40K: Sternguard Veterans & Plague Marines

With all the new Space Marines goodies coming out I couldn't resist adding a new squad to my army.  After much deliberation I bought a box of the new Sternguard Veterans.  It's a really great box with lots and lots of extra pieces that you won't be able to use on this squad alone, but will be great for blinging up a lot of other squads in your army.  It's still a little bit overpriced, but the models are nice.

I've also got my hands on the new Codex: Space Marines, which I'm very, very, impressed with.  It's the best codex I've ever seen (and I have quite an extensive collection)  The background section really looks at the space marines as a whole for the first time and the new rules are interesting as well, I love the idea of chapter tactics and need to decide which of the first founding chapters my chapter will be descended from.

I've also finished a squad of 6 plague marines for my chaos space marine army.  These are older versions of the models I think and the squad comes with two plasma guns.  I've been a bit scared of painting them, but I think they've come out OK in the end.  These are also the first non-Alpha Legion troops in my chaos space marine army.

40K - Space Marine Land Raider & Techmarine

A couple of new additions to my space marine army today, a Land Raider and an attendant techmarine.  My copy of the new Codex: Space Marines arrived yesterday as well, obviously I've not managed to read it all yet, but it looks really good, possibly the best codex yet produced, in terms of the production values, art, background and what seems to be an interesting, yet still balanced, army list.  It wasn't cheap, but I'm really impressed.  Hopefully I'll post some more detailed thoughts in a couple of days.

 

Angels of Death & Balin

It's been a horrible rainy day in Bedfordshire today which meant I couldn't get out and do what I was meant to be doing, on the plus side it's been a constructive day on the painting side as a consequence.

First off we have these 'Angels of Death' which will count as Vanguard veterans for my space marine army.  They are of course basically blood angel sanguinary guard, but In a different paint scheme.  I've been promising myself a unit of these ever since they came out, really fantastic models, especially the death masks, but all of it to be honest.  A real design triumph in my book and I'm not going to let something as silly as them being the wrong chapter of marines stop me adding them to my army.

Secondly we have this Balin model for Lord of the Rings.  I've been rereading the Hobbit over the last few days and it gave me the hankering to paint a few lord of the rings figs again.  I had a rumage around and came up with the Balin figure, which is appropriate as of course he appears more in the Hobbit anyway.  I'm really looking forward to the new movie now and hope GW come up with a good value boxed game for me too buy.

A Few More 40K bits

An assortment of recently finished projects today, all for warhammer 40K.

Starting off with these 5 fire dragons with exarch, which takes my fire dragon squad upto 10 and enough firepower to melt just about anything!

Another squad is completed with these two terminators taking my 'normal' terminator squad upto a full 10 men.

And finally two squads of Imperial Guard infantry to form the core of my allied detachment. These came off ebay cheap, but one of the downsides of this is that they're not put together as well as I would have liked, but they're OK and will hopefully do their job well.

Stormtalon, Alpha Legion Lord & Primaris Pysker

There's been a bit of a dearth of posting around here recently, and that's because it's summer and I've been outside enjoying myself.  Finally I've got around to finishing another couple of bits, starting with this stormtalon gunship.  A rather cool piece and I'm looking forward to trying it out next weekend.

Also this chaos lord for my fledgeling alpha legion force.  I've got rather excited this week over the leaked pics from the new 40K starter set, the chaos side in particular will make very welcome additions to my collection.

And finally this primaris pysker to act as a HQ choice for my allied imperial guard detactment.  This is an older model that came with some chaos marines that I bought off ebay as a useful bonus.

A Second Rhino

My Space Marine army is getting a new addition today in the form of a much needed second rhino.  I'm a firm believer that all space marine squads with the option should take a rhino or razorback as they are fantastic value for points and really open up a lot of options.  The problem has always been that I consider them quite expensive to buy (in real money terms) for what they are.  Still ebay has come to my rescue and I've added the rhino you see below to my army.

As there wasn't really a lot to this post I've randomly added one of my favorite pieces of artwork, 'Durer's Rhinoceros' (tenuous link I know), a woodcut done in 1515.

40k Space Marine Sniper Scouts

I'm not sure if anybody noticed but I've been absent for a few days as my laptop died horribly at the weekend, but I'm back now with a shiny new laptop and resuming normal service.  We've been playing quite a bit of 40K recently and I've gone out and bought quite a lot of new stuff for my space marine army, and the first unit is now done.  These scouts with sniper rifles will be very useful, I tend to end up using my scouts to hold an objective deep in my own deployment zone as my real marines push into the enemies half of the board, and this armament will mean they can do a bit of damage whilst sat happily at the back.  Also I have two tyranid armies to face on a regular basis, and the auto wound anything on a 4+ will be very useful against the big beasties. 

As well as these I've also bought a landspeeder storm, a second rhino, a second vindicator (one of the old ones based on the origanal rhino chassis) and a squad of veterans, all of which should appear painted at some point in the future, although as usual I might get distracted before any of this gets done.

Scibor Sci-Fi Servants

My first ever miniatures from scibor arrived today, a pack of 4 servants in a gothic sci-fi style very similar to what I'm used to with 40K.  The plan is to use them as a display retinue for my chapter master (who admittedly doesn't yet exist).  I like the styling here, although I do feel that the models are a tad short.  Another big plus is the fantastic scenic bases that come with them, so good I don't think I'm going to waste them on these figures!

The figures are made out of resin, which I don't seem to be having much luck with, like my finecast experiences 3 out of the 4 figures I recieved have serious bubble defects, as shown below.  The guy missing the side of his hood is particulary annoying.  I could return them, but frankly I can't be bothered.  Like finecast it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth after the purchase, and it's even more frustrating as the bits without bubbles are well cast and have superb detail.

Army Focus - Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines: The Vengence Templars

The Army

Like many people my first ever wargames army was a space marine army.  It all started just as the warhammer 40k second edition boxed set came out (shockingly around 20 years ago!) which I bought and started collecting the blood angels, using the two squads in the box as a start.  That army is long gone, with only a couple of character models remaining in my collection.  This however is my latest and current space marine army, a codex chapter of my own creation the 'Vengence Templars'.  This all came about because of the 3rd ed of Space Hulk which made me want to paint space marines again (oh how I wish I'd bought 2 copies now so I could have added the terminators to this army).

The army is quite substanal at around 4000 points and based around the 2nd battle company, with 5 tactical squads, a devstastor squad and an assualt squad.  With support provided from the 1st and 10th companies. 

The paint scheme is a bone coloured armour with blue trim.  Originally I went with bone to get practice painting that colour, it hasn't worked brilliantly, but it's too late to change it now and I'm going to have to live with it!  The chapter symbol is a simple V in black, sort of like the Ultramarines U, if I'm being honest this was mainly because it's easy to paint.

I've named every squad and character in the army, and have designed a squad marking system as shown above.  It's bascially just the squad type symbol and a simple number, so the guy in the middle is from the 5th 'tactical' squad, and on the right we have a member of the 9th tactical squad.

2nd Company command squad

Game wise they've mainly faced off against my friends Tyranids (which he started at the same time as this army, also inspried by space hulk) and we have a loose narrative campaign going featuring a invasion of the Vengence Templars homeworld.  They've recently started to take on the eldar as well as my eldar project progresses.  They've performed very well and won almost all of their games.  The tactical squads and terminators (both varieties) have been the stars.

This is my sterngaurd veteran squad (above), a simple kit bash conversion of using the 'beaky' helmets and studded shoulder pads along with a different paint scheme to mark them out.  I do like the proper sternguard models, but have gone this way due to price.

The core of the army are the tactical squads, and I never go into battle with at least two, preferably 3 full 10 man squads.  As a rule I favour the missle launcher/flamer load out, but I do have the option of feilding a bit of melta as well.

The officers of the second company

This army is nowhere near finished, my immediate plan is to add the three squads needed to take it up to a full battle company.  I also want more rhinos and razorbacks and then want to add something big to turn it into an apocalypse army.  Thats undecicded at the moment, but I'm thinking a brace of super heavy tanks.  I also want to make a chapter master, but need to think carefully as I'd like him to be something a little special.  A long way to go all round.

A few pieces from the chapter armoury

My objective pieces