Warhammer Horus Heresy - Imperialis Militia 2

I've finished up some additional forces for my Imperialis Militia for the Horus Heresy. These are all 3d prints from my old Elegoo Mars Pro II. As in my last post, the infantry and walkers are from the Makers Cult Valour Korps line, and the tanks are Nefyma designs. 

A pack Chocobo!

Below are the light tanks for my militia force. These are the Dague tank by Nate Feyma and are such great little tanks. I will be using them as militia scout rovers in my army.

One with twin lascannons.

Then two with twin multilasers.

These are all for the volume of fire!

A command squad.

Then I will be using the APC's below as the Militia Industrial Rigs. I really like twin auto cannons.

The first of my APC's.

The first of many, completed Infantry troops.

More recon! Three scout sentinels.

Leman Russ Executioner.

Warhammer Horus Heresy - Imperialis Militia Army

The Imperial Guard

My Imperial Army for Horus Heresy!

Warhammer Horus Heresy 3rd Edition has recently been released, and it has motivated me to finish up my dream army, Imperialis Militia! However, I will just be referring to my force as the good ole' Imperial Army.

When I first started playing Warhammer 40k back in the days of 3rd Edition, the Imperial Guard were my army. I was just a junior high kid with no money trying to scrap together enough miniatures to make an army. Plastic Catachans, metal Cadians, Steel Legion and even Mordians made of my infantry. While a few precious (because of their cost) Leman Russes and Chimeras filled out the heavy support choices. I even had to use an Inquisitor in my army just to have enough points to play a standard game. The armies I took to a few local tournaments could not have been less optimized or competitive, even if I tried! But boy did I have fun. 

Over the years new units were added in as I picked up updated releases, but the army always was a weird Frankenstein's monster of units. Then when my interest in playing 40k ended I sold most of my armies, but I could never let go of my Imperial Guard, or as they were retconned, Astra Militarum. 

Other games pushed out 40k for a long time, but then when the Horus Heresy game was released, I was interested, as I enjoyed the lore for that time period. By this point the miniature gaming hobby aspect far outweighed my interest in actually playing, so the more narrative and hobby-based nature of the Horus Heresy game was just what I wanted. I slowly modded a Raven Guard army with Space Marine plastics and the occasional Forgeworld bits, but I've never been the biggest fan of the gene enhanced, brainwashed super soldiers. I love the regular baseline human standing there against the most horrendous monsters in the universe, with an old rifle and bayonet! 

Teenage me wouldn't be able to image this!

I picked up the Horus Heresy Book Five - Tempest when it came out and all the excitement of looking through the 3rd Edition Imperial Guard book came back when I saw the Militia and Cults list. It was made for customizing and creating a unique army of just regular people in the most catastrophic war imaginable. I got to work, a unit of 10 Grenadiers and 3 Ogryns were painstakingly converted from various GW plastics before other things pushed that project to the backburner.

Since this has already been too long, I'll fast forward to Horus Heresy 2nd Edition and how I really got into the game full on then. My Imperial Fists, grew from nothing to one of my most complete, and fully realized armies with the great plastics GW released, and my own 3D printer! I learned a lot about building up a large army and finishing it in a timely fashion (instead of getting sidetracked with other projects). At the end of 2nd Edition HH I started on my dream project of a massive Imperial Army force (using the Imperialis Militia rules) based on Nfeyma's incredible tanks, and the Valour Korps from The Makers Cult. This force would be based on a French DLM from World War II. So, a heavily mechanized force with plenty of tanks. One of the main things for me is that the miniatures and paint scheme be consistent from start to finish.

And now that I have their updated list in 3rd Edition, and it doesn't lose any of the fun, quirky options, I can finish things!

A unit of Grenadiers with shotguns.

Ogryn's with power mauls and shields.

A second unit of Ogryns.

Lots of Lascannon gun teams.

These were finished for 2nd edition, where they were better.

A battery of laser destroyers.

These guns get the work done!

The most basic of transports.

Grenadiers with a couple of sniper rifles.

Grenadiers with two meltaguns.

My characters. Led by an old metal Commissar Gaunt!

I love recon, these are Militia Quads.

Some old Death Korps snipers.

A beautiful Baneblade!

The workhorse Leman Russes.

Ready to take on some Astartes.

Vanquishers for enemy armor.

A Malcador.

These will also be Militia Quads.

I'm using this as a Field Gun Battery.

I dropped them on bases just in case.

Move the guns up!

The workbench still has 40 basic infantry, another Leman Russ, more transports and some tiny tanks! I plan on finishing them within a few weeks and being mostly finished.

A Vehicle Worthy of a Primarch!

 Thunderhawk Gunship

This project completely came out of nowhere! After speaking with a friend who recently got a Bambu X1 Carbon printer and wanted to really try it out on a big project, I thought of what I could add to my Horus Heresy Imperial Fists. While I've never really considered buying any of Forgeworlds mega expensive models, they sure are impressive. So after a quick search on Cults 3D I found Nordwand's Deliverance Pattern Heavy Assault Gunship and thought it looked like a great project! 

Nordwand's 3d model is set up more like a model kit than a wargaming miniature with lots of individual parts. It took me a long time to get all the print plates set up with the many pieces of the kit. I then printed most of the small parts on my Elegoo Mars Pro II. Then in just a few days all the parts were finished, and it only took a single roll of the cheapest Bambu filament! 3D printing consistently blows my mind with how quickly technology is progressing!

Originally, I had grand plans on magnetizing parts of the hull to reveal the detailed interiors and have marines preparing to disembark. However, I quickly reeled myself in and remembered that I have very little time and a mountain of projects to finish. So, I instead decided to focus on a detailed cockpit as a mini diorama and eventually some troops at the assault ramp.

I modified various 3d marines to make my crew miniatures. I can do minor changes to stl files but am not skilled enough to make models from scratch.

Only some of the first batch of printed parts!

The fuselage assembled.

I wanted to make sure I had a detailed cockpit.

I was very happy to get a clear canopy printed.

I was assembling everything as they came off the plates.

The completed gunship.

Still working on the crew.

Had to do some work to get the assault ramp to open easily.

First round of paint.

Bright, but I plan on weathering it.

Painted, with no decals.

Complete with weathering and decals.

The transparent cockpit turned out great.

This will mainly be used as terrain, but I still love it!

Ready to make landfall!

I am happy with how the cockpit turned out.

I'll have to make some other photos as there are a lot of extra details in the cockpit.

I've never bought a FDM printer due to the layer lines, but this Thunderhawk has proven to me that the technology is definitely there to print miniatures with incredible detail on a FDM printer!

At the end of the day, I could not be happier with this project and how it turned out. With very limited time to build and paint, I have far too many projects that get boxed away unfinished, I'm very glad this one was completed.