Dark Vengeance Chosen

After the Hellbrute, the Chosen models are my favorite of the Dark Vengeance chaos models. I especially like how the unit leader's third eye fits with the mystical theme of the Thousand Sons.

The detailing was especially tricky, but I like how the gold brings that out in the models. These were some of the first models I began painting with the new GW's gold metallics.

In the end I'm happy with the results, though i am not so sure how viable the unit is in game.

Dark Vengeance Chaos Cultists

Probably my least favorite part of the Dark Vengeance boxed set was the chaos cultists. While I do like the heavy weapon models, I'm not particularly found of the unit leader models. Regardless, I ended up painting the cloth dark blue and much of the metallics were painted gold to reflect their Tzeentchian character and match the 1000 Sons army.

Chaos Space Marine Codex

With the release of the Forge World Horus Heresy book series, my copy of the Chaos Space Marines codex got shelved. In fairness, I'm still making my way through some of the fluff areas, but on the whole I am a fan of the new additions to the list. The Helldrake in particular is on my list of additions for the 1000 Sons. The fluff areas are decent, but the studio bias towards Khorne and Nurgle is pretty evident with a lack of an Tzeentchian traitor space marine chapters. On the whole, a good offering, but ultimately eclipsed by Forge World.

Horus Heresy Book One: Betrayal

I am guessing that books ship from Great Britain faster than resin models, as I had to wait barely a week for my copy of Horus Heresy book One: Betrayal to arrive. For book lovers, this is a well crafted piece, with silver gilt on the edges, and a stamped silver eagles at the corner. There is also a red bookmark of cloth as well. As befits a work like this, the background information is a lot more condensed than the actual Black Library novels, but it purports to be drawn from extant sources a mere hundred years or so after the Heresy is over. Thus making it more apocryphal than the BL novels which are more immediate, first hand narrations. As for the army lists, there is a lot to digest, my initial impression is that the economy of the Thirty First millennium is a lot stronger than this one, as marine squad are much more specialized, as a basic tactical squad either has bolters or bolt pistol and close combat weapon and can be between ten and twenty men. Now some items overlap, drop pods for instance are the exact same mark as currently used. However, that being said, there are so many elements of a space marine legion that I am coveting, I'm glad they haven't been released yet. In summation, what GW fandom has been clamoring is here, Horus Heresy era models complete with Primarchs, careful what you wish for right?

Dark vengeance Chaos Lord

The Dark Vengeance starter kit, much like the most recent Deamons wave of releases, has allowed me to breathe new interest, and life, into my Thousand Sons army. Being able to add 20 cultists, 6 Chosen and hellbrute and a Chaos Lord to a force that had one squad of Thousand Sons, a Sorcerer in Terminator armor and a Deamon Prince (who could also double in the Tzeentch themed Deamon army) was pretty meager. Enough to field the army under 5th with generic deamons and under 6th with Deamons as the main force and Chaos Space Marines as the allies. but not the ultimate vision I have for this army.

With the Dark vengeance Chaos Lord, I plan to have the terminator armored sorcerer become part of a squad of Thousand Sons terminators. Whether this is possible at the time \of me writing this blog post is unknown, as the Chaos codex won't be released for another four days. But that is my hope, otherwise I just have two HQ choices.

I stuck to the same color palette as the Hellbrute, and was quite pleased with the results. One other item I would like to remark on is how all of my models since the new GW paint line came have been based with Stirland Mud. I actually just had to replace the pot because I ran out. While I know anyone can mix paint and sand and achieve this, I love the convenience of it. I do have some Mourn Mountain Snow as well, and hopefully will be using it on my 30k army when I decide on it.

Treacheries of the Space Marines

Having recently finished Treacheries of the Space Marines, I can honestly say this collection of short stories was rough going. It should be no surprise that with the new Chaos codex out, this anthology is all about Chaos and Chaos Space Marines. ADB fans will be happy to know that the his Night Lords audio drama is formatted into print in this anthology. Fans of Anthony Reynolds' Marduk character will also be pleased to know that there is a short story featuring him in this anthology as well. Despite those two bright points I found the stories slow going, uninteresting and generally blah. The above two mentions might make it worth picking up, but otherwise not so much in my opinion.

Thousand Sons Hellbrute

The first model I wanted to build from Dark Vengeance was the Hellbrute. All of the models in the set are so great, but they don't have the impact that the Hellbrute does. Normally, I would save the best model for last, but in this case, i actually put the most boring at the bottom of the list.

All of the Chaos models have a bit of an intimidation factor with them. They are all highly detailed, and the meld of organic and machine makes things a bit harder to decide how those organic areas are done. In the end, I decided that, rather than be fleshy areas, they would be extensions of the models armor.

The two main adjustments I made to the Thousand Sons color scheme were the additions of Naggoroth Night as the base coat and Gehenna's Gold replacing old GW Shining Gold.

Second Chapterhouse Jetbike

The second jetbike from Chapterhouse is now finished. I've been doing these one at a time, and will add one more and the attack bike variant as well. This one came together fairly easy, however I had a bit of trouble with one of the hands holding the handle bars. It broke during assembly, but was glued back in place with no problem.

This jetbike model is the squad meltagunner. I posed the marine holding it in a cradled position to add some motion to the model. This time I used the Chapterhouse base rather than the a GW flying base, though they don't fit quite as well.

For the painting of the model, I stuck with the same colors I have been using from the new GW paint range. The only difference is that I have replaced the old GW Boltgun metal with the new Leadbelcher.

Eldar Rangers

For my Altansar allies, I was torn between Dire Avengers and Rangers for the troop choice. Both are good units, and I might end up getting the Dire Avengers down the road, but I wanted to have at least one unit besides the HQ in the force that was representative of the craftworld.

I painted the red with layers of Khorne Red, Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet. The Coats were done with a layer of Dark Angels Green and a Highlight of Warpstone Green. The yellow is done with Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow and Flash Gitz Yellow.

Rangers have always been my favorite Eldar unit, at one time I had an Alaitoc army even. So I'm glad I was able to include them in the allies force. Next up for the Eldar, comes the Swooping Hawks. But first, get ready for some Dark vengeance!