My fourth legion is the First Legion

Heresy is back in the room. I mean, technically it never left as that's all I really paint and play these days. I refer of course to 'Age of Darkness' scale, as opposed to Legions Imperialis or Titanicus. Both of which I spent much of last year painting. These will of course continue, I have so many epic scale projects I still have to do, not least the classic Metallica and House Krast forces "re-visited" I began at the start of the year. As I write this two banners of Knight Questoris and Lancers are near completion which I will be happy to show soon, along with one or several Dark Mechanicum constructs. Don't want to leave the traitors ill-equipped. 

The sudden pivot back to bigly heresy is of course a result of the new edition and release box; Saturnine.

I am probably 50/50 on the new edition and miniatures overall. The highlights (for me) being the plastic MkII legionaries and previewed assault marines, MkIII Breachers and Fellblade kit. I'm not actually after a second Fellblade, I have a Forgeworld one painted for the Vlka Fenryka, but I have no doubts there will be a Glaive variant coming. You don't tool all that plastic and not do a frame for the other variant turret. I'd bet money on it.

The Saturnine Terminators I'm growing to like. Even though I'm sadly old enough to remember the original, I was never a fan of them and always thought the design a bit 'derpy'. That said, I do think the studio have done a great job re-imagining them for the new era. They are starting to grow on me.

What I am less enthused about, is the new edition of the Age of Darkness rules and in particular how the "upgrade" has meant all the current liber books becoming redundant day one. Three years feels a little on the short side personally, especially given the Solar and Mechanicum books have barely had a chance to stretch their legs. I can live with that 'if' the new edition is a great uplift on the Heresy game I know and love. But, it's a huge 'if'.

My first impressions are not great. Until the new edition is out they are only that and I'm hopeful the new advanced characteristics, status effects and weapon changes enhance the way the game plays. The other possibility is these additions will only serve to add bloat and slow the games cadence. I hope I am mistaken, but I have seen this happen many times before in other Warhammer games over the years. That's not a fate I want for the Horus Heresy. 

I remain hopeful however, and am looking forward to checking it out in full when the new edition gets released this summer.

The Saturnine Dreadnought?

Not a fan. Sorry. 

Ok, so enough waffle. I said at the start Saturnine has re-kindled my full-fat heresy interest. So much so I considered which legion I would paint the new MkII and Terminator kits for? After some thought, I've decided to use the new edition as an opportunity to begin a fourth legion, to go alongside the Ultramarines, Work Bearers and Vlka Fenryka. After considering a few candidates, plus the Imperial Fists, who I painted a few test units for (spoiler: I will be doing the Sons of Dorn at some stage in the future now I have a palette for yellow I like). In the end though, I settled on the first legion; Dark Angels.

Visiting Caliban

The First Legion has been a force I've yearned to paint in 30K for a very long time, but have never quite gotten beyond rough planning or ideation. They have an incredibly striking palette en-masse. Not as immediately impactful as the Blood Angels, Imperial Fists or Sons of Horus, being mostly black. But the heraldic elements reward closer inspection and that appeals to me. 

It's also a difficult army to add anything new to what has gone before by other painters. In that regards I don't feel under pressure to have to come up with a different take, or a new palette. I'm not going to come up with anything better than what's already been done. There are already so many incredible First Legion heresy armies out there. I can simply paint and enjoy building the army unit by unit until it is game ready. 

Sounds good to me, so no time start like the present. I have a backlog of kits so I can get a headstart before Saturnine is released. At least practice that tricky black palette.

Tanks

A couple of kits that have been sat on top of the display cabinet for a while now are the Proteus Land Raider and Deimos Rhino. Both I've made many times in resin, but believe it or not this will be the first time I have built the full plastic version.

   The weather is also nice, so out to the garden I go.

Interiors, of course

Even though it always adds to the time and effort, I cannot built either kit without painting the interior during assembly. Hey, I don't make the rules ok!

For efficiency, I get both the 'Explorator'  variant Land Raider and both Rhino's to a stage where I can quickly get the interior panels primed and painted. As these are for Dark Angels I go with a pale off-white scheme to contrast with the black armoured exterior. 

Palette

For those who want to know, The scheme is a black primer followed by Zandri Dust rattlecan. I airbrushed ivory over the panels and chipped using Vallejo 'Smoke'. Any warm reddish brown would do, like Rhinox Hide, but I wanted to experiment with the semi-transparency of the smoke when stippled on. Rather liked the slightly corroded appearance it produced. I also added a few areas of pale blue grey chipping as a lighter distress.

After picking out details in brass and steel, the interior was given a varnish wash to homogenise and once dry the the deck plates a wash of desert sand. Good enough for an interior that few will see but me. Still worth it though.

At this point I finished the rest of the assembly. A good tip is to use masking tape to hold parts in place while the plastic glue cures. The Rhino's go together really well, but there is little tolerance where the sides and hull top meet. That little strip of tape just helps ensure I get a nice clean edge join.

Once fully cured, I give the edges a polish with a sanding stick to remove any excess glue and I've got three more tanks ready for priming.

Infantry

Not all tanks. Now I have the batch-build motivation in full flow, I dug out a mix of Mark III kits to make a start on the mandatory tactical blob. I've built 18 for now, that's deliberate. Until Saturnine and the new Liber Astartes is out I don't know what (if any) changes have been made to force selection and loadouts. I'm assuming not much for the tactical troop choices, but wanted to leave a couple of open positions in case there are any special equipment or weapon shenanigans.

I've also purposely mixed some of the parts between the older and newer Mark III kits; helmets, pauldrons, kit etc, to help make each legionary somewhat unique. They are not clones and physical builds 'do' vary. I do think sometimes there's too much store put on having all identical sized Astartes and armour. I find this strange given there are so many instances in the heresy novels that portray the characters as varying in physical stature. 

I know there are forty Mark II kits in Saturnine, so with the Mark III I have just built, and a handful of Mark IV I plan to use for some 'edge' units, the bulk of my dark Angels will consist of crusade and void-hardened pattern armour. I feel this compliments their crusading 'knight' background.

Bases

As I'm on a roll, and I know I will need more anyway. I use the time to drill and add magnets to another twenty or so bases. It's not the most fun of jobs, but at least it's done and when the new box drops I can start basing up some of those lovely MkII legionaries straight away.  

Here they are proudly stuck to my metal lunch box (spoiler: it's actually my current toolbox).

With that done, plan for next week is to get that lot primed and ready for painting. Then I can start chipping away at the first batch of what I hope will be my largest heresy force to date. A big ask given the Word Bearers tapped out at over 3.5k points in the end and are still growing! I guess I better start reacquainting myself with the legions background and history once again. Until next time.