Here is my generic marines force, purposefully designed to be as "generic" as possible, allowing maximum flexibility to field a force from any of the codices. There's lots of magnets included in this force, with most of the weapons swappable in one way or another. You can see the slow and steady growth under the One Force label.
Colour wise, I thought to try and draw from a "realistic" military look, so the air wing is in grey... :)
... and the mechanised components are in a desert yellow.
As another 7th Ed army, there's units included to make up the formations, and there's also my Centurion conversions based on the Kataphron Destroyers.
The fantastic Korvydae model as my commander, and Iron Hand veterans to double as an Honour Guard or Sternguard.
Hammer-nator Termies and a Chaplain for extra kill. >:)
The troops, all magnetised to run either as Assault or Tactical troops, and interchangeable special and sergeant weapons. (There's 30 marines in total, a mix of Mk II, IV, and V; all the original resin models)
That's that then. I'm sure you'll see them over on the Beard Bunker from time to time, and they'll be expanded over time as well as I feel like it.
Here are what I'm going to be taking to represent Centurion Devastators when I feel the need for a ridiculous amount of Grav weaponry.
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned previously that I didn't like the aesthetic of the real models, something about Space Marines in armour donning a second suit of armour just to tout big guns didn't really do it for me. These are the Mechanicum Kataphron Destroyers with marine heads and backpacks. It was a super simple conversion.
They're mounted onto 50mm bases (which I'm pretty sure is what marine destroyers come with) so you can see they aren't too dissimilar is size for gaming - a little shorter, but wider.
Eventually I need to figure out a way to model their secondary weapons (either missile launchers or hurricane bolters), but that'll be an addition for another time.
I'm sure they'll die horribly and do absolutely nothing in their first game, such is the life of any new shiny model ;)
(part one of the little narrative I'm building for an upcoming battle can be found here: part 1)
Every time he delved so deep within the infinity circuit, withdrawing became that little more difficult. Muscles took longer to respond, joints were stiffer, the feel of crystallisation within his limbs as bone became that little more attuned to the matrix was always a telling sign that each time may be the last, and he would finally join the others as a permanent fixture of the Garden of the Seers. Not this time though, the spirit of Kaela Mensha Khaine was stirring and the infinity circuit was awakening, hostility growing as the Craftworld readied for war.
Throughout the Craftworld, artesans set down their tools, artists their brushes, and the music halls and studios fell silent. Prompted by the prevailing mental currents, all of these otherwise peaceful members of the eldar community gravitated towards the warrior temples to begin the preparations for war.
It wasn’t only on a single craftworld that this occurred, for the warrior temples are linked throughout the galaxy via the webway, allowing those on the path of the Aspect to navigate to places where they are most needed. As the spirit of Kaela Mensha Khaine awakens in any one location, its effects ripple outwards through these webway links and so when a Craftworld goes to war, it is rarely alone.
The Bahzhakain of Biel-Tan was preparing for war. Their Seers have divined that the coming moments were ripe to reclaim the Maiden World of Yne’gen and cleanse the sacred sites of the cursed Mon-Keigh. They would not be alone, and their wrath would be terrifying...
At last. I don't even want to think about how long its taken me to get to this point but I've finally finished painting my initial batch of One Force marines.
Without further ado, here's my Mk III Iron Armoured squad. They are built with combi-weapons that come from Anvil Industries, with the top level of the weapon interchangeable so I can swap in meltas, plasma, or even grav options with minimal extra painting.
The squad is a mix of the Iron Hands squad and the Legion Mk III squad from Forgeworld (no cheating plastic Mk III here ;), and they are beautiful models with lots of bionics which fits nicely into the One Force aesthetic.
As elites within One Force, they are painted up in a slightly alternate, predominately black colour scheme highlighted with greens and then with spot colours of the One Force trifecta of camo-green, grey, and desert yellow.
I'm also deviating somewhat from my original One Force paint job (which will of course require a repaint of everything thats come before) to include some metallics into the scheme. Ho hum.
Hope you like them, and Happy New Year to you all.
I built these guys a heck of a while ago (a full 18 months ago it turns out!) and they've since been sitting in my painting queue as I lost all motivation. After finally finishing off the Mk III marines (post to come when I get some decent photos), I pulled these out and couldn't quite believe how quickly they painted up.
Progress! Hopefully not the last either. I'm back and with One Force marines no less. Here's my latest addition, a trio of bikers to add into my force to help me on the way to running one of the new Codex Space Marine formations.
The two slightly drunk bikers are taken from the Dark Vengence set, bodies replaced with more generic marine torso's (One Force are a spartan chapter after all), and Volkite Calivers for weapons. As these don't appear in 40K, I can reasonably claim them to be grav-weapons for the purposes of running them as filthy grav-bikers. The Sergeant gets the standard yellow helm, and a combi-grav which is a DIY combination of a Volkite Caliver and a bolter from Anvil Industries.
These also mark a slight change in my painting technique for One Force. Previously I've completely avoided the use of metallics in their colour scheme, but on reflection (its only taken my 40+ models), I've decided to change their weapons and a few other details to metallic and give them black weapons housings. This'll be applied to all of the models going forward, and potentially retro-applied to the older models.
I've not weathered the models yet because that is another aspect I'll be changing going forward, but I haven't had a chance to experiment yet.
I got in a game recently against my co-blogger Colonel Fazackerley, we're taking part in a little tournament of local gamers, playing the Forge the Narrative missions. This game was mission 4 from that pack which is the diagonal deployment setup, the primary objective is 6 objectives setup evenly across the board which are scored cummulatively with the winner the first to 8 points (but with the option of a draw if both achieve 8 in the same turn), the secondary objective was the Emperor's will, and the tertiary objective was slay the warlord. The usual 3 additional GW objectives also counted.
I was trialling some of the new formations from the Space Marines codex, and CF was running Space Marines and Eldar. My list was: Gladius Strike Force - Iron Hands Chapter Tactics Battle Demi-Company Chaplain in Terminator Armour 3 x 5-man Tactical Squads with Missile Launchers 3 Bikes with 2 Grav-guns and a combi-Grav 5-man Devastator Squad with 4 Missile Launchers
1st Company Task Force
2 x 5-man Sternguard Veteran Squad
5-man Terminator Assault Squad with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields
Storm Wing
Stormraven Gunship with Assault Cannon and Multi-Melta
2 x Stormtalon Gunships with Skyhammer Missile Launchers
CFs list was:
Farseer on jetbike
Unit of Jetbikes with Warlock
Unit of Dire Avengers
3 Eldar Flyer Formation
Space Marine Captain on Bike with Primarch's Wrath
Unit of Marines on Bikes
Unit of Assault Terminators with mixed weapons
Devastator Squad with mixed weapons
CF won the roll-off and nominated me to setup and go first. I setup first, mostly down in my corner as you can see in the image below, CF only set up a few units, all hidden away as much as possible to be out of sight, as you can see in the image below that.
A ways back in the dim and distant past I showed you all how I'd converted up the Storm Raven to make it look a little less goofy (in my opinion of course). I've even stuck to the same naming convention for this post! Well with the release of the new Space Marines codex and all the formation-y goodness in it, who could resist the lure of a Storm Wing. All I needed was the little addition of a pair of Storm Talons.
Of course, what had been stopping me buying Storm Talons before was an equal dislike of the stock model as sold by GW. Just like the Storm Raven, I found it a little too blocky, too deep for its profile, and with a few design choices that I just couldn't make myself like no matter how hard I tried.
Thank you Internet (I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to utter those words ;), there seem to be plenty of others out there that feel the same way and have made some amazing conversions of the Storm Talon.
Excommunicate Traitoris has made a fantastic and subtle conversion, and one that I ultimately took the most inspiration from.
This and this conversion really went to town, and retained the rotation of the under-slung assault cannon.
There are a couple of conversions that really stand out though for their inventiveness:
This A-10 Warthog conversion is inspired and if it didn't require the purchase of Storm Raven wings and a Punisher Autocannon from somewhere I would have been copying this heavily.
Anyway, I'm obviously getting lazy in my old age as I wanted to fix up the Talon with as little work as possible. Its not a perfect conversion, if I had the money and time for lots of extra parts then I'd be doing more, but this is a pretty quick and easy fix (as long as you don't mind that the Assault Cannons no longer rotate.
All the images should be nice and big if you need when you click on them.
First step is to make the Assault Cannons, add the skid plate from the very bottom of the standard setup, and remove the square tab from the underside of the body. It's right in the centre of the circular mount for the underslung turret, you should be able to make out where it was in the image.
Join the Assault Cannons together, add the skid plate, then glue directly onto the circular section of the underside of the body (where the little tab used to be).
I've also constructed the rest of the body so you can see the new silhouette, much more streamlined compared to the image below it of the standard build.
Engine pods. I like to mount the wings so they are tapered from the front, I think they just look a bit better that way.
I also mounted the rocket-pods under the wings, to the lower parts of the engine pods. This required a very small amount of trimming to get them to fit nicely, but it was just a little bit, and just to make the join that little bit nicer.
That's it, all the work I had to do. Below are a few shots of the completed model so you can see its final silhouette. I'm pretty pleased. It still has that compact, punchy feel of the original model that goes so well with its rules, but has removed the worst offenders for silly modelling choices.
Fear not fellow bloggerites, I'm not dead, just very very busy.
To whit, I'm currently slumming it in Japan on a trip for work. This means two things:
I'm occupying my evenings when I'm stuck in my room by painting the final grunts for One Force
GUNDAM!!!
Yep, Japan is a bit of a hobby mecca (as long as you like Gundam that is). Even the local chain of electronics stores - Yamada Denki, has racks and racks of Gundam models for you to buy and build.
This song plays near continuously in the shop.
How the staff don't go postal by the end of the day I don't know.
They can even make selling fridges seem somewhat more exciting. I promise you there really are fridges underneath all those stickers.
Of course, the best place to go if you are anything like me is Akihabara - Tokyo's electronics town. Akihabara started life as a district where the Japanese and US military were selling off spare electronics parts after the second world war. Local students used to buy up the parts and make radios out of them to sell on and earn money to fund their studies. Ever since it has been synonymous with the sale of electronic goods. It really gained its reputation in the 80s and 90s when it was a one stop shop for tourists and locals alike to get the latest electronic gadgets at knock down prices, often long before they appeared in the local shops, and years before they reached the rest of the world.
Nowadays, with the growing prevalence of tech in the west, and apps on smartphones taking the place of many of the little gadgets that used to be sold, Akihabara has shifted its focus away from electronics (don't worry, you can still find loads) to other aspects of Japanese culture, namely manga and collectibles. If anything, its made the place even more colourful than before.
Even the graffiti and the bikes are more colourful in Akihabara.
Back to Yamada Denki and the Gundam - just look at how many kits there were, and this was only a single set of shelves, there were at least 4 full racks just of Gundam, and that's not even mentioning the other racks of models.
There was even a Unicorn Gundam - in unicorn mode no less.
Well I couldn't rightly pass up such an opportunity, so after a lot of umming and ahhing, I settled on the basic, original Gundam.
They come as two parts, a fully poseable inner skeleton of parts, and then the outer armour additions. Its all on separate sprues of appropriately coloured plastic so I won't even have to paint it, and there's a full set of transfers too. Awesome, can't wait to build this guy.
Mind you, should you ever feel the need to re-paint any of your Gundam, or build and paint any of the other models that were available, you wouldn't be short of supplies:
Or, if collectibles is more your thing, then there were plenty of places to pick up just about anything you could think of, and some things that I kind of wish they hadn't thought of. If you are ever in need of being weirded out, do a little research into the culture of doll ownership in Japan - let me just tell you that they are FULLY customisable and can be found in many of these shops.
Much cooler though was this guy...
... and this guy...
... if only!
Of course, since I mentioned I'd been working on One Force, I should at least show you where I'm at with painting them.
All that's left is shading and highlighting of the armour, battle damage and weathering and that'll be the last of the core 30 Tactical/Assault marines finished. It'll have only taken me three and a half years to reach that point - positively rapid pace.
I can't quite believe it myself, but I've got One Force almost all the way to 1500pts. In their most basic setup, without any unnecessary extras, the force is up to 1420pts, so I'm sure if I tart a few of them up with some extras I could get it to 1500pts if I wanted for a game. It seemed only appropriate to take some shots of the whole force as it stands now.
In my excitement last week at finishing the Storm Raven, I blundered on ahead and posted shots of it completed, referring to this Vindicator and how much fun it has been painting vehicles, but had forgotten to post up the pictures of the completed Vindicator. Anyway, here they are to make ammends.
I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to paint vehicles. After the Vindicator I showed a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty keen to paint something else. Seeing as I hadn't quite cast enough shoulder pads to finish my Mk IV demi-squad (thanks for the cool term Zzzzzz), I just "had" to paint up the Storm Raven.
