Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard

The Sanguinary Guard are the honour guard of the Blood Angels, drawn from veterans judged worthy of standing beside the Chapter's masters. They go to war in ornate winged armour behind death masks cast in the likeness of Sanguinius himself, carrying glaives encarmine and angelus pattern boltguns — as much a religious symbol carried onto the battlefield as a fighting unit. That mixture of the angelic and the funereal is what the sculpt is reaching for: baroque plate, sculpted pinions, a masked face that gives nothing away. It works as a proxy figure for heroic-scale 28mm grimdark gaming and as a natural centrepiece for a Blood Angels force, whether fielded as part of a unit or kept back as a character piece. Painters tend to treat these as showcase models. Between the wings, the heraldry and the masks, there is a great deal here to reward slow work.