When the Armageddon box was announced, I honestly expected the Space Marine half to be what grabbed my attention. Instead, somewhat surprisingly, it was the Orks that finally convinced me to pick one up.

Now, admittedly, the box hasn't actually arrived yet due to a transit issue, but that hasn't stopped me from doing what I always seem to do whenever a new project appears on the horizon immediately start planning armies and making lists.

I haven't really kept up with much of what happened during 10th Edition, so in a lot of ways this feels like a fresh start. Using the contents of the box as a foundation, I've put together 1,000-point lists for both factions with the aim of slowly building them up over time. The plan is to get them both to 1,000 points, then perhaps 1,500, and eventually 2,000 points if I stick with it.

Of course, if there's one thing anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time will know, it's that I'm much more of an ideas man than someone who actually sees every project through to completion. My hobby history is littered with ambitious plans and half-finished armies, so we'll see how this one goes.

For the Space Marines, I've decided to revisit the Iron Snakes. They'll be painted in a slightly updated version of my previous scheme with some new basing ideas thrown in as well. One thing I'm trying to avoid this time around is getting trapped in the mindset that everything has to perfectly match the novels. In the past I've spent so much time worrying about absolute accuracy that it's actually made it harder to get models finished.

Instead, I'm giving myself a bit more freedom. I still want the army to have an older feel, so I'll be looking at swapping in MK7 helmets and power packs where I can, along with mixing different armour marks throughout the force.

One of the aspects of the Iron Snakes that appeals to me is the way the Chapter is organised. With one hundred individual squads rather than traditional companies, each squad has its own identity, traditions, and history. That gives me plenty of room to be creative and means I can borrow models and ideas from various Marine ranges without feeling too guilty about it. I'm already looking at the Grey Hunters kit as a potential source of parts, and I think with a few simple conversions and a consistent paint scheme they could fit in quite nicely.

I also briefly considered coming up with some homebrew rules to better represent the Iron Snakes on the tabletop, but for now I've decided to keep things simple and run them as Ultramarines. Alongside that, any units that don't really fit the Iron Snakes' style of warfare will instead be painted as Unnumbered Sons in Ultramarines colours. The artwork from the Dawn of Fire series has provided plenty of inspiration there.

As for the Orks, I'm still undecided on exactly how I want to approach them. I've got a couple of test models lined up and I'm planning to experiment with a few different clan schemes before settling on one. At the moment I'm keeping my options open.

So for now it's a case of waiting for the Armageddon box to finally arrive.

Whether this turns into two fully realised armies or simply joins the ever-growing pile of hobby projects remains to be seen.

Until next time,