Heresy Era Ultramarine Army Started!

Last September was when it all started. I was lucky enough to go to Games Day, and picked up a copy of Horus Heresy Book one: Betrayal from the Forge World stand. I didn't pick up any kits except for the Angron model, as I knew if I made a spur of the moment choice it would get very expensive very fast.

Cataphractii

Recon Squad

For the past few months I've been reading the army list contained in that great tome, generating many lists, each one completely different. I love the flexibility it offers. From the shear amount of unit choices, to the countless wargear options, and all the rites of War that change your force organisation.

My first few lists were attempts to shoehorn all of the cool shit into one army. There wasn't really a theme, or a strategy behind it other than what looks awesome. This process produced some wildly expensive and sprawling Apoc sized lists, everything is just amazing. I had to rethink my approach to this.

Last month, I attended the Forge World Open Day and as always they had a lot of new kits on show. With the majority of options in the book now available it was time to knuckle down and come up with a feasible list to work towards. The Recon Squad in my opinion are some of the best looking sculpts for a Space Marine ever, and I knew I had to have them in my army somewhere. What this sparked was the idea of a fast moving, scouting and recon army. Wildly different from any army I've previously made. I'm usually a complete Elites fanboy, I love terminators and Crisis Suits, so stepping wholeheartedly into the Fast Attack slot was new territory for me.

Here's the 1500 point list I've come up with -

• Praetor on a Jetbike.
• A 10 man Assault Squad.
• 10 man Tactical Squad in a Rhino.
• An Outrider bike Squad.
• 5 Recon Space Marines.
• Cataphractii Terminators with loads of different weapons.
• A Land Raider Proteus for the Terminators.
• Finally a Jetbike Squadron.

The Proteus

Jetbikes!

With that sorted, I started planning what I'd need to order to get the ball rolling. Thankfully I just got my bond back from the old flat, and as I'd already paid the bond on the new house it was kind of surplus. This meant I could order a sizable chunk of my army in one go and leave the smaller kits for ordering every now and then.

Yesterday my order got dropped off by UPS and I was like a kid at christmas, opening each bag, seeing how great the casting on each part was, chopping off the huge blocks of resin to condense the whole thing down. In total I ordered a recon squad, a unit of outrider bikes, a squadron of jetbikes, some Cataphractii terminators and a land raider Proteus. A very daunting amount of resin. Add that to the five mkIV marines and five mkII assault marines I already have and it's a good start to the army. But starting an army has never been a problem for me, it's the finishing it that I need to work on!

Shit loads of 'tank traps'

Outrider squad

Over the course of I don't know how long I'll be posting regular updates of how the Ultramarines are coming together, and hopefully I'll be able to have a game of 30k in the near future!

Have you started a Heresy era army? How did you go about picking a list? Let me know as I'd love to hear what you think about all this!