ear us, oh enemies of man, for we are the angels of death, the blessed scions of Sanguinius and the breakers of armies
A long time ago I started painting a Blood Angels army and then for reasons that are now lost in the mists of time I stopped. Fast forward to the present day, past two huge armies (Tyranids and Mechanicus) and one course on blending & weathering from Siege Studios. On seeing the Space Marine Heroes 2 models, I knew I had to return to the Sons of Sanguinius. Despite being a massive Blood Angel fan boy – to the point where I wrote a short story about a hypothetical second siege of Terra from their point of view and roleplayed as a Blood Angel Assault Marine during a long Deathwatch RPG campaign), I haven’t had a functional army of them since the early 2000s.
Because of the inspiration from the Space Marine Hero 2 range, the arrival of the Primaris Marines (which make my old firstborn marines in power armour look less than appealing) and my love of Tactical Dreadnought Armour; I decided to focus on the Blood Angels’ 1st Company, the Archangels.
Rather than sell on my duplicates for Space Marine Heroes 2, I opted to do weapon and head swaps on them. While the army is set in the 41st millennium, there will be much in the way of inspiration from the strife-filled days of the Horus Heresy – expect lots of Contemptor Dreadnoughts, FW transfers – and if my nerve holds – freehand and black marble on the vehicles.
One of the quirks of resuming a project after a few years and from a time when I was just getting the hang of using an airbrush and made a questionable choice in terms of undercoat spray, is that while for the most part there haven’t been too many issues, in some cases the paint is thicker than I would like. It’s also forced me to be ruthless, taking a modelling knife to missed mould-lines on already airbrushed models. Hopefully, you’ll see a bit of a jump in quality once I move onto the Space Marine Heroes 2 models for this reason. Unlike some of my other armies, I'm trying to avoid batch painting as much as possible, instead speading as much time as possible on each miniature.
