The fully painted squad of Mor Deythan. Ready to escape the drop site massacre once again for second edition Horus Heresy!
Front view and reverse view -- I am particularly pleased with how the camouflage capes came out in the end. I was aiming for urban camouflage and decided to take a grey-white-black approach with broken lines of paint flowing within the fabric - I think this has worked well. The dusty bases only accentuate the feeling of the miniatures having seen a lot of action on the sands of distant worlds where these Raven Guard are covertly operating.
The equipment set up here is 6 Mor Deythan, 4 with combi-melta guns, and 2 melta guns (I can only hope this is still valid in second edition).
The final member of the squad is a kneeling melta gun toting battle brother. For this marine, I've gone slightly further with the dust and mud on the greaves than some of the previous entries in this series. I think it has paid off since it really starts to show a marine who has been adopting this shooting position regularly on the sands of some forgotten place (maybe the Dropsite Massacre at Isstvan - and yet, I know in the canon it is meant to be black sand, but artistic liberty takes precedent here).
Very happy with how this marine turned out, including the heat flare on the tip of the melta gun - this looks a lot more natural than some of the previous efforts. The eye lenses are also right here with the red as the base colour, orange for accent, and a slight dot of white in the corner. Highlighting has also worked well along the edges of the white panels (e.g., the hand) and the overall effect is very sound.
The kneeling position of these marines is a good "innovation" for the game in my opinion. There are now several kneeling legs available throughout the miniature range and they interact well with the rules at a fundamental level whilst also providing some realism. That said, I think there would be complaints if all miniatures in an army adopted such a position and maybe rightly so?
This battle brother is adopting the kneeling position on top of a base constructed from cork to give it a bit of extra height and to counteract some of the negative views that can arise from folks using kneeling positions within the game. The extra height gives the miniature a better view, and also makes him as vulnerable as many others within the game. The painting here follows the pattern already established, and I'm happy at how the Raven Guard iconography stands out on the shin and the helmet thanks to the grimy recesses that have been employed here. The edging also helps to pick out the armour on the wrists and shoulders nicely - both for the black and the white colours. The dust of the base ties it together as the final touch.
It seems appropriate that on the day that the Warhammer Community previewed a small set of the rules for the Raven Guard in the new edition of 30k that I'm working my way through the Mor Deythan painting that I've undertaken.
Marine number three is in a kneeling position and taking aim with a combi-melta. As suggested in the previous posts, the main idea here is to infiltrate into position and take out some heavier armour or cause serious damage to monstrous creatures with the melta gun shots that are available from the squad before mopping up with a different unit. Their (first edition) special rules do overlap somewhat with the Alpha Legion in terms of infiltration, but this squad makes a good target for the Coils of the Hydra come what may. Painting here follows the scheme established previously and I really like the way not only the grime has come out here, but also the dusty nature of the terrain that has rubbed off - literally - on to the cloak, armour and the greaves.
Continuing the short series on the Mor Deythan squad, this particular marine is armed with a full melta gun. Indeed, the aim of the squad is to infiltrate and blow some harder armour to pieces in order to make their points cost back.
The tip of the melta gun here has had some heat work applied to it in the shades of purple, blue, and orange. Its not the most accurate edging that I've ever done, I will freely admit, but the effect is communicated nicely enough to provide a good accent to the otherwise black and white of the armour. Offsetting this is the dusty base to tie everything together - the dust also extends to the cape here. For the cape, I've tried to achieve a black, white, and grey camouflage scheme - I will post the reverse view of this squad soon enough. Overall I am very happy with how this one has turned out. Let's hope he survives the drop site massacre and gets rescued with the remnants of his legion.
How has it been so long to get this squad painted up? Ah yes, Covid. Regardless, this is the first of the 6 squad members that I've painted up in the Raven Guard colours for my Mor Deythan squad.
The painting follows my typical approach with Raven Guard colours. The black here is almost solid black and slightly glossier than what I've done previously with Iron Hands. However, this is very much accented with white colours that stand out more and help the model go "pop" better. With that said, I did very much want a weathered and forlorn look for this squad as narratively they are part of the drop site massacre and the legion's subsequent fight for survival before being rescued. For this reason, the exposed whites have been dulled down and made to look grimy with some Nuln Oil and the highlights are muted. The greaves are similarly weathered with the sands of the planet's surface. Also of note is an attempt at some gun muzzle heating on the combi-melta gun. I will try this on the other models in the squad and see how it works out. I might go over this again later. Regardless, I'm pleased with the general colour scheme of the model and the Raven Guard livery in general. More squad members yet to come!
The remains of a shattered Raven Guard squad slogs across the beach to reach a forgotten ancient tecnology cache that could help them flee this world.
The Forge World model for Corax is one that I've had in the collection for a little while, but only recently found time to assemble together. The sheer amount of resin involved in the miniature is one of the larger amounts for the Primarch series within the Horus Heresy, and this alone means that would be modellers need to take some time to get everything right.
For me, the nice parts were the long rods that features in the shoulders to provide stability to the arms for Corax. On the same point, but in entirely the opposite sense, I found the side engines on the jump pack to be most fiddly since they can be orientated in a number of ways. The wings are also very delicate and need some care to be fully processed (including cleaning, as well as removal of flashes and the like). I could have spend longer doing the wings, but it won't detract significantly from the subsequent painting that I will end up doing since the mould is now clearly ageing and some of the details, whilst crisp, are arguably not quite what they once were.
My new rule for buying Forge World miniatures is to purchase them when they come out fresh. That way, one is almost guaranteed to have as optimal a cast of the miniature as possible.
Regardless of this, the miniature is still totally amazing. The sheer dynamism encapsulated in the way that Corax is landing hard on the rubble and shooting at his foe is impressive to say the least. It is one of my favourite Primarch sculpts (much better than, say, the Ultramarines' Roboute, or the Imperial Fists' Dorn who by comparison are relatively static). This is much more on the level of the World Eater's Angron, or the Emperor's Children's Fulgrim sculpt - and I really appreciate that.
