Burning of Prospero: Sisters of Silence

My wallet is hurting this month, with the release of Burning of Prospero.

I had recently picked up a plastic MkIV tactical squad, thinking that it would make for an interesting bunch of veterans/wolf guard to spread through my Space Wolves army (along side some old school metal marines here and there). And I ordered a 5 pack of resin space wolf torsos from forgeworld, because why not? I can stop any time I like...

And suddenly rumors of BoP happened, and now it looks like I'm on the 30k bandwagon, looking at pictures of sicaran battle tanks and watching 30k battle reports.

That seems to have escalated quickly.

Unboxing BoP was fantastic - so many sprues, fantastic sculpts, so many options.

I decided to kick off with the Sisters of Silence - for the moment the Horus Heresy book 6 Inferno isn't out (and rumours put it in February 2017) so for the moment I'm at a loss as to how to assemble the Mk3 marines - without knowing the SW rites of battle I'm not sure what set up makes sense. Do I make them veterans? how do I arm the squad sergeant? how do I explain the price tag to my lovely wife? etc

But with the Sisters, I went with the Executioner blades. I have enough bolters in my army, and the option of flamers in my grey hunter and blood claw packs. Reading through the November White Dwarf I noticed that the Custodes are set up to be either a full squad of guardian spears, or shields and sentinel blades. No mixed units. So I have assumed the same for sisters.

It also makes sense to me - the Sisters have Initiative 5, and the Executioner blades are S+1 and AP2. I see this unit backing up my squads of grey hunters/wolf guard with their anti-psyker bubble, and then being a nasty counter attack that terminators and HQ's should worry about.

Although, without transport or an invulnerable save, the challenge will be getting the Sisters to where they need to be...

Painting the sisters was very fun, although like the Skitarri there is a scary amount of detail on each figure for such a wee mini, so not only is there alot of detail to paint but the finished minis look like they have alot going on.

I used a new painting technique on these. The November White Dwarf included a how-to for feathering, so I gave it a bash on the robes/cloaks. I'm not 100% happy with how they came out given the amount of time the technique took. I'm not sure if that is simply I didn't have the paint diluted enough, or I didn't make the initial paint strokes broad enough. Still, its OK and definately table top ready.

I've also painted the eyes, which I don't usually do (too many wall-eyed minis from my teenaged years of painting has scared me off).

For the bases, I wanted to do something a bit different from my usual, and also wanted the bases to tie in with Leman Russ (who shall be mine, oh yes my precious he shall, one day), so I'm attempting to alude to the rubble of Tisca with occasional scarabs and obelisks on the bases. I've tried to start with a reddish brown, and then shade (dry brush?) through The Fang, Russ Grey, up to Fenrisian Grey. The red has kinda gotten lost, so I'm thinking that going back with some weathering powders might be the way to finish these girls off. 32mm bases have so much room. I am quite tempted to go back and use base extenders on my existing minis (except that way lies madness).

Next I'm trying to decide between starting the Custodes, or finishing my 2nd Ed Kommando squad. Decisions, decisions.