How do you "Promote" your models

[TheLastHuzzah]

Brothers,

 

I have read of people promoting their models after a spectacular in-game feat, I was curious to hear what people do.

 

To set the scene, it was a 2500 pt SW vs SW match to help a gentleman get in a bit of practice with his army before the 'ard boyz semi this weekend. I had a squad of 4 terminators (PW/SB, CF/SS, WC/WC, TH/SS) w/ WP & a bare bones wg to eat that first power weapon attack.

 

Normally this squad craps the bed on me, but last night was an exception. Over 4 turns of combat, they managed to take out a 10man GH, a 6man WG, and 2 daemonhosts (not all at once mind you). On the 5th turn I had the SS/TH & WC/WC left.

 

They were charged by Papa Wolf Logan Grimnar, 7 attacks from Logan resulted in a paltry 3 wounds, two of which went to the WC/WC, the 3rd to TH/SS.

 

The WC/WC guy to the Axe of Morkai, while the SS saved the other's life. His return attacks saw 3 hits, 3 wounds to Grimnar. A stunned silence a moment later saw Grimnar felled by the TH/SS guy, henceforth known as Volkar Kingslayer.

 

So? When you promote models, do you redo them or try to modify the existing (he is a AoBR termi w/ WG terminator TH/SS). I don't want his mojo to run out if he's in a new body.

 

Thoughts???

 

Cheers,

 

Huzzah

[The_Betrayed_Spacewolf]

Well ever since ive been running my bjorn list every victory i add a head to his base..... hmmm i just realized im collecting skulls for the wolf throne.

 

any way it started when my forgeworld ven. dread Bjorn took on a mech eldar list. I won and added an eldar head, second came a dark angels army, then another eldar, and then tau.

 

this practice shall continue until i can find no more heads or i have ran my course.

 

 

I did the same thing with my wulfen lord on a bike back in the old codex days. however i never got farther than a da head (because i got lazy then)

 

also i had a storm claw with a power fist take out a dreadnought so i remolded him into a wulfen perched atop a da dreadnought power fist.

 

i did try to record certain actions during the hubcon tournament two years ago but it lowered my play time, so i stopped. the idea was to record certain feats such as this pack got shot 155 times with no deaths, increase amount of bullet holes on armour by 30%

 

Wolf Lord survives getting shot by 4 heavy bolters, 2 missiles, and a plasma pistol

 

 

long fangs take out a land raider and predator add purity seals and ale.

[Lord Clinto]

I don't know if this counts but the last time I played against an old friend (back in 3rd ed right after the Eye of Terror book came out) he had a truely heroic Emperor's Champion.

 

This guy personally killed something like 10 BC and 4 GH and a WGPL that were maybe an inch off the flank of my Predator Annhiliator in a combined assault. Both units were wiped out and I knew next turn the Pred was his target. To prevent that my Ven Dread (HQ choice how I miss thee lol) lit him up with his TL Las, that I conviently rolled snake-eyes for, and a Krak Missile that didn't miss.

 

On the Pred I drilled a hole (representing the missed Lascannon shot) and painted a huge blood smear in recognition.

[wiplash]

i field them in the next game :(

[Bulweih]

Last time I promoted a model, was a Lone Wolf to a Wolfguard.

After chewing through a 3rd of my opponents deamon army he killed two DP's in two seperate fights.

That's what earned him the promotion.

I then modified his model, redone his paintjob in certain areas to mark him as WG and added a purityseal to his Stormshield.

When I promote my guys I tend not to redo them as new models, because I'm afraid they might loose their special mojo as an effect.

[Wolf Guard Nostromo]

I like to add trophies, but for a really deserving (and usually lower ranked) hero I will re-model. It really adds character to your force - a factor which I believe is particularly rich in Space Wolves hierachy and ideals.

 

A couple of examples - I had a heroic meltagun GH who sank a number of vehicles and ICs (he didn't miss with the melta in my first 7 games with the new codex!) - he is now a named Wolfguard with a combi-melta and thunder hammer to represent his achievements. Also of note is a lone wolf who regained his honour and is now my 'company champion' and bodyguard to my wolf lord (he has a wolf lord profile, terminator armour and a chainfist, but still has the same head!) - he is my personal favourite 'big game' choice and always has saga of the beastslayer when he is deployed to show his talent for cutting daemon princes and carnifexs down, and looking good while he does so B)

 

Little additions are also great - my wolf priest recently 'slew' Khârn the betrayer (see the batrep in the archive of this forum!) and now has a bezerker head hanging from the side of his bike. One of my other wolf priests has the arm of an imperial assasin on his base and its pistol on his belt after scything one in two in a game against daemon hunters. Really adds a little flourish to your top performers - A couple of models have flagons of ale to celebrate specific victories too ^_^ - Celebrate like a true wolf!

[Stormshrug]

I've done it two ways in the past. If the conversion isn't too extreme (the model keeps basically the same equipment), I give him a minor makeover to reflect whatever new rank he holds. If the coversion is fairly extreme, and I don't particularly want to deconstruct and reconstruct him (say, completely new wargear, new pose, giving him a TWM, Scout Armor to Power Armor, PA to TDA, or something like that), I retire the old model from service and build a new one, thus (hopefully) allowing the so-called 'mojo' to inhabit the new model without conflicting with the old one by having it on the board at the same time. Of course, I try to preserve details as best as possible.

 

In either case, I like to work in some sort of trophy from or related to whatever got said character promoted. For my Blood Claw with a Power Fist who killed a Wraithlord, I have him a Storm Shield painted with the same flame pattern that the Wraithlord model had to commemorate the victory.

 

-Stormshrug

[Requiem of the Wolf]

The first step is giving them a name and putting it on their base.

Then I work on Trophys,conversion bits to show what they have done. Then again I have very very high standards for my wolves so I haven't had too many that have stood out amazingly...Other then one of my Rhinos. in one game against another wolf player,it survived 12 lascannon shots and 18 missile shots. All hit,but all it ever lost was mobility twice,and its stormbolter. Every turn it was immobilized,it would recover and start moving again. other then that my opponent rolled an amazing amount of 1's....after failing to kill it the first turn he focused his pack of long fangs purely on trying to blast that one rhino the entire game. After that game,I started designing a Harley-Davidson logo for it *grins*

[S. Bloodhowl]

What I do is give them a suitable title to fit their most awesome of deeds, and then (because my Terminators Drop Pod in) I have given each Terminator (Wolf Lord included) a door of the Drop Pod on which to paint this awesome-sauce moment. On more regular squads such as Blood Claws and Grey Hunter, the transport gets an awesome Saga Scene(s) to which the entire squad took part in.

I also might freehand honours onto the armour of the legend to denote his singular feat of [insert other word for awesome, I feel I have used it too much now]

[Iron-Daemon Forge]

I tend to add trophies (same with my IW) of armies I tend to battle.

 

Right now my Space Wolves have a fair few Ork trophies after a battle I had. Basicly took a 120 Ork force down to 20 orks in three turn, they give up before my assault with the loss of only one Grey Hunter, Razorback & Dreadnought.

 

While I also have a few Nids trophies painded to the colour my local GW Manger army. His Nids have been slaughter everone & so far I hold the title of the only person to slaughter his force, somthing like 15 Kill points vs 7 from me in a 2000pts game.

 

While the army overall I recently took to adding campaign mark (red < shape with my squad mark on it as a Viking rune's)

 

IP

[Thunderhawk3015]

Given that most of my characters end up dead by the end of the game after slaughtering masses of the enemy I just promote the wolf guard who survived the slaughter.

 

And yes I know my characters should live but the dice desert me around turn 4 and they start to fail the invuln saves.

[Grey Mage]

If they do something truely epic- like Beowulf over there- I name them.

 

What did he do? He was the last member of a pack, with the previous dex, to counter-attack two 20-15 strong boyz mobs with powerclaws, wipe them out, assault a third pack of 12, wipe them out, and then proceeded to destroy two trukks and a pair of warbuggies by himself, surviving the game. It was the third game in a row he did amazingly well- so he also got a cool paintjob.

[Silverwolf]

1) Name them

2) Add kill markings / Trophies for Character / Monstrous creature / Vehicle kills

 

My vehicle's get a kill marking for every vehicle / monstrous creature / unit (whole) that they wipe out

 

For the Meltas / Plasmas / Power Weap (inc. P.Fist) - Vehicle / Character / Monstrous Creature kill markings

 

 

Most notable occasions;

 

Against Death Wing - Was trying a footslogging list (previous dex), 2x 10man BC squads charge into a building being held by 3x 5man Termie Squads, a CC Ven.Dread, and a TDA Librarian. The last surviving BC killed the Ven.Dread, Librarian, and the two remaining Termies. For that he earnt 2x kill markings on his left shoulder-pad, and some wolf pelt on the back of his pack with a DW termie head sitting on the top of it.

 

Against Black Templar - Objectives game, final objective had to be held to earn a draw, and this BC squad had been holding the point all game (Their LRC was destroyed turn 2 - dam tough fight, very good opponent :)). The 5 remaining BCs, with attached WGBL (Dual L.Claws - old dex), were charged by a fresh Assault Squad, with attached Chaplain, after weathering fire from a Whirlwind and Hellfire Ven.Dread. Came down to a final duel between the WGBL and Chaplain, which the WGBL won. He got some more wolf pelt, and a BT Chaplain head on his base at his feet.

 

Against IG - Four wolf scouts with attached WGPL, annihilated 2x platoons (platoon command + 2x 10man, so 50 total IG), company command squad (Another 5 IG), and 3x heavy weapon teams (3 bases in each), which secured the table quarter and gave me the win. One scout took the Commander's P.Sword, and the WGPL and other scouts recieved little bits and pieces of IG equipment (IG sprue grenades etc)

 

 

I think it is really awesome for destroying the moral of the opponent when he looks at your LRC / Dread / L.Fangs and goes "Whats all those little black strokes..." "oh, thats how many vehicles they've destroyed *insert evil grin*"

 

It's even more entertaining when you see the look of horror, after you've already told them what they mean, and he sees the kill markings on your Blood Claws as they come stumbling out the front of the LRC in a drunken rage :)

[sazzer]

When I get far enough to actually have an army, each of my main units is going to have a dedicated transport - drop pod for the blood claws, rhino for the grey hunters, razorback for the long fangs, etc. I think marking kills on the transport for that unit will work quite nicely. For more spectacular kills some modelling on the vehicle itself will be necessary though - a rhino with a Carnifex head on it for example...

[Firenze]

All my models are named so I can't do that... I usually include them in my next story. That works. Or I keep a tally of kills by that model from then on. Tanks are the easiest to do this for, just put kill markings on it.

[Blarmb]

I like the idea of it, but it'd be annoying to have to repaint the models to reflect their new rank.

[Olgerth Istaarn]

I don't... I can't paint, so messing with a completed model means I have to have it re-painted, which means spending my hard-earned $$$.

 

Plus, I expect all my models to perform admirably, and fear that the ones that I don't promote will sulk and perform badly next game.

 

(It is, however, handy to blame bad games on model umbrage and army lists, given that I'm an absolute failure as a general... hehehe...)

[TheLastHuzzah]

Gents,

 

After taking the above responses into consideration, I decided to add a trophy and a new shoulder pad to him (right arm sunwolf pad from the box). After realizing that I had a second Grimnar model from years ago. removed the axe head and rigged up a new handle for it and the Axe of Morkai is now slung across Volkar's back.

 

Cheers,

 

Huzzah