Horus heresy. Black shields. Reaver Lord. Part 1.

I had made plans to do a bunch of other projects before I started with this but why wait when you can do it now, right? This character will mark the start of my Black shield addition to my horus heresy armies. To begin with it will only be a Reaver Lord, one squad of nine Marauders and a Anvillus dreadclaw (converted) as an allied detachment for my iron warriors and/or my future Mechanicum. I don’t really need them in my armies out of necessity I will rater take them out of fun. And I also think it is a nice way to try them out and not put too much on the painting table at once. The way I envision them is very dirty, with black armor and occasional red accent colors here and there. Allot of conversions with most ork parts replacing shoulder pads and weapons. As if they have been forced to loot ork battle fields to supplies there armory. I think it fits well with some of the lore as well.

This is not a new idea from my part. I first dream up a renegade space marine chapter with heavy ork influences back in the 90s. It started with Gorka Morka. Witch basically was an expansion to Warhammer 40k. Were orks fought against ork. Battling over what god was the most power full (Mork or Gork). But there was a third race in that game. The diggaz (if I remember correctly) witch was human-techno-barbarians that embraced the orky ways and was fighting alongside of the ork war bands. It was simply humans with the same orky iconography and style of war gear as the orks. Like the metal jaws and crude slabs of metal plates serving as armor pieces.

As a kid and an ork player I saw this to be a cool way to start a space marine chapter based on the same theme as the diggaz. A renegade chapter that adopted the most violent and brutal ways of war just like the orks. But the idea was never realized. But when I started Warhammer 40k again a couple of years ago the idea came to mind quite quickly again. But I wanted to make a proper Warhammer 40k army before I started to make this (abomination) converted army. And now when Horus heresy book 6 was released with rules for Black shields. I directly started to make plans for my ork influenced renegade chapter. Forge world have now given me a perfect platform to build my dream army and I will sees this opportunity. I think this will be a cool concept and it will absolutely be a super fun project to build and paint. But as I mention at the start. I will begin with a small force. Mainly so I can ally them in with my other armies. But I guess the force will grow over time and at some point be able to stand on its own two legs.

There is something that really intrigues me with the concept of the black shields as well (or parts of the black shields any way). This “we don’t give a F#/¤ about the emperors lost cause or the war masters corrupted truth” attitude that just drags me in. This is how a renegade army should look and feel. This is the perfect army for the grime dark. This is the real truth. Everything is already lost. There is no plan, no redemption and no point to it all. No “out of this world daemons” and no fancy empire to lean beside. In the grim dark there is only war!

That’s my take on it any way and I will enjoy every little bit of it :D .

And this is the start of my first character for the black shields.