Showcase: Legions Imperialis Karacnos Assault Tanks (inc. painting guide)

The Horus Heresy and by extension Legions Imperialis, has the same problem that Lord of the Rings suffers from. That’s all changing with the Dark Mechanicum models, whilst not true Dark Mechanicum models, you can take Karacnos Tanks as part of the Horus aligned Mechanicus. Find why I take issue with games from the 31st Millennium in today’s post.

Models were kindly supplied to me by Games Workshop. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

What is my problem with the Horus Heresy then?

The Horus Heresy is more like a historical war-game, in the way that all the forces are accounted for with their locations, battles, uniforms, heraldry is all locked down in the lore. It’s the same for Lord of the Rings, Gandalf’s colours are set and it would be super weird painting him purple for instance. I think it’s this lack of creativity of coming up with your own schemes that puts me off the Horus Heresy era games. That was until I painted some Dark Mechanicum.

You see, I chanted some prayers to the google servitor to look up some official Dark Mech schemes and I couldn’t really find anything. This is great! This meant I wouldn’t have the “purple Gandalf” issue if I painted my Karacnos Assault tanks in my own colour scheme.

Painting Legions Imperialis Karacnos Assault Tank

I had already painted some Serperos ‘Overlord’ Heavy Stalkers in a non-official colour scheme so I decided to use those colours for the Karacnos Tanks.

You’ll want to undercoat the tanks black and then drybrush Leadbelcher and Runefang all over. This is a fast way to get all the gubbinz, greeblies and trim painted. It’s much easier now to go in and paint the armour panels in their respective colours.

Painting my Dark Mechanicum models has really piqued my interest in the Horus Heresy now. I’m kinda giving it a second look. Maybe I’ll look into getting some of the 28mm heroic scale Horus Heresy models?