30k Hobby Blog - Blood Angels

Part 2 of a new blog series on Blood Angels. 

(Part 1 here).

Grey Area here from the Heresy30k Forum with the next installment in my series on building a Heresy era Blood Angels force.

Last time I showed off the first Tactical and Assault squad that made up the compulsory troops choices in the army. 

Having finished those two squads, I decided there was a need for even more Tactical marines, since armies in games of Horus Heresy often seem to run two or more squads of them. I wanted to make the second Tactical squad different from the first in order to keep things interesting and so I could tell the squads apart on the battlefield.

At around the time I was planning the second squad, Forge World released the Despoilers kit, so I chose to base the squad mostly on those miniatures, but with each marine carrying a bolter as well as a bolt pistol and an additional close combat weapon. I've always liked the look of bolters with a strap so I decided this was the way forward when it came to representing the marines with slung bolters. In hindsight making nearly twenty bolter straps out of plasticard and trying to get them to stick to the models was one of the most tedious and frustrating things I've ever done! but it had seemed like a good idea at the time...

Despoilers WIP

The straps are basically a strip of thin plasticard with a small ball of green stuff at each end to represent the link to the bolter. For the close combat weapons I used a mixture of chainswords and combat knives. The chainsword in the WIP pic is from the MkIV Assault Squad and has had the hand cut out and replaced with part of the handle from a combat knife. 

The squad was a bit of an ordeal to make, but I was pleased with the results and it made them quite unique.

At this point I was pretty fed up with painting troops so next up I decided to go for something a bit more fun - a Contemptor Mortis with twin Kheres Assault Cannons. This was great fun to build and paint, as well providing some much needed punch on the battlefield. This turned out to be one of the best choices I could have made and after only a few games it has already built up an impressive tally of kills, including Land Raiders and a Cerastus Knight Castigator! 

I tried to give it quite a mean, stalking pose. It turned out pretty much as I had hoped, although the angles of some of the joints are pushing the limit of what I could get away with with the kit.

That's all for this installment. I'd just like to say a big thanks for all the kind words left in the comments of Part 1. Feel free to get in touch with me via the Heresy30K Forum or just leave a note in the comments.

Grey Area.