Breacher Squad: build started

Time for hobby has been reduced of late, but I've managed to start getting a Breacher Squad together for the Shattered Legions build that I have going. 

This will be the troops entry for the Iron Hands faction of the Legions forces. I've always liked the idea of a breacher squad, but their points cost and utility has always lagged behind the efficiency of a plain tactical squad (or even a support squad) with the exception of certain legions who it suits more. Iron Hands with their modifier to incoming firepower seems to fit nicely for that, even if it is a bit cliched due to the existence of Immortals. 

For this build, I am leaving the arms and shoulder pads un-glued. I will paint them in distinct modules and then glue the arms on as the final step. The simple reason for this is to make sure that I can easily paint behind the shields of the breacher squad. Looking forward to getting more of this squad done and painted up now!

 

Greater Possessed

On my "to buy" list for a while was the Greater Possessed model that came out quite a while ago now. I really liked the sculpt and wondered whether it would be of comparable size and detail level as the Val Gorbak from 30k Word Bearers legion.

Overall, I like the sculpt and the size of the miniature is indeed rather comparable to the Val Gorbak resin models. However, the sculpt is done in a different way and the detail is simply different to what is found on the Forge World models. I don't think this matters at all for the table top, and they would fit right in with the Word Bearers legion for any 30k game.

For my model, I wanted some red Word Bearers colours on the armour, and to have blue "flesh" coloured bits at the extremities. The images show what I came up with.

They have come out reasonably well overall, and I'm pleased with the contrast of the blues and reds -- particularly against the resin base. I think this would be a fine addition to 30k Val Gorbak squads, and I might just use it as such. 

The End of the Road (To Thramas)

It is the end of the road -- to Thramas. 

The Games Workshop Community today declared that the new book for the Horus Heresy -- Book 9 -- will be released in September along with the new model for the Lion. I'm personally very much looking forward to this release and thought I'd jot some thoughts down before they elude me.

First up is the page count of the new black book. At just over two hundred pages, it looks like being a smaller volume. I was optimistic that it might include some dark mecanicum force details, but from the contents page, pictured above, this seems to not be the case. Perhaps that will be ported across to volume 10. Equally, we are going to have to see some movement towards Holy Terra shortly for the final battles. I hope that Forge World have started to plan ahead for that and are actively considering what to do for those battles soon. At least, that is my hope as I am starting to feel that with the Dark Angels detailed, and the repetition of the Night Lords here that the series is starting to feel like it is drawing to a close. And those closure has to be the battle for Terra. If by some miracle Forge World reads my articles, I want this to be the case! Pretty please? 

In terms of what I'm excited about, clearly the rules for the First Legion is right up there at the top of my list. There are also a bunch of new units that look and sounds very exciting including the Iron Wing battle automata -- will we be seeing some "illegal" robots here perchance? The Night Lords repetition reminds me of the Word Bearers when then faced the Ultramarines in one of the earlier volumes. Sort of welcome, but not really advancing the field too much. 

The Thramas campaign looks enticing too. I'm wondering how narrative it will be in nature, at least in comparison to what we already have seen in the series. I hope it adds something new rather than being too generic. I guess I'll return to this point eventually.

The only question for me realistically is what the price tag will be. I hope it will not creep up too much for a lower page count volume.