Tarkonis IV - Planetary Survey

Segmentum: Ultima
Sector: Dartus
Sub-sector: Ulch
System: Tarkonis: 7 planets (I through VII)

Surveyed: Unknown; the system was brought into compliance near the end of the Great Crusade, circa M31.

Satellites: 0 save for Tarkonis II (1) and V (4; 2 populated)

Tarkonis

Summary: Mining/agricultural world and home to the Blood Stalkers Space Marine Chapter; the planet exhibits no tilt of its axis in relation to the local star which in turn causes the equatorial region to exhibit arid desert climate while the polar regions, devoid of ice, host flourishing agricultural expanses.

Population: 4.5 billion (human and abhuman)
Mean Surface Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Seas: 62% of the surface is covered by shallow seas. The extreme heat at the equator results in heavy evaporation which in turn precipitates in increasing amounts with distance from the equator.

Principle Exports: Foodstuffs and ore mined primarily from neighbouring moons;
Principle Imports: Munitions; Arms and weapons.
Food Supply: Food is grown on-world with excess exported off-world as part of Imperial Tithe.
Urbanisation: Vast cities exist centralized around the space ports used to transport workers to the ore rich moons of neighbouring planets. The vast expanses of agricultural land are sparsely populated.

Military Presence: Tarkonis IV serves as the home world of the Blood Stalkers Space Marine Chapter. Novitiates are chosen from the system's populace during ceremonial events which take place once every 5 years. Hopefuls are given a combat blade and water prior to beginning a trek through the equatorial barrens. Having survived dehydration, sand wurms and extreme heat, survivors are often given the chance to undergo the process to become Space Marines. This event had historically been held once every ten years; however due to the gene 'flaw' of the Blood Stalkers, this event has become more frequent. An Imperial Guard Regiment is stationed on Tarkonis IV which is drawn upon to serve in nearby conflicts. The Adeptus Mechanicus Warhound Titan Dais Mortae is also stationed within the system.

Imperial Forces on Parade 989.M41

3rd Company 2nd Veteran Squad


3rd Company 3nd Veteran Squad


4th Auxiliary Ogryn Detachment


42nd Heavy Weapons Detatchment

Blood Stalkers Chapter

My army now fits quite well for planetstrike apocalypse games, and I can field a 4000 point company that either teleports, deepstrikes, drop pods or is carried via thunderhawk into the battle. It is quite fun to play and requires no set up time, which is always a tactical advantage

With the release of the new Blood Angels codex, I've embraced a completely new style of army and gone basically complete mech.

Chapter Name: Blood Stalkers
Founding Chapter: Blood Angels
Founding: Unknown
Specialty: Rapid deployment and planetary assault
Estimated Strength: 75%

Blood Stalkers' 2nd Company Task Force


Command


Equary to the the 2nd Captain

Librarius



Reclusiam

Brother Migrus

Sanguinary Priesthood


1st Company



Sternguard Veterans Emperor's Shadows

Brother Remus

2nd Company

Tactical Squad Valorus

Tactical Squad Endurum

Tactical Squad Jalori

Tactical Squad Paloren


Assault Squad Durel




10th Company



Armoury









Fleet Command Strike Cruiser Executioner Payload:

I can almost understand not putting on chapter marking so that you can use whatever codex you want, but if you just turn your SM into a DIY chapter then you can do that anyway, or are you talking about the more fluffy stuff like DA/SW/IH style company markings?

The fluffy markings... I'll still put some little kill count markings and non descript stuff

So because it's new and exciting, I've been painting up my new AoBR marine set. There's more motivation to swap between armies for me, as the 36th fire warrior was a bit much since I did them all in a week or two. Not to mention it's always fun to skip the troops choices and move onto elites and HQs. . . So anyway here are some more pictures

I chopped off all of the banners and trinkets on these guys, and removed all of the heads of the forces and put on helmets. . . I know if I were important enough to become a commander, I'd keep my power armour helmet on. . . Mind you those tau snipers only have BS 3 so what am I afraid of?

The cloak is actually a dark green with goblin green highlights, and about 5 coats in between, you just can't see it in the photo, I'm quite happy with it, I'll just make sure my friends play under spot lights. The white looks like it was applied dirty, or thin, but after getting the white perfect, I black washed it to dull and dirty it. . . After 3 various metal coats I dry brushed some enchanted blue on the sword. . . If I was good at freehand, I'd do some cool lighting bolts but this way at least it just looks glowing.

The Company Captain or w/e they call those fellows:



Finished Dreadnaught: edit: on the advice of another forum user, I drilled out his gun barrels, but havn't changed the picture, just take my word for it.


The terminator


Edit: thanks for moving this SpartanTau

Theambit :
Ask and you shall receive. Your work on these models is pretty good as well, so keep up the good work!

Spent a full day painting up a tactical squad so here are some images. (Yes I know "Yay marines" isn't a common line around here haha).

I had a go at some battle damaged armour, not sure if you can make it out too well in the photos. There's claw and bullet marks on the armour, a giant pit in another guy's, and a lot of wear/scrapes which were done by dry brushing chainmail and mithril silver on areas I figured would scrape off, such as boot tips and knees.

Nice paint on the Black Reach Marines! I like the deep red color of them, but if you want to give them a chapter, they look very much like the chapter from Dawn of War (Blood Ravens?). Anyway, they were also mentioned in the codex ... just a little food for thought.

Using a snap-fit marine (not from AoBR) I crafted myself a standard. The banner is from AoBR, but has been filed down so I could put my Maple Leaf on it. This all stemmed from my friend saying they looked like "Canadian Marines". So I thought I would hummor him.

I doubt it will ever get used, and the painting is mediocre as I've never done freehand, and definitely not a banner, but I thought I'd share what I've do any with the dumb banners I cut off the AoBR backpacks. I could not get a good image, but the hand is actualy cut into 3 pieces off of the bolter, and reassembled around the coathanger and is quite convincing.

It hasn't been based yet, as I ran out of small rocks. That will come though.

After scrounging a spare necron wraith hand, I carved up a AoBR sgt and took his hand and sword to make an apothecary.

After my first ever go with white, I must say, it is really hard! Glad I've never decided to paint an army with it. From the picture, I noticed a few small problems right away, so I've fixed those. I added a little more highlight to his right shoulder, and fixed the sloppy black inking. Also fixed the bad white-red edge on the bottom of the right shoulder.

I find photos of your own models are an excellent way to notice your own mistakes, as you often see things you dislike or didn't notice.

I wanted to use up a horse I had in my bitz box so I figured I'd mount a marine to it, and use it as a company champion. Being at the end of my 'ard coat can really shows as there is far too much on the model. The chainmail areas also shine quite a lot without the coat. . . I'm really going to need to go get some matte spray.




And the next model on the horizon:



My custom librarian. . . Can you tell I'm making the most inexpensive 1700pt army list yet?

Wow, that's great! You could convert some marine scout bikers that way.

Finished painting up the librarian I converted. I'm quite pleased with it and think it looks quite original. Most of the extra bits are from the master of the ravenwing set, aside from some that I carved from old sprue (the arm and hands).

Nice conversion... I like what you've done with that commander.

So I havn't been slacking the last two weeks, I've actually painted up my terminator sgt, converted some snap fit termies into lighting claw and hammer assault terminators, painted up about 20 more tactical marines, and finished up a whirlwind.

Without posting a bunch of pictures of marines which will look fairly similar to the ones already up, I'll show you the whirlwind I'm quite proud of. I also recently used it in a game and boy are they great. Nothing exceptional, but a solid all around unit I must say. I sort of used it in an exploitive way however, by backing it into an GW imperial building with no windows and a ceiling. It proceeded to fire indirectly all game at ork mobs to much success. Anyway, photo time

Dude, you're a painting machine. Quit making us slackers look bad.

I found an old model in my closet that I'd been given 10 years ago as a birthday gift, but it had some broken pieces so it was no longer display worthy (the reason it was in the closet because before hand it was pretty awesomely done up by my friend's father). Anyway, I was called for an apocalypse game this weekend, and wanted to try out my SM (I've been running 3-5000 pts of Tau lately). However, with only 1500 or so points, I needed some sort of super heavy to bump up my points.

Enter my new superheavy. I think I'll run it as a hellhammer? The tank in the apoc book which shoots a 7" template that ignores cover. Anyway, I extended the side armour down to cover the tracks do give the apearance of the 40k imperial tank, as well as added some side sponons (note that tau flamers ). The large tank barrel was added with an inverted silencer BOOM!. I also put on some tubing to run from the oil can I placed on the back and some other SM bits I had left over from my AoBR sets. Think it's convincing enough?

Had my army out to inspire me to paint more troops, and figured I'd toss up an army shot. I picked up a drop pod yesterday since I couldn't argue with the new Canadian GW prices, and I definitely have to promise myself to finish 5 more marines before starting to paint that.

I still have a squad of assault termies I made out of the AoBR ones to paint up, and hopefully some converted sternguard pretty quick (I need 8 more models). Plus I'm still trying to figure out of anything is different about them besides the laurels and a shoulder insignia.



Pardon the large picture but I figured it was justifiable to show off the progress so far. (I think about a month?)

Painted up my assault terminators (converted from the AoBR ones). Here's a group shot of all 10 of my AoBR termies. My next mini-project is a chaplain I converted from a dev-squad sgt. and the dev. squad I pulled him from.

Painted up the chaplain last night. As stated in the last post, he's made from the sergeant of a devastator squad I picked up. I can replace that guy with a snap fit marine. His rod is the eagle cut up from an AoBR captains armour, some termie cables and a plastic tube. Grabbed the pistol from a ravenwing master, and the death mask is attached to a marine helmet (crafted from a servitor?)

So I guess it had to happen eventually, I've been lured to the titans. After scratch building a necron pylon (viewtopic.php?f=42&t=10639&hilit=pylon) I figured my plasticard skills needed more testing, and a warhound titan was just the thing. Almost 800 points of pure death will be a welcome addition to my marines in apocalypse, or maybe a helping hand along-side my tau.

The model is going to take quite some time I figure, as it took 2 days to assemble one foot! Anyway it is a VERY nice break from painting, and I will stop boring you with words, and show you a WIP picture.