“From iron cometh strength! From strength cometh will! From will cometh faith! From faith cometh honour! From honour cometh iron!”

— Unbreakable Litany of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion

Since I got back into the hobby, it didn’t take long to decide which army to collect. As a student of the Horus Heresy fluff and lore, after cutting my teeth with Adeptus Titanicus, I’d always been drawn to the original traitor legions, and none more than the IVth legion. Reading the fantastic Angel Exterminatus and Storm Of Iron by Graham McNeill pretty much sealed the deal, with a fantastic insight into Perturabo’s mind and the way the legion goes to war respectively. Cruel, bitter, taken for granted, overlooked, but also with a sharp mind, with attention to detail and meticulous planning. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I can identify with. No talking swords needed to convert me.

So, armed with a pot of boltgun metal, plenty of drybrushes, and the Army Painter dark tone and strong tone washes, I went to war with with my pile of shame and set about raising an army of Iron Warriors for our 40K tournament. With no legion-specific rules, I opted for the mark of Nurgle in some units, to represent the stubborn nature of the boys from Olympia, and that all important extra point of toughness. There’s no worshipping of the Lord Of Decay though, as my Warpsmiths managed to harness the plague virus, just like the deadly Obliterator virus, but the rust is already creeping in, and my Grand Battalion are unwittingly treading the path towards corruption.

First up is a Chaos Lord on a bike packing a Power Fist & Lightning Claw, backed up with an Aspiring Champion and 2 Melta Gun bikes, so they pack a punch before getting in your grill. As with pretty much all my army, I’ve gone for the scratch-built approach and kitbashed a lot of it, and pimped it with Warriors Of Chaos and Space Wolves bitz. I even had my first go with green stuff and sculpted some fur onto the Lord’s cloak

2 squads of Plague Marines, with shields and heads from some Chaos Warriors, and packing a pair of Plasma Guns. Feel No Pain is such a cool special rule, and these stubborn fuckers just shrug off most firepower, unless they see a Vindicator and will tactically retreat

Raptors, with the Mark Of Khorne. I got inspiration for these from both Kroeger in Storm Of Iron, and also Rhodaan  from Siege Of Castellax. Yeah, you wouldn’t normally associate bloodthirsty fast attack choices with this legion, but I wanted a balanced army whilst I got to grips with the game. The Champion (kindly donated by Paulo) is an old metal Berzerker with an added Jump Pack and Power Maul, the normal dudes are a mix of Raptors and Chaos Marines

Havocs, with 4 autocannons converted from the old metal dudes with heavy bolters, just extended the barrels and pimped them with Defiler and Predator bling. I also got hold of an old Techmarine to use as the Aspiring Champion

Obliterators are my most extensive kitbash. They started out as old metal Chaos Terminators, with a heavy and melee weapon attached, and then covered in green stuff. Daemonic flesh is very forgiving when you’re new to sculpting.

So to sum up it all up, plenty of old metal dudes, kitbashing, boltgun metal and wonky hazard stripes.