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In November 2022 in the middle of a visit in my local Warhammer store i decided by fun to join the miniature of the month painting competiotion with the Lumineth Realm-Lords Archer.

I was verry surprised that i won and got motivated by former Golden Daemon Winner Mattias Winter to try more competition painting.

This brings me to a story addicted to my short About Me first Warhammer journey. In all those years off from the hobby. There was always this one story in the Warhammer universe i could never forget about.

• Horus vs. Emperor of Mankind

As i discovered on my return to the hobby that there is now a whole game about this Warhammer era called “The Horus Heresy” i was so fascinated that i decided i need a Sons of Horus Army with the Warmaster himself.

What brings me back to 2022…

As Games Workshoup in March 2022 annouced a new Horus Heresy Version even with new models i decided this is the time to start a Sons of Horus Project!

With this in mind and the motivation of Mattias Winter the project for Armies on Parade 2023 was figured out…

This Post will be the diary of the whole project and will track my progress of thinking, building, painting, struggeling, hopes and also fears…

The Offical Schedule

• January – February: New Year New Army 
• March – April: Supreme Command
• May – June: Gods of War
• July – August: Magicans and Machines
• September – October: Battlefront
• November: The Grand Finale

The Project

So the basic idea of the wohl proect is a Sons of Horus Army thats full Eavy Metal level painted.

It was always one of my dreams to have atleast one full display army. The Army Will contain arround 4k Points including the new Horus the Ascenden Model

These are the Current models the project will include:

• HQ
  • Horus Lupercal the Ascended
  • Maloghurst the Twisted
  • Ezekyle Abaddon
• Core
  • Legion Tactical Squad MK IV
    • Legoin Drop Pod
  • Legion Tactical Squad MK IV
    • Legion Rhino
• Elite
  • Contemptor-Dreadnought
    • Legion Dreadnought Drop Pod
  • Contemptor-Dreadnought
  • Contemptor-Dreadnought
  • Justaerin Terminators
• Support
  • Legion Land Raider Spartan
  • Legion Kratos Heavy Assault Tank

The assembling process

First things first…

So as the offical schedule proposes i started a new army…

So i decided to assemble all the minis nefore i start to drop any paint on a mini.

I started the assembling process in the holidays of chrismas and my goal was to finish all of them at new year’s eve exept for horus and the Justaerin Terminators… Horus wasent even available to this time. And the Justaerin just came up as i started to plan the scenery….

The be honest… i fnished the assembling process on February the 10th… The good news is that Horus and the Justaerin where also ordered and finished at this time.

If you dont kitbash assembling in my opinion is one of the most boring parts in the hobby… i thought until i was finished with lets say 75%. After this marker i gopt so motivated by the pile i allready finished, that i really enjoyed even the assembly process at this point.

Im really sure that for future projects like this i have a new point of view to the whole building process and can much more enjoy it!

Building the HQ And It´s scenery

With the concept in mind to build an environment based on the heresy 2.0 trailer i started to think about how to build a scenery that will achiev the first real goal on the official schedule.

So this little piece of scenery should be a small diorama at its own and put all the focus on the warmaster itself without stealing him the whole show. It should also fit all together as a centerpiece on the wohle board later on.

Inspired by the Horus Ascended Diorama base i decided to arrange some Imperial Fist corpses arround the whole HQ.

Horus should be in the center so that he gains most of the attention. The corpses will be focus arranged arround him. To keep the scenery authentic and push also a small amount of attention to Maloghurst i decided to use his pose targeting a enemy, to let him shoot a Imperial fist within the scenery.

Abaddon will in this scenery join the battlefield in the background supported by his mighty Justaerin and a awesome looking Spartan Assault Tank.

Here the first impressions…

The photos where taken at February 18 and i started to feel some pressure about finishing the HQ until the end of April.

First drops of paint

With the pressure in mind i decided to start painting even if the diorama scenery was not finished

The Painting Order should be the following:

• Maloghurst the Twisted (to transfer my basic scheme on a character)
• Ezekyle Abaddon (to develop and train me the black armor scheme for Horus)
• Horus Ascended (to apply all ive learned and get the best possible result)

Maloghurst the Twisted

To be honest… i allready started to pait the Maloghurst model at the end of 2022.

After i developed the armor colors on the first 5 MKVI Space Marines long time before i decided to join Armies on Parade with Sons of Horus i started to paint Maloghurst with the same scheme to see if it fits together with the gold parts.

After i achieved that step i stopped painting the model… i got a real lack of motivation with all the details on the whole model.

With the Armies on Parade challange in mind i found the motivation to finish the model

But it took me still two more weeks to finish. The photos where taken on the 3rd of March 2023

Here the final result:

Ezekyle Abaddon round one

This ist the first horror storry i’ve to tell within the project…

I started to paint Abaddon with the intention to prepare a colorscheme formula for the armor that i can trasfer the to Horus and the Justaerin and wanted to try a red OSL effect on the face that is based on a guide from Richard Gray.

I was really happy with the result and finished the model on 17th of March 2023. A Day later i want to give the model a varnish coat and finish the base.

This is wehere the horror begun…

I accidently used a gloss varnish instead of a satin. I panicked and before the gloss varnish was dry and sparyed a satin varnish coat over… this ended up i sparkelig on the armor and i had to repaint the whole model…

Ezekyle Abaddon round two

After this really frustrating expirinece i needed another two weeks to paint Abaddon…

The bright side with the previous accident… I was even more happy with the new final result of the model.

Here the final result:

A two week setback on the whole project is really hard. Im now in a situation where iam not able to finish Horus and the Whole HQ including the diorama base within the official schedule at the end of april…

Stay tuned for more updates…

Horus Ascended

As soon as i finished Abaddon i directly started with the painting of Horus. This model has so much details that i used 6 days of my vacation to paint most of the model within the offical schedule. I painted on this vacation days arround 14-16 hours. On my regular wor days i painted arround 4-6 hours a day on the model.

As i finished arround 70% of the model i got knocked out by a COVID infection. With this infection i lost another 10 days on the whole project. At this point i was sure that iam not able to finish horus and the diorama base within the april timeline for the first official goal.

After i got healthy again i finished painting Horus on 22nd of April 2023. With the vaccation and my regular work days combined it took arround three weeks and arround 120h of painting at all.

In case of the time pressure i only took one picture of the finished model until now. I also didnt finish the base at this stage because i decided to paint it parallel to the diorama base in case of fitting together. I will uploade more detailed pictures of horus in a couple of days

But here atlleast one picture of the final result:

The HQ Diorama Base / Center piece

My deadline to finish the diorama base was on 27th of April 2023. The major problem was that i had a all day appointment on this date. And the weekend was planned with a friend that i only see once a year.

So i only had 4 days left to assemble the diorama base and paint the whole stuff on it including the Horus Base.

I developed the plan to finish the building and assambling within Sunday 23rd of April 2023. And using speedpainting techniques to finish the painting within the 3 days left.

Luckly i allready assembled all the corpses and pieces i wanted to use on the base so i only hat to remove the mold lines and assemble the scenery.

It took me still a whole day to finish the assembling the secnery. But i with a little night shift i finished arround 11.40 p.m. on Sunday 23rd of April 2023.

From now on i only had arround 6-8 hours a day with only 3 days left to paint the whole stuff.

My recipie to still hit the goal had the following steps:

• Imperial Fists Units
  • basecoat with Citadel – Mournfang Brown
  • zenithal highlights with a 50:50 mix of Citadel – Mournfang Brown and P3 – Morrow White
  • spot highlights with P3 – Morrow White
  • apply Citadel – Imperial Fists Contrast paint all over the models
  • basecoat metal parts with Vallejo – Gunmetal Grey
  • basecoat black parts with Citadel – Abaddon Black
  • edge hightlight black parts with Citadel – Mechanicus Standard Grey
  • apply decals with microset
  • apply Vallejo – Gloss Varnish
  • Oilwash with 50:50 mix of Schmincke – burnt sienna and Schmincke – ivory black
  • wait until the next day
  • rub off unwanted remains of oilpaint with makeup tips
  • apply Vallejo – Satin Varnish
  • basecoat the eyes with Citadel – Abaddon Black
  • paint 60% of the eye lense with Citadel – Mechanicus Standard Grey
  • paint 30% of the eye lense with Citadel – Eshin Grey
  • paint a small white dot into the upper corner with P3 – Morrow White
  • apply a small amount edge hightlights and glazes on focus parts with Citadel – Yriel Yellow
  • apply some chipping with a sponge and Citadel – Rhinox Hide
  • apply some blood with Citadel – Blood For The Blood God
• Stone Terrain and Bricks
  • basecoat with Citadel – Mechanicus Standard Grey
  • shade with a 50:50 mix of Citadel – Black Templar Contrast paint and Water
  • drybrush with Citadel – Mechanicus Standard Grey
  • drybrush the light catching areas with Citadel – Eshin Grey
• Steal Beams and metal Areas
  • basecaot with Vallejo – Gunmetal Grey
  • shade with a 50:50 mix of Citadel – Black Templar Contrast paint and Water
  • apply a small amount edge hightlights with Vallejo – Silver
• Terrain Ground
  • basecoat with Citadel – Doombull Brown
  • apply Vallejo – Pigment Binder
  • apply Vallejo – Burnt Sienna

I was note able to apply the terrain effects until 26th of April 2023 so i reached the deadline of 27th of April 2023 without a finished terrain. Luckily my all day appointment on 27th of April 2023 was earlier over then expected! So i had another 2 hours to finish the terrain effects and was able to hand out my entry on 28th of April 2023 to my local Warhammer Store – Stuttgart ! I can tell you that was until now the hell of a journey!

Here the picture of the finished center piece for the project:

In case of the commitment i have done to finish the project this post has home kind of information lags about the rest of the process since the April part. I will update some more kind of information about similar other steps in the next couple of weeks

Showdown

On the 18th of November the final showdown came up! Ive cut some models out of the former planned diorama in case of space and time problems.

All i can say about time is that i took around 1000h of work to finish the Diorama to this stage.

But even with lesser models its even im my eyes a stunnig project. And with all the Eavy Metal painted models on the Board a Childhood Dream of a Eavy Metal painted Warhammer Army finally has become true!

And even more i also won the cup of our store competition!

Here the final pictures with some close captures: