Horus Heresy - Hope's Folly

Hey everyone, John GG and King Fluff here with a little insight into the forces we intend to take to the Hopes Folly event at Boards & Swords in Derby hosted by Harry & Callum of Tabletop Banter.



The premise of the event is for forces to consist mainly of infantry with a light covering of vehicle types. The last event in the series was lots of fun and we are both really looking forward to rolling dice (on both sides of the betrayal line) 

KF - It's been a while since I played in an event weekend, having been busy running lots over the last year. I'm looking forward to standing on the other side of the table for a day. I tend to use events as a motivator for getting chunks of outstanding hobby done in order to chip away at my to do pile. For this event I chose to field the Night Lords legion, an army I've had on the back burner for a while due to both being seduced by the quickness of painting Custodes but also by the fact that the intended RoW I'd bought the army to fulfil really isn't that viable on the table. Due to the event restrictions I did have some painting to complete as units I had prepped weren't suitable. In the end I reached a compromise, I would paint some stuff up and I would ally in more troops choices from my Mechanicum army. To this end I added a Xiphon, Terror Squad, a Dreadnought Drop Pod and three Drop Pods to my painting schedule.

Firstly I had no idea just how long it takes to build an paint drop pods, they are a total time vampire and really sucked at my motivation. I had scheduled painting time over the Easter and May Day breaks to get stuff done but alas family commitments sapped all of my time and I was left with a mountain to climb.

At this point with the event looming tomorrow, I've had to compromise on the pods and I've left them at three colours, this will be rectified and they will be finished as soon as possible so that the army is a playable option for other events or occasions.

Here's the list I'm taking, I tried to balance mobility, punch and legality as much as possible:

Night Lords Legion - Terror Assault - Primary Detachment

Praetor: Rite of War (Terror Assault); volkite serpenta; Paragon blade; melta bombs; digital lasers; iron halo; Trophies of Judgement

Praevian: lightning claw; bolter; melta bombs; refractor field

• 2 Castellax Class Battle-automata: Furious Charge

5 Terror Squad Executioners: Headsman (artificer armour; lightning claw; melta bombs); 4 Terror Squad Executioners; heavy chainblade; 2 × volkite charger; rotor cannon

• Drop Pod

5 Terror Squad Executioners: Headsman (artificer armour; power fist; melta bombs); 4 Terror Squad Executioners; heavy chainblade; 3 × volkite charger

• Drop Pod

5 Terror Squad Executioners: Headsman (artificer armour; power weapon; melta bombs); 4 Terror Squad Executioners; heavy chainblade; 4 × volkite charger

• Drop Pod

Xiphon Pattern Interceptor: ground-tracking auguries; chaff launcher; armoured cockpit

Leviathan Pattern Siege Dreadnought: grav-flux bombard; 2 × torso-mounted twin-linked volkite caliver; armoured ceramite; phosphex discharger

• Dreadnought Drop Pod

Mechanicum - Allied Detachment

Archmagos Prime: Paragon blade; Cyber-familiar; Abeyant

6 Thallax

2,247 points


And here's army shots of the units in the state of completeness prior to a late night of finishing touches.










GG - GG is all set for Hope's Folly after frantically painting (as always) after I realised I hadn't finished one of my characters!

Suitably impressed myself with my Khadron Acquisitor after I chose to dabble in a new paint technique. Sponging on rust.  The Acquisitor is a funny vehicle shrouded in as much mystery as well, as shrouding itself!

I wanted the hull to be dark and brooding but the doors to remain more corporeal.  as it the vehicle was coming out of darkness into existence only to disgorge its deadly cargo.

After priming with a coat of Chaos Black I mixed up some dark metalics with a dark blue-grey.  The resulting airbrushed base coat gave me a solid base on which to shade down and highlight up.

Firstly the obligatory Nuln oil was into the recesses but I also washed a coat over all the rivet holes (or what ever those holes are) I wanted those regions to be a shade darker than the plates.

Now the sponging.. a select few paints were used sparingly each ranging from dull matt rust colours to bright shiny brass.  This was applied to the edges of the doors.  over the top of that ever more sparingly was sponged on some flecks of silver Basically this was the chipping stage.

I washed random areas with sepia and rust wash as I wanted the effect of time to appear in the rust.  not all rust is bright orange after all!

I then sponged the rust and sepia over all the metal plates in random areas. The idea behind this was to try to imply the rust bubbling underneather the metals plates themselves.  the way I saw it, the contamination from withing the vehicles capture pods housing those unbound psykers was taking its toll on the very reality of the vehicle itself.






You'll see this bad boy in action tomorrow!

If you're at the event tomorrow hopefully we'll be able to chat - if not we hope to bring you a run down of our fortunes after the dust of the weekend has settled.

John GG & KF

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