Index Astartes Log

[Zanzibarthefirst]

Over the next year or so me and my friend plan on building armies for all 18 first founding chapters. We've split the 18 into two and I'll be covering Salamanders, Iron Warriors, Iron Hands, Death Guard, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, World Eaters, Alpha Legion and Thousand Sons and my friend will be coveirng the rest.

We already have a couple of the chapters, I have Slamanders and the start of a World Eaters army whilst my friend has Ultramarines but most of the other armies we are starting new.

The aim is to build a 1250pt army for each. The lsits are not going to be competitive but rather reflecting the style of the army. We are cheating a bit, for example my Thousand Sons might be pre-heresy whilst the Dark Angels will be a DIY Dark Angels chapter the Angels of Vindication.

I already have a rough plan of what i'll be getting for my 9 armies and I'll start with World Eaters and Iron Hands:
Kharn, 3x 8 man Berzekrer squad with powerfist champion, 8 man raptor Squad with 2 meltas and a powerfist and an 8 man chosen squad with four flamers, both with MoK.

Master of Forge with power weapon, 3 10 am Tacticla Squads with plasma gun/cannon, 3 Dreadnaughts

I'll post pictures of a few test models for Death Guard and Iron Hands in the next day or so, whilst a low down on the Ultramarines and Salamanders will follow

[Lupine Ace]

Sound like a good plan. Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

[can't_decide]

Great idea! This will be interesting to see play out. I assume you will be posting pics of all of the armies as they are done. What order are you planning on doing these?

[Zanzibarthefirst]

For me i think the order will be Salamanders, World Eaters, Space Wolves, Iron Warriors, Iron Hands, Alpha Legion, Death Guard, Iron Hands, Thousand Sons.

Liek I've said I've already started bits and bobs. I ahve my character for Alpha Legion (Arkos the Faithless) built with the exception of the shoulder pads but it will not get finished until I start my Alpha Legion.

The overall aim is to be able to play out the Horus Heresy set in the 40,000 although Thousand Sons will be pre-heresy as will Emperors Children I think though I'm not sure about that yet. im not sure whether to do Space Wolves pre-heresy as well

[Zanzibarthefirst]

Right, here are my first test models for both the Iron Hands and the Death Guard






I'm not especially happy about the iron Hands model. the dark blue highlights dont really look very good, i'm tempted to go over them with an codex grey/chaos black mix. I love the detha guard model though i cannot remember how exactly i painted the green, i guess everyone will look slightly different

p.s. not sure how big these pictures are, they are taken on a 12mp camera so they tend to be massive. Im not sure if Photobucket shrunk them for me

[Lupine Ace]

The death guard looks amazing, and I usually hate all things nurgle so thats saying something. I have to agree with you the Iron Hands looks a little off.

[Zanzibarthefirst]

I'm glad I might have a nurgle convert more to follow I hope.

The camera really makes the blue stand out. WOuld codex grey/chaos black be too dark or would adeptus battlegrey be better followed by a wash of badab black?

Next topic is the Iron AHnds base? I'm tempted to jsut paint it my normal graveyard earth colour (although all the chaos armies with the exception of the thousand Sons will be adeptus battlegrey top and graveyeard earth sides) Any other suggesations for bases, maybe a reddish mars dust one?

[Lupine Ace]

You could go with the mars dust idea, or maybe go with a steel colour.(as if he's standing on the metal grating of a factorium)

[Zanzibarthefirst]

any suggestions on how to achieve a mars dust effect? I've tried just painting a base red and it looked a wee bit too bright

Alo Iron Hands has been repainted with a chardon granite highlight which looks tons better though i still need somethignt o give them the wow factor

[spaint2k]

What a great idea! Subscribed!

[Lupine Ace]

How about a scorched earth base and dry brush on some red. That might do the trick.

[Zanzibarthefirst]

scorced brown or graveyard earth?

I'm thinking about getting those powder weathering things that FW are selling now jsut to dab on the feet of the iron hands make them a little dusty.

Also I've repainting the edges on the iron hand model and it looks a lot better IMO, pictures up soon

[Zanzibarthefirst]

A question jsut before I put up some pictures of potential bases for the Iron Hands. Should I use the SW codex for Iron Hands? Bjorn would make a fluffy HQ whilst wolf guard in terminator armour can lead my tactical squads. The downside is i'd possibly have less dreadnaughts available to me as well as fewer options, no ironclad Also that plasma cannon troper woudl no longer have a home. I was planning on putting plasma gun/cannon in each squad as I find plasma quite fitting for iron hands for whatever reason

[Zanzibarthefirst]

First off here are a few ideas for the bases for IR:

Top left is red gore, top right is red gore followed by bleached bone, bottom right is blood red followed by bleached bone and the final one is blood red.
The other disc is scab red on the left and scarb red followed by bleached bone.
My personal favourite is just the plain red gore or scab red. IMO there isnt really that much difference

Here is the updated Iron Hands model. The plasma cannon has been repainted, the shoulder pads have been painted and the highlights have been changed form blue to grey

[eltanko]

The highlights look much better in grey. But the model needs a little bit of colour to break up the plain black a bit.

ElTanko

[Zanzibarthefirst]

problem with colour si that iron hands are a generally dark colour. The painted base should improve the model drastically tbh. I always find that the most imponrtant part of the model is the base, even just a plain colour can make all the difference.

Another piece of news, i've swapped my Lapha legion for Emperors Children. My friend wanted the XX Legion since his birthday is on the 20th so now i ahve the 4 main traitor legions. I'm thinking of going pre-heresy with the emperors children as I'm not a fan of noise marines and the whole Slaanesh theme, ym only problem si that I do not know what to use. Since I'll be suing the Sm codex I think I might use a few mounted vanguard squads

[Imperius]

Wow, 1250 points for 18 Space Marine armies.

Its out of my grasp to even imagine it.

[Zanzibarthefirst]

It seems a lot but when you consider chaos is isnt that much of a stretch. A standard chaos army might have a mix of 3 or 4 different legions and that task coudl be even easier if you assign certain units to certain legions for examples, an army that included every unit could have 2 HQs, 1 from Word Bearers and 1 Black Legions, you could have Alpha Legion Chosen then a squad of each cult troops some Night Lords raptors and some Iron Warriors Obliterators. Because of the anture of Chaos armies, having units from 9 different legions doesnt look odd unlike normal Sm. From that point its jsut a matter of expanding on it. I think that before I started this project, my chaos army had khorne berzekrers, death guard terminators, a Slaanesh sorcerer, Thousand Sons and Iron Warriors infantry. From there 1250pts isnt so daunting.

Since I've already done the Slamanders I'll try and get pics up some where

[Hushrong]

sounds like an awesome project, cannot wait to see it all fleshed out

[Zanzibarthefirst]

Its starting to come together sinc e I already ahve a start on some though i think that out of 18, 12 will be totally from scratch. Thousand Sons would have been started but I'm thinking of doing pre-heresy. I laready have one squad and a terminator lord which woudl ahve given me around 400pts to start with but where woudl be the fun in that.

I've jsut been painting a linebreaker squadron I got when Apoc came out in IW colours and i tell you, I do onot like painting the chevons. I tried putting them on the side where the exhausts are and that went rather bad. The dozer blade will have to do(which I'm quite impressed with) Pics will do up once I've got some more devlan mud to finish off the bits i messed up