I won this model as a door prize at the big tournament up here, called Brimfrost. I've been wanting to do the model right, so I sat down and did some research. Apparently this guy is a Space Marine Captain with the Red Scorpions, known as Commander Culln. I looked up some info on the Red Scorpions and as it turns out, they're in Imperial Armor IV: The Anphellion Project (sp?). Anyways, after looking at the Terminator pictures they've got in there, I decided to go with a slightly modified version of their armor. Instead of being a re-named Codex Gray (which I've got an entire army of anyway), I went with a gray drybrushed over black to give more of a "charcoal" look. Unfortunately, the drybrushing doesn't translate very well, and the armor looks like it's just a primer, which I can assure you it's not.

Other than that little tidbit, I'm pretty proud of the model. There's not any weathering, any fancy techniques or such, but this is one of the first models I've done that can actually be called "complete" and look pretty damn good on the table to boot. I am looking to make this guy the start of a full Space Marine company, collected over the course of several years, and not buying/trading another unit until the first is completely done.

Anyway, enough talking; onto the pretty pictures!

That is a great looking model - good call on the Red Scorpions! I know you said you didn't add any sort of weather techniques but I really, really, really dig the almost matte finish your model is sporting - the colors look almost dusty, it's great!

Sa'cea Mont'yr :
I agree with Elliott: the matte finish effect looks really good! I noticed that there wasn't much definition on the white head, however. Was this to simplify things or just because you weren't sure how to handle it? I would suggest some Fortress Grey or Codex Grey to define the panel lines and some shading, if you're up to it.

That is a pretty sweet door prize, even if it wasn't painted to this standard! Nice job!

That's what I told him. Shows how much he listens to me.
I've also suggested he redo one side of the blade. Other than that, it looks pretty great in person.


Oddly enough I was the one who picked his name, totally at random, since I was there taking pictures for the event. I told him since I was the reason he got it, he should let me paint it. He's mean, and wouldn't let me.

TatteredRagDoll :
My solution would be to start hiding his paints and models, just so that he's forced to let you paint some...

Oh, Sa'cea Mont'yr, I didn't see you standing there behind me...

@TRD: nice to see you posting again! Oh, and when are we going to see more of the models that you've painted, eh? I remember that first XV8......

E.

Well, while committing a bit of threadomancy, I can say the Fortress Grey worked quite well (Glad to hear! - ST). I'll see about posting some pictures in the next couple of days. I can also say that this thread will hopefully grow a bit longer, as my first squad of Vanguard Veterans and the upgrade pack for a set of Tactical Marines has finally arrived. Pictures are enroute as well, and I can tell you that the pictures on the Forgeworld site do small justice to the detail available on these models.

The Vanguard Sergeant in particular has some spectacular detail, though there are a couple of spots that are going to require some very creative use of a hobby knife and possibly some green stuff, as there are a couple of areas that are raised at least a couple of millimeters above the rest of the model. This will become much more apparent when I'm able to upload pictures.

Look for the title of this thread to change once I get this project up and running. It'll be a nice distraction from finishing up my Tau, and perhaps even motivate me to finish my two Barracudas.

Well, here they are. The first pictures of the Vanguard Veterans from Forgeworld. These are some beautiful models, folks. But alas, as always with Forgeworld, there's some minor discrepancies. Luckily, none of them are major, and most of them are relatively easily covered up by either paint or a little judicial use of the modeling knife and file. So, without further ado, here's the models.



Clicking the pic will take you to the album. It's the same album as Commander Culln, but all the photos are in there. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the models, though the resin definitely needs some serious cleanup. The model that's shown in the above thumbnail is going to be the lowest-ranking of the squad, as I'm working my way from the bottom up, hopefully improving my technique as I do so. It's pretty difficult not to jump straight to the sergeant, let me tell ya.

As I don't have the bits to give each of them a power sword, I've decided that the easiest way to give them the equipment I'd like is to simply shave down their chainswords and paint them as power weapons, giving them that much more oomph when they provide "Heroic Intervention." I'm probably going to try and get all the marines assembled to this point before base coating them, as I prefer to build and paint in separate time frames.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think.

Sa'cea Mont'yr

New update, folks. Four of the models have been completed to the point where I need to prime them. I just noticed the flash on one of the pistols, but other than that, they're ready for painting. Thoughts?

Sa'cea Mont'yr :
Those are looking really nice! The shaved-down chainswords-to-power weapons looks good right now, and probably better once you get some paint on them. The only pose that looks a little awkward is the one where the sword is sticking horizontally away from his body (back row left), but only because my wrist starts to hurt when it bends like that... Unfortunately, I have no suggestions for a change, since you probably want all of them to be slightly different, so just carry on.

You did miss a little flash on the one Bolt Pistol though!

Yeah, I saw that. While I was priming, I noticed a bit of flash on the back of one of the arms as well. The pose you're referring to was supposed to be of the marine swinging from the outside, though I wasn't too impressed with how it turned out. Now, though, the pose is starting to grow on me.

I've got one of them mostly painted, and working on a second. When the two I'm working on are done, I'll post them up. So far, though, they're looking pretty good.

Another update. Managed to scrounge some parts from the assault marine pack to do a Captain in Artificer Armor with a combi-plasma. He's not quite done, and neither are the two Vanguards, but they are pretty close. Top of the list is to do their power weapons and fix the company badge on the Vanguards knee.

Another update, folks. After nearly ten hours (punctuated by the movies "Gran Turino," "Taken," and "Wedding Crashers") working on these guys, they're coming along quite nicely. Still have highlights on the sword arms and minor touch-ups here and there, but I'm pretty impressed with myself, even if it did take entirely too long to get to this point. I'm also particularly proud of the bases, even if they are extremely basic. Hey, it's more than flock, which is better than I can say for my Tau .

http://s37.photobucket.com/albums/e83/Ordo_templar/Red%20Scorpions/

So, here they be. They're so close to being done I can taste it. Some highlighting on the sergeant, and some touchup on the rest of the squad, and they'll be sealed and set aside for another project.













And here's the Captain, while I'm at it.



And a teaser of something else I'm working on:

I'm really enjoying reading your progress with this army Mont'yr, it's interesting seeing how you're progressing through the models.

Just a quick side question; On the Vanguard Jump Packs, do the fuel pipes (or whatever those things are ) come seperately? It just looks as if they do, they seem... different to the standard GW ones.

The attitude thrusters do indeed come separate from the jump packs. Not entirely certain why, it's just another part to have to cut, clean and glue.

And thanks for the warm words, Fraggle. glad you're enjoying the progress.

Sa'cea Mont'yr :
More awesome resin? I always like that. The most recently painted models look very good, from the posing to the added bits to the paintjob. The Heavy Bolter looks nice as well, and I'm looking forward to seeing it painted. Are you then doing all of the special weapons first and leaving the standard Bolter marines for later? I haven't painted a mixed-weapon squad is so long that I don't know how I'd handle it, personally¹.

Nice work so far, and I'm eagerly awaiting the battle report!

1: I'll need to figure out soon for my own Forgeworld order.

SpartanTau:

Yeah, more resin. Actually, just the same resin from my first (and currently only) FW order . I'm just now getting ahold of the bitz I need to finish the squad (assault marine legs); unfortunately a bit of poor planning on my part (read: impatience) left me with the Melta marine using standing legs and the rest of his combat squad having running legs. It's something I'll be correcting with the next squad.

=====

Batrep:

So, I used the same 1000 point list for two different battles, one against Tau, the other against Sisters of Battle. This list is built to be a might powerful, as it's a practice list for a team tournament in February. Here's the list:


My opponent for the first game took a gunline Tau. He's a big fan of standing and shooting, and for a new Tau player, he does alright. Here's what I remember of his list:

Shas'o
-[TL: Plasma, CIB, Stims, HW: Multi]

Fire Warrior Team x2
-[11 FW w/ Pulse Rifle]
-[1 Shas'ui w/ Pulse Rifle]

Pathfinder Squad
-[7 PF w/ PC, ML]
-[1 Shas'ui w/ PC, ML]
-[DF w/ D-pod, Multi, TA, SMS, Sensor Spines, Seeker x2]

Gun Drone Squad x2
-[Gun Drone x8]

Sniper Drone Teams
-[Sniper Drone Team x2]

Deployment: We used a 4x4 board instead of a 6x4, with two large buildings and tons of craters/cover throughout the rest of the area. We rolled a Capture and Control mission with a Spearhead deployment zones. I won the roll to go first and picked the side that forced him to deploy outside a building. I deployed with my two tactical squads broken up into combat squads with the heavy weapons in my building with a pretty decent field of fire. He responded by deploying in a gunline that was just out of reach of my heavy bolter, leaving my two mobile combat squads to engage the gunline on their own. My Vanguard, Terminators and Captain started in reserve, deepstriking and teleporting respectively.

Turn 1: With him failing to steal the initiative, my two combat squads moved towards the building, trying to get into cover and give them a chance to get into hand to hand with his gunline. This would come back to bite me in a couple of turns. My heavy bolter shot at the single FW squad in range while the Missile Launcher dueled with the Pathfinder's Devilfish. He responded by smashing one of the tactical squads with nearly 400 points of his army. Holy crap. That was insane. Being on the receiving end of 7 Pathfinders making their markerlight hits is definitely a new experience. Not something I want to repeat.

Turn 2: The Vanguard decided to wait it out while the Captain and the Termniators decided they wanted to land exactly where I wanted them, threatening his far right flank. Shooting knocked out a couple of Pathfinders, while combined fire from the Captain and the remaining mobile combat squad downed a couple of drones and forced them off the table. In response, he downed a Terminator and put a wound on the Captain. The second combat squad managed to make it into cover, saving them from a horrendous amount of firepower.

Turn 3: The terminators moved forward, but rolled poorly on the run roll to get into the building and break line of sight from most of his army. My missile launcher dueled yet again with the Pathfinder fish, which made its D-pod save. Now I know how annoying they are. Yikes! The Vanguard Vets come in, and scatter a whopping 10 inches! Having declared Heroic Intervention, they're unable to do anything but charge the Devilfish and roll no sixes with their krak grenades. With my terminators out in the open, they were prime targets. 875 points of shooting later, I'm down a Captain, Sergeant and 2 terminators. Hmmm. I do believe I like these guys (they do even better next game), even if I do only have one of them left.

Turn 4: My missile launcher fails yet again to kill the Devilfish, who has been pounding the guys on the top story of my building with SMS, killing about one a turn, and I keep passing my morale checks. Fine with me. The heavy bolter has been pounding the same fire warrior squad the whole game, and doing a whopping nothing. Not even forced a moral check. Sunuvagun. My terminator tries to get around a squad of Fire Warriors to make a run at contesting his objective, but rolls snake eyes. The combat squad manages to sneak into the building, and then rolls snake eyes for their run! *Insert diatribe here* In return he wipes the combat squad down to the last man, and the Terminator is left in combat by himself against a crisis suit, fire warrior squad and sniper drone team. The Pathfinders, one of the FCW teams and one of the SDT's knocks out the Vanguard, making that 250 points of Marines that I'm fighting without.

Turn 5: There's pretty much nothing left to shoot by this point, and the game is hinging on whether or not my last remaining terminator can win a combat against three units and make his way to the objective to contest it. In the assault phase, he loses combat, and his sniper spotter runs and so do his fire warriors! I roll a 1 to continue the game, and with his last remaining fire warrior squad broken, he's got nothing to hold his own objective, leaving me with a score of 1-0! My first game with marines since 2005, and it's a victory!

Lessons learned: Both of my combat squads should've flanked a hard right, breaking line of sight to keep them alive for an extra turn or two. Marines are more survivable than Tau, but after having so many bad experiences with markerlights, I wasn't expecting those markerlights to be so damn effective. I've got a new respect for them, but I doubt I'll be bringing more than two or three more in my Tau lists. I just don't roll high enough on the average to make them worthwhile. Terminators. Are. Awesome. Holy crap. These guys, especially at such a low points values, are absolutely insane. The amount of firepower they absorbed was absolutely insane. As to the marines themselves, they are very flexible, and the addition of a power weapon and a melta in my scoring units is a welcome change from the lack of variety in my FCW squads. It'll take some more experimentation, but so far, I'm extremely pleased with how they performed.

Post-battle Notes: My friend made two critical mistakes in the last turn of the game. In the last couple of turns, the last terminator charged a sniper drone team, causing three wounds. He took the wounds on the drones, leaving him in base to base with his spotter. The spotter made the leadership check, and then he charged both the remaining FW squad and his Shas'o into combat with my terminator, in an attempt to kill him in hand to hand. What he should've done was take one of the wounds on his spotter, removing the whole unit, leaving him wide open to a rapid-firing squad of FW, an SDT, and a set of twin-linked plasma rifles. The odds of surviving all of that would've been relatively low, even for a terminator, which would've made it a tie instead of a loss for him. Other than that, he shot up a lot of my marines, but despite the losses, some key dice rolls turned it at the last minute into a win for me.

=====

Sisters of Battle

His (approximate) list:

Cannoness
-[Power Weapon, Inferno pistol]

Priest
-[Eviscerator]

Retributer Squad
-[1 Sergeant w/ bolt pistol, CCW]
-[4 Sisters w/ Heavy Bolters]

Sister Squad
-[Sergeant w/ Bolt Pistol, CCW]
-[1 Sister w/ Heavy Flamer]
-[1 Sister w/ Flamer]
-[7 Sisters w/ Bolters]

Sister Squad
-[Sergeant w/ Bolt Pistol, CCW]
-[1 Sister w/ Heavy Flamer]
-[1 Sister w/ Flamer]
-[7 Sisters w/ Bolters]

Sister Squad
-[Sergeant w/ Bolt Pistol, CCW]
-[1 Sister w/ Heavy Flamer]
-[1 Sister w/ Melta]
-[7 Sisters w/ Bolters]

Penitant Engine x2
-[Heavy Flamer, Dreadnought CCW]

Faith Points: 5

Setup and Deployment:
-We managed to roll the exact same mission and setup from the last game, though this time I let him set up first, which had me set up in much the same way as my Tau opponent. Buildings were set up the same as well for the interest of time. My objective was placed in the building that straddled the board quarters on my side, while his objective was on the top floor of his building, squarely in his own quarter. The Retributers and a Sisters squad holed up in the building, Retributers on the top floor and the Sisters on the second. The Cannoness attached herself to one of the squads while the priest was attached to the sisters in the building. That left two penitant engines lined up on the 12" clearance zone around the center of the table with the cannoness squad behind them and the last sisters squad charging down my right flank.
-My tactical squads once again split up, with the heavy weapons hanging out on the right side of the building, out of line of fire from his retributers, but with a good line of sight on his flanker squad while the other combat squads sitting in the building, waiting for his penitent engines to make their move. Terminators (w/ Captain) and Vanguard once again held in reserve, waiting for the call to deepstrike in.

Turn One: Of course, the penitent engines charged forward, one of them rolling low on a difficult terrain check. There was little enough shooting, as his two mobile squads ran forward. In return, I managed to kill a few sisters, but not enough to cause leadership checks. My combat squads rearranged themselves based on the fact that both penitents were now of out of difficult terrain.

Turn Two: The penitents managed to close a lot of the distance, while bolter fire from the flanker squad knocked a couple of marines from my missile launcher squad, but they retailiated by passing their leadership check. On my half of the turn, the terminators showed up, though the Vanguard declined (yet again) to show up. My missile launcher immobilized one of the penitant engines while a melta shot at the second penitant. He was inside 6 inches, but I rolled a 1 and 2 for penetration, leaving me facing a heavy flamer for next turn.

Turn Three: The remaining penitant smoked two of the marines in the second floor combat squad, but was unable to reach them as he rolled poorly for the difficult terrain to charge them. A heavy flamer and bolters galore from the flanker squad left failed to force my missile launcher squad to run or die, and the cannoness squad made another run move for my objective leaving my terminators alone. The Retributers laid down a hail of fire on the termies, but failed to do anything. On my turn, my Vanguard showed up, the Terminators headed for the building while the Captain headed for the squad with the Cannoness. One of my meltas ended the existance of the second penitant engine, taking another sister with it in the explosion. Heavy Bolter fire, a missile launcher and 8 bolters between them forced leadership checks on the cannoness and flanker squad both. And each of them rolled an 11! I honestly couldn't believe my good luck. The cannoness ran 11 inches, while the flanker squad ran 9 backwards. All of a sudden, my Captain and Vanguard were in perfect position to assault the cannoness squad, which they did with gusto. The Captain, apparenlty newly promoted, failed to do much of anything while the Vanguard hammered down on the squad, even with him burning a faith point to make their saves invulnerable. The remaining Terminators charged the squad in the building after moving towards them in the movement phase, and smashed into them with a vengance, forcing them to flee after losing one two of their members in hand to hand. They rolled a whopping four for their massacre move, leaving them just outside the building.

Turn Four: The flank squad continued to run another seven inches while the Cannoness and her squad beat the ever-loving daylights out of my Vanguard, who gave almost as good as they got. By the end of the second round of close combat, it was two sisters and the cannoness against my Captain and Vanguard Sergeant. My terminators rolled a five for difficult terrain, allowing them to get inside the building and start working their way up. I would need to roll at least a three for my next two DT rolls if I was to make it up to contest his objective. Turn Four was relatively quiet, as my quarter was clear of enemy units, and I had three in his own quarter. My half of the close combat went horribly, with my Captain and Vanguard sergeant both failing to wound, while the Cannoness wounded the captain, taking him down to two while the two regular sisters failed to wound the Vanguard sergeant.

Turn 5: His flanker squad rallied (faith point), but were far enough away that they weren't going to be a problem. His static sister squad with the priest failed to rally and subsequently ran off the board. The Vanguard sergeant died to a power weapon from the sister sergeant while the Captain refused to give up and tied up the Cannoness for what would be the last turn of the game. My Terminators were contesting my opponent's objective, and he had no units in my zone, giving me a second 1-0 game for the night.

Lessons learned: Penitant engines aren't nearly as bad in this edition, though they can still do a LOT of damage if they make it in close. I absolutely love the flexibility of combat squads, though the low model count means I do need to be much more careful of how I engage with them. Vanguard, when properly engaged, make for some insane assault troops, especially with Power Weapons. I am seriously considering dropping one of the squad's power weapons and providing them with a stormshield, though, as they currently have nothing more than their regular power armor, and in such an assault-oriented squad, they really need some sort of invulnerable save protection.

Post-battle notes: The biggest thing that saved me in this game was him failing those two leadership checks. If he hadn't, we would've been trading objectives, and it would've been a draw. As it was, I'm thoroughly enjoying playing Marines for the first time in a long while. I'm also pleased to note that a lot of things I've learned as a Tau player is really coming to the fore as a Marine player. The concept of combined firepower supplemented with a decent assault really suits the way I'm building this infantry army, and i'm really looking forward to how it performs in larger points battles.

Nice batrep, it's a refreshing change to see it from the 'other' perspective

I also like the Marines, keep up the good work - those look like mostly MkIV power armour helms?