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Friday, February 13, 2009

Looking ahead to a wall of text.

As I stand, I have the models needed for half of my middle goal for the Red Scorpions (Full 5th Battle Company). I still need to assemble the third tactical squad and figure what Im doing for that assault squad, but the models are there. Next up are the three remaining tac squads, one assault squad, and one devastator squad... plus a command squad and at least one more dreadnaught, possibly a venerable.

From there, the goal is one unit for every entry in the codex... and a few from the Imperial Armor books too (gotta have a Helios). Im not going to be painting them randomly though, Ive been thinking. Veterans are obviously 1st company, and scouts 10th, but the other models Ill be taking, where would they belong if Im already taking the full 5th? Nearly everything that has a visible marine will either be bikes or land speeders, so that means assault marines... 8th company!

So, Ive got four companies represented, do I include command for each? If I include command, whats going to stop me from biting off more then I can chew and attempting to do the full companies there too? Stuff to consider.

I do think I am going to do Commanders for the 1st and 8th, at least. That means Commander Culln, and the Commander of the assault company. A few of you might see where this is headed... Biker Commander!

I still havnt decided on the 10th company commander. Im half thinking not, since Im going to be going "scout light", for background reasons.

Since I plan to include Culln, I want a significant veteran presence. Just looking at the codex tells me Ill be including 10 terminators, 10 assault terminators, 10 vanguard vets, and 10 sternguard vets, 40 models all told. Is 40% of his company reason enough to include him? On a standard 40k list, sure. In the overall force, maybe. I might look into more terminators.

For the 8th company, I want the commander and command squad on bikes, and Ill be including bikers and speeders. Probably multiple units of bikers, just so I can do a small bike force occasionally. I considered the White Scars special character to fill the spot, but I dont think Hit and Run fits the Red Scorpions all that well. The other choice was the Raven Guard captain, and thats an even less likely fit, since under the old list the Red Scorpions were unable to Infiltrate.

Scout company is going to be the easiest I think, a single unit of scout bikers and a unit of bolter scouts, with a Land Speeder Storm to ferry half that squad around for late game objective claiming. Im not adding any sniper models, with their fancy cloaks, since that smells of camouflage and cowardice.

Next up is the Armory. At least one of each tank, though I might go crazy and double up on predators, whirlwinds, and/or vindicators. Im going to hold off on the Master of the Forge, to see if they are going to drop a model with a conversion beamer, but one or two techmarines probably are not too far off. As I said earlier, I have to include the Helios Land Raider (the RS created it, of course Im including one!), but Im not sure what other FW tanks will appear. Probably one of the command tanks, Ive always liked them.

This leaves the Chapter Leadership, the Apothecaries and Librarians. Im planning on writing up the Chief Apothecary soon as a support character, with limited wargear, but capable of taking a bike or jump pack. Librarians are rough for me. Im sticking with a strict "no bare heads" rule here, and all the current models are bare headed. Im thinking Ill be hitting eBay for older models. That leaves the Chapter Master and the Honor Guard. The Honor Guard will be easy, just plastic marines with bolters and power weapons, almost considering getting a captain kit for each one, so they all have capes. Maybe. The Master, not so easy. I was planning on using Kantor's rules, but Ive been rethinking that, as Id prefer to design the weapons how I want, rather then sticking to his set up. Maybe Ill convert that VSgt Culln jump packer model I got...

2 comments:

eriochrome said...

For the Honor guard if you want a uniform look, you might also consider dark angels veterans with the robes as a base point. It would certainly be cheaper than commander box for each honor guard.

Peter said...

Yeah a tenner is far too much to spend for each member of a unit, I think the DA vets are a good choice or you could use some of the HQ models for the guard, which isn't that much cheaper but hey!