Mentor Legion Space Marines

[spaint2k]

After a long wait, I can finally update this blog with the completed army. I never did make my goal of 3000 points, but the force I built will give me a good variety of 1500 point builds and can comfortably be bulked up to 1800 points.

New pictures of all units in this army (now with static grass!) can be seen starting in post 78. Here's a pic of the assembled army:



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ORIGINAL POST

This blog is going up as something to help me get through the second half of my army. I have a target points value of 3000 and a total model count of 75 (78 including supernumeraries), of which 37 are now painted.

In a way, the origins of this army go back to 1992, when I first attempted to get into Epic. I painted up some Eldar Guardians in Biel-Tan colours, and though I never ended up playing the game, I really liked the match between the green and white.

Moving on to 1995, I decided to take my 2nd edition boxed set plastics and paint them up as a squad of Mentor Legion. At the time, I played Orks, and what started out as a nice change soon bloomed into a full-fledged army with a unit of terminators, two tactical squads, a devastator squad and a predator.

The advent of 3rd edition expanded the army even further but after moving to Taiwan I lost interest in my army due to a dearth of opponents and I sold a lot of it off. I'll first include some pictures that I still have on my hard drive before moving on to the army in its curent incarnation.

[spaint2k]

I didn't sell all of my marines. I kept the third edition captain, and a squad that represented my vision of the old Mentors Elite Cadre. For the longest time however, the only one that was painted was the missile launcher marine. Back in Rogue Trader days, an Elite Cadre could take a vortex missile and this was my take on that.



His buddies were modelled to represent the old Mentor Targetting Web - their bolters all have scopes and they all have communication aerials on their backpacks. Incidentally, every marine in this squad also has a bionic eye.



My old Captain made the cut with just a fresh coat of white paint (I use Morrow White from P3) and a new base.

[spaint2k]

By this time, I'd found a thriving gaming community here and I began making plans for a Command Squad for my force. Unfortunately I never got past the Apothecary.



In late 4th edition he was usable in a squad with traits, but he only sees action now as a stand-in Sergeant with power fist and since I've decided not to make a command squad it'll probably be the only way he gets on the table.

At this point, I decided that the entire army I was going to build would have to have Mark VIII chestplates. Not a single power-armoured marine in my army would have any other version of the torso armour to represent the Mentors only having the newest and latest weaponry. Unfortunately, that meant that I could have no beakie helmets in my army either. And to be honest, fitting any helmet in that collar is quite difficult, but this is the price one must pay when one makes a random and silly decision like that.

I painted up two devastator squads. The second one is intended to include the first missile launcher marine above, and so they are all equipped with aerials.

[spaint2k]

You may have noticed the lack of tactical marines in the models shown so far. Well, in point of fact I did have a few left from my old army and was using them in games. However, since they didn't have Mark VIII armour and were still based in my old way, it was really unacceptable and so I had to make some more modern replacements.


I actually have one more bolter marine who's not included in this picture. I still also have five of my original marines left over but the rest have been progressively cannibalised into more modern squads, like my assault marines:





The backpack on the flamer marine is magnetized and can be replaced with a regular backpack if I need to use him in a tactical squad.

[spaint2k]

I had grown very tired of painting white by now, and so I needed something to kill a lot of points fast. Terminators were my answer.



All their arms are fully magnetized and can be replaced with assault weapons, just as soon as ... I've painted them ...

They needed a leader and since I love the Chaplain in Terminator Armour, that's who I chose. (The white dot on his crozius is a speck of dust - it's since been removed!)

[spaint2k]

Transport vehicles no longer being the deathtraps they always used to be, I decided I had to paint a couple up. So far, I've done two rhino/razorbacks (they're magnetized to be either).



The second one is actually a Forge World Damocles Rhino:


I made their collars from plasticard, cut to fit and bent into place.

All the doors open - even the sliding ones.



At the moment though, it's only useable as a Razorback, because I've not finished the Damocles radar dish.

[spaint2k]

So what's next for my army? At the moment the remainder looks like this:
11 marines with bolters
1 marine with lascannon
1 marine with multimelta
1 marine with heavy bolter
1 marine with heavy flamer
1 marine with magnetized combi-melta, melta, bolter (maybe plasma gun and flamer too)
1 sergeant with power weapon and combi-plasma (Veteran model)
1 sergeant with power weapon and combi-melta
1 sergeant with power fist (Sternguard model)
6 terminators (including one with Cyclone)
12 terminators from Space Hulk (already converted and ready to go)
1 Damocles Rhino (almost complete at the moment)
1 Vindicator
1 Razorback
1 Land Raider (magnetized for all three variants)

I've got 12 pairs of legs painted up and I'm currently working on the three heavy weapons. I expect they'll be done first although there won't be any progress for the next week because I'll be on the road. I hope to have at least one more photo to post by this time next week.

In the meantime, if anyone can point me to some pictures of cool marines with bolters, I'd appreciate it because the thought of 11 models with the same dull pose does nothing for me.

Cheers,
Steve

[mr gelmir]

wow, these look awesome! I love all the little conversions you did to them, they really have lots of character to them.
for the bolter marines, you could always let one wield a bolter with one hand and a bolt pistol in the other. If I recall correctly, there's also a picture of a marine putting a new clip in his boltgun in the codex somewhere. Finally, you could always try to let some marines look down their barrel, like some sternguard vet models. (picture see here ; http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/ca...Id=prod1060048)

count me as subscribed

[Magos Explorator]

Looking very nice. I like the aerials on the packs and all your squad/Chapter markings on them.

[Komodo]

Nice army. Neat and clear paintjob, very nice.

[Wolf Scout Ewan]

Nice paint!

[eltanko]

I like the high collar theme to the army, they look excellent.

ElTanko

[spaint2k]

Thanks for the comments guys! They'll keep me motivated as I paint all that white. Aside from the white being a pain on its own, the two-tone colour scheme really slows me down. I usually have to paint my models before they are assembled. Future army projects will be done with a little more forethought!

As I said, I'm on the road but I'll be back home on Friday and hope to have something finished and posted by Sunday night.

Steve

[the-skylord]

Looking good so far. A very nice clean white. Any chance of a whole army photo?

[spikyjames]

A bit of a tip for painting Mentors, you should be able to assemble them fully just without the arms, i'm sure if you have a look in the Hall of Fame area you'll find my old Mentors log.

Might be of use.

james

[spaint2k]

Looking good so far. A very nice clean white. Any chance of a whole army photo?

Cheers! As soon as I'm back in Taipei I'll get a group shot together.

A bit of a tip for painting Mentors, you should be able to assemble them fully just without the arms, i'm sure if you have a look in the Hall of Fame area you'll find my old Mentors log.

Thanks for the tip. I'll be doing all my terminators like that. It's a little late for my remaining power-armour marines because I've already painted up almost all the legs for them sans torsoes.

BTW, your Mentors were very inspiring. They went a very different direction from mine, but I did love your quad-bikes and of course, the inverted vehicle colour scheme that I have shamelessly stolen from you.

Cheers,
Steve

[DarthFreder]

Really nice ones! I used to field an army as well but sold it this spring. If you need some further inspiration, look here>>>>
http://www.freder.de/de/minis/mentor.php
Carry on!

[tcraigen]

Beautiful looking force, I love your chaplain. The old school preditor and speeder are wonderful. I really like to see Mentors forces, rare but always nice.

[natsirtm]

Very nice clean paintjobs, I love the detail on the right shoulderpads too. Good work.

[spaint2k]

Again, thanks for the comments. And DarthFreder, I'm pretty sure I took inspiration for my terminator sergeant's back banner from your quartered Land Raider.

I haven't had time to do any painting since I got back from China. I had an exam and social commitments yesterday, and got a couple of games in today (both were draws).

So in the meantime, here's a picture of the legs I've got prepped.


And here's a picture of the entire army so far:


Unfortunately, I'm not very skilled at taking pics of these guys so this'll have to do for now.

No promises on when the next models will be ready, but I have a guy with a heavy bolter and another with a lascannon at the halfway stage so I'll be working on those next.