It was salvaged from a long forgotten battlefield and brought back into service by the warband’s techmarine. “The bucket” the warband’s mobile base and tracked firebase. “The Sullen Sons” The entire warband – ready to take it to traitors! Rule of cool and being able to fit within the framework of the Heresy’s fluff was paramount over any min-max rules considerations. Most of all I wanted a heavily themed narrative force – the type of “never say die” force that you would never see in a tournament but that I could call my own. I wanted it to look like it was scavenged from a burned out chassis and repaired with whatever was available to the techmarine. It’s not well armed, but makes a rolling home base – perfect from a narrative point of view. Once I found the Heresy rule allowing a single IG superheavy to represent a scavenged local vehicle I knew the Stormlord was perfect. I wanted the army to have scavenged equipment and a large centerpiece model. These guys were tough as nails Death Guard before they went Blackshield, so they really don’t care about keeping up appearances. I wanted the army to be small, and extremely weathered and battered in appearance. I know, I know… you came for the pretty pictures. All records of the warband cease shortly before the Siege of Terra and their ultimate fate is unknown.”ĭusk Raiders logo – You better believe I’m ready for a Unification War ruleset! They inflicted multiple stinging defeats amongst Traitor forces, with the now traotir Death Guard being their favored foes. The Sullen Sons are notable for their appearance in multiple campaigns indicating they possessed warp transportation of some manner. They then disappeared from records until well after the beginning of the Heresy, appearing again as an intractable band of Blackshields fighting alongside Loyalist forces across multiple worlds in the Segmentum Solar. Early in the Great Crusade the wholly Terran 156th Company are recorded as being the sole Legion forces attached to the 231st Expeditionary Fleet, headed for the Western galactic fringe.
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The 156th Company of the Dusk Raiders were known as ‘The Sullen Sons’, though there was little notable in their short history which required a cognomen. “Before being united with their Primarch, the XIVth Legion were known as the ‘Dusk Raiders’, and they followed the martial traditions of old Albia, upon ancient Terra. Shocked by word of their primarch’s treachery, these Terrans renounced Mortarion, returned to their original Dusk Raider colors and fought a campaign of vengeance upon their brothers till the bitter end. Loyalists from the Death Guard legion who hailed from a distant expeditionary fleet.
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My new army would be a band of Blackshields. When I saw the Blackshields list in a the RETRIBUTION book I had my answer. When I saw the official image of the Original Dusk Raiders scheme in a Forge World book I was intrigued. I’m a sucker for the Unification War and all the very early Great Crusade history. Still I’m a sucker for a doomed heroic cause.
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I always enjoyed the duality of my Death Guard army as I could play it pre-heresy as Loyalists, or Heresy era as traitors. I wanted a new army that would be small, have a “warband” vibe and be even more niche than my Death Guard. It turns out you can get tired of painting white. I knew it was time for me to call them done at long last and move on. Years passed, the army grew and GW wrapped both arms around the Horus Heresy. It was a labor of love years before GW really embraced the Heresy or made minis for it. Back in 2005 I started on my pre-heresy Death Guard army. Many years ago I decided to make a different army. Meet my favorite Theme Army – The Sullen Sons. Before the Death Guard came the Dusk Raiders – and here we see a desperate warband still standing tall for the Emperor.