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I’m probably going to be quite controversial in this post. But maybe thats what we need sometimes. Lets be honest though, are any of us free from sin?

No, I’m not talking about church. The sin I speak of is far more deadly. The sin of… not buying all resin!

There really ought to be some kind of dramatic music there…

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Step 1 - The Pile of Shame…

So I’ve got the Sons of Horus Zone Mortalis list written (yes I know, I forgot entirely to write the 3k list, we’ll get back to that later). Now I need to actually purchase the minis in question. Now I’m not going to lie, buying things and retail therapy does do wonders for my dopamine, so much so I have had to in the past intentionally cap my spending to ensure I could afford other frivolous things… like food. So funnily enough the idea of buying a whole new army is already setting two different sets of alarms ringing, not to mention a discerning side-eye from my long-suffering partner. But before I draw my wallet. I find its best to begin with the pile of shame and a question of ‘what can I use from here’?

So into the pile of shame we tread. Here be dragons.

Now admittedly the pile is not the worst in the world, but it still holds plenty of brilliant bits and pieces I can use. First and foremost being the already painted plastic MKiv I used as a tester for my paint scheme. (Bit of an obvious one really). Then following that, I’ve also got a lovely Sons of Horus Praetor, courtesy of a secret santa who didn’t know I was doing Sons until after they’d bought me it! And then an OG bag of 5 resin Mkiv marines to help flesh out those reaver squads with some bolter boys, and finally a pack of combi-weapons that my partner bought me last time we were at Warhammer World (we typically buy each other models…its a terribly expensive habit).

Thats a good start then. The delegatus, and half a dozen reavers already sorted!

Right, pile of shame exhausted for the time being, lets start looking online…

Step 2 - Forgeworld

So onto Forgeworld I pop. Can’t avoid the resin really, so may as well get the key bits from there. Into the basket go the Justaerin, 2 Boxes of Reavers and some Justaerin weapons. I can’t really avoid these guys, and the sculpts (whilst older) are still downright gorgeous really, so worth getting. So now I’ve covered my key legion specific infantry, and one of my HQs. I grab a box of the detroyers, mostly because whilst you CAN make the same with regular mkiv infantry, I want the missile launcher specifically for these guys, and finding them on a bits site is a nightmare! So all thats left is to find the appropriate HQ chocie for the Master of Signal.

Well funnily enough, unlike some legions, theres a Sons of Horus specific command section. And it just happens to have an artificer armoured officer with a power axe… hmm…

Sold.

Step 3 - Custom Parts

Now all these kits are very lovely. But in some cases they are very plain too. Especially if I was to put the lovingly detailed reaver kits on the table next to the plain Mkiv’s I’m using to reinforce them. So I’m going to need some bits and pieces to help ‘jazz’ the squads up. This is a reaver company after all, so I doubt even the line infantry will look all that ‘basic’.

So the next step is to stop by my favourite place for marine parts - Anvil Industries.

So funnily enough Anvil just happen to have some topknots on sale, and some fur lined cloaks (in the image of their genesire). So into the basket both of those go! Throw in some of their ‘parchment’ to represent old (or new) oaths of moment and pieces of script (maybe gang writings?). Again just to help spruce up the miniatures a bit further - make them mine.

Honestly I’d reccomend this sort of practice for anyone out there, heresy or not, trying to make their minis feel a little more unique. It doesn’t take too much, but with a few pounds/dollars/insert currency here, you can tweak those little plastic and resin figures a little further. And the best bit is you don’t even need to worry about stuff like greenstuff/sculpting etc!

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To Summarise!

Why did I go through all of this? Seems a bit fruitless I suppose to any veteran of the hobby. But if you aren’t a long in the tooth follower of heresy, maybe someone riding in on the promise of a new edition, then maybe seeing how to go about making a force for less (or at least a little less than it could be) might be helpful towards you!

Now with all of that in the post, I suppose I better get to assembling the stuff I have here…

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Controvesial time…

Oh you’re still here? Well, I suppose you could be asking a few questions at the end of this article.

1. Where’s the breachers?
2. What happens if I’m not in a position to just ‘go and buy forgeworld’?

And these are both very good questions. Which have a bit of a murky answer. Because there ARE ways of aquiring models at a far cheaper rate. Some are legal, some aren’t. For the purposes of saving my skin I will only discuss the legal options here.

And those legal options are 3rd Party Sellers!

See Gamesworkshop have a monopoly on many things, but one thing they don’t is on making models full stop, and in fact you can find a variety of websites out there that do equivilents to your favourite GW miniatures. Many of whome are useful for heresy too. The aforementioned Anvil Industry does a good number of their ‘Exo-Lords’ that may fit the right role, and you can find further equivlents with companies such as Bits of War, Spellcrow, or Puppetswar. If you’re in you’re in the market for 3d printing one quick google search will very swiftly find you inundated with equivilent parts. Tortuga Bay Studios is one that deserves a massive shoutout for their ’truescale’ models.

In both cases you’ll find these are quite cheap if you shop around, and honestly in many cases they are just as good. Further to that don’t be afraid to hunt on ebay or Facebook ‘Heresy Trading’! Just beware of scalpers trying to rip you off.

As for the breachers, thats a story for another day.