Quoth the Raven: Paint More

Or, How My New Raven Guard Army Went To War With My Carpal Tunnel

Long story short, I planned to make a Raven Guard force for quite a while. Eventually, I decided not to. Then I did anyway. 

It all started a few years back, not quite “let there be light” but its getting close. Cliff twisted my arm and forced me to read the Horus Heresy novels. I fell in love, and managed to read them all in two years, finishing the final book as the first Siege of Terra book landed at my doorstep (well, package locker room, but whatever).

So, I got about it and started an army. By “an army”, of course, I mean I started several. Before I knew it I was buying up Betrayal at Calth box sets, painting one of each up as Ultramarines and Word Bearers, along with painting one up as the board game is intended. Even then with two armies in the works, I started making plans, occupying my brain’s idle time with what I might accomplish with Heresy armies. 

This would set me on a collision course with disaster. And I enjoyed every second of it.

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Best Laid Plans and Such

Short story, long as it was, I found myself contemplating the idea of Ally detachments. I enjoy the idea of Ally detachments for a few reasons. Small contingents of marines were often sent to work alongside other Legions, to strengthen bonds of brotherhood and learn from each other. Games that feature ally detachments feel very genuine  by way of the lore and helps Heresy stand out from 40k. Mostly though, they allow me to collect some models for a Legion without committing to a whole army. Well, more on that later.

I painted Word Bearers up first, since my only Heresy opponent at the time was Cliff, and he was starting with a Blood Angel army. Ultimately, the XVII Legion models would be for my wife, because, yeah, she likes the bad guys. Once an army worth of models were painted up, I shifted gears and started painting Ultramarines. 

As the Sons of Guiliman started to take shape, I started thinking about possible ally detachments. As a general guideline, I like to avoid the primary armies of my friends. I am a fucking hobby monster and I don’t like stepping on the toes of others. I am capable of putting an army together fairly rapidly, and I don’t want to outpace others with their chosen active projects. Cliff was doing Blood Angels so the XIX Legion was out, and so was the idea of collecting the Imperium Secundus for a while. With that idea set aside for a bit, I would have to find another option. 

Eventually I settled on a dual use project that made me excited. The idea revolved around the Shattered Legions, the space marine legions that were devastated upon the black sands of Isstvan V. I would start a Salamander’s ally force to accompany my Ultramarines. After which, I would paint up an ally of Iron hands and eventually a Raven Guard force. 

Not only would this afford me three unique ally options to bring along with my Ultramarines. I would be able to put the three forces together to make an entire Shattered Legion army. Three smaller collections brought together as a full army, straight out of the novels. I would get the Salamanders and Iron hands started. 

Unfortunately, my excitement for the project was put on stasis as the Second Edition of the Horus Heresy was released. I had no fear that the Shattered Legion rules would return, it was just a matter of how much time would pass before it did.

Then, the rules finally came out. 

And… I fucking hate them. Yup, That thing I was super excited about was turned on its head. The rules aren’t bad or anything, They are just different. And they don’t allow for Legion specific units to be taken at all, which ultimately precludes me from the project as I had planned it. 

[Insert sad trombone sound here]

As an aside, I was planning a World Eater ally for Kera’s Bearers-of-the-Word, but, on a whim, I showed the various legions and their colors and asked her which bad guys she liked. She chose the purple ones. Off to eBay I went. That’s why I have an ally of Emperor’s Children painted. 

I know. I know. What about the damn Raven Guard. I am getting there.

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Shattered (Legion) Plans and Broken Dreams

Well, there goes that. A plan that had taken up residence in my head for years was figuratively in flames. I had Legion specific Terminators and Elite units painted up for the Salamanders and Iron Hands. I couldn’t use those in the revised Shattered Legion rules. Guess I will just make an army for each of them (there it is…). At the same time, I gave up on the idea of a Raven Guard army, The Sons of Corax were removed from the plan, and the legion upgrades that I bought before they went the way of the dodo were packed away for all time.

Well, eternity only lasted a year or so, because one fateful evening while I was perusing eBay like I absolutely should not have been doing, I came across an Age of Darkness box at a price-point that was priced to move. So, I moved on it. Fast. I shared a link with Cliff, and he bought one, too. Hey, that will make a great birthday present. With no plans as to what to do with it, it was placed in the hands of UPS to be delivered into my crazy hobby claws.

Like I said in my Q3 Hobby Post, packing away the 40k shit I didn’t want to have to look at got me excited to get back to hobby, just as the clock was about to toll on the nice weather. Not that I wanted to go outside or anything, but, I did need to prime some minis to paint this winter. So, I went into full on build and prime panic time. 

Well. The weather stayed nice for an unprecedented period of time. Usually I can stretch it to mid-October, maybe, before the temperature stays south of priming temperature consistently. Not this year. Nope. I kept working on building heresy models after looking at the forecast for my days off the following week. It kept working, and I literally got an extra Sons of Horus army built before the season went bad. At the last minute, as Halloween passed and my birthday whipped right by, I decided to make a mad dash. 

Somehow I managed to build and prime the entire Age of Darkness box in 4 days, minus a character and a spartan. While getting these models together, I used resin upgrades that I had the foresight to order when I decided what I wanted to do with the AoD boxset. I saved money on the models, might as well waste some cash making sure they look good, right? Right? In retrospect, I wish I had also ordered the transfers: the banner is a little bland without it, and the Praetor has no deco on his right shoulder. Guess that will come later. 

Vacation was looming. Long held plans were unmade due to circumstances beyond our control. With nothing to do while my wife was at work for my staycation, I decided to painted those fuckers up. Of course I could paint an army in a week. 

Not satisfied with merely doing the impossible, you know, painting 60 models in the span of seven days, I also decided that I could build some more guy. Because of course I did. If you look up masochist in the dictionary, you will find a tastefully printed picture of my idiot face. 

Anyway, you must have certainly caught on and determined that I have been setting myself up for failure, right? Rest assured, you’re correct, so, let’s see how it all fell apart. 

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Revenge of Old Injuries

So, I was going to paint the Age of Darkness box in a week during vacation. Seems totally reasonable, why are you looking at me like that?

After the wife and I returned from a few nights at the casino, I set about my project. The first day went amazingly well: I painted twenty Mk6 marines in one day. Yup. Twenty were painted up, mostly while my wife was at work, but I finished them up that evening. (20/60)

Then some pain in the wrist hit, which turned out to be a pain in the ass. Carpal Tunnel changed my plans fairly efficiently, as my thumb and index finger went numb while painting. That kind of numb that somehow also hurts. Turns out this really gets in the way of painting miniatures. I pushed through it quite a bit, taking frequent breaks and doing some stretches that often help. Before the day was up, I had started another twenty models but only finished ten marines: half the output of the day before, but better than none. (30/60)

Revelations passed through my head and I determined that I would not finish the box set during the vacation. Realizing this, and finding that the weather was still unseasonably nice, I decided to spend a day building more resin models. 

I dug out the resin MKVI bodies and full RG upgrade that I bought just before they canceled them at Forge World. I added some 3D printed Nemesis bolters and some seeker bolters from my bits box and made two five man squads. I also ran some combi-volkite through the Saturn and built a squad of Mor Deythan with them to make sure they could erase whatever they wanted in a game of Zone Mortalis. 

A few hours of super glue and spray-on setter later, I had three more squads built, and managed to finish the details on the last ten mk6 marines from the box set. (40/60)

While the matte black Raven Guard were easy dry brush affairs, the legion specific terminator squad was far more work. I spent a solid three days working on the Deliverers. I am happy with how they came out, putting more effort into the lite models than the basic troops paid off, but the extra time spent on them ultimately ruined my chances to finish in a week. 

Regardless, in the short span of seven days I managed to speed-paint 50 models before I went back to work. (50/60)

Having failed the original project goal, I took my time with the command squad, the dreadnought and the characters. Lots of snickety-snick Raven Talons, a burnished gold banner and a big angry tank on legs: these were the most fun to paint in the whole group. These last models were finished after work the week after vacation. (60/60) 

Bing. Level up. Yet, where do I go from here? While the idea of painting the army up in a week had collapsed into ruin like any sane human would expect, I couldn’t help but think I could salvage the whole thing by altering my plans, adjusting my expectations of reality and such. 

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Might as well finish up

No matter what, I have added an army of such to my painted collection and I am both proud and thrilled with that fact. I added an extra painted army to my collection this year, joining the ranks of the Iron Hands models and Tomb Kings I painted in 2024. Sure, it’s not a great army, not planned out per se. Simply the completed collection of the models that mostly came with the Age of Darkness boxset. I did have a few more models for the Raven Guard, though. That got me thinking.

Could I paint a full ZM force in a month? I had most of it completed during the first week alone. Could I finish the rest of the units I had for the XIX Legion? Sure I could, or, thereabouts anyway. 

With 60 Raven Guard models finally complete, I gathered the models that I had built during the vacation mentioned above when the temperature outside stayed north of miserable. I had another 21 models for phase two. Time to alter the plan, to get shit done.

There were two 5-man Veteran squads, both planned to be expanded out to 10-man later, but that would require some more intense eBay work. One squad was armed with nemesis bolters, allowing them to run around and quick-scope some fuckers with their sniper rifles like those impossible douchebags in Call of Duty multiplayer, thanks to the Relentless rule. The other squad can act as a seeker squad, and is armed with the seeker style bolters I purchased some years back from Forgeworld: it’s nice when the stupid amount of crap in the bits boxes turns out to be useful. 

There was also a 10-man  Mor Deythan squad, a bespoke Raven Guard veteran ranged combat unit. They come with Nemesis Bolters, the Space Marine sniper rifle equivalent. While they do have the Relentless rule as well, I wanted the Mor deythan squad equipped for Zone Mortalis game. To me, combi-volkite is the  way to go. I saw it in a battle report, and the ten marines put down 40 shots at a dreadnought that was within a foot and used the Mor Deythan once-a-game ability to auto-wound anything on a die roll of a 4 or better, which would also ignore normal armor. Boom. Lot’s of boom, actually.

I dove into the Cults3D website and went searching. I was able to find some options that would work for me. With my Elegoo Saturn playing nice I was able to print Nemesis bolters and Combi-Volkite, both with Raven symbols set upon them. Although I had nemesis bolters from the Mor Deythan as spare, I couldn’t use them for the old resin Mk6 bodies, since there was no right hand on the old models, nor a right hand on the left-over Nemesis Bolters.  I also found a Raven Guard Vigilator Consul wearing Mk6 armor.  

Once again, I started with matte black, then dry brushed them with near black, and then again in dark gray towards the top of the mini only. The vet squad that would double as seekers got white shoulderpads. The unit that were earmarked for snipers would get no such treatment, and even got a super-limited amount of metallics, leaving them near completely shades of near black: even their legion symbol was painted with a gloss black to stand out, but only barely, just like the color plate from the Black Books from the first edition of Heresy. 

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Complete or just Pretending?

I started the project in the middle of the second week of November, I finished the last model early in the second week of December, so, just about four fuckin weeks. I consider the army to be an exercise in speed-painting, adjusting my expectations for quality to nail the quantity I desired. All while completing the project in a timely manner. Could they look better? Sure. Could I have spent more time on them? Also sure. Would I be happier if they looked a little better but took twice as long. No, probably not. 

Sometimes I wish I could stop my brain from doing the things it does. I hadn’t even completed the project yet and my mind was already racing to what was in store next for the Raven’s. I didn’t want a full army, but, now that I have a functioning but unimpressive ZM list, I wanted to add to it; we can make that Zone Mortalis list better. That, and I want to make an ally detachment composed of mostly nemesis Bolters for an ally detachment using Decapitation Strike Rite of War. It would work well alongside either my Ultramarines or my Iron Hands, adding some long range sniper fire to armies that are both planned to be mid to close range. 

But, for now, the XIX will stay where they are. Quite frankly, it’s nice to have a complete project, and I have other models built already. Check back here and I will show off some of the Iron Hands and Sons of Horus I have built to paint over the winter months. Until then…