Red Hot

I've not played or thought about The Horus Heresy for a while, but my recent 40k distractions have made me look towards the last sprue of Marines that I had left from last year, which I had planned to convert into some Angels Tears (available from Forge World for the bargain price of a kidney and your first born child).

However, I've not been able to find some helmets that work for my idea and Pete painted up a VERY scary Land Raider Spartan, and so I went back to my original plan of putting together a Tactical Support Squad with meltaguns.

I've now got a definite system for painting Blood Angels, and so I really didn't need to think too much about putting these together. The only noticeable difference with this unit are the meltaguns. I've made the muzzles a copper/brass colour to make them more identifiable on the table top, and I've had a bit of a play with washes to try to imitate heat discolouration of the metal. I'm not sure it's worked, but it has made the guns look a bit charred, so I'm okay with it.

My approach to painting the Blood Angels has ended up as quite a slow process and so getting through even five is more of a chore that I'd like it to be. Unfortunately, to keep things consistent, I have to continue to in the same way.

To try and speed things up I have taken to attaching the weapons and shoulder pads during the painting process rather than after. It does mean that the details on this unit are perhaps not as well done as the earlier units, but not enough that you'd really notice.

There are couple of things I'm not overly impressed with in this unit. Firstly, I had a real issue trying to match up the weapons with the arms, and so some of the wrists are a bit off if you look closely. Secondly, the transfers really don't sit flat. I really should invest on some of that Microsol/Microset stuff, or learn to freehand the Blood Angels symbol, as the transfers really let the models down.

Since taking these photos, I've touched up the worst bits with Mephiston Red to improve things a little.

I'm still okay with this unit, it's just not my best. Although these are the last of the Marines I bought last year, I did get another box of 20 Mark IV Tactical Marines for my birthday, and so there's plenty still to go at for the Horus Heresy. However, I don't really need more Tactical Squads, and so I'm looking at options to turn at least some (if not all) of them into something a bit more assault focused - which would definitely suit the Blood Angels style more.

Acquired: 76
Painted: 190
Lead Mountain: 487