Omnissiah's Skunkworks

Well, we survived 2024 it appears. Although I have managed to pick up a bit of a temperature after the New Year festivities. I'll take that as nothing more than a small blessing from Nurgle. Firstly Happy New Year to the handful of you that follow my erratic painting exploits. I hope you managed to get some hobby, or even better gaming in over the festive break? I'm kicking off the next solar orbit with some loyalist Auxilia. This lot have been on and off the painting station more times than I care to admit over December. I just could not settle on a palette and theme I liked. The original plan was I was going to do them as traitor auxilia to ally with the Emperor's Children and legios Mortis and Fureans. I tested out a gold and purple scheme that worked ok with the Emperor's Children. It was a bit fiddly, but worked ok. Thing is I just wasn't feeling it. Then the Mechanicum and Dark Mechanicum units were revealed, at which point I pivoted. Dark Mechanicum will make...

This week, I have been thinking about the Solar Auxilia. Colours, themes and what list to build. Ironically, coming up with a scheme I like for the Solar Auxilia has been really challenging for me. I really like the Cthonia Headhunters and Lord Marshal's Own schemes, but they are pretty much done to death. So I have been heading down a different road, something that will thematically compliment the Emperor's Children colour wise. That means pairs with, or incorporates purple. As horrifying as that may sound. I like the idea. Hear me out. Up to now, my foray into Legions Imperialis has followed the events of the Siege of Terra. More accurately the 'loyalists' side of the conflict. I've painted Blood Angels, Imperial Fists and more recently White Scars. All forces I'm really happy with and they give me a great base to create lists for games from. I chose the Emperor's Children to be my traitor legion for two reasons; firstly they were on Terra, so it fits the ...

The Solar Auxilia Marauder Bombers are epic scale ordinance delivery specialists. I've included both patterns in my forces. I currently have two flights painted, one in the Voss pattern scheme I also used on the Thunderbolts, the other a 'Destroyer' pattern Marauder painted to match the Lightnings and other Thunderbolt flight. I have not fixed the flight bases permanently, so as they become available for inclusion in the Solar Auxilia forces in Legions Imperialis I can swap them out. At the time of writing that isn't certain as neither the Marauder or Avenger class aircraft feature in the Solar Auxilia lists for the Horus Heresy: Liber Imperialis book for Age of Darkness armies. But regardless I love the miniatures, so when they were released for Aeronautica Imperialis I snapped up a couple of boxes. It also helps they came in the star set. The Destroyers tail gun rotates by design, a neat feature of the design, but I additionally magnetised the top turret on all the Ma...

Lightnings are one of the aircraft types that featured during the time of the Horus Heresy and are included in the book: Liber Imperium. This lends me to believe they should also be part of epics return in Legions Imperialis. Either way I painted a wing of the fast strike fighters to match my Thunderbolts as part of the same squadron in the green with red wing accents. I will most likely add some more Lightnings in the future in Legion colours, should the rules include them. That being said, with the Astartes having access to the Xiphon there is probably no need. If I do, rest assured I will add them to the blog. 

Just added to the gallery pages are a veritable air-raid of epic scale Solar Auxilia aircraft I'm hoping to use in Legions Imperialis. There's no denying my epic-gene is fully re-activated and I've been clearing entire shelves in the cabinets ready for working on the latest incarnation of the game when Horus Heresy Legions Imperialis comes out in August this year. None of these are new miniatures as all were painted for Aeronautica Imperialis. However as you can probably tell from the squadron schemes I always had one eye on using them in the Horus Heresy. Rather than work on some of my legacy collection over the coming weeks, I felt it would be better to focus on units I know, or are confident will be immediately transferrable into the game. Obvious candidates are any of my existing Titanicus and non-xenos Aeronautica Imperialis models. I am currently working on flights of White Scars and Imperial Fists aircraft, which will form part of a 'Siege of Terra' themed ca...