Crimson Scythes

[Rizara]

Greetings fellow Brothers.   I decided to just reboot my Blog, now that I have given my chapter a much needed focus.   Originially i was thinking of rebooting an old sucessor I had from previous editions, which were titled the Scions of Blood.   However, I have been debating over the past month, on color schemes, army name, whether or not to do an official color scheme, stick with a successor.    All in all, its been more brainstorm when I had time around doing art work and school assignements than actually painting.    Since I already had started with black and red, I decided I would keep those colors for the most part.    However I found a chapter that is an officially named chapter with no real information on it.  

 

So the Crimson Scythes are an officially named chapter, they appeared in the eye of terror codex, and were briefly mentioned in a novel.   This is the only canon for the chapter as a whole.  The chapter is known for being reserved and aloof, the commanded officers and higher ups wear robes with hoods, and they are part of the remaining 18 Adeptus Praeces Marine chapters, which were chapters that were creating from loyalist genestock since the horus heresy that are tasked to guard the Eye of terror.     That means, their founding ranges from 2nd founding to current, however, since most second founding chapters were created as split legions, I am going to just roll with them being a 3rd founding chapter, which was only founded at the start of the 32nd millennium.   

 

So doing my research I found several people between the years 2009 and 2011, that seemed interested in starting a crimson scythes chapter, and only one person who seemed to commit a little effort, at least as far as working on some background info, color scheme, but could not find any painted models from that person, and the most recent post about this chapter was still 2012.    So I am going to do my own take on the chapter, and really get some fleshing out for them as I manage to get a little time to paint these guys and progress this blog.   

 

First up...Since its a 3rd founding chapter, I decided that the chapter was created from Blood Angels genestock before the flaw really started to set in.   Since they are one of the first chapters created and not split off, they started out as a codex chapter.    However as time went on, they soon found out about the flaw and the Blood angels have helped them with coping with the flaw.    Since then, they have restructured there battle companies to something more akin to the blood angels, and have adopted some markings, however most of there markings now are not true codex markings nor true blood angel markings.   

 

So up first, my intended Color scheme.  

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/Crimson%20Scythes/Marine_zpsc355f1e1.jpg

 

And my planned Army Icon.  

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/Crimson%20Scythes/CrimsonScythe_zps3340f7cc.jpg

 

I decided that the army icon needed to be done in crimson, and added a blood drop, which is seperate but added later when they discovered the flaw among there ranks.   So with that in mind, I decided on a color scheme.   Most of the unit markings will be done in white.   They will retain the blood angels company markings being on the knee pad, with the exception of the first company being a single white scythe  on black background and the scout company also being a single crimson scythe on black background.   The battle companies will consist of a single blood drop on a solid color background, ranging from white/black/red blood drops on black or white backgrounds.   The reserve companies will have a single blood drop, all red, with split pattern of white/black halved backgrounds.    

 

Also, unlike most other blood angel successors, the sanguinary guard will be apart of the first company, so the first company will consist of around 30 sanguinary guard, and 70 terminators.    Other veterans who will make up the sternguard and vanguards, are actually attached to the reserve companies.   The reserve companies are where the scouts become trained and refined, and the reserve companies will never be completely whole as they tend to be attached to the 4 battle companies.   The reserve companies will also maintain the bike and speeder units.    The battle companies will be standard companies with a unit of death company.      The idea is that when veterans of the battle companies get promoted they will usually become sternguards and vanguards.  They will become apart of the reserve companies where the scouts have been promoted to either tactical or assault units.  Devestators are always made up of tacticals who have gained some experience and prefer the long range fighting.    The reserve companies will gain experience by fighting beside the battle companies until the battle companies need replacements.  The reserve companies are designed to not only improve the young recruits fighting skills, but to also hone there resistance against the forces of chaos.   

When veterans have shown tremendous years of experience, or prove themselves worth, they are then inducted into the first company.  Many of these start out in the terminator units.  The sanguinary guard however all all made from veterans who have lead squads of the first company into battle.  These veteran sergeants have shown not only valuable centuries of combat experience but will also show outstanding leadership qualities and will have been inducted into the upper echelons of the command structure.   Many of the Sanquinary guard of the crimson scythes will be advisors to captains of other companies, if not become company masters themselves.   

 

Also, since many of the upper level leaders wear hoods and robes, I will probably have members of my first company and veterans using robes with hoods.  At the very least they will all have some sort of cloth tabard or robe.   Also, rank will be noted via the helmets.  All normal marines will have a white helm.  Sergeants will have an added crimson stripe.   Veteran sergeants of normal squads and veterans will have White helms with black stripes.   Senior veteran sergeants of veteran squads/terminator squads and sanguinary guard will have black helms with white stripes.   Death Company will be in traditional black armor with crimson markings, but there helms will be black with a crimson stripe down the center.

 

Anyways, to end this first entry of my new blog, here is the most recent army shot.  I will be trying to squeeze in time to get some painting done now that I have my color scheme worked out.   

 

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/Crimson%20Scythes/Groupshot2_zpsdaf62892.jpg

 

[marine7312000]

I love the color scheme and chapter icon both a lot.

[Bukimimaru]

Looking good brother, keep us updated.

[Rizara]

not a painting update, but more of a battle update. 

I managed to get a game in yesterday, which was great, needed a break from all the hectic school and work life, plus it was just great getting to talk 40k and get my geek on.  

 

So had a 3 way battle, each of us taking 1000 points.   I fielded my Scythes and took a librarian with jumppack, mastery lvl 2 and force staff.   I also fielded 9 death company with 2 power weapons and a power fist, a baal predator, 3 five man tac squads, 2 with assault cannon razor backs.  The tacs were basically one squad with a combi plasma and lascannon, one squad with a combi melta and meltagun, and one squad with a handflamer and power weapon on the serg and a heavy flamer.    

 

My opponents was a orc army, mostly infantry, and an imperial guard player.   He was tank light, only took a manticore, but it was a losing battle since he fielded a Knight in the small 1000 point list.   Guess we should have argued against, but hey I did my best and was just trying to have fun.   I pretty much had the hardest uphill fight against that knight, I did manage one wound against it the entire game, but not bad considering I only had one lascannon and 3 twin linked assault cannons and he had this void shield saving all the hits.    My dice however were against me most of the game, as hitting was never an issue, wounding stuff was the problem.     My death company didn't get to do much other than create target saturation for two rounds of shooting from the knight, till my librarian was all alone with one wound left.     My powers from the sanquinius line was rather limited with the primaris, blood boil and the first power that just forces a leadership test at -2.    Nothing spectacular but it was fun getting to use blood boil against packed IG and imagining the imagery from a guardsmen just blowing up and exploding hot boiling blood on his squadmates.       However, I lost my librarian to a really bad charge against a unit of grots.    I charged in, made the 9 inch charge, passed my quickening, went in against the grots at str 7, 7 attacks (forgot about the extra attacks from my rampage warlord trait), at initiative 10.   Sadly I failed half my hits and rolled mostly ones to wound, and only removed one lowsy grot, to have the entire swarm beat back at my lone librarian and one grot managed to get through my armor as I only failed one save.   Wasn't exactly an epic battle, was pretty horrendous on my failed attempts at almost everything in the game.   

 

However, It was fun, and it gave me an opportunity to re-evaluate my army before I invest in more stuff and to figure out exactly how best to arm my units.   It also means I now need to buy new dice, as these dice are several editions old and apparently karma has forced all the luck out of them for me, even though they technically match the army color scheme and everything.      The guard player won, when I was removed from the board, the guard and orc player had most of the objectives anyways, so I guess it would then come down from turn 5 onwards to that knight titan sweeping through the orcs.    I left and didn't finish watching the game after that point, but it was fun while I was there.   3 way battles can be a blast, i just wish they didn't take so long. 

[The Red Thirst]

That chapter heraldry is amazing, hoods and robes really brings out the reaper in your fluff and would add and extra layer to the Chaplins and Death Company IMO, I like it

[Morticon]

LOVE that look.  Keep it up.

[Xenith]

This is going to be good, Cant wait to see some infantry painted up!

 

A knight in a friendly 1000pts game? That's low, but could happen again.

 

mobile anti tank is always good. I'd suggest a 3 melta assault squad in pod, and a squadron of attack bikes. The shield cant deflect from all directions!

[Rizara]

thanks, um I wasn't planning on using the robes and hoods for the death company, however i was thinking the first company would probably have the hoods and robes or tabards at least.   The characters would also have a mix of tabards and hoods and robes, which means my terminators and sanquinary guard would all be robed and hooded.   Also I was thinking for my sanquinary guard, instead of power axes, probably go with power scythes, and then was thinking on the terminators instead of normal thunderhammers I could go with scythes for the thunderhammer termies.   I would just have to make sure the axe variants look lighter, but that was mostly because the sanquinary guard with wings and some scythes would be pretty epic looking, even more so with hoods and tabards.  I could always just make the thunderhammer versions be bulkier and maybe half scythes blades with hammer like back sides to the blades, so they are more weighted to punch tanks.     It does give me more room for flexibility for sure, and right now, the only character I have is the librarian who will be pretty basic but he does have a tabard.    

 

Death Company I figured would just be normally all black, as these guys are not always veterans, but it would be pretty nasty to convert up an astorath wielding a scythe to lead them.     Hooded chaplains are definitely a possibilty since those guys would basically be death incarnate since they come with skull helms.   Maybe I can convert the crozius to be a half scythe or use the smaller scythe like Black Knights weapons from the dark angel kits.   

 

Right now, its just a matter of finding time to actually work on the models themselves, as school and my new job will be taking up alot of time then the family tends to get the spare time these days. 

[Rizara]

Fluff update:    So I had to work on a fantasy map for my digital painting class.   I honestly spent maybe a few hours working on this over the weekend, along with coping with an odd strain of the flu.   It's a flu that has more bronchitis like symptoms than standard fever/cold symptoms, so it sort of sucks cause it wears me out from coughing and fevers than just being nausea and huddled in a fetal position.  

 

Anyways, since I had to come up with a map and a background, I decided to create the home world of my space marine chapter here.  

 

Korvaan is one of the many Imperial worlds located near the Eye of Terror.   The planet Korvaan is the largest moon to the Gas Giant Korva.   Korvaan is primarily a water world, with about 75% of its surface covered in oceans.   Due to the unique nature of the planets orbit around the giant, it goes through odd cycles of night and day, with periods of constant darkness and periods of near constant daylight.     During the periods of near constant daylight the Urbanized Agricultural Cities come to life as during these periods the local vegetation is in full bloom.   Since the planet does orbit, the nights during the periods of near constant daylight are almost as bright as the full day because of the reflection of the stars light off the gas giant’s surface.  

 

During the periods of constant darkness, the urbanized agricultural Cities become nearly abandoned as most of the population switches over to the industrial complexes.   It is during this time that the planet swaps over to an almost full industrialized planet harvesting the local resources and minerals.   

 

Because of the unique effects of the gas giant’s gravity on the planet, the equatorial region becomes highly volcanic as the forces of gravity stretches and pulls on surface of the planet moon.    Because of this heavy vulcanism the planets equator is littered with islands and island chains.  Most of these islands form quickly and disappear just as quickly due to the instability of the structures formed and the effects of the oceans on the shores of the new islands.    Although some of the larger islands around the equator are more stable as being constant landmasses, they are still highly volcanic.  Because of this, the most stabile land masses on the planet are the poles of the planet.   This is why most of the Hive Cities which house the majority of the population on the planet are located here.    Due to the chaotic nature of the equator regions, most of complexes and communities that develop in this region are nomadic in nature and are built around mobile structures that form the heart of the cities.   The planet as a whole is both blessed with the rich fertile soil, and wealthy mineral deposits, however it is also cursed as the air is often filled with toxic chemicals that the local wildlife seems to be adapted for but mankind has had to adapt with use of environmental suits. 

 

 Since Korvaan is located so close to the eye of terror, the planet moon is also home to the Space Marine Chapter known as the Crimson Scythes.    The Chapter’s Fortress Monastery is located in the northern Hemisphere and it is here that they train their new recruits and maintain an ever vigilant watch against the enemies of mankind.  

 

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/Artwork/Mullis-Wk6-FantasyMap_zps9c8f3ead.jpg

[Fahlnor]

So this is what fluff is like when it's written by someone more competent than the average GW background writer...!!  

 

:D

 

I love it, dude.  Itching to see some actual models painted up, though!

[Rizara]

Yeah me too, it's a time thing right now, between a new 40 hotur a week job, full time classes, and family. Just hoping it gets a little easier in a few weeks when I have two easy classes start up.

[Rizara]

sorry its been several months since I last updated.   I have not given up hope, I was just busy with the new full time job, finishing up my spring semester of school and just being so busy that I couldn't find time to paint.  Well I painted a little, as I managed to get the bases dry brushed, and I have one 10 man tac squad with the red layer of the armor done, but not much else.   Horrible Progress really.   

 

But with the ETL in effect, I am going to be updating my ETL vow in my thread here.   

Up first, This is the WIP start shot of my first vow minus one tac marine that I have to scrounge for parts and assemble.  

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/Crimson%20Scythes/ETLVow1_zpsy9er2wja.jpg

 

As you can see, the bases look good with the grey added.   Can't wait to actually finish up some and add the fall leaves to them.    The captain is a fill in, he will be painted up more as a veteran than a true captain in my color scheme and will eventually be relegated to lead the veteran assault squad I built him for.   I am using him as a captain for now till I manage to get some parts together for a more inspiring captain sometime in the future.    I have the librarian but feel with me playing in an Escalation League of sorts at my local store and the fact that week 4 will include a mission that will see my HQ face off against another HQ, i needed a beat stick and Dante is a bit pricy and wont be leading my army in the smaller games.    So anyways, I will be updating this as I get some painting in.   I got two weeks before the league kicks off, so I need to get my hands on some more black paint as well, but at least I have some motivation, a purpose, and a goal.  

[Bronze Beast in the Dark]

I love your bases, is it sculpted greenstuff?

[Rizara]

Hello, sorry for the late reply Ashriel, its been a busy week or so with the kids end of school stuff.    Yes all of my bases are green stuff and sculpted.   They are tedious and time consuming to say the least, but I actually feel really good about how they are turning out and they make the army really stand out.    I have to get around to working on the display board for the army too, which will double as a large terrain piece as well.    Basically I am looking at doing a temple ruin on their home planet, an ancient and old place of worship built by the locals millenia ago.   So the floor will have the army icon on it as well, but none of the marines will have that.  I may end up putting on the Imperial Knights base that I just picked up and will be adding to my army.      Also the temple floor will be covered in fall foliage as well, which I will be applying to the bases after I have finished painting the marines.   This is a slow progress for me for an army, but I am not giving up on them.   

 

Anyways, small update.   This is just the single tac I had to build up for that last man of the small tac squad of my vow.   Sorry the photo is blurry.  I need to get some good shots at some point, maybe next week when I get to the store for a game I can remember to bring my camera and my tripod so I can get some solid shots under good lighting.  

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/SingleTac_zpsdjydgxur.jpg

 

anyways, the league started this week, and I got my first game of it today.  A nice escalation league but I have never been able to join one so this is a first for me.  It works good as it is motivation to also get my stuff painted since they also provide some bonus points for painting progress of your army from week to week.    It was only a 1k point game, so I fielded my vow as well as a 10 man tac squad with the hand flamer, flamer, heavy flamer combo with a rhino, and a baal predator.    I lost, had some bad luck with the dice.  Kept getting 6's to hit stuff, but failing to wound, and my opponent was making his saves and look out sir rolls.   I also failed alot of saves with the dreaded 1's.   The dice are old, been using them well since the last Blood angel codex hit, and I think Karma is just being cruel and laughing at my expired karma dice.   So I got some new dice today while I was at the store.    

My opponent was fielding a Voystran guard army with Black templar allies.   His templar allies brought a 5 man crusader squad with melta/multi melta in a rhino, a chaplain in terminator armor and a sicaran.   His guard consisted of a 20 man squad, a 10 man veteran squad, all lasguns (they were mostly for bait and wounds), then the command squad with 4 plasma guns and a plasma pistol in a chimera, and then another 5 man squad with 4 flamers in another chimeria.    It wasn't an op army, I just had some bad dice and with a primary and secondary missions, I lost out on that.  I also didn't get first blood and neither got slay the warlord (although i did manage to remove the chaplain and the two large squads of guard on foot.   The sicaran was just popping my tanks a turn and making it difficult to get across the board.  

 

On an extra note, I decided to pick up a Knight today.   I was debating on doing a forgeworld order or getting a new knight, and decided to hold off on the sicaran till later on, after I get some stuff fully painted.  Also the knight allows me a large points cost during the league and I know one army is basically a knights army with steel legion allies, so that is one player who will have at least 2 or more knights.     I also became sold on the knight after looking through the codex and stumbled across the freeblade knight, the Crimson Reaper who basically is in my armies color scheme with the crimson torso center area and black greaves and pauldrons.  Also the fact that he has an icon of white crossed scythes with a blood drop, it literally screamed a must have for my army.   I will probably do the crimson Reaper in that color scheme, with a different face mask and probably different set up for gear, but figured it would make for a nice centerpiece for my army and give me some needed anti tank firepower.   

 

As for my vow progress, well the death company has some base coat colors of red, light grey, and taupe/bone coloring applied and working on some iron/metal coloring for now.   After i get the 10 man squad with the metal done, and then give the metal and off white areas a black wash, I will probably start taking them 2 at a time and work them up.   The assembly method has worked in the past, but I feel its demotivating right now having so many models in stages of painting (as I have a 10 man tac squad in various stages as well as a librarian), and no complete models.   I may go ahead and work on finishing up the tac squad and captain first, so I can get my basic marine color scheme worked out.   Hoping I get more time to progress the army in the coming weeks once the soccer tournaments are done this week and the kids are out of school.      I am off this weekend so looking to get some painting progressed this week, as well as assembling the Knight.   I am only getting him built so I can field him as need be for the tournament.     I will definitely work on getting some paint in progress shots if I can this weekend, and score some good army shots next time I get to the store.    Just have to keep trucking on getting this first vow complete so I can work on my second vow which will probably be the knight.    I am thinking after the knight is done, i will probably make my third vow a vehicles vow to get the rhino, baal, and second razorback finished, then probably do a 4th vow as my assault squad and drop pod.   I will worry about a 5th vow after I get the first 4 done.   Right now, gotta keep focused.  

[Helias_Tancred]

I like your chapter concept, I like your color scheme, I love your map and your fluff! Carry on my Sons of Sanguinius brother!

[Rizara]

i know, i know, not a paint update.  But I have been working on getting this sculpted up the past two nights.   This is the base for my Imperial knight that I will be working on assembling over the weekend along with all the painting I have planned.    I was just trying to get the base done so I can begin getting him assembled and ready for when I may need to field him over the coming months during the escalation campaign I am in.     I am thinking I will be converting the chainsword arm a little to give it a power sword feel.  I have a wraithKnight sword in my bitz box and thinking of removing the chain saw part and adding that blade to the edge to create a sword.   Since I am going with the Crimson Reaper paint scheme for my Knight, as it fits with my color scheme, I wanted a more scythe like feel to his weapon and felt that a power sword would at least reap better than a chain sword that has to grind on the targets.  At least with a massive power sword he can just slice through any opposition.  

 

Anyways, here is the base.  I am looking at adding a damaged column to it, but I have to find the right material to work with and getting more green stuff to work out the damaged column and base of the column to add to the base.  I can at least glue/pin those to the base afterwords, so at least I can work on attaching the knight to the base.   The idea was a raised center section of the ruins that my army is treading through, and I added the chapter icon to the tiled floor for added appeal.    When I do paint it, I will probably add a red wash to the concrete section of the chapter Icon so it has the crimson look, more of a weathered aged stone that use to be painted red.  

 

http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s585/Jason_Mullis/Crimson%20Scythes/KnightBase_zps4evsk6br.jpg

[Charlo]

Awesome Base!

 

Put the wraith sword adjacent to the reaper chainsword, make it a scythe :D

[Vel'Cona]

Gotta say, I really like the red "striping" (or however you'd describe it) on the vehicles.  It's very bold and makes for a striking appearance, even without being finished!  I think this will reflect well on the Power Armored models, too.

 

Wasn't sure if you covered this, but what is the scheme planned for your DC?  Will you be quartering their colors as well?