Dreadtober 2026: Iron Hands Saturnine Dreadnought - The End Is In Sight!

Appreciable progress this week with getting the Saturnine Dreadnought close to completion. And as can be seen, the legion of choice here is the Iron Hands!

The Eshin Grey base coat has been slapped with layers of Nuln Oil and a black wash to give the dreadnought the legion's characteristc look. I have gone around the edges of the larger plates with an equally large highlight brush of eshin grey once more. This is intentionally not meant to be perfect. The idea is to illustrate age and irregularities on the armour that have built up over time. The decals, of course, give the entire game away about which legion this is. I did consider for a long time having stripes of white across the shoulders, but in the end decided that the white decals themselves were prefectly sufficient here. 

I have also applied white in to the recesses of the plasma. These will be better made into a feature in the final step. Indeed, my brave and probably a bit stupid plan is to have the plasma light up parts of the black armour in an irregular fashion to highlight the left hand side of the model where the light would catch it. I am also planning on trying out some large scale battle damage through painting and some wear and tear in general, but the black colours of the Iron Hands makes this tough to stand out - I will give it some thought this weekend. I might also apply some white to the helmet to help it pop and stand out a bit. Perhaps the eyebrow ridge. Not made my mind up. 

Once done, I will combine it with the base from earlier on. I am planning on adding a couple of small green shrubs to the base, but otherwise will keep it minimal.

In short then: the end is in sight! I am very confident of meeting the deadline on this and having the dreadnought to a good tabletop standard next week, even with the risks I am planning on taking around the plasma highlighting and lighting that I am putting in scope!

Horus Heresy 3e Review: Tech-Priest

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5 stars, rounded up. The rules are solid. 

Background. 

Adepts of the Cult Mechanicus. These are the lower ranking priests of the orders and arcana. Their jobs are much more mundane than the magos or arch magos that they might ultimately serve. Perhaps one day they might even upgrade themselves sufficiently in rank and cybernetics to get there themselves. Until then, they herd the robots and the thralls, and otherwise labour away in the forges until war comes for them. 

Strengths.

With 5's in S and T, and 4's i nWS and BS, the humble tech priest is able to achieve a multitude of roles for the Mechanicum player. 

They have a bunch of special rules like feel no pain, comptroller, battle smith, and master of machines - all of which you might have guessed at. They also have firing protocols as well which means you can use two ranged weapons. This is easy to overlook but can potentially be exploited.

Otherwise their major strength is customisation. Take what you like from the Mechanicum wargear section. Stand outs include the cortex controller, cognis-signum, cyber familiar, servo arm, and nuncio vox (although rad grenades are very tempting too). They can have one item from the Rites list hence they gain access to some of the old tech magics. Overcharged reactors will probably remain a favourite. One pistol can be taken (bolt, volkite, or plasma are all fine here in my opinion) and one ranged weapon (again, all are nicely viable). One melee weapon can be taken as well and here the thunder hammer or power fist both look like reasonable options, but a power weapon is also nice.  

Weaknesses.

I=3 and 2 wounds with only a 3+ save (6+ invulnerable). They might not last long. But at least they are cheap enough to field a lot of! And in third edition, I think having several of them as troops is a really good prospect for a player. 

Builds.

Tech Priest, Thunder Hammer, Cortex Controller, Rad Grenades, Overcharged Reactors (80 points). 

An arcana-agnostic close combat variant with a cortex controller to plug and play with! This also illustrated the issue with the Tech Priest: the points cost can rapidly add up, so you will be thinking about stripping back the points (potentially the rad grenades?) in oder to make them more points efficient.

Tech Priest, Plasma Pistol, Melta Gun (55 points). 

Mid ranged with no further upgrades is still enough to cause a headache when embedded in a larger squad. 

Of course, building with specific arcana in mind is also certainly encouraged!

Horus Heresy 3e Review: Ursarax Cohort

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5 stars, narrowly rounded down. The rules are reasonable. 

Background. 

Thralls, rather than servitors, these beings are purposed as a close combat unit in service of the magos. Formed from human remains of selected people, they retain just enough ability to make good tactical decisions, but need regular grim-dark neural anesthetics to cope which they periodically get. Grim. 

Strengths.

The stat line is mostly 4's with T=5 and 2 wounds. 

They come with a pair of Ursarax Claws with give A+3 and breaching. This is very reasonable overall. However, it is certainly tempting to get the Ursarax Fists for S+2 and a native AP=2 with 2 damage and the expense of I-2. A mixture of the two options might be even more attractive. 

The volkite incinerators are very close range S=5 shots which are nice, but you need to get there. Helping that is the movement rate of 10. And related further: deep strike is a native option too here which can be taken advantage of. 

The real stand out in the special rules is Vanguard (3) which argues strongly for a up front approach and risky plays. Do it! Also: don't forget the arcana boost!

Weaknesses.

I=3 is a mild issue, but offset if you take the power fists upgrade in which case you're going last regardless, so might as well.

Builds.

6 Ursarax, 2 Power Fists, 1 Alpha (160 points). 

Swift and broad ranged enough to takle most enemy infantry.

9 Ursarax, 9 Power Fists, 1 Alpha (235 points).

Cheap enough to take, and potent enough to do damage when positioned well. 

Horus Heresy 3e Review: Castellax Destructor Maniple

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars. The rules are great. 

Background. 

Thought of by some as a potential internal threat should Mars ever go against its agreement with the Emperor, the Castellax were a mainstay of both siege warfare and shock troops for the Mechanicum. This worry never arose thanks to the Heresy and they were never made in sufficient numbers ever again to pose an internal threat, but their potency was never much doubted thanks to the sheer aggression of the internal machine spirit.

Strengths.

With 6's in S and T coupled with 4 wounds and 3+/6++ these robots are going to be tough to dislodge - but not impossible. They have a stand out cool value of 12, but have the usual weaknesses elsewhere. Interestingly the WS and BS are 3's.

Customisation means you can optimise your unit for both ranged weaponry and close combat. The shock chargers are good as a baseline entry since they generate S=8 hits. The power blades upgrades give breaching and shred instead which might actually be more useful overall.

The mauler bolt cannon is useful on its own with S=6 hits and pinning. Upgrades here include the dark fire cannon which is always welcome with AP=2 and S=8 with suppressive despite the lower firing rate. The multi-melta pushes this further into anti-tank territory but is obviously shorter range. 

Weaknesses.

The WS and BS being 3 are mild issues. But the points cost remains attractive. At worst you can use them as distraction carnifexes. 

Builds.

6 Castellax (300 points).

Yes, no upgrades. Also yes: viable. 

3 Castellax, 3 dark fire cannons (195 points).

Long range options. 

3 Castellax, 3 Multi Meltas, 3 power blades, 3 flamers (225 points).

A close combat variation for taking out transports and dealing with the contents. Of course, mixing the builds up is also viable. 

Wargames Gallery: Purification

The Word Bearers close with flame units on the Iron Hands positions. Both praetors are weighing each other up. Meanwhile the planet itself looks like it is about to emerge against both sides in the conflict! Will the Word Bearers flames be enough to undertake a thorough purification of either?

Dreadtober 2026: Saturnine Basecoated and Metals

More progress has been made with the painting of the Saturnine Dreadnought!

The undercoat was done in black - as might be expected for many legions. The base coat here is Eshin Grey for the main parts. And therein is the biggest clue to which legion I am aiming for here. Guesses welcome and its probably obvious perhaps given my other painting. The edges are picked out in lead belcher silver, as have the joints with an irregular sponge approach. 

For the armaments, I have taken the sponging approach further. A base coat of lead belcher has been followed up by sponging irregular gold over the top of the colours to provide a worn effect overall. I quite like the outcome here. Although clearly it is metallic paint, it really does have the old and ancient vibe going on which is what I wanted. 

Next steps will be the inking and washing down with lots of dark colours and the perennially useful Nuln Oil. Stay tuned!