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...