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Heya, first post since getting back into the hobby. Seeing that we have all of this amazing plastic miniatures now as apposed to resin, when I was in the hobby before..I am finally able afford what I want to do!

So I have a few hobby related questions, and will have many more as time goes on. hoping to get some answers, since I have not been able find answers using google..etc.

So looking at the Forgeworld black books, and a lot of the HH artwork. The Sons of Horus have a lot of spikes on the gear, shoulder pads, leg armor, and even helmets. I have also seen artwork of other legions that use spikes, even including Ultramarines. I had always assumed the spikes were a Cthonian thing, but am not 100% sure on the timelines.

So to the point, I want to try and be fairly accurate when I create my dioramas. The time lines are fairly important to me, as I plan on doing Pre heresy Dioramas as well as Heresy Dio's

Except for the Justaerin terminators, I don't see many if any spikes on the Luna Wolves (in art work), but also don't know if the spikes on the Justaerin models are "Sons of Horus" Justaerin as opposed to "Luna wolves" Justaerin.

Questions:
1) Did the spike usage evolve over time, as the Luna Wolves and the warrior Lodges and corrupted influence of Chaos crept in? I.E. Not many spikes during pre lodge, pre heresy, and the longer the heresy went on, more and more sons of horus started adding more and more spikes?
2) Would the spike usage be more prevalant among the traitor marines, than loyalist marines? If above theory (question1) is correct, it would make sense, and could be modeled that way in an Istvan III diorama of loyalist vs Traitor marines.


thnks..
GDP

My take on this:

1. I assume that you’re referring to the kind of hard-edged spikes that appear on the FW SoH command, which kind of defines the SoH look. I’ve seen similar spikes on Luna Wolves models. I don’t think they’re necessarily exclusive to Chaos - the Luna Wolves seem to have been pretty hardcore. But the spikes do seem to have been part of the Wolves’ devolution into the more brutal SoH. And they do kind of sell that idea.

2. For the same reason, the spikes seem better suited to traitors.

It definitely gets more over time. Massacre gives us a direct quote for that: "depictions of Sons of Horus Centurion and Command Units, Later Great Crusade era. Divergent armorial and Cthonian glyph patterns increase in use, alongside repeated use of the Warmaster's personal iconography" Refering to pictures of Reaver and Command Squad-looking dudes.
So while they looked like this way before Istvaan, personally I have not seen guys like that in Lunar Wolves white. The quote is a bit ambiguous on this however, as it implies the increased use of the eye before the full switch to SoH iconography, otherwise you wouldn't need to state that they are using their regular symbol and if they used the eye prominently before we have to ask if black-and-white depictions of spiky marines could in fact be Lunar Wolves.

For the Justaerin iirc they were described looking like proto Chaos Marines right from the beginning and didn't really change that much over the course of the heresy except for dedicated Chaos iconography and loyalist trophies.

 Shadox wrote:
It definitely gets more over time. Massacre gives us a direct quote for that: "depictions of Sons of Horus Centurion and Command Units, Later Great Crusade era. Divergent armorial and Cthonian glyph patterns increase in use, alongside repeated use of the Warmaster's personal iconography".

Thanks for that reference! I will need to go and take a look at my copy.

So right there is confirmation. And a time line. This matches up with the rise of the warrior lodges, as they were started by the Word Bearers and Erebus, as they planted the seeds of heresy after the Censure of monarchia. Which I believe was 40 years before the Heresy.

So I think I would be safe to model Luna Wolves, pre davinite compliance, as very sparsely adorned of any spikey bits. The lore implies it was the davinite warrior lodges that influenced the Word Bearers (then known as The Imperial Heralds) and the Luna Wolves to adopt some of the characteristics of their lodges.

As far as post davinite era, I will need to go back and read my Horus Rising copy, of the battle of the whisper heads to see if the justaerin are mentioned as having spikes at that time, but I wouldn't doubt it if they did, Especially considering the influence of Abaddon on the Justaerin.

GDP

Spikes on armour would be useful for any marine who might find themselves in close combat. They act as additional weapons (a shoulder barge becomes a dagger punch as well) and additional defense (spikes can be used to potentially trap, hold or deflect ccw's). Therefore any marine might find them a useful adornment. They tend to be used in the HH to suggest legions known for fighting dirty, rather than honourably, but that's just a stylistic choice on gw's behalf. If you think that they fit how you want to present your army, I'd just go for it.