Introducing the Death Guard and Ultramarines

Hello you savages!

So I'm Bjørnar and what you can probably expect from me are posts showing the development of my new Horus Heresy army - The Ultramarines. I say probably, because I have a short attention span when it comes to the hobby, and I often jump between projects. This is something I'm planning to address in a later post. Probably.

I've been Horus Heresy-curios since the first big book dropped from Forge World, but meeting another player in Trondheim that also was into it sealed the deal. Seeing Adrian's awesome Mechanicum army had me all over the Death Guard like Connor McGregor on a press conference. Expect to see some posts about them as well (including this one, it seems).

"Surprise, cockfags!"

Mortarion's Stag Party, featuring Deathshrouds,
Typhon and a Primus Medicae, putting the heavy
weight division on notice.

My Death Guard features a lot of heavy armor, artillery tanks, the option to take a lot of footsloggers and of course the Main Man himself with a Stag Party of his Bestest Dudebrahs in a Spartan Assault Tank

The army, like a lot of Death Guard armies, is painted with a lot of weathering, using sponging, pigments, some oils, washes etc etc. It turned out looking quite drab so I've tried to introduce more color in the weathering and some of the weapons and such (still a work in progress).

Playing this army has seen me pushing scary shit up the middle of the table inside a spartan supported by artillery and longer range fire. Plans for the future include doing the mandatory zombie Cult allied detachment, and introducing more daemon stuff as we're getting closer to the Siege of Terra.



So, with the new Betrayal at Calth box I knew I had to get cracking on my next marine army. But if I was to start another army, it had to be one that was decidedly different from the Death Guard. Visually, so painting-wise, it had to provide me with new challenges and to push me to learn new techniques. It was also important for me to build an army that played to different strenghts than Mortarion and his merry men.

I looked at Raven Guard, Alpha Legion, Iron Warrio....you know, this is getting stupid. I was looking at all of them at one time or another, writing lists, surfing the shit outta the Heresy 30K forum, the most excellent blog that is A Galaxy In Flames and listening a lot to podcasts (The Eye of Horus podcast in particular).

But in the end I was won over by the idea of taking on the Ultramarines. In particular, I was taken by the idea of making a striking, yet brutal and remorseless Ultramarines army. An army that combines Assaulting, Shitkicking Walkers with Guerrilla-Themed Tactical Elements (SHIT YEAH!). An army that is so up in your grill that the World Eaters go "Hot Damn, I thought WE had issues!". Not Space Smurfs but Man Marines. Killfuckers. Apocalypse Dudes.

In my book, nothing says shitkicking like Contemptor dreads with dual claws and graviton guns. And a Leviathan. So that's coming up. But let's start at the beginning. The Betrayal at Calth set. And some regular dudes in yet shiny armor.

"I'm still a bit shiny, but I WILL stab you." 

  

"

"We're all gonna stab you!"

The scheme is a bastardization of the scheme featured in the excellent series by Painting Buddah. Go on, give those guys some love. Of course I had to cut some corners, but I guess that's what my next post will be about.

So! If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope you will join me as we dwelve into the Death Guard, Ultramarines and whatever else strikes my fancy as we go along.