Maelstrom, and are mostly trying to avoid notice by bigger fish like Huron Blackheart!

I didn’t enjoy painting Hunea’s squad that much, it felt like I was fighting the minis’ natural ‘feel’; a colour scheme that works for the clean lines of loyalists doesn’t work very well for the complex lines of chaos marines. It felt like I was forcing the paintjob. One of the plastic marines was one from a parts lot that had been stripped but was very badly built. I should have just chucked it in the bitz box and used a different marine instead of trying to repair and reuse it, it looks crap! But you live and learn, innit.

30K Imperial Fists

14 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Betrayal At Calth, Finished Work, Imperial Fists

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If I had my time again I would have decided to paint the Betrayal At Calth miniatures in the ‘correct’ Legion colourschemes.  There are a number of reasons for this.

  1. Historical exactness.  ‘Historical’ ‘exactness’.
  2. I have become more interested in the history and motivations of Lorgar and the Word Bearers since reading about them in one of the big expensive Horus Heresy rulebooks.
  3. The Ultramarines aren’t really as loathsome as all that, just a bit over-done.
  4. Imperial Fists and Death Guard might eventually get their own games and then what will I do?  I should have been more patient.
  5. Imperial Fists and Death Guard are really hard to paint and I’m just not good enough at painting to have done anything better than an ok job.

Still, I have one plastic Captain left to paint and then Betrayal At Calth will be complete.  If only I can remember what I did with him…

 

HHFists

Don;t look too closely at the Legion icon…

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matey-boy on the left is supposed to look like he is reaching for his pistol….

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the chap on the left here has had his left pauldron replaced. it was supposed to look like a field replacement, but it just looks crap.

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i don’t think that crests suit the Fists particularly.

Sisters of Silence and Geigor Fellhand

21 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in Burning Of Prospero

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Working my way through the Burning of Prospero miniatures, amongst all the other things!  The Sisters were fun to paint, and in general satisfied my feminist inclinations.  That is: they’re dressed, and fairly realistic in proportion.  It’s nice to have some women in WH40K.  Now we need some female Imperial Guard, and a rebooted Sisters of Battle, perhaps some female Scitarii and Chaos Cultists, that sort of thing.  Miniatures that are just women, that woman-ness is not one of their personality traits, if that makes sense.  I think that the photos don’t look as good as the minis themselves.  My paintjob isn’t great, but they look pretty good on the shelves but not so great in the pics.

Geigor is the first Space Wolf I’ve painted since the early 90s.  I followed the Warhammer TV method for painting Space Wolves, which was very close to the method I use to paint my Steel Guard.  Whilst that made it easier, it wasn’t much of a leap in style or technique, and I think I would have liked a try at the baby-blue early 90s Space Wolves.  That’s one for another day!

For Dorn! 30K Imperial Fists

29 Sunday May 2016

Posted by in Betrayal At Calth, Finished Work, Imperial Fists, Space Marines

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By golly, yellow is difficult.  This was a squad that I really came to hate.  I never felt like I was getting closer to getting it right.  In the end I gave up and hurried my way through, just being thankful that I was a squad closer to finishing painting my Betrayal At Calth minis and that was that.

This was also the first time I’ve used transfers.  That was a lesson too.

 

Newhammer Warning: 30K Death Guard

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Betrayal At Calth, Chaos, Finished Work, Space Marines

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I was given Betrayal At Calth for Christmas.  I can’t tell you yet if its any good as a game, but the miniatures are lovely. Whilst they lack the charm and crazy genius of the late 80s Citadel output, these really are beautiful models.   Deciding against painting the contents as Ultramarines vs Word Bearers (as Ultramarines are yuk, and Word Bearers similarly uninspiring), I had to consider other options.  The baddies were an easy choice really – I’ve already got an Alpha Legion army and have given up ever getting a painting technique I am pleased with for those snakey scamps.  I do want to paint a Night Lords warband – in fact, I want to make the warband from the Night Lords series of novels by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.  I was tempted to use these as a place to start, but I want to use these as game pieces in Betrayal At Calth eventually, not chop them up into individuals.  So Death Guard it was.  Nurgle is my homeboy.

 

The paintjob was loosely based on the Forge Word painting instructions for Death Guard, along with some making-it-up-as-I-went-along.  It’s pretty hit or miss to be honest.  I’ll be changing the recipe slightly for the next Death Guard squad.  Still,  I am happy with this first attempt.