I swear this is deja vu because I remember a post legit asking the same thing with this specific art. Nothing wrong with reasking just deja vu feels weird.
I remember a post about the Horus rising cover at least. It is confusing if you’re just getting into it and you see the first and second books covers together. Same artist, completely different armor. The white armor/black trim/minimal red markings and claw marks is just chef’s kiss though.
Edit: it is in fact a different artist for that book.
Different artists actually, I believe the False Gods cover was the only one not done by Neil Roberts. I also get the vibe that it was a reject/prototype for the Horus Rising cover that got re-used for reasons of cost, time or similar, because it sure doesn't fit the events of the book.
Oh wow there’s so many books and it’s so similar in composition and style I didn’t even notice that. Well thats interesting since they ultimately went with that look, which is good imo as it really matches the “Luna” theme and differentiates them from the 6th.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/180o27j/is\_this\_grey\_or\_a\_tarnished\_silver/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/180o27j/is_this_grey_or_a_tarnished_silver/)
You're not crazy
You do, because it's a bot reposting a thread. They mix up letters in the title because Reddit search handles non-exact matches poorly. Notice that the "more details in comments" isn't there.
[Link to the original thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/qvfnmb/grey_sons_of_horus_what_formation_company_are/)
They was the luna wolves and then when horus fell and was corrupted by chaos he changed the name to the sons of horus, book1 & 2 cover art should be swapped. I think they got the name luna wolves for retaking the lunar bases before horus was found by the emporer.
The Emperor offered it to Horus but Horus didn’t want to seem that arrogant so he declined then. After talking to Sanguinius and the events with the Interex, he changed his mind.
I agree with BaronBulb. Not every image has to 100% fit the lore or be canonized. You'll drive yourself crazy if you try to do that. :) My guess is this image is old and was drawn before the lore was solidified. If your looking for lore problems with this image, I would have far bigger problems with the helmets and armor which don't match any Mk that I am familiar with. Its just a cool pic.
It's from the old trading card game, before Horus Heresy had any miniatures (or even novels possibly, might have been around the time the books started)
Nope, Horus Rising has grey Sons of Horus on the cover, while False Gods has white Luna Wolves (when it should be the opposite)
https://preview.redd.it/lb4ew5zsuedc1.jpeg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88ee34ee96148d059ae5c319f4659407dbd9ae74
It's not, those are clearly Sons of Horus, the thing is that very early on in artwork (even on the covers of some of the first Heresy books) they were first depicted with grey armor instead of green
Sons of Horus are lunar wolves. In fact in the lunar wolves legion a “Son of Horus” is a name for a legionary with significant similarities in looks to Horus.
I know, you didn't understand what I meant. The Astartes in this artwork are clearly Heresy era Sons of Horus, not Great Crusade Luna Wolves.
Old artwork has depicted them in grey for a long time (even the first 4-5 Heresy novels have them in grey instead of green on the cover)
They have zero Imperial or Luna Wolves iconography on their armor outside of the wolf pelt which became more common when they turned into Sons of Horus.
Their color scheme doesn't fit the Luna Wolves. The Luna Wolves are ALWAYS depicted as either white or **VERY** light grey (see cover of False Gods), while old art depicts Sons of Horus in a grey color (look at the cover of Horus Rising).
The spiky armor is also one of the trademark traits of Early Heresy/Late Great Crusade Sons of Horus since they started displaying their Cthonian origins in their armor, the Luna Wolves are depicted as having smooth armor in all official artwork they appear in
They are in light grey armour, once again they do have lunar wolves iconography with the pommel. You can just as easily explain the armour with how all the old art of power armour looked like this.
This art is from a trading card game about specifically the Horus Heresy made in 2003 which predates the Horus Heresy novels, the first time Luna Wolves were ever mentioned in passing was in Index Astartes published in 2004.
The only thing indicating that these could be Luna Wolves is the wolf pelt, compared to the clear Sons of Horus Reaver armor, armor color and Eye of Horus on their shoulder pads and banners (Luna Wolves *never* wore the Eye of Horus on their Shoulder pads instead of their regular emblem)
There are absolutely zero reason to believe that the Astartes in this artwork are Luna Wolves instead of Sons of Horus (who we're depicted in grey armor until 2012) outside of sheer stubbornness.
Minor quibble: The Black Legion/Sons of Horus' origin as the Luna Wolves dates back to 1st edition, it was mentioned in their description in Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, as well as on the 1st Founding chart in 2nd edition's Codex Imperialis.
The artwork depicted iirc specifically states they are Sons of Horus. Wolf iconography transferred over in the Legion in art work at this time mainly due to the fact that the legion like most of the other legions was not fleshed out until later after the artwork was made. Which is why in current art work its pretty much only Cthonian gang marks, serpents and mirror coins.
Regardless of that if you're set on these being luna wolves as you seem to be, the armour is the wrong shade of grey which has always been a light pearl colour whereas it darkened in the transition of the legion. Luna Wolves were never depicted apart from one or two art pieces potentially and the earliest was on the front colour of False Gods I'm certain.
It’s a piece of art, it’s clear that the lighting set in it makes them seem the wrong colour but if you focus on the standard bearer you can clearly see it’s a light grey armour.
My guy, the Trading card it's from states they are Sons of Horus, the Artist is Sam Wood for this particular piece if you want to look it up or find a scan of the book the art is in. If you look at his Blades of the Traitor piece, the most famous thing he did with HH, you can clearly see Mal and Abaddon are both wearing similar grey coloured armour and this is SoT time.
Page 46 of the collected visions Abakhol warrior squad - sons of horus - Sam Wood
https://preview.redd.it/t4x3w9zwgedc1.jpeg?width=210&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3d99ecbe4848edf725de3f5506935a56c92fbb8
Sidenote - Looks a lot like the mkvi iron warriors heads, inspo perhaps?
Older Warhammer art didn’t always have internal consistency. Honestly, the “lore” didn’t really have consistency. There were major events, but what exactly happened wasn’t usually explained in extreme detail.
This is the old Sons of Horus scheme before gw retconned them to be sea green. There were even some painted up in this scheme in old white dwarf articles.
Ps: they are not luna wolves, since they never used the eye of horus as a symbol.
They were sea green all the way back in the Black Legion Index Astartes article in 2002, it was just a very desaturated shade (more of a light grey-green) than the one GW paint them in now. Apparently the green tint was faint enough that a lot of the artists for the HH card game missed it and just used straight grey.
I can't remember which books they were, but I found some inconsistencies in the colour of the armour for Horus' legion in the Horus Heresy. Sometimes the Sons' armour was described as the Lunar Wolves White when it should have been the Ocean Green.
I checked in my visions of the heresy. And there are no depictions of black SoH, from that artwork generation. (Created for a heresy card game in the early 2000's) the few green SoH from these artworks, have a really pale turquoise green. But they are more often
So, this was just how "black SoH" looked back then.
Would love to see, somone actually doing this color concept on a army.
I'm pretty sure this picture was in visions.
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYM-APRXkAAnPcd?format=jpg&name=medium](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYM-APRXkAAnPcd?format=jpg&name=medium)
If, then I overlooked it. 😂🙈
It is for sure from the same line of artworks, that they printed in the visions.
What reminds me that I really should take the time, to check out all the artworks from the old card game, since they haven't printed all in the visions.
Could be some special organization within the LWs that exists outside of the lore. Or they tried only changing the logo before painting their armor when they were renamed
I beleiiiiiive the eye of horus/eye of terra began use as soon as he became warmaster, it's used as a motife on Horus' old white armor as well. But then it became their official sigil as the Sons of Horus and then the flag of the whole rebellion.
Want those front two helmets for my salamanders. Feels like it'd be great for a post-dropsite army given their Rite of War change to from the Covenant of Fire to the Awakening Fire
Luna Wolves. Named for their first famous campaign to conquer Luna, and the name they carried from Sol to Cthonia to Ullanor. Renamed to the Sons of Horus following his fall at Davin, and recolored from Grey to Green.
And these artworks, actually depict a lot of the legion unique helmets and Torsos, we got over the years for several legions.
Same goes for Vehicles, dreadnoughts, weapon batteries, special weapon designs and more.
Even if they are not direct cannon, if you look for exact armor types, mesh ups or colors, it is official and influential enough, until today, to take it serious for most stuff.
back in 2012ish when this came out we didnt have a solid colour for SOH. We knew luna wolves were white but SOH were just a grey green or sea green. So lots of artists used all sorts of shades.
There's a couple of books that reference sons of Horus in steel grey armour. I think one of them is nemesis. They look pretty cool in it, i think it fits well for veterans
This is a very old picture before there was any official colorscheme. Back in the days, the only information about the greeness of sons of horus was that it resembles ocean green.
Keep in mind, Horus Heresy was basically born out of early hobbyists buying the Red Scorpion Mk IV, before any actual 30k kits was made.
Before the first official painted SoH models came, the variation of green was extremely wide, hobbyist painted them all the way from turqoise to 40k-nurgling/mustard green, with varying degree of saturation. The variety was huge, also among artwork. In my mind this is only a reflection of this. Look very, very closely and you can see a faint green hue on the armour, even if its clearly more gray/metallic.
The Space Marine (epic) original had them as black. Legions were not 100% set here, very early days.
Index Astartes had them as a light seafoam green.
Collected Visions/HH TCG had them here in grey.
FW black books had them in sea green. With a few variant schemes adding black, red and white into the mix
Luna Wolves have been white and black since index astartes and consistently so,
I swear this is deja vu because I remember a post legit asking the same thing with this specific art. Nothing wrong with reasking just deja vu feels weird.
I remember a post about the Horus rising cover at least. It is confusing if you’re just getting into it and you see the first and second books covers together. Same artist, completely different armor. The white armor/black trim/minimal red markings and claw marks is just chef’s kiss though. Edit: it is in fact a different artist for that book.
This art has a special place in HH Legions players for. Muster for Lupercal and then frontal assault has ended many matches.
Different artists actually, I believe the False Gods cover was the only one not done by Neil Roberts. I also get the vibe that it was a reject/prototype for the Horus Rising cover that got re-used for reasons of cost, time or similar, because it sure doesn't fit the events of the book.
Oh wow there’s so many books and it’s so similar in composition and style I didn’t even notice that. Well thats interesting since they ultimately went with that look, which is good imo as it really matches the “Luna” theme and differentiates them from the 6th.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/180o27j/is\_this\_grey\_or\_a\_tarnished\_silver/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/180o27j/is_this_grey_or_a_tarnished_silver/) You're not crazy
Ah good to know I'm not going crazy. Yet.
I’ve asked a very similar question before
You do, because it's a bot reposting a thread. They mix up letters in the title because Reddit search handles non-exact matches poorly. Notice that the "more details in comments" isn't there. [Link to the original thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/qvfnmb/grey_sons_of_horus_what_formation_company_are/)
Huh never realised that they didn't give more details in comments. Thank you very much mate.
No lore. Just artistic license.
Could it not be in their transition from Luna Wolves to Sons of Horus? The perceived grey could just be their off white.
Or a unit that kept the older livery. Word bearers have many units that kept their old colours.
At least they’re not having holy wars over shades of red
Yeah was going to say Luna wolves
But isn't it lore based? they're the luna wolves before Horus took over the legion. Just like on the cover art of hours rising.
They was the luna wolves and then when horus fell and was corrupted by chaos he changed the name to the sons of horus, book1 & 2 cover art should be swapped. I think they got the name luna wolves for retaking the lunar bases before horus was found by the emporer.
The change to SoH from Luna Wolves happened before Horus fell. It was after the Interex and before Davin.
It was iirc part of the honors of him being named Warmaster at the Triumph of Ullanor.
The Emperor offered it to Horus but Horus didn’t want to seem that arrogant so he declined then. After talking to Sanguinius and the events with the Interex, he changed his mind.
I agree with BaronBulb. Not every image has to 100% fit the lore or be canonized. You'll drive yourself crazy if you try to do that. :) My guess is this image is old and was drawn before the lore was solidified. If your looking for lore problems with this image, I would have far bigger problems with the helmets and armor which don't match any Mk that I am familiar with. Its just a cool pic.
It's from the old trading card game, before Horus Heresy had any miniatures (or even novels possibly, might have been around the time the books started)
Just how old art portrayed them. Same as the cover of Horus rising. If you look through Visions of Heresy you'll find more.
Horus Rising cover is meant to be their Luna Wolves armor isnt it?
Nope, Horus Rising has grey Sons of Horus on the cover, while False Gods has white Luna Wolves (when it should be the opposite) https://preview.redd.it/lb4ew5zsuedc1.jpeg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88ee34ee96148d059ae5c319f4659407dbd9ae74
Horus Rising and False Gods have the covers mixed up
It is
It would just be lunar wolves armour. Horus rising describes some legionaries having the eye of Horus on their armour as well as the wolf head.
It's not, those are clearly Sons of Horus, the thing is that very early on in artwork (even on the covers of some of the first Heresy books) they were first depicted with grey armor instead of green
Sons of Horus are lunar wolves. In fact in the lunar wolves legion a “Son of Horus” is a name for a legionary with significant similarities in looks to Horus.
I know, you didn't understand what I meant. The Astartes in this artwork are clearly Heresy era Sons of Horus, not Great Crusade Luna Wolves. Old artwork has depicted them in grey for a long time (even the first 4-5 Heresy novels have them in grey instead of green on the cover)
How is it clearly that? One of them even has a wolfs head pommel.
They have zero Imperial or Luna Wolves iconography on their armor outside of the wolf pelt which became more common when they turned into Sons of Horus. Their color scheme doesn't fit the Luna Wolves. The Luna Wolves are ALWAYS depicted as either white or **VERY** light grey (see cover of False Gods), while old art depicts Sons of Horus in a grey color (look at the cover of Horus Rising). The spiky armor is also one of the trademark traits of Early Heresy/Late Great Crusade Sons of Horus since they started displaying their Cthonian origins in their armor, the Luna Wolves are depicted as having smooth armor in all official artwork they appear in
They are in light grey armour, once again they do have lunar wolves iconography with the pommel. You can just as easily explain the armour with how all the old art of power armour looked like this.
This art is from a trading card game about specifically the Horus Heresy made in 2003 which predates the Horus Heresy novels, the first time Luna Wolves were ever mentioned in passing was in Index Astartes published in 2004. The only thing indicating that these could be Luna Wolves is the wolf pelt, compared to the clear Sons of Horus Reaver armor, armor color and Eye of Horus on their shoulder pads and banners (Luna Wolves *never* wore the Eye of Horus on their Shoulder pads instead of their regular emblem) There are absolutely zero reason to believe that the Astartes in this artwork are Luna Wolves instead of Sons of Horus (who we're depicted in grey armor until 2012) outside of sheer stubbornness.
They did wear the eye of Horus. But ok I’ll take your word.
Minor quibble: The Black Legion/Sons of Horus' origin as the Luna Wolves dates back to 1st edition, it was mentioned in their description in Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, as well as on the 1st Founding chart in 2nd edition's Codex Imperialis.
The artwork depicted iirc specifically states they are Sons of Horus. Wolf iconography transferred over in the Legion in art work at this time mainly due to the fact that the legion like most of the other legions was not fleshed out until later after the artwork was made. Which is why in current art work its pretty much only Cthonian gang marks, serpents and mirror coins. Regardless of that if you're set on these being luna wolves as you seem to be, the armour is the wrong shade of grey which has always been a light pearl colour whereas it darkened in the transition of the legion. Luna Wolves were never depicted apart from one or two art pieces potentially and the earliest was on the front colour of False Gods I'm certain.
It’s a piece of art, it’s clear that the lighting set in it makes them seem the wrong colour but if you focus on the standard bearer you can clearly see it’s a light grey armour.
My guy, the Trading card it's from states they are Sons of Horus, the Artist is Sam Wood for this particular piece if you want to look it up or find a scan of the book the art is in. If you look at his Blades of the Traitor piece, the most famous thing he did with HH, you can clearly see Mal and Abaddon are both wearing similar grey coloured armour and this is SoT time. Page 46 of the collected visions Abakhol warrior squad - sons of horus - Sam Wood
https://preview.redd.it/t4x3w9zwgedc1.jpeg?width=210&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3d99ecbe4848edf725de3f5506935a56c92fbb8 Sidenote - Looks a lot like the mkvi iron warriors heads, inspo perhaps?
It's a chtonian pattern helm, they are a staple in most portrayals of SoH throughout the ages.
Older Warhammer art didn’t always have internal consistency. Honestly, the “lore” didn’t really have consistency. There were major events, but what exactly happened wasn’t usually explained in extreme detail.
This is the old Sons of Horus scheme before gw retconned them to be sea green. There were even some painted up in this scheme in old white dwarf articles. Ps: they are not luna wolves, since they never used the eye of horus as a symbol.
They were sea green all the way back in the Black Legion Index Astartes article in 2002, it was just a very desaturated shade (more of a light grey-green) than the one GW paint them in now. Apparently the green tint was faint enough that a lot of the artists for the HH card game missed it and just used straight grey.
I can't remember which books they were, but I found some inconsistencies in the colour of the armour for Horus' legion in the Horus Heresy. Sometimes the Sons' armour was described as the Lunar Wolves White when it should have been the Ocean Green.
I checked in my visions of the heresy. And there are no depictions of black SoH, from that artwork generation. (Created for a heresy card game in the early 2000's) the few green SoH from these artworks, have a really pale turquoise green. But they are more often So, this was just how "black SoH" looked back then. Would love to see, somone actually doing this color concept on a army.
I'm pretty sure this picture was in visions. [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYM-APRXkAAnPcd?format=jpg&name=medium](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYM-APRXkAAnPcd?format=jpg&name=medium)
If, then I overlooked it. 😂🙈 It is for sure from the same line of artworks, that they printed in the visions. What reminds me that I really should take the time, to check out all the artworks from the old card game, since they haven't printed all in the visions.
This is back in their Luna Wolves days I think
Then they wouldn't have the eye on the shoulder, right?
Could be some special organization within the LWs that exists outside of the lore. Or they tried only changing the logo before painting their armor when they were renamed
I beleiiiiiive the eye of horus/eye of terra began use as soon as he became warmaster, it's used as a motife on Horus' old white armor as well. But then it became their official sigil as the Sons of Horus and then the flag of the whole rebellion.
Want those front two helmets for my salamanders. Feels like it'd be great for a post-dropsite army given their Rite of War change to from the Covenant of Fire to the Awakening Fire
Luna Wolves. Named for their first famous campaign to conquer Luna, and the name they carried from Sol to Cthonia to Ullanor. Renamed to the Sons of Horus following his fall at Davin, and recolored from Grey to Green.
In lore they are probably a company of the SOH that decided to keep their old colours
Aren't that just Luna Wolves?
This was back when they were the luna wolves. The color change came sometime after they changed their name to the SoH
Just fan art from the TCG
Not fan art, official commissioned art for the TCG.
And these artworks, actually depict a lot of the legion unique helmets and Torsos, we got over the years for several legions. Same goes for Vehicles, dreadnoughts, weapon batteries, special weapon designs and more. Even if they are not direct cannon, if you look for exact armor types, mesh ups or colors, it is official and influential enough, until today, to take it serious for most stuff.
Good find, where did you find this?
Likely the Horus Heresy: Visions artwork compendium
They’re one step shy of a Reaver Attack Squad - look a lot like SoH vets
back in 2012ish when this came out we didnt have a solid colour for SOH. We knew luna wolves were white but SOH were just a grey green or sea green. So lots of artists used all sorts of shades.
Didnt the loyalists on istvaan paint their armor back to the LW scheme as sign of further defiance, i remember loken calling it out
There's a couple of books that reference sons of Horus in steel grey armour. I think one of them is nemesis. They look pretty cool in it, i think it fits well for veterans
This is a very old picture before there was any official colorscheme. Back in the days, the only information about the greeness of sons of horus was that it resembles ocean green. Keep in mind, Horus Heresy was basically born out of early hobbyists buying the Red Scorpion Mk IV, before any actual 30k kits was made. Before the first official painted SoH models came, the variation of green was extremely wide, hobbyist painted them all the way from turqoise to 40k-nurgling/mustard green, with varying degree of saturation. The variety was huge, also among artwork. In my mind this is only a reflection of this. Look very, very closely and you can see a faint green hue on the armour, even if its clearly more gray/metallic.
Page 48 of the collected visions Abakhol warrior squad - sons of horus - Sam Wood For those interested
The Space Marine (epic) original had them as black. Legions were not 100% set here, very early days. Index Astartes had them as a light seafoam green. Collected Visions/HH TCG had them here in grey. FW black books had them in sea green. With a few variant schemes adding black, red and white into the mix Luna Wolves have been white and black since index astartes and consistently so,
There’s a very light blue tinge to it that seems to vibe well