The new Horus Heresy boxed set releases soon and we’re doing deep dive reviews into its contents. If you missed our review of the rules, you can find that here, or if you missed our review of the new Mk. VI marines, you can find that here. You can also find our review of the Contemptor and Spartan here.
Two new praetor models come in the Age of Darkness box, one with a sword and one with an axe. Neither have any insignia, so they fit nicely into any legion. Getting additional plastic characters is always welcome, and the Goonhammer crew is here to talk about them.
Sword Praetor
Appearance
Jack: Holy shit this dude rocks. Absolutely love him. I did swap out his gun arm for an inferno pistol and the backpack for Dominion Zephon’s – what self respecting Blood Angel would be walking? The pose works super well with these swaps and there are tons of little details – if you’re using a bare head the inside of the collar is quilted.
Lupe: Wonderful posing, really great sword. Not as much of a fan as the gun, but the model as a whole is great. Lots of movement and beautiful details. The little thigh panels are one of my favourite elements.
Rockfish: I really like how they got a good bit of dynamic motion to the pose and a ton of character to the details. This is clearly a different kind of fancy to the stuff you see in the 40k marines, far more baroque with wrought details instead of going for the maximum density of skulls and aquilas.
Build
Jack: This guy went together very easily, so I’m just going to talk about my conversions here. The cape ties into the shoulder pads, which looks great on the stock build, but isn’t so good for conversions. I just used new pads and left the cape off, but if you want to keep it you’ll need to use arms that end up in the same position. Swapping the arms was simple, just snipped off a bit of armpit ribbing from the torso and I had a nice flat join. The neck hole isn’t quite standard marine size/shape, but is close enough I could just glue a new head in.
One note is that both characters are on 40mm bases. This isn’t incredibly obvious in the instructions, but counting out bases in my box I had 40 32mm bases and 12 40mms.
Lupe: I made the error Jack didn’t and tried to keep the pads and cloak while doing an arm swap. It works but please don’t look at the model from below because the big empty space around his shoulder is glaring and weird. Honestly, I thought the build on this model left something to be desired – the fit of the cloak around the backpack is a pain and the integrated pads and cloak are annoying. The base hero slab isn’t integrated though and can be swapped out, so points for that.
Rockfish: Honestly I had no major trouble building this model, there were a bunch of little bits to it and I wasn’t too fond of the little cloak piece but nothing too bad. ¯(ツ)/¯
Painting
Jack: Most of my painting on this model was airbrush highlights and washes, which he takes like a champ. Plenty of interesting detail to keep surfaces from getting boring, and also interesting curves for the washes to flow into. Probably one of the fastest characters I’ve ever painted.
Rockfish: This model was fantastic to paint, nothing took particularly long to do since access was good and the surfaces were clean to make it easy to basecoat. I really had fun with the cape, I didn’t spend that long on it but it really caught my attention for some reason. I love how dynamic it is and how you can even see the studs of the puldron through it, it meant there was a bunch of fun stuff you can do with the lighting on it.
Axe Praetor
Appearance
Jack: I did a little more conversion work on this guy than the Blood Angel above. I think he’s a striking model, but fits a bit better in a Traitor force than a Loyalist one. He also projects a sense of weight, and I thought would work work well as the new Imperial Fist Castellan consul – for lesser legions he’d work well as an Armistos too.
Lupe: I love that we all seemed to have the same idea because I built this guy as an Alpha Legion Armistos. He’s just got such heft and I really love it. This is probably my favourite of the two models in aesthetic in person, though he was definitely a distant second in previews – the detailing on the armour is wonderful, and those gems are sparkly and delightful.
Build
Jack: He’s a mis-match of parts from all over. The heavy bolter and shoulder pads are from a MkIII kit, the arm from a MkIV kit, the chain sword from Blood Angels death company, the head from phalanx warders, and the targeter from the Imperial Fists primaris upgrade sprue (yes, I know primaris parts in the heresy are heretical). Much like sword bro, the arms went right on after I clipped the armpit ribbing, though changing where the shoulders were meant I couldn’t use the cloak. I was a little disappointed on this guy, as it fits him better than someone with a jump pack, but I’m generally happy to take Edna’s advice about capes.
Lupe: I’m keen to get a second one of these chaps and build them more as intended, with the cloak and shoulder pads. Overall I think this is actually an easier build than the other praetor, though this might have been influenced by me doing it second and therefore being aware that I needed to put the gorget in before gluing the two halves of the chest together and therefore not having to lever them apart while swearing.
Painting
Jack: My Imperial Fists scheme is much more painful to paint than the gold on the Blood Angel, but it still went well on this guy. The pistol holster was a little hard to figure out where the leather started and gun began, but what I ended up with looks good enough. Everything else worked nicely to give me one of my favorite power armored characters.
Lupe: Honestly a breeze to paint, which considering how many details there were was a surprise. God I love this model, just a wonderful mix of large armour panels and intricate details that makes him a joy to get finished and ready for the table.
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