Legion Tactical Support Squad Sobek

A Rotor Squad?

Well, I needed to do something with all those mark III plastics from the Prospero box.  But I didn't want to do a big squad in case I messed it up, and I wasn't sure if I should be making a Tactical Squad or a Veteran Squad. I put together several bolter guys and tentatively tried painting them, learning more of what not to do than actually how to go about getting what I wanted.  I decided to start again, and to start with a planned, legal squad, instead of just attacking some bolter guys in the assumed idea that I'd need them.
Reading the Age of Darkness army list to see what legal squads even were in the Horus Heresy game, I realised to my great delight that I could make a Rotor Squad.  Looking around the internet to see what was thought of them, I discovered Rotor Squads were largely considered terrible.  This didn't put me off in the slightest.  I thought it was hilarious that they even existed.

Reapers

 

There's this bit in A Thousand Sons were Ahriman looks around at his men, and sees a squad spooling up their newly issued rotary assault cannons.  Now, from reading the text, it appears that McNeill was trying to suggest that the Thousand Sons had just gotten their hands on actual assault cannons, replacing an old and crap model called the Reaper cannon.  To me, this read as if the Legion had recently ditched their Reaper autocannons (a typical Chaos marine weapon in 40K) for assault cannons (a weapon Chaos marines aren't typically allowed, for...reasons).  Kind of cool.  Perhaps to get around the idea that 'chaos marines' (as the Thousand Sons would become) didn't have assault cannons, Ahriman notes that they all still call them Reaper cannons because they like the numerology of the name.  That's gonna confuse your quartermaster serfs, but whatever.

Now I don't know if this passage had an influence on Forgeworld, but I did know that, before I even found out such a thing existed, I wanted at least one squad to somehow be lugging around old-looking rotary cannons, and wondered if I could dig up some old or third party assault cannons to counts-as autocannons.  So you can imagine my delight when I found that Forgeworld not only made some actual rotor cannons, but there were rules for them that said they were old and crap.  There were two patterns, and I decided on the one that came with cool backpacks. The set gives you enough parts to make 5 rotor-neers, but I ended up just doing 4, as I wanted the squad sergeant to not actually be carrying one...

Sobek

As my goal was to have as many fluff characters in my army as possible, this meant working out not only who I wanted, but how I'd get them in there.  One of Graham's I wanted in was Sobek.  The kind of dour, snobby Practicus to Ahriman, he had to be rolling with his boss.

As buying my paints had to be organised, I took to flicking through the Visions of Heresy artbook to see how the Thousand Sons colour scheme was being presented that week (more on that in another post), and I discovered a picture of him!  Leading a Heavy Support Squad.  Well, too bad, Sobek, you're a tac support squad Sergeant now.

Shiny marines

I think the modelling came out okay.  The painting, not so much.  I've always been a shiny Thousand Sons guy, and so trying to work that out without an airbrush was an early step.  Originally I went with a silver undercoat, and thought it looked okay.  However, after much staring, I decided it was too dark.  It made me think Word Bearers instead of Thousand Sons, which I felt were a warmer red.
Rather than strip Sobek (I hadn't discovered how to do that yet), I just re-basecoated him and tried again with a gold undercoat.  He's therefore quite THICK.  And I may as well mention it here: I haven't learned how to properly edge highlight yet.  I've started on a few later models, with the intention of going back and adding highlights to my first ones, like good old Sobek and pals here.  I did at least drill the barrel of his pistol, a simple and great idea I read about online that I'm sure everyone else already knows to do.

The rest of the squad started from the gold, so are warmer and look pretty much how I want them to in terms of red.  You can also see that I ordered some upgrade kits from Forgeworld, as Sobek is sporting the upgrade shoulder pads.  Along with the shiny style, I was long a believer that Thousand Sons were red and white (or silver, as some sources say), and didn't at first like the newer studio vision of them being red and gold.  However, I decided to paint this squad with gold edging as it did look cool, and I figured I would rationalise it by saying that gold trim was for line troops, with silver restricted to officers or veteran troops.  Inferno would later legitimise this decision.

You can also note the absolute pain in the arse trying to photograph shiny miniatures is thanks to this guy, especially with a ghetto cardboard box set up like mine.  The red doesn't come out as deep and rich as it is in person, and of course, it has natural highlights that move around as you move the miniature.

Update: a legal miniature?

It was recently brought to my attention that the Sobek model may not actually be legal.  Someone pointed out that, following the wording of the loadout rules, a Tactical Support Squad Sergeant is noted as being able to swap out his flamer (his default weapon) for a close combat weapon.  It doesn't mention being able to swap out any of his other options.  Additionally, the unit entry says that if the squad swaps out their flamers (again, the default), all models in the squad must have the same weapon.  So, the gentlemen said, the sergeant must also have a rotor cannon.

Of course, some other people then said that this was a too strict reading of the rules and it would be implied that the sergeant could swap out whatever weapon for a close combat weapon, following up with some anecdotal evidence that this was allowed in a Warhammer World tournament.  Now, I think giving up dakka for a sword the unit will probably never get much use out of is actually nerfing myself instead of gaining advantage, but I'm not an active gamer.  What I will say is that the point of making this model was to make it look like Sobek, and that's what he looks like.  As said, I have the parts to make another rotor cannon gunner, so if I ever enter a tournament and someone complains, I guess I'll just swap him out.

Old and Crap? More like Over and Powered

I'd actually finished these guys before Inferno came out and made everyone who isn't a witch-sympathiser hate the Thousand Sons even more.  So it was with some happiness that I read the Legion options that allow Thousand Sons Rotor squads to gain the Shred rule.  Combine them with Corvidae cult arcana, and they gain some good re-rolls.  Handy that my guys were already fluffed to be Corvidae thanks to Sobek, and my army being planned to be Corvidae heavy thanks to Ahriman.  However, adding all those options to even just five guys does cost points, and anecdotes from the internet (obviously always trustworthy) seem to indicate that even Thousand Sons rotor squads do crap all in the grand scheme of things.

Hope, snatched away by reality.  Rotor squads in the XVth Legion are fluffy as all heck.