Magnus Might Have Done One or Two Things Wrong...

 Like every good World War II gamer, every Horus Heresy player should have two armies so that they can play as Loyalists or Traitors or just introduce a friend to the game. Look, I don't make the insane rules that bounce around in my skull, ok? I just enforce them. Anyway, after painting a ridiculous amount of Imperial Fists, I thought I'd try collecting and painting a Thousand Sons force. 

The Sons of Prospero ready to do battle.

For this army; I wanted a simple, clean paint scheme that would allow me to get the army on the battlefield fully painted in a quick amount of time. A lot of the How-to-Paint tutorials I found online for 30K Thousand Sons involved undercoating them in a gold and then building up layers of red using gloss colors applied in several layers. These gave great results, and are totally valid techniques for competition painting but I realized it would take me years to finish the army if I tried to do it this way. There had to be an easier solution. I found it in the Duplicolor spray paint line - a metal flake Red made for automotive applications. After a test model, I was set. 

Tactical Brotherhood Primus

This is probably something that I'm going to start harping on pretty hard in the future. The idea of getting nicely painted armies on the board with techniques that don't take forever has become a little bit of an obsession lately. Right now I'm calling it "Median Painting". The idea is to have a fully painted army that is cohesive and looks good in a reasonable amount of time. That last bit is key, because I see great painters with armies full of bare plastic or people who don't like to paint and are trying but getting really bad information. A nicely, but completely, painted army fighting against a similar army on a board where all the terrain is painted is a magnificent sight to behold and experience. I wouldn't trade it for all the Golden Demons in the world.

Tactical Brotherhood Secundus

I painted most of these units in parts. Things like the bodies, arms, heads, packs and arms were primed with the metal flake red. Weapons (and attached hands) were primed with an aged bronze spray (that looks like GW Leadbelcher paint). Afterwards, the model was fully assembled. Trim was painted with GW Retributor Armor then that and red was shaded with GW Druchii Violet Shade. Then the gun casings were painted cream tones. I found that I could paint two coats of GW Soulstone Red over the silver metal hands on the guns and it was almost a match for the main body. Painting one hand per guy this way was definitely a time saver compared to doing an entire model with this technique. These are the kind of hacks that I feel need to get out there more. 

The same techniques were used on the characters and vehicles.

I used the 40k Thousand Sons Terminator kit for my 30k 
guys. Its Tartaros-pattern armor, so it fits perfectly.

I thought I'd keep the Heavy Support Squad simple and
just go for missile launchers. Getting 10 of these guys actually
proved to be a nightmare.

The Tactical Support Brotherhood is gonna be a mean
bunch to tangle with.

Ancient Brother Reshep was made
with some simple conversions of the
standard plastic Contemptor kit.

Man, it has been almost 20 years since I built one of these. 
It was fun, but the kit is starting to show its age compared to 
the newer vehicles.

This kit is an absolute nightmare to 
assemble. I don't think I ever want
to build another...

... that said, I went to town on it - making sure
it all opens up and has plenty of detail inside.

So there they are, about 100 Power Levels or 2k-ish points worth of Thousand Sons. Done in about months of work on and off. All painted to a consistent standard and looking cohesive. Are they the best painted force ever to hit a table? Probably not. But they have a bold color scheme and a harmonious set of paint-jobs, so they will look fantastic on a battlefield. What more could you ask for?

-Cheers!