It’s been a while since I last posted anything here. I’ve been quietly tinkering away on my Iron Snakes project in the background and managed to squeeze in a few games here and there. But honestly, I was finding it tough to stay motivated. I tried pushing through, but it slowly dawned on me that I wasn’t really enjoying the direction 9th and 10th edition 40k were heading. As awesome as the new Marine sculpts are, I much prefer the older aesthetic. Maybe that’s because of my rose-tinted glasses from starting the hobby during 5th edition and being really active through to the end of 7th edition after which I dropped out of the hobby for a bit.

This left me at a crossroads with the Iron Snakes. I wasn’t sure whether to keep going with 40k or try something different. Then I came across Heresy Era's and Heresy Hammer 's videos on youtube, and that made me think maybe it’s time to give 30k a shot. I actually had a small Ultramarines force I built around 2015 when The Horus Heresy: Tempest came out, but back then, so much of it was resin models and I tended to avoid it.

So at the start of 2025, I decided to start fresh with a new 30k Ultramarines force. The first thing I did was revisit Know No Fear and Betrayer to get those old creative juices flowing again. While rereading, I noticed something I hadn’t picked up on before: Captain Saur Damocles is the captain of the 6th Company. Since it’s generally accepted that he eventually forms the Iron Snakes chapter, it struck me that I could explore the proto Iron Snakes during the Horus Heresy.

With a direction in mind, I decided to set the force shortly after Calth at the start of the Shadow Crusade. The force will be based around the survivors of the 6th Company along with survivors from other companies on the ship, who have been used to replace the lost battle brothers. As for the colour scheme, I intend to stick to the standard Ultramarine blue with gold trim, but while doing some research into alternate schemes, I came across a piece of fan art that I really like.

This led me to decide that for my veterans, they would have Captain Damocles’s head—the heraldry of the snake—on their right shoulder pad. I’m also planning to have a Legion command squad that looks pretty much exactly like the artwork, or as close as I can get.

With all this in mind, I set about doing a test model, which slowly snowballed into an Apothecary with a Warhawk jump pack. It still needs some touch-ups and weathering pigment applied, but overall I’m really happy with it.

Until next time, we march for Macragge!