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Hey everyone, KrautScientist here with an absolutely fantastic army I discovered while trawling the forums in search of inspiration. This is also the best possible army for the coming Halloween season.
Let me preface this by saying that either me or Blogger (or the both of us) made a mistake which lead to this article previously going live in a semi-completed state -- sorry for that.
Anyway, what I would like to share with you today is a fabulous army project that has made me take a new look at my own hobby projects. Brother Heinrich's Night Lords of the 15th Company.
Previously, my gold standard for Night Lords done really well had always been Dan the Daemon's NL army, and I was shattered when he stopped updating the blog quite a while ago: Nobody seemed to get what Night Lords were about as much as Dan.
But then, some time ago, Brother Heinrich appeared upon the scene with his own Night Lords army
As you can see in the picture above, both the conversions and paintjobs are fantastic. What really gets me with Heinrich's models, though, is how each of the model has its own character. Take that renegade Carcharodon turned Night Lord in the picture above, for example. Or the Plasmagunner with the brilliantly painted Death Mask. Every one of those models really feels like an individual.
Being a melee kind of guy, making Bolter wielding Chaos Space Marines look badass always seemed like a daunting task to me. But Brother Heinrich pulls it off with seeming ease. Take a look:
Again, the most fantastic thing is how each of these models has been expertly customised: Nothing flashy, just the right combination of interesting bitz to hint at a larger background and individual characters.
For instance, this may be one of my favourite models in the army:
But the important thing to understand here is that this is the mere baseline standard for Brother Heinrich. Each of the models has been customised and individualised to the point where they are not overly flashy, but clearly come across as individuals, an attention to detail befitting veterans of the Long War.
Which is not to say that his champions and special characters don't stand out, because they are even better than the rank and file:
I have gone on record saying that I am not all that big on tanks. But in this army, event those boring, box Rhinos are a thing of depraved beauty. I mean, grisly trophies may be par for the course when it comes to the Night Lords, but this is something else: The brothers of the Night Lords' 15th company have decorated their tanks in flayed Astartes, no less:
Those are truly something else, aren't they? The guy with the skeleton face above may be my absolute favourite.
Another rather unhappy chap is still a bit more alive...but only just barely:
Brother Heinrich has already painted this last model and ooh boy...
From a modelling perspective, many people are complaining about how badly the CSM sculpts have aged, yet Brother Heinrich's Night Lords are perfect proof of the fact that it only takes a careful combination of different parts to make suitably cool models, even while using parts from the old kits. He also puts the parts from the great new Raptor kit to exceptionally good use!
Brother Heinrich has also started on the big guys. Check out the elegant yet fantastic conversion work on his Terminators, the fabled Atramentar:
Decepively simple, but oh so cool! Here they are, in their painted glory, led by Heinrich's Chaos Lord:
The latter one deserves a few more words, of course. It's not often that I've seen a model that manages to exude so much quiet menace, even without any screaming face or running pose. Meet
Hashec Tor, "the Hammer of Nostramo", ladies and gents.
The painting on that mask is just sublime!
One of the truly great things about this blog is that it's regularly updated with great new stuff. Taking out a page out of Dan the Daemon's fantastic work, Brother Heinrich is currently working on these brilliant weapon teams/ counts as Obliterators:
I cannot wait to see these in colour. And with their very own background. Because, you see,each of the models on the thread comes with its own little background vignette, and Brother Heinrich is just as good at writing fluff as he is at modelling and painting. In fact, his way of approaching army creations has given me a whole new outlook: I have always endeavoured to turn my army commanders and lords into actual characters, but this army makes me realise I should pay similar attention to the rank and file. I won't steal his thunder by posting his background over here, but be sure to check it out: Each of his blogs' elements are brilliant by themselves, but it is only in conjunction that they become truly stellar!
It's a testament to Brother Heinrich's skill and artistic vision that even Aaron Dembski-Bowden himself has already commented on his thread, seemingly just as impressed by this awesome army as us "mere mortals" ;)
Anyway, enough gushing praise: You may have gathered by now that you need to do yourself a favour, head over to Brother Heinrich's thread immediately and check out his glorious army!
This has been KrautScientist. Thanks for tuning in!
