apologist

Stirrings in the dust, as my friend has sent reinforcements for the 40k-scale models; and I've got another campaign event coming up in May. I've also been tempted into the Age of Darkness by my gaming group (so we'll see some Horus Heresy/Scouring-era forebears), and another friend of mine wants to meet up for some Badab War conflict – perhaps we'll see these marines at an earlier juncture to help inform the narrative! Before that, however, we need to work out what makes Salamanders the Salamanders? + On Geneseed+ Those invested with the geneseed of Vulkan demonstrate measurable physiological superiority to transhuman norms in relation to cellular repair. While making them no more resistant to direct damage than any other Space Marine, they have a baseline advantage in overall resilience – in short, making them fractionally harder to put down and swifter to return to battle than other Astartes. For the Salamanders long history, this has repeatedly proven a critical boon. Most recently, during the mournful Badab War, the veterans of the Second Company were treacherously attacked during a parley. It was partially owing to their unexpected resilience that they were able to survive the attack. On Armgeddon, their extreme temperature tolerance and radiological resistance – again markedly superior to those of other Astartes – made them well-suited to the hostile chem-and atomic-spoiled environments in which they found themselves embroiled. They are remembered in song on Armageddon for being those Space Marine most closely associated with the populace. While the noble Blood Angels and courageous Ultramarines took the war to Ghazghkull and his horde, spearheading numberless assaults and thwarting key ork advances, the Salamanders under Tu'Shan and his Captains instead turned to the numberless petty battles that raged across the continent. Fragmented and frequently isolated, the geneseed gifts of their Primarch sire – along with mental resilience cultivated by their peculiar practises – allowed them to operate at peak efficiency. That they are so fondly remembered by the people of Armageddon is particularly notable when one considers the other aspect of Vulkan's gift: their inhuman appearance. The Primarch Vulkan is usually pictured as a coal-skinned giant with glowing red eyes. Whatever the truth of the matter – and ten thousand years separates the modern Imperium from the days of gods and monsters – the bulk of his descendants certainly demonstrate similar physical differences. These emerge gradually, and with varying speed. Salamanders have a particularly active melanchromic organ. In most Chapters, this serves to swiftly darken the Marines' skin under the bombardment of radiation. While useless against genuine radiation-based weaponry, it offers Marines a small measure of protection against hostile environments. Balanced by and in concert with the biscopea and oolitic kidney, these organs can substantially reduce the risk of ongoing tissue damage. In addition the Chapter's gene-line differs slightly to other gene-strains; exhibiting some of the traits later associated with the Primaris implant, the magnificat. This likely accounts for their red eyes and anthracite-black skin; as well as their tendency to greater stature and reduced reaction time. Whether this is a case of the biscopea and a proto-magnificat being partially fused, or some other interaction between the highly-ritualised and poorly-understood Astartes-creating surgery, Salamanders who are subjected to heavy radiation will darken like other Astartes – but considerably more quickly, and to a greater degree. This will fade – again, more slowly than in other gene-lines – but those who spend any time at all on their homeworld of Nocturne will undergo a seemingly permanent change, their skin becoming coal black from whatever appearance if formerly had. The sclera of their eyes will also darken, and the occulobe will prompt the formation of a highly reflective layer to accommodate the alterations. This enhances the Salamander's already formidable ability to see in the dark – leading to the rumours that they have some form of infravision. The resulting changes cause the Salamanders' eyes seemingly to glimmer in the dark; picking up and reflecting light back through pupils that appear to glow. The effect is minimal in daylight, but highly disconcerting to their foes. +++

This started as a post trying to work out who was in command of each Company during the Second War for Armageddon, but turned into a rather enjoyable research deep dive. Here's a rough timeline for who's who in the Ultramarines officer corps at different points in history. It struck me that it might be fun to see whether we have enough information to see who succeeded and preceded who in particular posts – for example, who was Captain of the Second at a particular point; and how much things have changed since the resurrection of the Avenging Son and the Cicatrix Maledictum. Take this all cum grano salis, as the background is twisting and often slightly contradictory, and often with gaping lacunae. Nevertheless, here's a vision of the Ultamarines during three in-universe periods which roughly parallel and represent 90s-era/2nd ed. Ultramarines; the mid-00s 5th ed. Ultramarines; and current-day 10th ed. Ultramarines. Key – † Death and date * Promoted to the role and date ? Best guess. The First Tyrannic War 745.M41–746.M41 Chapter Master – Marneus Calgar 1st Captain – Saul Invictus †746 2nd Captain – Severus Agemman 3rd Captain – Jehnnus Ardias †745 4th Captain – Idaeus 5th Captain – Cato Sicarius 6th Captain – Maximus Epathus 7th Captain – Gerad Ixion? 8th Captain – Captain Hellios? 9th Captain – Captain Sinon? 10th Captain – Captain Antilochus? ...and as a bit of interest, the 2nd Company saw a lot of change during this period. Lucian Trajan served as First Sergeant to Severus Agemman. As Agemman was promoted to the 1st, Trajan became captain of the 2nd, with Demetrian Titus (of Space Marine fame) serving as his First Sergeant. They fought together 'for a century afterwards', before Trajan was killed by Eldar on Beta-Arcturus. Titus then because Captain – which must be somewhere around 840.M41. He was only Captain for a handful of years, because 'soon after Sicarius became Captain, he was announced the Suzerain of Ultramar in 849.M41'. The Second War for Armageddon 941.M41–943.M41 Chapter Master – Marneus Calgar * 1st Captain – Severus Agemman *from 2nd 746.M41) 2nd Captain – Cato Sicarius *from 5th ~848.M41) 3rd Captain – Mikael Fabian 4th Captain – Idaeus †7~997/999 5th Captain – Caito Galenus *unknown 6th Captain – Maximus Epathus 7th Captain – Gerad Ixion 8th Captain – Captain Hellios 9th Captain – Captain Sinon 10th Captain – Captain Antilochus Between these wars, we had the Assault on Black Reach; and then the return of Guilliman. After the Terran Crusade, Sicarius disappeared and Acheran, who served under Sicarius (presumably in some role like First Sergeant). On his return, Sicarius was transferred to become the commander of the Victrix Honour Guard. Galenius is noted noted as being promoted 'in the wake of the Battle for Macragge, but Sicarius wasn't promoted away 'til 848ish; so presumably around then? He must have served for around 50 years, as he is noted as active into M42. Pheian The poor old 2nd must have wondered what was going on, as their other former Captain, Titus, returned as the same time, and currently serves as a Lieutenant! Post-Plague Wars M42 + Primarch Roboute Guilliman* Chapter Master – Marneus Calgar 1st Captain – Severus Agemman 2nd Captain –Sevastus Acheran *from within ~999.M41 3rd Captain – Mikael Fabian †?012.M42 (MIA) 4th Captain – Uriel Ventris *from within ~997/999.M41 5th Captain – Phelian *~012.M42 6th Captain – Ferren Areios 7th Captain – Gerad Ixion 8th Captain – Captain Hellios 9th Captain – Captain Sinon 10th Captain – Captain Antilochus

While I always enjoy seeing new models, I'm also happy to see a much-needed FAQ. I'm particularly pleased to see some of the rougher edges smoothed off through the FAQ clarifications; and the fixing of obvious oversights like the Thanatar no longer fitting in transports, and the Cyclops now able to affect buildings. I'm also happy to see infantry knocked down a peg by the changes to the March order. While it doesn't walk back all the problems with the game, it's a definite step in the right direction, and I hope that it'll improve the gaming experience for all concerned. ... and for what it's worth, can I just point out that it's Heresy Thursday, not Age of Darkness Thursday? The format is just a fun little way for GW to promote all of the games under that setting umbrella – which includes Age of Darkness, but also Legions Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus (and potentially even poor old Aeronautica Imperialis). Getting grumpy about it not covering your particular game system seems a bit of a case of sour grapes. The amount of vitriol thrown at the Warhammer Community team on social media about this is crazy!

Some interesting (and good!) changes there, along with some clarifications. A few highlights: ... a much-requested change that should go a long way to reducing the overall effectiveness of infantry – and am I right in thinking it'll also curb the relative strength of point defence weapons? +Edit: no, it will not make a difference + Quake now... y'know, works. (And Shock Pulse, for similar reasons) Again, curbing the power of infiltrating infantry.

What do you picture – or play – when you talk about an Epic-scale army? Is it a mixed force, with companies of infantry attended by supporting tanks and a Titan or two accompanying them? Do you delve into a particular theme, like an entirely tank-based force, or an all-bike army? There's no great reason for me asking; just interested to hear your thoughts. Thought the topic would make a nice excuse for you to post up your armies, too. This picture is from an event I attended – Maximal Fire's Corsair Gambit, which was great fun. It shows my Salamanders and a Legio Maximal Titan taking on Jon from Battle Bling's World Eaters. A very fun game, even if I got quickly minced! Between the lovely terrain and varied armies, this is just what I like to see. Looked even better in turn two, when all our infantry debarked their transports :)

Command and control sentinel – big radar; boosts vox; relays orders…

'Crayon launcher' might be my favourite phrase today! While I do like the boxy design pictured, the crayon launcher style hits my retro-vibes, allowing an easy update of the short-lived Epic 40,000-style Whirlwind:

Lacking the additional reinforcement on the forearm plate, Reiver arms are visually closer to earlier marks of armour, so I used them quite a bit to represent older/replacement parts on my Gatebreakers, a Chapter confined to the Endworlds of the Galactic halo, who are forced to use whatever equipment they can find to supplement their recent Primaris reinforcements. Here're some examples (and note the sergeant on the left also uses arms from the Reiver kit). The bolt... uh... carbines(?) look like the cool boltguns from the old scout bikers, so I was very happy to scatter some in alongside bolt rifles and older boltgun styles. (Ignore the [//REDACTED+] on the left of the image – nothing to see here) ... and talking of using older boltgun types, the hands are also easy to trim from the Reiver arms to slot in whichever weapons you like. I built these before the release of the new Horus Heresy upgrade kits, and so was forced to faff around with awkward conversion work to get left hands gripping the replacement weapons, but that's not a problem now, and should make things much quicker. The main problem with using the Reiver arms is that they have an integrated small pauldron on the right arms, so you need to do a bit of trimming (or a full shoulder swap) to get normal pauldrons to fit.

Ah, brill – if you get the opportunity to take a quick snap, I'd appreciate a look :) ... and since I posed the original question, I've had the opportunity to bash some models together. These are the Corvus armour kit with spare bits and bobs from various FW kits. All seem to fit quite nicely – and while the abdomen is the main awkward spot, happily a boltgun across the midriff hides any minor ugly spots. The Mark III (front row, second from left) torso is a resin one; while the Mark IV (rightmost model) torso is one of the old-size plastic kits. I assembled the Mark VI bodies and let the plastic cement dry completely before making the cut, but you could make cuts in the components while they are separate, should you prefer.

A nice base for a Squiggoth there – any Snakebite Runtherd/Mek worth his teef would be able to come up with something for him to do :)

Plague Marines lend themselves nicely to conversion. Not only are there loads of options between the various three-man kits, but gaps can be covered easily, or filled with nothing more sophisticated than rounded blobs of greenstuff (or if you want a real blast from the past, even plasticene coated in superglue) or suitable gribbly bits from other kits. The examples below used nothing apart from spare sprue shavings and poly cement to fill the gaps (and apologies that they aren't more detailed and close-up – I'm using old photos from my blog to illustrate things). With that said, the kit has lots of pegs and guides – useful to help avoid poses that won't work without conversion (a boltgun across a chest bursting with tentacles that physically block the other arm, for example) – but an annoyance for more substantial conversion work, as you have to trim them away to free up the limbs. On the positive side, the kit provides a lot of spare special weapons that don't need much work to be 'liberated' from their intended body and transplanted onto another. This WIP shot shows the plague spewer being used on another body – if you're happy with single-handed poses, models like this are very simple. In terms of specifics on converting special weapons directly from boltguns, that's possible. For the most straightforward approach, you'd need to make a straight vertical cut through the weapon just in front of the trigger, then make a matching cut on the weapon. The parts can then be neatly mated with a little polystyrene cement and clean-up work – and again a little mutation, texture or battle damage isn't the problem that it would be on other factions. The melta gun here is a good example of where the cut can be made – you can see that the part of the gun directly above the trigger mechanism housing (or handle!) and hand is very similar to a boltgun. Where you want the weapons to be held in two hands to fit across the body, then I'd suggest constructing the arms and weapon separately, then dry fitting on the body. You can then gradually file down the back of the weapon and front of the body until you get a neat fit. The plague spewer on the right here is a good example – you can see I've used the plastic kit spares on a second-hand Dark Imperium model. However, I'd suggest that you'd be better off picking up some spare Mark 3 arms from a reseller, and using those to replace the Plague Marine arms entirely. That will allow you much more freedom in posing, and you can happily cut around the weapon, destroying the attached arm where necessary. The charming fellow third from left is an example – a Primaris arm, in this case, showing that a bit of chopping makes most things useable: ... and here are some more gratuitous shots to show the sort of variety you can get with surprisingly simple conversion work: A mix of parts from the main kit, Dark Imperium and easy-builds. Some – like the champion here – are so distinctive that kitbashing will never hide their origin. You can either go more ambitious with conversion, or just accept a little homogeneity. Personally, I don't mind a little duplication: you can do a lot to make things distinct with painting. As I built the Plague Marine kit, I incorporated pats of the Dark Imperium easy-build versions, too. It's a quick way to create more variety – particularly useful for a kit with such fixed poses. Head swaps and trimming extraneous details goes a long way to making models more individual and preventing duplication. The three-man easy builds have flooded the second-hand market, and you can buy them very cheaply. With just a few tweaks, you can make some models that hide the origin nicely. My favourite conversion here is the chap on the right. I think the base model, from the Dark Imperium set, looks great, but is very distinctive. Changing his arms gives a very different feel. Some more specialist models here. Two with plasma guns, one with a flail. Note the scattering of green easy-build parts alongside the standard kit. I've aimed to slightly tone down the spikiness – I've used quite a few 'plain' parts from the Mark III kit, too – but chaos isn't chaos if you completely clean it up. By leaving some more flamboyant parts, you improve the look of the force en-masse. Hope that helps – and for no other reason than to show I have painted at least one(!), here's a final shot:

Looks legit to me – I think arguments might emerge over whether 'magical crystal erupting from the croquet lawn' counts as 'natural material', or whether a fungus body can be said to have one foot on anything would be labouring the point, so let's count this one as the new champion Can anyone make any advances into the past on this, or simply want to share some notable Tactical Rocks?

Space Marine helmets, while providing substantial aesthetic benefits over a rock, and giving the greenskin in question great kudos, rather stretch the definition of 'natural materials', so regretfully we'll have to disqualify it. However, let's add a new category: 'What's the first model standing on a bit of an enemy?' and put you currently running in first place for that one!

Everyone knows you shoot/fight/lead better with one foot placed on a sturdy tactical rock, so as a bit of fun, let's find the very first model with this oh-so-necessary accessory. Fairly sure there are earlier examples than my entry below – but can you post the earliest? A few ground rules: You must post a picture of the model. Pictures of conversions are allowed, as long as you've got some proof it was done prior to 1993. One of the model's feet must be flat on the base, the other resting on a rock or other natural material. Unlike most 40k, no skulls allowed here! :D I'll lead (ho ho) with this classic, Space Wolf Long Fang 3, released in God's own casing medium in the dimly-remembered past of January M2.993.

Dreadfully sad news. A giant in the hobby, and very influential – I hope that his family take some comfort at this sad time from knowing how well he was regarded by so many people.