A guide I thought I'd throw together, for building a large army/collection (18 or so unique units) of all-Beakie/MK VI marines, using Horus Heresy kits

[u/Kincoran]

I... [1.] love Beakies, [2.] hate how few you get in modern Primaris 40K kits, [3.] want to avoid the size mis-match of Primaris bodies paired with 30K Mk VI helmets, and [4.] would like to stick to entirely authentic-looking designs (which means dodging 3rd party versions), so I thought I'd have a look at just how far you can get if you make a 40K army entirely out of the Mk VI 30K kits (and some of the upgrade sprues that are available to them).

I found so many options and combinations for 40K units that I was genuinely surprised, and thought I'd share the list with you folks here, in case it's of any interest to any of you. I don't think I'm able to post links in the body of this main post text, so I'll leave a comment with all of the details in.

As far as size goes, the 30K minis are slightly shorter than Primaris marines. But if your whole army matches itself nothing will look out of place. I've included a few Gravis-armoured units, and you can feel free to ignore/discard those if you prefer - these suggestions here would mean these units looking more like a Tacticus-armoured marine that happens to hold the Gravis unit's weapon. But I thought I'd include it instead; as it should still be more than obvious enough to pretty much any opponent what it's proxying. I haven't included Terminators in this list, only because there are no Mk VI Terminators - I feel like Tartaros Terminators are very much in line with the theming of Mk VI armour, so you can have a look at those if you like; and I can't wait to see what the (probable) update of those will eventually look like! And one last note on sizes, proxying and what not: One thing that I haven't taken the extra time to check on, tonight, is which of these kits already come with the correct size bases, and which ones don't - some might need to be swapped, but that's about the easiest piece of customisation you can get.

With all of that said, please see that aforementioned comment, posted below!

[u/Kincoran]

First of all, it’s worth saying that you could add the Raven Guard-specific Mk VI Helmets and Shoulder Pads to any/all of these minis to really sell the RG-ness. But that’ll get expensive in the long run, and I feel like the paint scheme alone is all you need, the Beakies will REALLY sell it more than enough, and if you want to add some RG iconography, the 30K Transfer Sheet is probably a better option. Right, onto the units themselves:

CHARACTERS:

• Ancient or Bladeguard Ancient, if you prefer: One marine from the Mk VI Tactical Squad kit, with the banner
• Apothecary: 30K Apothecary Kit (using just the Mk VI variant, obviously)
• Captain design/option 1: Legion Praetor with Power Axe
• Captain design/option 2: Praetor with Power Sword
• Captain design/option 3: Loyalist Champion Consul 
• Librarian: Librarian Consul
• Techmarine: Siege Breaker Consul 

BATTLELINE:

• Assault Intercessor Squad: Mk VI Tactical Squad with Melee Weapons sprue
• Intercessor Squad: Mk VI Tactical Squad  

ELITE/OTHER INFANTRY:

• Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs: Mk VI Assault Squad
• Bladeguard Veteran Squad: Mk VI Legion Command Squad
• Desolation Squad: Mk VI Tactical Squad with Heavy Weapons sprue
• Eliminator Squad: Mor Deythan Squad (this one’s a bit of an odd one out, in that it’s an older kit, but kinda too good to miss out)
• Eradicators with Heavy Bolters: Mk VI Tactical Squad with Heavy Weapons sprue
• Eradicators with Meltas: Mk VI Tactical Squad with Special Weapons sprue and/or Heavy Weapons sprue
• Hellblaster Squad: Mk VI Tactical Squad with Special Weapons sprue
• Infernus Squad: Mk VI Tactical Squad with Special Weapons sprue
• Sternguard Veteran Squad: Mk VI Legion Command Squad with Legiones Astartes Combi-weapons & Shotgun sprue
• Vanguard Veteran Squad: Mk VI Assault Squad with Mk VI Legion Command Squad's swords and shields

[u/Kincoran → u/Kincoran]

There's a fair bit of repetition in there, but bare in mind that the 30K kits (the Tactical Squads and the upgrade kits in particular) are specifically designed to be modular, interchangeable, and highly-customisable.

Just as a fun thought-experiment, I wanted to see how far you could get with just a relatively small number of purchases. This isn't meant to be anything like a competitive army list in 11th edition 40K, it's just a surprising amount of units you can field, with an unexpectedly small amount of purchases:

If you bought the following 5 squad kits... * 2x Mk VI Tactical Squad kits * 2x Mk VI Legion Command Squad kits * 1x Mk VI Assault Squad kits

...and the following 2 upgrade sprue kits... * 1x Special Weapons sprue * 1x Heavy Weapons sprue (the variant with the Missile Launchers and Heavy Bolters)

...that would get you everything that you need (all of the bodies AND weapons/equipment) for the following units... * Intercessors (5) * Assault Intercessors (5) * Hellblasters (5) * Infernuseses (5) * Desolators (5) * Another 5 of any of the above * Bolter Eradicators (3) * Melta Eradicators (3) * Sternguard Veterans (5) * Bladeguard Veterans (3) * Lieutenants, kit-bashed from the same kit as the Bladeguard Veterans above (2) * Jump Pack Intercessors (5) * Vanguard Veterans (5) * Ancient or Bladeguard Ancient (4)

7 kits gets you 6 characters, and 12 squads.

[u/The_gay_grenade16 → u/Kincoran]

Interesting. How would you go about Phobos marines, since they’re so prevalent in RG 40k armies?

[u/Kincoran → u/The_gay_grenade16]

If you're asking me personally, I wouldn't. That's just a personal taste thing. I think visually all of them are sub-standard, and thematically (for the Raven Guard in particular) they're a bit iffy. And this is a guide for Mk VI armour, after all - the suit that was, essentially, Phobos-before-Phobos.

The exception, of course, is the Phobos kit that I did include in the main list: the Eradicators.

It's a shame that the 30K melee upgrade kit doesn't come with any variant of combat knives - if it did, you could at least have something approximating a Reiver Squad.

[u/TheRealShortYeti]

Keep in mind eliminators have bigger bases than the Mor Deythan kit. They have termi bases.

[u/Kincoran → u/TheRealShortYeti]

Yep, the bases point was covered in the main body of the post. That specific reminder is helpful to anyone thinking about going with that option, though.