Amongst the Legions of the Astartes, none were closer to perfection than the Emperor’s Children, well, in their eyes anyway.
The project now knows as Seeking Pefection started as an Ally force, like many of my other projects, but then became much more…
“I Like the Purple Ones”
It all started with a simple question, after showing my wife the old Forgeworld Website looking at the various traitor legions for the Horus Heresy. I had painted a decent pile of Word Bearers for her to play and wanted to plan an Ally detachment. The query was posed to Kera: which one do you like the look of?
As you have likely deduced, Kera indicated that she liked how the Emperor’s Children looked. Immediately I made the long and difficult journey to the land of eBay, by which I mean, I picked my phone up and launched the app. Almost instantly I found a lot up for sale.
I practically died at the deal I found. I showed Kera. I explained how expensive the shit in it was if I was and she agreed we should get it. I paid for it without a second thought.
When the box arrived I was in miniature heaven. Whomever the seller was had bought their way into Heresy. They were clearly over their head. How do i know this? There was one single miniature built. One lonely Mk4 Tactical marine. There was a second clipped off the sprue, and delivered to me in a tiny zip lock. Don’t worry, I will get use out of them…
Pretentious Allies
Like a literal fucking cornucopia of hobby, the box I had procured from eBay was amazing. The amount of out of print Emperors Children mk4 resin chest upgrades alone was astounding. Going for about $50 for five of them at that point and time, the box set came with 25 of them. Near enough to the cost of the entire box. I also got 20ish mk4 marines, as well as 25 sets of resin heads and resin shoulder upgrades. I also got the old resin two-pack of praetors, the legion contemptor, five palatine blades, 5 destroyers and a rhino.
To add to this collection, I ordered another set of Palatine blades, and spent too much on eBay collecting jet packs for them. I ordered Mk4 assault marines, the Phoenix spears and rhino doors. There was an auction for the brass legion icons. Lastly, I used a set of the Tartaros Terminators that came in the second Burning of Prospero boxset for them as well.
My plan for the ally was to use a character with a jump pack and a legion specific spear to join a palatine blades unit in the Elite slot. I would support them with an assault squad in the Troops choices, along with a Tactical squad in a rhino.
There were options for the Elite slot, as I painted up a Tartaros terminator unit and a Contemptor Dreadnought. What I didn’t have was a unit to fill the Fast Attack and the Heavy Support slots. I found a badly painted unit of five lascannon heavy support marine for auction: they had legion chests like the rest of my army, and legion heads and shoulders. Too bad the weirdo that built them put legion shoulders on the left side as they should have, and on the right side, which they should not have. Once I won, I decided to fix that and touch up the paint later (literally never happened). For the Fast slot, I wanted something I didn’t have. I ended up giving Forgeworld some more money, but I got some jetbikes and had extra torsos, heads and shoulders to make them look the part.
Quick Side Story – Second Edition launched several years after I had painted these models. Well, fuck me, there is no option to give the Palatine Blades jet packs anymore. I dragged my feet for some time, dreading the idea of digging the painted jet packs, that I spent far too much money on acquiring from eBay, to replace them with regular backpacks. Well, the day had arrived, they were on my desk and I was going to wreck them that night during Hobby Time with the buddies. Well, that very morning they added Palatine Blade Acquilae were added to the Legacy PDF thereby making my models legal again. So glad I didn’t pull them apart right away.
Painted to (near) Perfection
Early on in the project, I decided that I was going to try and figure out the basics of the airbrush I had purchased. Up until that point, all I had used it for was airbrush priming, which didn’t go so well, and applying a nice base color. It, or maybe I, did fine with that.
When it came time to get the Emperor’s Children painted up, I started with a few paint scheme ideas. One was way too purple, one was pink like they often appear in 40k. One such trial color was just right, you might even say it was Perfect. Phonecean Purple and Kakophani Purple had just been released by Games Workshop: I believe one or both of them had been Forgeworld paint colors before. It took some trial and error, but I got there.
It has been so many years now, but I can still recall how pleased I was with the airbrushed purple colors. The dark purple was used as a base and the pinky-purple color was shot from above to get a soft highlight. I added gold and chrome as needed and the shoulders were painted white. I love the purple, white and gold color combination.
Perfectly Added to my Shame
So, yeah, I made a mistake. A big one at that. I had models painted up in the livery of the Emperors Children, so, of course I bought Fulgrim. I had convinced myself that I could not get a Primarch model until I had painted at least an Ally Detachment worth of models for a Legion. And I wanted all of the Primarchs, and I still do.
Of course Fulgrim arrived shortly thereafter (alongside Ferrus Manus, if you must know. Don’t wanna talk about it) but, much like 40k Gulliman, I wanted some Legionaries to hang out with Fulgrim, and the obvious choice was Legion specific Phoenix Terminators. After that, it was like a snowball rolling down hill. Now I have a box full of built and primed models, with more to be assembled. And this, my friends, is how the project posthumously named Seeking Perfection all started.
Who didn’t see that coming, right? Anyway, I shall consider this 1000(ish) point Ally Detachment as Phase One of Seeking Perfection. Phase Two will build upon this for a 1500 point Zone Mortalis list, which will use only about half of these models I imagine.
Then, I’ll probably paint Fulgrim… or Fulgrims. Is that right? Anyway, check back here later for more perfection.
Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man
