Final White Scars Army List

So, boys and girls, the time has come to post my final army list.

Throne of Skulls is but two weeks away, and I've been furiously painting my miniatures by night and tweaking my army list like a pair of over-ripe nipples by day. The result, as you may gather, is pretty sexy.

I've yet to test game any of these builds, and I very much doubt I'll have time to, as every moment I don't spend at work or in the gym is given over to carefully painting my bare undercoated, and unassembled army.

Is it possible to paint all of this in one week, without making my army look like an impressionist's fuzzy doodle, or having a nervous breakdown? We shall see.

Here's my list at present, with a few variations.

Captain w/ bike, relic blade, artificer armour - 180
Rune priest w/bike, axe, wolf tooth talisman - 140
5 grey hunters, w/razorback, plasma gun - 125
5 grey hunters, w/razorback, plasma gun - 125
4 bikes, 2 melta guns, multi-melta attack bike - 185
4 bikes, 2 plasma, attack bike - 185
5 long fangs, 4 missiles - 115
Aegis w/quad gun - 100
Vindicator - 115
Vindicator - 115
Vindicator - 115

The idea here is to largely split my army in two, with the rune priest hanging back in the plasma (fire support) squad and the captain offering a bit of melee boost for the melta guys, should it be needed.

The rune priest will be taking the divination deck, in most games, and jaws when I'm playing against Necrons.

I opted for an aegis rather than a bastion, as models can sometimes get too grouped on the battlements, although the bastion does give better line of sight.

The vindicators will get cover from the bikes and the razors. The grey hunters will grab objectives.

Let me know what you think!

Storm Talon kit bash

I keep getting nagged by my wife about the obscene amount of unopened boxes around the house. I have scores of tanks, FW kits, and flyers knocking around from half a dozen different armies. 

Among these goodies are two Storm Talons. I rushed out to buy them when they first launched, desperate for a bit of aerial supremacy. Then, after mulling it over, I decided they were a bit of a points sink for something that wasn't really that good. Marines can't really keep up with Guard or Necrons when it comes to airpower, so my view is that they should stick to anti-air (Telion on a quad gun, I'm looking at you).

With that in mind, I've been putting off unboxing my Storm Talons for a while, until a few days back, when the horde of unopened boxes reached a critical mass, and I got a thorough ear-bashing. 

So, on to the model itself. Despite the bad rep it gets on the internet, I don't dislike the shape of it too much. However, since we're doing a pre-heresy army, I didn't really want to just put it together as per the original build. So, once again, ebay to the rescue!

This one was relatively simple, just requiring the typhoon launcher and the assault cannons from the Storm Raven kit. 

There's a large hole where the assault cannon was, which needed to be filled in with plasticard and greenstuff. I made a bit of a botch up with it, but I'm confident that next time I'll make it look a bit more swish. 

As mentioned, the Storm Talon doesn't feature in the list which I'm currently considering for tournaments later this year, so it may be a while before I get this baby painted. 

For now, its time to put it back in its box, where it was originally. Just don't tell my wife. 

Thunder armour scouts

First of all, my apologies for not blogging for a while. My wife and I had a baby two weeks back and we've been busy fiddling with nappies and trying to get the poor little fella to sleep.

When he does finally hit the sack, I take out my other baby - my burgeoning White Scars army. With puffy, sleep deprived eyes, I've been hunched over the kitchen table cutting, glueing and rummaging around in my bits box.

I think I may have eaten a full tube of superglue in the past two weeks, just through biting off the hard crust that forms over the tips of your fingers. Sorry, I'm weird.

So, enough about my own gubbins and on to the project itself. My army list, which is constantly in flux, now includes a scout squad with sniper rifles. After a lot of umming and arrring, I finally decided against using the generic GW scout models, and instead, went on a bit of an ebay bitz finding mission.

The model above is the product of a few things I had knocking around the house. A (badly) painted MK3 torso and legs, some MK2 arms, a Cadian head, and shoulder guards and cloak from the Chaos Marauder set. This will roughly be the set up I'll be using for the scouts, when all my bits come.

It's not exactly the same as the artwork, which looks a lot bulkier, particularly in the shoulder pads. I was originally considering modelling my own with greenstuff, or picking up some of the company champion shoulder pads. However, I opted to go for a more pared down model, since they are scouts after all.

I've bought some Mk4 backpacks, but I'm still uncertain whether I'm going to use them, similarly too because scouts should be more mobile and have less cumbersome armour.

Although thunder armour was only used in earth unification armies, I reasoned that during the transition at the beginning of the Great Crusade, the legions may still have sought a lighter alternative to Mk2 armour for scout squads. Hence, some old suits of thunder armour may have been brought out and reconditioned for use off-Earth. This explains the differences between the artwork and the versions which I'm churning out now.

I'll post up some more stuff which I've been working on recently.

White Scars and Allies

I've been considering what could be the best ally combination for White Scars.

I've considered generic Imperial Guard, as well as Elysians. The thinking was mostly the easy access to Vendettas and Hydras. In particular, Elysians have Valkyries as dedicated transports, which means you can have an 'air cavalry' themed army. Theoretically, this works well with White Scars, as it is an extremely mobile list.

I made half a dozen lists, involving Guard to varying degrees. However, I kept thinking that the White Scars were more of a token addition to the list. The truth is, Guard don't really need White Scars as allies. If you're taking a marine contingent to a Guard list, then you would probably do better to have terminators, death company, etc.

Instead, what I think may be a particularly good ally option is an Eldar jetbike contingent. Jetbikes move further than marine bikes, they ignore difficult terrain and the Farseer offers an inexpensive psychic defence. In addition, Eldar have both the Nightwing and the Phoenix, both of which have the vector dancer rule, which makes them more mobile and versatile to the Stormtalon. The Eldar flyers could quite quickly become a necessity, if Aeronautica becomes mainstream.

Here's the contingent for now:

Farseer w/ runes of witnessing/warding, jetbike, singing spear - 113
6 Guardian jetbikes w/ 2 cannons - 152
= 265 points

I may also take a second smaller squad, holding it in reserve to capture objectives late in the game.

The most characterful Eldar army for this kind of contingent is Saim Hann. This would go with White Scars in that they are both born in the saddle and have the similar 'wild rider' fluff.

However, I'm not a big fan of the red. I was considering starting a Mymeara army, modeled in Imperial Armour 11, as they are a stunning ethereal turquoise. I'm also considering using 'glacial' resin bases for my Scars, so this light blue would kind of match..

Now I just need to find a reason to explain why White Scars Legion, embarking on the Great Crusade, would take filthy xenos Eldar allies. It's not because I'm a beardy bastard, honestly.

Jagged Red Lines

Hey all, so here's my first test model painted. I'm quite happy with the results.

I used the guide for painting white from June's White Dwarf, using the new layer paint Ulthuan Grey and then highlighting the edges with the appropriately named 'White Scar' layer paint.

I experimented with a few different painting techniques on test models before I painted. I initially purchased a pack of clip-together marines, but I wasn't happy with it as a base, so put together a MKIII armour torso and legs to use to test some techniques.

I purchased some time ago the Let's Paint: White Scars DVD. The painter recommends a basecoat of Vallejo Azure (Shadow Grey), building up layers of highlights until you get to white. To give some indication of how long that takes, the DVD is four hours long. I tried it using citadel paints and it took me two hours for a single model. The results were pretty shoddy too. I find that when painting White it's better to keep it simple.

The pre-heresy time is by far the most interesting period, not least for White Scars, as it was before they adopted the Codex Astartes. This means that a pre-heresy White Scars army can get away with all sorts of tribal adornments, such as the horse skeleton here. In addition, they didn't have the stupid 'this way up' arrow on their right shoulder pads. This means that I can paint some tribal-looking jagged red lines (yes, that's why I gave this name to my blog).


I also plan to have some gruesome trophies on the bikes, further down the road: some skulls on spikes, or hanging at the end of chains (the marauder sprues are excellent for this).

My Vision of a White Scars Biker

This is the first of my pre-heresy White Scars. As mentioned, I abandoned the idea of jet bikes in favour of GW bikes.

I've used a plastic skeleton horse to decorate the bike. I removed the spine from the horse and splayed it out across the bike. It involved a hell of a lot of trimming and cutting. I broke a few ribs of the horse, and cut a chunk out of my thumb (ouch) but on the whole it was fairly straight forward. Ask me that after I've done fifteen of these, and I might give you a different answer.

I had to green stuff one section on the neck. I'm pretty poor at sculpting, but hopefully I've done a decent enough job so you won't notice it once it's sprayed up.

I can imagine that it may be fairly difficult to paint and shade the white, in between the ribs, but I'll come to that later on.

The plume is from an Ork boy head, and the lance is obviously from a Grey Knight.

I love the fluff of White Scars, and even took a bash at writing a short story for Black Library. However, I don't think the Mongolian background for them has been fully explored. The Hunt for Voldorious wasn't too bad, but I gave up halfway through 'Savage Scars' as there really wasn't anything to distinguish the White Scars from any other marine chapter. My favourite White Scars fluff has to be an (extremely) short cartoon in Warhammer Monthly called 'Pilgrim'.

I'd like to think that it's common practice for White Scars to mount the skeleton of the horse which served them in a previous life, on their bikes. That way the spirits of their horses continue to ride with them and guide them in their new lives as Astartes.

6th Edition White Scars List

I

Before I start, don't you think the guy on the far right in this picture looks remarkably like Tadanobu Asano (who played Genghis Khan in the film Mongol)?

So, as mentioned I'm planning on attending the Throne of Skulls tournament later this year (my first ever tournament!).

I really want to take my White Scars, so I've been reading up for the past few months on bike-army tactics

The list I've been focusing on, from the website above, has been up until now as follows:

1500 points
Captain w/ bike, relic blade, artificer armor
Bike Squad w/ extra bike, 2x melta guns, attack bike, multi-melta
Bike Squad w/ extra bike, 2x melta guns, attack bike, multi-melta
Bike Squad w/ extra bike, 2x plasma guns, attack bike
Bike Squad w/ extra bike, 2x flamers, attack bike
Landspeeder Squad w/ extra landspeeder, 2x typhoon launchers
Landspeeder Squad w/ extra landspeeder, 2x typhoon launchers
Vindicator w/ dozer blade
Vindicator w/ dozer blade


(Hat tip to the excellent 'Red Archer' for this).


However, the inclusion of allies, plus the dominance of flyers in the 6th edition, has led me to make several important changes.


I have still to receive my rule book through the post, so cannot say for sure that the following list is 'road legal', but here's what I came up with this morning.

The Vendetta squadron may be particularly difficult to manoeuvre, so I may swap out one for some kind of fortification (with anti-air).



Captain w/bike - 135
Bike squad w/2 bikes/2 melta guns/attack bike/ mmelta - 210
Bike squad w/2 bikes/2 plasma guns/attack bike/ - 210
Bike squad w/2 bikes/2 plasma guns/attack bike/ - 210
Stormtalon w/TL Lascannon - 150 points
Assault squad w/five marines - 190
Allies:
Company command squad - 50 points
Platoon - 2 squads - 100 points
Vendetta w/ sponsons -140 points
Vendetta w/ sponsons -140 points
Vendetta w/ sponsons -140 points

Jetbikes Junked

Well, I'm sorry to say, but I'm going to be scrapping the idea of a jetbike based army.

I decided a while back that I'm going to cast out the Chapterhouse jetbikes, because basically they're butt ugly. The big blocky quad exhaust is revolting and doesn't match the contours of the bike.

Plus, I wouldn't be able to use them for the upcoming Throne of Skulls event in October this year, which I'm thrilled about. I've spent a large sum on the bikes, but I'm confident I may be able to sell them at some time down the road (maybe when Forge World finally get around to making the Horus Heresy books).

Instead, I'm going to shamelessly plagiarise the idea behind this Legion of the Damned biker (image not my own, please contact me if you are the rights owner and I'll add the attribution).

I already have the skeleton horses, now I just need to buy the biker accessories. Now for a spot of ebay...

Black Templars - Shootiest Marines?

When people think of Black Templars they think of angry, religious madmen running across the field. However, contrary to the fluff, the one thing they do very well indeed is shoot from a long distance.

Now, this is generally counter-intuitive. 'BT have assault squads as troops, right?' That may be so, but the list is so much more than just 'run at the nearest enemy'.

For instance, crusader squads are 5-10 men, and still have the options for special and heavy weapons. This means you can take a five-man squad with a lascannon and a plasma gun, for just 101 points.

Now, if you spam this type of unit, you can have up to 11 of them in a 1250 point game (once you take into account the emperor's champion with vows). This means 11 lascannons, 11 plasma guns and 33 bolters. Not bad for a close-combat themed army.

What's even more filthy is that lascannons will probably get a super boost in 6th edition. This came up today from Faeit 212.

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2012/06/presence-of-faeit-vehicle-damage-in-6th.html

Vehicle Damage Table
1-2 Shaken
3 Stunned
4-5 Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized (I wonder if its both or 4 is Wpn Dstrd and 5 is Imm?)
6 Explodes

AP1 +2 to the damage table
AP2 +1 to the damage table

In addition, your opponent will not know where to devote his firepower. Eleven small squads will force him to split his shooting, and present more targets then he can properly manage.


Another unit which kicks arse is the humble terminator tactical squad. In a five-man unit, you can take two cyclone launchers, with the tank hunters veteran skill. I'm not sure how that will work out in the 6th edition, but in 5th it for sure kicks arse. What's great too is that you can take them as command squads for a terminator armoured character, effectively freeing up more elite slots for assault terminators or dreadnoughts. 

Landspeeder Typhoons are cheaper in the Templar book as well, being just 70 points versus 90 points in the vanilla codex.

Venerable dreds are great too with the tank hunter veteran skill, making the missile launcher/lascannon variant a great option in shooty lists.

In addition, Black Templar vindicators still come with the power of the machine spirit option, a significant advantage over vanilla marine vindis.

If you're thinking that you might be lacking a bit of combat punch, try assault terminators with lightning claws. Re-rolls to hit (under the accept any challenge vow), re-rolls to wound and no armour saves. A unit of five or six is pretty much overkill for any enemy unit in the game.

All in all, I reckon Black Templars are some of the best marines in the game, as long as you know some of the weird loopholes in the codex and how to use them to your advantage.

Let's just hope they aren't entirely nerfed by a White Dwarf codex. However, a 'rage' USR for crusaders (giving +2 attacks) might on the other hand provide sufficient recompense.

A week of painting

 So I took a week off work, and while I didn't get as much as I'd hoped done I'm quite pleased with what I did produce.

Here we have a terminator squad. The base of the squad are the AOBR terminators I purchased from ebay. I followed this excellent tutorial here:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?autocom=ineo&showarticle=496

To cut a long story short: it involved a lot of hacking. The right arms, carrying the storm bolters, were from the normal terminator kits, as I wanted to use embossed terminator pads from the upgrade kit (I have the Forge World pads too, but I'm saving them from my extra-special assault terminators).

The shoulder guards are also from the upgrade kit.

The Templar codex is unique in that it allows a five man squad to carry two heavy weapons. This squad are going to sit at the back of the field, hammering krak missiles into tanks and heavy armed targets, which offering a bit of counter-assault punch if the enemy breaks through my lines.

I couldn't find any decent-priced cyclones from ebay, so instead I plumped for the 'mini missile launcher' from Iron Dog studios: http://www.irondogstudios.com/store_kits.html

Sure, it's not the best sculpt in the world, but for $12 for a pair, it's a steal.

The bases are from scibor. I was tempted to put the cyclones on the extremely raised bases, in order to get a better line of sight, but thought it was a bit too beardy. They're on the 'ground level' variation of the base.

In other news, I also finished a rhino and a razorback. Thanks for reading!

Finished landspeeders

So here's my land speeders, finished after a significant amount of blood, sweat and tears. The level of detail on the model is impressive, although slightly frustrating for painters who take themselves too seriously - like me.

I got half way through painting the model and decided that I didn't like the aquilla on the 'hood' of the speeder. So I got out my hobby knife and cut the bastard off.

I've tried to keep the amount of eagle iconography to a minimum in my Templars, primarily because of a line from the excellent book 'Helsreach' by Aaron Dembski-Bowden:

'We don't wear the Emperor's symbol; we are the Emperor's symbol'.

Once again I made great use of decals. I think the white cross with the red border is going to be the marshall's insignia. I've used it on the one rhino I've painted so far and plan to use it on the other two. The only trouble is, the Forge World transfer sheet only comes with enough for two large crosses of this type (the remainder being either totally red, or totally white). I feel another Forge World order coming on.

The other bits I used, were a small black cross on the 'bridge' over the cockpit, and the feudal shield on either side of the typhoon launchers.

I have left blank the script on the tail fin , as I'm going to be purchasing a sakura micron pen at a later date. Now, I just have to resist the urge to write an extremely childish word like 'tits' t...

The 'big momma cannon'

I shit you not, that is the actual name for the item you see before you. The big momma cannon....

Anyhow, I received two of these today, alongside lots of other parts and bits, from Puppets War.

This is going to represent my pre-heresy demolisher. As you can see, it's utterly ridiculous proportions make it seem pretty antiquated versus the new more toned-down demolishers. All of which just make this model utterly awesome. I still have to put it together, but here's a picture from the awesome Goatboy at BOLS:

I will say though that the bulldozer blade does look a little 'burred', which make require a little sanding/scraping/washing, to make it smoother and hence, easier to paint. I'll let you know how I get on when I come to assemble and paint it.

I was considering purchasing a deimos rhino conversion kit from forge world, to accompany this model, but that plus the 15 euros for the cannon, put the price tag too high, sadly.

Lovely, lovely Storm Talon

I have a sneaky feeling that the Stormtalon is going to radically alter my White Scars planned army list. As will some of the new 40k rumours on flamers.

Firstly, regarding the stormtalon, I'm completely taken by the possibility of spamming them.

Upgraded for just 25 points with the sky skyhammer missile launcher, with its already formidable loadout of a twin-linked assault cannon, means that this beast will have four shots at strength six, and three shots at strength seven, per turn. Plus it can fire all weapons and still move at 12 inches per turn. And all that, for a grand total of 155 points.

To be honest, I'm utterly in love with the rules at least, and can think of a thousand ways that it would complement a bike army. I currently have three squadrons of two typhoon landspeeders taking up the three fast attack slots in the codex.

However, I'd definitely like at least two of these, which then raises the question of priorities. If I take two typhoons, I can put out four krak missiles a turn, plus six heavy bolter shots. However, that's for thirty points more (180pts).

Two stormtalons and three typhoons might make sense. Or else, I might use the tempests I am getting in the 'heavy support' section as well as one fast attack slot. That would mean I could take six tempests, two storm talons and two vindicators. That *might* provide me with enough mobile firepower! However, it would rely to a certain extent on the good graces of my opponent.

The only other concern I might have is that the stormtalon is not strictly pre-heresy. It looks considerably more modern than the rest of my army, and if I fielded it, I might need to 'bling' it up a bit in order to fit the theme. I'm hoping Chapter House Studios release a conversion kit for it similar to what they did for the Storm Raven.

The other point which I wanted to mention, is the rumours of purchased terrain, flamers and flammable terrain. Obviously, terrain for a biker army is extremely problematic. I cannot claim objectives on the high ground, and difficult terrain counts as dangerous. If terrain, and in particular bunkers and other siege terrain, becomes more common in 40k, this could cause a problem.

However, the possibility of using flamers to 'drive out' embedded troops into the open where they can be killed, now seems to be a very real one.  Therefore, I'm also considering purchasing a tactical combat squad, armed with flamers, in a razorback with a TL heavy flamer, for specifically this role. They could also be useful later on for capturing objectives.

Anyhow, the 6th edition isn't going to be released until the end of June, so I still have over a month to paint up my core troops.






 

Magneto

Yesterday I received a set of magnetic flying stands from an ebay seller called lianne_c. They are utterly fantastic. I don't know whether it's just because I'm new to the concept of a magnetic flying stand, but these are just great.

I've seen some pretty complicated set ups for magnetic stands, particularly the type which allows you multiple poses. The problem seems to stem from the fact that they're all based on transparent acrylic stalks.

This one is extremely simple, and allows you a variety of dynamic poses.

The only trouble is that the magnet is fairly large, and I'm not sure whether it's possible to drill a hole deep enough to sink it in. So instead, it rests on the outside of the model.




Now this isn't a problem so much with a large model like the land speeder, as you can't see the underside of the model anyhow. However, with my jet bikes, it may yet cause a bit of grief, as it's patently obvious from the side of the model. I've yet to stick one onto my trial model, but I'll keep you, my non-existent readers, updated about how it goes. 

The end of another painting week

This is the unit I've been working on most of the week, just an hour or so every morning. I reckon they took me together about eight or nine hours in total, so just over an hour per miniature.

The speed has increased from the last squad of eight that I did a few weeks back, but I still hope to improve further in order that I finish the army by June 16.

I was particularly impressed by the new GW flesh tones. Here I used ratskin flesh, followed by the flesh wash, and then bestigor and ungor flesh layers.

This is the rhino I painted last weekend. As you can see, I've made extensive use of the Forge World decals. You probably can't see it here, but on the left facing there's a particularly nice scroll work, which I was particularly impressed with.

Test model

I wasn't going to do anything on my White Scars until I'd finished my Black Templars, but I got over-excited by the recent orders and decided to put one together. After a bit of hacking and cutting, what you see above is the result.

I had to hack off the jaw of the skeleton horse, and laid out the rest of the spine (including the tail) across the back of the bike. It's a bit gappy in places, so I still need a bit of green stuff, particularly where the head joins the neck.

Overall though, I'm fairly happy with the finished product.

I'm still a little unsure of how to paint white. I have ordered the 'Let's Paint: White Scars' dvd from AG Productions, so hopefully it will give me some pointers. I'm a bit reluctant to use my jetbike marines as test models, so I picked up a box of three tactical marines for that purpose. I'll start work on them soon.

I'm unsure whether the jetbike should get a black basecoat, as it would certainly help with the shading around the skeleton and in the air fins. Suggestions on a postcard.

I still have about seven Black Templars tactical marines to finish this week. This weekend, I have to paint a razorback, landspeeder and at least half of my terminator squad. Wish me luck!

Jetbikes!

I'm not normally excited by the prospect of work, but today I skipped happily into the office after collecting three packages from  the reception area.

The largest, pictured above, contains 16 javelin jetbikes from Chapter House Studios. Here's what they look like, outside of the box.

In addition, I also received a box of plastic tomb kings horses, and about 30 ork heads. No, I'm not in the process of converting undead ork cavalry, I'll be adding these bits to spruce up the jetbike. I'm going to attempt to place the horse skull in between the bolters, and spread out the spinal column across the bike. 

Then, I plan to hack off the topknots of the ork boyz heads and stick them either by the exhaust of the bike, or on top of the space marine backpack. 

This morning, I also purchased 15 marines in 'crusade armour' from Forge World, and two resin landspeeder Tempests. I know that pre-heresy landspeeders are supposed to be more sparse than modern landspeeders, but I couldn't resist the design, which is totally awesome. 

Yesterday I created a painting schedule for my Templars. I have a week off at the beginning of June, so I'm planning on spending about six hours a day painting. I reckon I should be finished on June 16, all going well. Now I just need to figure out how to photograph my minis!

A Born Again Space Marine

This blog is to document the collection, modelling and painting stages of my new White Scars pre-heresy jetbike army.

I'm also in the process of finishing painting a Black Templars army, and I'll be adding stuff to the blog on what I've painting, in between stuff about White Scars.

The BT are my first army after returning to Games Workshop for the first time since the second edition 40K. I've still got a few old rhinos and metal space marines from the very first Rogue Trader boxed sets. I thought initially that these would form the bulk of the army, but they have largely taken a backseat in preference to the new kits GW have released.

Overall, I'm massively impressed with how 'conversion friendly' the new plastic marines are. No longer do I need to take my junior hacksaw to repose some clunky lead models, or spend about 30 minutes in one position trying to superglue plastic to metal (only to find my hands are glued to the model).

The Black Templar kits, particularly the cool 'knight' heads and surcoat, are absolutely fantastic. I ordered enough to convert about 30-40 marines in Black Templar gear, easily more than enough for my 2,000 point army I'm putting together.

The Forge World BT transfer sheet is utterly amazing. I had some great fun applying some ornate scrollwork to a rhino I just painted yesterday.

So far I've painted about 20 marines and touched up six metal scouts I picked up second hand when I last 'dabbled' in the hobby about 10 years ago. I still have about half the army left to paint.

My White Scars stuff has been shipped, and hopefully I should have it in the next few weeks. By that time, I reckon I'm going to be finished with the BT entirely and ready to start a new project. I'll go over some of my White Scar purchases in the next few days.