Epic: Let's Paint More Aeronautica

"Lightning Fighter, defending the Emperor's sky!"

 - Sororitas dialogue, Dawn of War

A while ago, I found an outlet for my love of painting tiny little flying things in Aeronautica Imperialis, so I bought more of them.

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I'm going to start with the Space Marine flyers from Wrath of Angels. There are three Xiphon Interceptors, which the traitor side used to good effect in the Legions Imperialis battle report in White Dwarf 493. They were remarkably easy to build and come with no weapon options that need to be represented on the model, so I had them built in no time. I already tried a sort of Word Bearers paint scheme on the red Twilight Imperium fleet, so the Xiphons also got a base coat of Burnt Cadmium Red, overlaid with Dark Red and details in Gunmetal Grey.

As these are Horus Heresy miniatures, they also bear the same campaign colors as my 28mm Word Bearers and Titans. They are Xiphon squadron Smiling with contempt upon the Earth.

The two Storm Eagle transports, Bring forth the legions, were also quite simple to build and paint.

So now if I do decide to get into new Epic, I can give my marines a little air wing.

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I also have two Valkyries from the Taros box. I can't use them in Epic, but I had them and they were fun to build.

I've understood the Tau need Valkyries for Aeronautica missions that require transports, so I'm painting one of them white. This is the Valkyrie transport The bullock draws the plow.

As for the other one, well, I've been playing a lot of Darktide. And in Darktide, you get flown in and out of your missions by a Valkyrie in inquisitorial colors. Which you can barely see at all since it's black and the game is so relentlessly grimdark.

So of course I'm painting my other Valkyrie black. However, whereas the Darktide Valkyrie has red stripes on the wings, the color of my Sisters of Mercy, and therefore my Ordo Hereticus, is emerald, and that's what I'm going with here.

Here's a shot from an angle Darktide players are more likely to recognize.

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The other Imperial aircraft in that box are one Lightning and two Lightning Strike Fighters. In both Dawn of War and Gladius, the Sisters of Battle get Lightning fighters in their own colors, so now that I have a Sisters color scheme, I'm painting the Lightning in that as well.

The first Lightning Strike gets the same Imperial Navy colors I did earlier, with the addition of campaign stripes on the wings.

And, of course, the second has gone over to the Greater Good and is known as the Sun behind Urth.

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So building all the little Aeronautica planes was fun! I've still got a bunch of xenos aircraft to put together if I feel like it, but should I ever actually get around to Legions Imperialis, I could now equip either force with an entirely respectable air arm. Like I said earlier, I like epic scale a lot, but I think I'll have to wait and see what they do with it.