This army has – to my shame – lurked in storage; unforgotten but largely unplayed for the past few years. I thought I'd kick off by trying to work out what everything would count as in the new edition, and what, if any, changes need to be made to get it to a playable state.

The army in its short-lived snow-base phase.

The core of the army – as you can see above – has always been Tactical Marines. The impetus behind the whole project was to create an 'army of heroes': models that reflected the lore of Space Marines as individuals with stories of their own; so I deliberately steered away from 'Elite' stuff. Space Marines are plenty elite already, was my thinking! The new rules look like they're going to support that, which is nice to see. It'll be nice to field a horde of infantry that isn't instantly scooped off by a giant pieplate.

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Veterans

The inspiration for the first thirty – the eponymous Praetors of Calth – was the Greek heroes of the Odyssey. You can see them, in all their yellow-banded glory, at the right of the picture above. These were built for 5th (6th?) edition 40k, prior to the first edition of Age of Darkness, so were built with special and heavy weapons. These will now make for Veterans, I think – and that seems quite fitting for both their in-universe lore, and their real world age!

Tactical Legionaries

Most of the rest of the army was built after this, with the Horus Heresy lore by that point much expanded – you can see these more uniform troops on the left of the picture. These'll serve nicely as Tactical Legionaries.