DIY Blood Angels successor army in the making

[Quixus]

I hope this is the right forum, if not please move it.

I want to start assembling, painting and playing space marines. Since I like the whole Jump Pack Assault approach of the Blood Angels I chose that Codex over the Standard Marines. I am new to the whole thing and to have some more freedom with my choices I decided to make a BA successor or a loyalist chapter using the BA rules.

I have yet to buy my first miniature and want to start small, maybe 400-500 points. What I thought about was:

Librarian with or without JP

Assault Squad, PW, Flamer

Assault Squad, PF, Melta

One squad will have jump packs the other will ride in a razorback.

Any suggestions where in Europe, preferably Germany, I could get the four boxes and a couple of extra backpacks for more flexibility for a good price?

Where would the Librarian be most effective?

I have a paint scheme in mind but unfortunately I can't get the version of the Painter with wargear options to work:

Now with wargear:

Assault Marine & Sergeant

Librarian

Do you think the scheme is too difficult for a beginner?

The Chapter symbol should be a green dragon's head. Company is marked on the marine's right kneepad with latin numbers and the squad on the left one in arabic numbers. [edit]Squad type is indicated by standard symbols in red for , white for and orange for . [/edit]

Any suggestions for a chapter name? I came up with Astral Dragons but that seems to be taken already.

The Fluff about the chapter will follow.

[theREDone]

IIRC, models with jump packs can't go in transports, so you can't have Razorbacks for your Assault Squads. And I think your paint scheme is doable, but it's not very Blood Angels-esque. It could use more red.

[The Yncarne]

Congrats on starting a 40K army.

 

I can't help you with your purchasing questions, but let me give some advice on your other questions.

 

I personally think the librarian would be better with the jump pack troops. Depending on your role, I prefer to keep my librarian with the larger squad in order to better use his powers. It depends on which you take, but I prefer to use Shield of Sanguinius and Unleash Rage. You may have a different opinion and I am sure the more successful battle brothers can give you plenty of advice.

 

As for the paint scheme, I think a beginner will find it a challenge to paint. You are using four colors (five if you include the eyes) which can be disorienting when seen from a few feet away. By using the darker blues on the 'outer' parts of the armor you are going against the eye's depth perception. I think at the 40K scale you are usually better at using darker colors in the more recessed areas of the model. Once you try to highlight the model you'll see what I mean.

 

That said I think your blue and green are good colors. They certainly give a certain feel to the army. In some ways your design looks like the Alpha Legion (especially with the reptilian symbol you are considering). Try using the painter to see how the figure would look if you used black for the tubes and inner 'soft' parts of the armor. The shoulder pad rims look good in white/light grey but I would limit its use to that. Some folks will criticize you for the lack of red, but it depends on how close to a successor chapter you want to be.

 

These are just my thoughts. It is your army. Have fun and don't be afraid to learn from experience. We all did!

[Quixus]

@ theREDone: I wanted to magnetize the jump packs of at least one squad and paint another five magnetized regular back packs so I can decide if I want to field them in a transport or not.  

 

I know they are not very red, but a ) not all successors have much red (Lamenters for example) b ) I want to avoid the whole "this unit is not fluffy unless your playing blood angels or successors" discussion. And the Assault markings and weapons should have red.

 

@The Red Worm: Yes, I do like the Alpha Legion's scheme. The trim should be silver, it does not show very well. I get what you mean with depth perception, guess I'll just have to try it.

 

 

Thanks for the advice, guys.

[Hiram]

After a little playing around I came up with these. Hope they are helpful.

 

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/8374/greendragons2.jpghttp://img707.imageshack.us/img707/5131/greendragons.jpghttp://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3240/greendragons3.jpghttp://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4179/greendragons4.jpg

 

I'll play around with the painter a bit more after I take my daughter to playgroup if you are interested in more possile schemes.

[njm3]

Two things... that paint scheme (as said earlier) is not very blood angels-y... but hey, play what you want how you want. Might want to make the symbol on the shoulder pads involve a blood drop. See page 80 of the BA codex, and notice the lamenters, while kinda of an ocher/tan color still have a bit of red.

 

secondly, if you haven't bought any models, try picking up some marines from the Assault on Black Reach box (if you have a friend willing to do so, each gets a box set and you switch figs for the other side). Will save you a bit of coin. Also might want to check out Bartertown, as in used stuff can be quite less expensive. Make it clear you are in Europe in your post/PMs on b-town, since international shipping can be expendy.

 

Ebay (of your local flavor) is another place to try.

 

If by "new to the whole thing" you mean GW products, I'd strongly suggest _against_ buying painted figs that you want to strip the paint off of, since it is time consuming and not fun, and starting new you want to spend time playing and painting, not wearing neoprene gloves (to protect yourself from the caustic chemicals) and wielding an electric toothbrush and a dental pick and trying to remove paint from figs.

 

edit: meant nitrile gloves, tho neoprene would work possibly.

[Quixus]

After a little playing around I came up with these. Hope they are helpful.

Nice, thank you. I really like the one on the left. Am I guessing right that the only way to show pictures made with Version 5 of the painter is to upload them somewhere and linking to them? I'll try that later and update my first post to show how the scheme was originally intended.

I'll play around with the painter a bit more after I take my daughter to playgroup if you are interested in more possile schemes.

More input can't hurt.

 

Two things... that paint scheme (as said earlier) is not very blood angels-y... but hey, play what you want how you want. Might want to make the symbol on the shoulder pads involve a blood drop. See page 80 of the BA codex, and notice the lamenters, while kinda of an ocher/tan color still have a bit of red.

.o0 Hmm, a drop of blood dripping from the Dragon's mouth perhaps? Guess I'll learn how to use custom decals as well.

 

secondly, if you haven't bought any models, try picking up some marines from the Assault on Black Reach box (if you have a friend willing to do so, each gets a box set and you switch figs for the other side). Will save you a bit of coin.

I'm not sure if a Tac Squad, a Termi Squad and a Dreadnought are the most needed units for a small Blood Angels force. I thought about that, but I like the whole JP assault idea too much.

Ebay (of your local flavor) is another place to try.

At least for the moment the savings are eaten up by the shipping fees since I can't get everything from one seller.

 

If by "new to the whole thing" you mean GW products, I'd strongly suggest _against_ buying painted figs that you want to strip the paint off of, since it is time consuming and not fun, and starting new you want to spend time playing and painting, not wearing neoprene gloves (to protect yourself from the caustic chemicals) and wielding an electric toothbrush and a dental pick and trying to remove paint from figs.

Couldn't agree more.

[LordCommanderSamirus]

I think a blood drop dripping from the mouth of a dragon is a great chapter symbol. I too had saw your initial scheme and thought it was lacking in the BA department. What you might try is changing the color of the dragon's head to black and if you do wind up going with Hiram's scheme from the left that you liked you should just reverse the colors on the pads so the black head is against the lighter background. I know it would be a bit stereotypical but you could call them the Blood Dragons, a Blood Angels successor chapter who specializes in Night Fighting, hence the darker scheme.

 

-Samirus

[Quixus]

What you might try is changing the color of the dragon's head to black and if you do wind up going with Hiram's scheme from the left that you liked you should just reverse the colors on the pads so the black head is against the lighter background.

Is this what you meant?

I prefer the green dragon and the mostly blue shoulder plates. Even though it doesn't show too well in the pictures the light grey is supposed to be mithril silver. Painting most of the shoulder plate in that color seem a bit too flashy for me.

I know it would be a bit stereotypical but you could call them the Blood Dragons, a Blood Angels successor chapter who specializes in Night Fighting, hence the darker scheme.

For the fluff that's in the back of my head they specialize in boarding actions and HALO jumps (if something like that exists) with jump packs.

Are rare earth magnets with a circumference of 2mm and a height of 1mm strong enough to hold arms an backpacks? Is 0,21€ including S&H a good price per magnet? Even at 50 magnets S&H is more than the price of the magnets.

[mysteriousmaskedmystery]

do the mostly blue color, with white trim, make sure you use blood angels' markings for squads and companies, don't do a two tone helment, it's a pain, and personally, i like the white shoulders with blue trim but the other way around would work as well i'm sure

 

also, i don't like the green soft armor, i'm really not a fan of that green at all, it's nausiating. a darker/brighter green would work better for me.

[Hiram]

I can't claim credit for the colour scheme on the left in my previous post. It is just his original scheme redone with wargear (at the time he was having trouble with the painter version 5). I personally thnk it is all over the shop and don't like it at all :D

[Quixus]

also, i don't like the green soft armor, i'm really not a fan of that green at all, it's nausiating. a darker/brighter green would work better for me.

It's Scorpion Green according to the Color chart PDF linked in the Painter tutorial. The greens in the V9 Painter, except Dark Angels Green, which I find to dark for what I have in mind, look even more nauseating. Any suggestions?

[Hiram]

In my humble opinion the soft armour only ever looks good in a metalic or straight black.

[Quixus]

I'll probably change the soft armor to black or granite or boltgun metal, not so sure about the more prominent cabling on the abdomen.

[Quixus]

I came up with a simpler scheme, and will leave the darker greaves and shoulder plates to special troops or characters (SG, veterans, Sgt, Cpt) or drop them altogether:

I used the RGB values of the following colors according to the Colors PDF for the paint scheme:

Soft Armor, abdominal cabling, Jump Pack harness & weapons: Chaos Black

Armor & Jump Pack: Midnight Blue

Armor Trim: Mithril Silver

Armor decorations: Scorpion Green

Eyes: Blazing Orange

And I used the Less Shading option because this probably reflects my current painting ability better.

I'm not quite happy with the color of the harness and the weapons. Any suggestions?

Do those colors look like that in real life or are the v9 painter's values closer? Chaos black actually is not black but a greenish blue. :confused: looks good though.

What do you think about leaving the squad type markings in green instead of coloring them red for Assault, Orange for Devastators, and white for Tacticals?

Another two questions:

White or black primer?

What good are foundation paints? Do they make priming unnecessary?

Thanks for all the help.