Corrin Craterus, the Pariah-Colonel of the Steel Legion and the Archon of Hamartia province, serves at the front lines of Armageddon's ground operations as the commander of his regiment "Hounds of Hamartia". Craterus's missions are grim and almost suicidal, as he serves at the helm of the infamous planet's most desperate undertakings. Many of these are drop operations, which are known to kill half of the company's strength upon planetfall. However, all the commander asks for is a chance to serve the Imperium and his late master Solar Macharius, who hopefully watches over his old pupil from the side of the God-Emperor.
The Hounds of Hamartia Imperial Guard was one of the armies built for War Head's Civil War tournament in 2016. Based on the Steel Legion classics, the compact force is a zealous cohort of the Armageddon ground troops, hell-bent on serving their commander with a tragic past.
I've had several takes on the Steel Legion subject over the years, with more or less the same set of models being repainted in different schemes. I used to adore my cousin's fairly traditional Steel Legion collection, but for some reason decided to do my first squads in winter fatigues. The camo pattern of thick white and ice blue was pretty hideous on the tanks in particular!
The next version for the army was with basic desert colours, using the breakthrough dipping technique that popped up in early fourth edition. This was again later removed to make way for grey coats, as the models did a tour as PDF allies for my Carcharodons. However I really did not see painting an entire playable army in that scheme and decided to go back to the basics, retaining the skull masks I felt were pretty striking.
The aim of the army has been to explore the darker side of 40K and to try including some of those weird details of our favourite artwork in the miniatures. The love for the third edition imagery and the black-and-white illustrations never dies!
Each of the units and characters have been described further (including some of the thought process behind the builds) on our Instagram account.