Horus Heresy Book 9: Crusade. Some Initial Impressions

I have my copy of Horus Heresy Book 9: Crusade safely delivered! Happy Days!

In the weeks ahead, I will be undertaking the regular reviews of the units and rules contained inside this book as I have done so for the past 8 books. This will add to the growing, and possibly the most complete and comprehensive set of reviews available on the blogosphere for this series. Stay tuned for that.

My initial impressions of the book are positive. To be clear, Alan Bligh didn't write this, and whilst I'm drawn to make comparisons to the ones that he did scribe, this one stands up better than some others. The writing is excellent.

The Night Lords are, of course, repeated from earlier entries in this series, but have additions, much in the same way that the Word Bearers were added to when they faced off against the Ultramarines earlier in the series. But this book adds to their tales, not only in terms of units, but also background. 

The stars of the show are the Dark Angels, naturally. I haven't yet wrapped my mind around their rules, but I will do so soon -- they look suitably complex and complete from my early skim reads. The background contains some tasty treats such as the Rangdan Xenocides, but some readers will find the detail that is there paltry and incomplete though. I do like the sound of their actions in the early Thramas crusade though -- they pop back in to play at the Triplex, and unleash dread Silica Anima. Gulp.

I'd be happy to address any early questions if folks have any -- jot a comment or send me a message. I won't be reproducing the book or violating copyright though. Caveat Emptor. 

Iron Hands Legion Breacher 1/5

Whilst I await delivery of Book 9: Crusade, I've finished up my painting and gluing together of the first of my Shattered Legions Breacher squad. This is an Iron Hands marine in full Breacher armour, and (unusually) featuring a flamer. 

I will be the first to admit that the graviton gun would be a stronger choice for a Breacher squad as it is one of the only squad choices that can reliably have access to such arcane technology.

There are a few reasons for selecting the flamer though. The narrative reason is that this squad is an Isstvan 5 survivor group, and they're using whatever they could scavenge from the battlefield. That, and they might, afterall, be under the temporary command of a Salamanders survivor. The second is that I wanted an anvil style unit that would simply sit on an objective and give pause for thought for any enemy wanting to capture it. The flamer does that very nicely. Then, for Zone Mortalis, I just like the idea of lighting up corridors with flames, rather than crumpling them with graviton weaponry and endangering the structural integrity of the hulk.

The painting here has been accomplished using my matt black formulation of Eshin Grey base layer followed by Nuln Oil and Black washes, Dawn Stone highlighting and lead belcher for the metallic parts greased up with yet more Nuln Oil. I intend to add a touch more final details here and there, but otherwise this one is done. 

The base and weathering is accomplished with my airbrush using two tones of earthy colours combined with some subtle darker lowlighting and smatterings of mud around the feet, shield, and legs. This is a marine that has been in the thick of it, got some damage, picked himself back up, re-armed himself, and carried on. 

Breacher Painting

Finally finished off the first example of a Breacher Squad marine for 30k from the Iron Hands legion. The marine, and his fellows, are to represent a Shattered Legions force from Isstvan 5 that are being hunted down by the traitor legions. As such, the marine is meant to be in a bit of a state of desperation, and as such I will be adding further battle damage detailing to the armour in due course. 

The base coat here was done in Eshin Grey and washed with Nuln Oil and a relatively watery black wash to give a matt black appearance over the wider areas of plate on the model. This was followed up with Dawn stone to highlight the black areas, and an application of lead belcher as the accent colour. The lead belcher was washed with Nuln oil as well and highlighted subtly in selected areas. The pouches were done using Guilliman flesh. 

Overall, it gives the marine the matt black (or off black) colour that I was after which readily distinguishes them from the Raven Guard component of the Shattered Legions whose black is much shinier. I will be painting the arms as distinct modules, and then gluing them all together for the final step. I also intend to airbrush the base with weathered brown colours similar to way I did with the Salamanders and Raven Guard to complete the look. 

Breacher squad assembled and basecoated

As per the title, the Breacher Squad for 30k is now fully assembled (sub-parts not withstanding), with a black undercoat and Eshin Grey basecoat.

The grey is a bit of a different approach to painting black that I'm trying out. Rather than have a glossy black finish that might be seen on Raven Guard, I wanted something a bit more matt, grime laden, and muted for the Iron Hands. Following this layer, I'm going to apply Nuln oil washes, with some additional black washes for the deep recesses, and build up some highlighting in progressively lighter grey colours. This is just one of the first step -- more on this later!

Pre-orders for Book 9: Crusade, and The Lion

I'm sure it is common knowledge that the Forge World pre-orders are available as of right now for the Horus Heresy Book 9: Crusade, and the new miniature for The Lion. 

Like many other people, I was hitting refresh fairly constantly close to 10:00am BST this morning to get in with the pre-orders. I'm delighted to have secured a copy of the Crusade book that will be shipping in a week's time. Hopefully I will have my hands on it the week after next.

For the Lion, I decided against ordering the miniature. Although I have long since had a soft spot for the First Legion and their story, I simply don't have the urge to purchase this one just yet. Maybe in future years I will collect the Primarchs all together, but for now, I'll pass. I did want to briefly comment on the prices of the Primarchs though, as there has been strong price increases for some of them -- including the Lion -- at least in comparison to each other. Here's a run down of the costs as of the time of writing.

GBP 63: Vulkan, Angron, Kurze, Lorgar, Fulgrim, Mortarion, Ferrus Manus

GBP 68: Horus, Guilliman 

GBP 74: Russ, Corax, Perturabo

GBP 79: Alpharius, Dorn

GBP 84: The Lion, Sanguinius, Magnus

[Not yet available: The Khan].

From this list, I think the following are over-priced: Alpharius, Dorn, The Lion. I also think the following are under-priced: Horus, Kurze. This is simply a reflection of the amount of resin coupled with the pose. I acknowledge that Sanguinius for instance is a huge miniature with the wings and all, Magnus has things flying everywhere around him. Whilst the Lion has a hugely detailed base and looks truly amazing, I think his price point should have been somewhere nearer Alpharius, but I do acknowledge the height of his base which adds to the extra resin required compared to Alpharius, so maybe not too bad, plus the options for the head and blade, but equally Alpharius should be about the same level as Russ maybe. Then again, Horus is placed on those crumbling stairs, but on the flip side lacks the bodies at his feet seen with Alpharius and The Lion. I really think Horus is under-priced still for the quality. So interesting price points here for the Primarchs at present. It is tempting to grab miniatures like Horus before the price goes up. Maybe I'll do that later in the year.

In the mean time, I look forward to reviewing the ninth book in the series: Crusade. You can expect the same treatment that I've given to all the other legions to be repeated for the Dark Angels and this will be incoming later in the month -- look out for it! 

From one of the biggest HH fans on the blogosphere :)

Test Shield for Breachers

I wanted to conduct a brief painting test using a new formulation that I've had in my mind for a rather long time for black. The subject material was a breacher shield for my Iron Hands shattered legion squad.

The formula that I'm using here explicitly avoids using pure black except for the base coat. Instead, I opt to use Eshin Grey as the base coat and follow this up by two washes: one with Nuln oil, and a second with watered down brown/black to generate a grimy feeling. 

As for the silvers, this is a straight forward application of lead belcher, followed by Nuln oil and some highlighting with Rune fang. 

Overall, I'm happy with the outcome here. The "black" is the desired matt colour that I was after in the first place, and it certainly offsets the Iron Hands grime black from the more obviously black and arguably glossy finish that I've opted for with my Raven Guard contingent of the Shattered Legions. I will be painting up the rest of the Iron Hands using this formulation. More on this in the coming days and weeks ahead.