Here at HeresyHammer we want to use our platform to help promote and showcase some of the amazing armies out there in our community. These blog posts will look to look at beautiful models and talk a little bit to the person responsible.

What is your name and whereabouts are you based?

Howie

What is your Instagram? 

phosphexfanboy

When did you first start gaming and what attracted you to the Horus Heresy?

Like a lot of people I guess, started back in the ’90’s as a kid then had a lonnnng break. Got back into it at the beginning of 2023. Heresy was just a sensible place to get back into the hobby for me – last edition of 40k I played was 2nd…

What aspect of the hobby do you enjoy most? e.g. Gaming, painting, converting or just reading the BL books? 

Tough one, I love painting, especially weathering and basing – but I love a good event too. I always think the Heresy community has a lot to offer the world on what positive masculinity looks like…

What is the theme and lore behind your force? Has it developed over time and is there anything that particularly inspired that? 

It started with a joke around how terrible flyers are in 2.0 – so I went for an all flyers list. And who has the fastest flyers… My head-cannon is that they’re more of reserve force, kept back to control flanks, or distract the enemy while the cool-kids on bikes do their thing. That’s why I went with a load of indom and despoilers – they’re meant to be noisy and messy – not subtle…

Can you give us an overview of how you painted your army?

I was pretty intimidated by doing white to be honest. I was only just over a year into painting before starting these and was pretty terrified of the airbush still (we’re friends now). Fortunately Medder’s vid on a White Scars Indom popped up at the right moment – it looked doable. Shorthand, primed black, based purple/grey combo, then sprayed white. Most of the reds are AP’s Blood Red and most of the blacks are Black Templar. Metallics are a mixture of Pro Acryl and Vallejo. Only real variation I added was bringing up the red highlights with some Wild Rider Red and adding an intermediary airbrush layer to vehicles of Yeti White. I was struggling to get a smooth fade from the purple up to Matt White and the Yeti White really helped cover up my inexperience with an airbrush.

What is your favourite model in your force, either from a modelling or a gaming perspective? 

There’s one lonely indomitus I love – just the pose. The way the model interacts with the base looks like he’s shifting and coming right at you. I play the indom as back-line wreckers – so it’s appropriate too! Painting the shields though was – an exercise in frustration…

How does the army perform on the tabletop? Can talk about your win/loss performance, but also how it plays, what sort of tactics you use and any particular memorable moments. 

Really swingy. Three big variables are: amount of anti-air, when you score in the mission and whether the event has any flyer-friendly or armour-friendly house rules. There’s enough flyers at 3k that they can handle a token Deredeo, but once an opponent has more than that it becomes a challenge. End of game scoring is amazing, they allow the flyers to focus down units that can hurt them, then smash line, before waltzing in wherever they like and winning the objective last round with superior numbers. The Attrition gents blocked interecepts on flyers at their events, if anything this made them a little strong. Flying on and off the table was just carnage – really difficult for your opponent to predict. Goonhammer added a hullpoint to all vehicles, it was amazing the difference it made. I think a 5+ shroud on arrival would be a good balance maybe… Overall I’ve won more games than I’ve lost – but when you lose you lose hard and quick!

What are your future plans, either for this army or for another force? 

So part of me wants to put The Khan in a specially painted flyer and lob him at folks – but that’s maybe on the backburner for now. I’m slowly filling out options for a more regular force – but the the dream is a mainly-outriders Chog Bros force. Just waiting to check whether 2.5/3.0 will still make it legal or not…

Anything else you would like to say?

Just a huge thank you to all the folks in the community that helped me bring this force to life, Scott for the initial nudge, Medders for the recipe, Luke and Olly for all the painting feedback and tips