Leman Russ, Primarch of VI Legion

Last week, I mentioned that my Space Wolves could use some reinforcements with the upcoming Wrath of Magnus book (which I'm not sure if I have any non-lore reason to get, since it apparently only includes rules for Chaos Space Marines). Well, it's hard to imagine better reinforcements for Astartes than their gene-sire. Of course, the Horus Heresy Leman Russ model is set in the time he walked among his sons, but never mind that now. I suspect he'll be making a comeback to 40k fairly soon, possibly in a werewolf form, just so that he can repeat his match with Magnus.

 I usually do a fair bit of customizing my models, but aside the typically overdesigned sword with all the unnecessary spikes, and the slightly awkward-looking pose, I'm fairly happy with the model as-is.
I also kept the paintwork fairly unadventurous, with Mechanicum Standard Grey, shaded with Nuln Oil, highlighted with Dawnstone and highlighted again with Administratum Grey for base. I did want to depart from Forgeworld's display model, as I don't really see why Leman Russ would have green armour. Maybe that will be explained in their next Horus Heresy book, but I decided to base the model's paintwork on a piece of artwork published earlier this autumn.

 I wanted to have his wolf pelt white, to provide contrast for his dark armour. I also wanted to paint most of the gemstones on the model red, for the same reason.

The model, like apparently all of Horus Heresy Character Series models, came with a 40 mm base for gameplay purposes, that can be enclosed within a larger display base. The bases fit together relatively seamlessly.

 The scenic base has a slightly raised slot that the 40 mm base fits onto. The rubble, which I decided to paint mostly grey stone and slightly off white marble, makes the seam difficult to notice if one doesn't know where to look.

 Having added some blood to the neck of the decapitated head of the Thousand Sons legionary, I decided to add some to the scenic base as well, to keep the seamless look.
I can't help thinking the pose would work better if Russ' rear foot was on the ground as well, or at least slightly more bent at the knee and less at the hip. As it is, it looks a little like his rear leg slipped on the marble surface he was running on.

Ahzek Ahriman and one of his little friends

Though I'm generally partial to the Space Wolves chapter/legion, and though in the larger scale they clearly are the good guys and the loyalists as opposed to the Thousand Sons, there really is little question that in the case of burning of Prospero, the VI legion were the bad guys and the barely literate invaders, who attacked the homeworld of the Legion focused on learning and answering questions, killed the world's defenders and committed a genocide. Of course, they were misled, and it wasn't long after that Leman Russ swore off following orders unquestioningly, but that wasn't much comfort to the now crippled legion of Thousand Sons, who only were attacked in the first place because their Primarch had tried to warn the Emperor of the archtraitor.

I recently bought a copy of the Burning of Prospero as a birthday present for myself. I really wanted to use the Forgeworld's colour scheme for my Thousand Sons, as they are not supposed to look like Blood Angels, but I neither have an airbrush nor their Angron Red, so I had to make do with Citadel colours and Lahmian Medium. For that reason, I wanted to try out the colour scheme on an expendable miniature before moving on to Ahriman. There's a fairly decent chance I'll end up buying another Burning of Prospero in the future, so if I decide to try this again with a different execution of the colour scheme, it will be an option.

 The Forgeworld's colour scheme is done by airbrushing the transparent Angron Red over a metal basecoat. I tried to replicate it by painting Mephiston Red thinned down with Lahmian medium over Leadbelcher base. I then proceeded to shade the model with Nuln Oil and to add some similarly thinned down Evil Sunz Scarlet to some of the most raised areas. I then highlighted the edges of the model's plate with Runefang Steel. The end result is more weathered than main GW's overtly clean look, and I like this that way. Confident I could get reasonably pleasing results, I proceeded to get to work with Ahriman.

 As usual, I painted the model in smaller pieces. I first painted most of the base, knowing it would be trickier to paint the slain Space Wolf with the main model standing over it. I also didn't attach the backpack until the very end, once the model was nearly completely painted. The Blood for the Blood God around the Space Wolf's corpse was only added after varnishing.
I also painted some eldritch glow on the model's extended arm's palm. I did that by drybrushing from lighter to darker colours, sort of the opposite it's done when highlighting.

Unlike on the one painted by the 'Eavy Metal team, I painted my Ahriman's cloak and loincloth purple, as he has on the box set. Bone or papyrus coloured fabric might have suited the Space Egyptian look better, but I think the purple somewhat foreshadows Ahriman's future, as if transitioning from red armour to blue.

I will have plenty of models to assemble and paint in the box in the future. I suspect this individual Thousand Sons legionnary will be an exception, and most of them won't be assembled with standard parts. At least not with the Space Wolves, who would not really look the part without at least some pelts and tooth amulets. Similarly, I can give the Thousand Sons some scarabs and other thematic decorations, though I will have to do some research to know what is appropriate for which models.

Luna Wolves Centurion

I managed to order one of the limited availability Horus Heresy Centurion models back when Forgeworld redid their webstore. It took me a while to decide what to do with it. Originally, I considered just gutting the poor guy for its parts, but as it turned out, the model wasn't constructed like the standard multi-part Space Marines, but had its legs and torso as a single piece, and the head and arms didn't have the standard connections, either. This somewhat limited its use as spare parts, and the model's decorations didn't exactly fit Space Wolves of 41st millennium, probably not the heresy era Rout either.
I figured I'd just paint the model as a member of another 30k army, finally deciding on Luna Wolves, at some point near the end of the Great Crusade, before Horus' daddy issues got the better of him (I like to.imagine an egyptologist somewhere reading this blog entry with growing confusion and irritation).

 One of the first things I noticed when painting the model was that painting black & white power armour is surprisingly difficult. My method of choice was painting the white parts with Dawnstone before heavily drybrushing them white. I had to paint the black parts black again afterwards, then re-drybrushing them, only lighter, but it worked... ok. It's not the cleanest paintjob I've done, but I accept it. I do like the stark contrast between black and white parts, so all in all, it's ok.

 The one thing I did with Green Stuff was painting the Luna Wolves Legion Symbol. It's not my cleanest sculpt, either, but considering it's supposed to be an ancient armour, damaged and repaired several times over, it sort of works.

I doubt I'll end up making any sizable Luna Wolves army. Maybe a small task force of somewhere around 500-750 points, that can be explained as a force lost in the Warp until reappearing when the Heresy was in full swing, but not large enough to fit in the 41st millennium history books.