Sword Company

[Disruptor_fe404]

Sword Company, Part 2

 

Bolters roared as soon as the group of Necrontyr warriors emerged from the ruined building. Gauss fire crackled in reply, and the warriors closed on Kovacs and his Astartes.

 

Without so much as a word, Mathias and Laird fell back to the building behind them, and Kelder followed after a parting shot with his meltagun that reduced a warrior to slag. Kovacs aimed a few shots at the heads of the warriors with his sidearm before following, Fisk covering his brothers' retreat with measured gunfire before he too retreated.

 

The Necrontyr warriors entered the ruined husk of the building and gauss fire followed Fisk's footsteps up a nearby stairwell. As one, the warriors advanced on the stairs, not even noticing the fragmentation grenades that landed in their midst.

 

Vandis heaved against the masonry as Shaw readied his weapon. Shaw's grenades detonated, Vandis' signal to bring down the wall they were all behind. As the wall crumbled, Jolan checked his auspex once more and, satisfied that there were no outlying enemies nearby, opened fire on the distracted warriors.

 

A beam of coherent light carved through a warrior's chest, and Lyman smiled inside his helmet, amused at the thought of using his long-range weapon in such close quarters. Elem buried multiple bolts in the centres of multiple Necrontyr heads.

 

Ever slow to respond, the Necrontyr warriors turned and returned fire at the new threat, advancing slowly as some of their number fell and some rose from the ground. Then the ceiling crumbled on them.

 

Kovacs and his half of the squad dropped into the midst of the warriors, heralded by the rubble of the floor that had been shattered by Kovacs' powerfist. Kelder pressed the muzzle of his meltagun against the head of a rising Necrontyr and pulled the trigger, and Kovacs himself crushed the few others that survived having part of a building dropped on them.

 

The Hunters silently regrouped and moved on.

 

* * *

 

Squad Kovacs, the Hunters

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/01_Troops2.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/02_Kovacs1.jpg

 

The leader of Squad Kovacs, Paladin Kovacs is a stern, methodical warrior. The squad as a whole provides both bait and trap to it's target, and Kovacs prefers leading the bait element. When the trap is sprung, Kovacs leads his half of the squad back into the fray to deliver the killing blow with his powerfist.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/03_MathiasKelder1.jpg

 

Knight Mathias has earned a number of awards in his duty as the vanguard of Squad Kovacs. Mathias is always at the forefront of the battle, either leading away a smaller target or drawing attention before the rest of the squad returns attention to the target.

 

Knight Kelder is Squad Kovacs' designated meltagun operator, and His nickname, the Final Hiss, references the weapon's sound sealing their target's fate. Mounted atop Kelder's backpack is the winged sword that is Sword Company's emblem.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/04_FiskLaird1.jpg

 

Knight Fisk has been appointed by the rest of his squad to be Kovacs' bodyguard, much to the Paladin's chagrin. Such a duty is a reflection of the respect the squad has for it's leader.

 

Knight Laird assists Kelder as a spotter, and assists Fisk as a tandem support for Paladin Kovacs when they flank or bait a target.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/05_Jolan1.jpg

 

Knight Jolan leads the second half of Squad Kovacs. Once Paladin Kovacs has lead the target into the kill-zone, it is up Jolan who is responsible for the timing of the killing blow, and his title of the Trapper has been well-earned. Jolan bears a Prohis-pattern bolter and uses an auspex frequently.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/06_LymanElem1.jpg

 

Knight Lyman bears Squad Kovacs' lascannon. His battle-brothers have taken to calling him the Trigger due to his lascannon being the signal that the trap is sprung and that their quarry is to be brought down.

 

While most Astartes gain a marginal benefit at best from a servo-skull targeter, Knight Elem, the Trueshot, has somehow managed to use his servo-skull to augment his own lethal efficiency to almost impossible levels, and his shots always manage to find his target's most vulnerable spot.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Sword%20Part%202/07_VandisShaw1.jpg

 

Arguably the most devout member of Squad Kovacs, Knight Vandis has taken it upon himself to see to his battle-brothers' spiritual well-being, an undertaking that has not gone unnoticed by the Chapter Reclusiam. Vandis uses a Torren-pattern boltgun, which integrates a heat shroud to mask his weapon's fire against thermal detection.

 

Knight Shaw operates in tandem with Vandis to keep the enemy disoriented, and in this capacity, Shaw is known for getting his grenades exactly where they are needed. His bolter is a Vilis-pattern, optimised for short-range combat.

[Firepower]

Nice work as always, though the squad's battle tactics are starting to sound more and more like Tau :lol: The conversions seem a bit less ambitious this time around, but still true to what seems to be your theme. The rectangular melta barrel is a nice, simple touch, and I'd appreciate a closer look at the heat that Vandis is packing. From what I can make out, it looks like you took the tip of a flamer and cut off the fuse-sparker thingy.

[Nacho Wolf]

I love they way you make all the marines unique, good job.

[EnigmaShadow]

Lol,

 

As per usual, all very nice work, they also look super MEAN close up! One day I'll totally have a go at painting something from your army lol

 

Shadow

[Disruptor_fe404]

Two Hall of Honor posts from me in as many months? Ridiculous!

 

My original intent was to make this post some time this week. Then Cataclysm hit World of Warcraft and I saw this slipping further and further down the list of things to do. Thankfully, between installing Cataclysm the copious amounts of travel time that comes with raising my Archaeology skill, and the login server being busy, I was actually able to take photos and bang together some fluff (not my best, admittedly).

 

I'm quite proud of this squad. Mostly because this is the first Tactical Squad that I've painted to my current standard, as well as the first Tactical Squad that I've converted to my current standard. Even so, I didn't quite accomplish all the things I wanted to do with Squad Kovacs, which can be boiled down to: a unified half-squad 1 and a unified half-squad 2, and a unified complete squad.

 

Which is to say, I accomplished the first part, and managed to make two unique but coherent half-squads (beakies and boltpistols as one half, and bolters and large green puches, all mostly used as visual cues), but fell short slightly at the second part, since there isn't quite enough to link both halves of the squad together as one full squad. Perhaps I should have spread the large green pouches to every member of the squad, or given every member a boltpistol.

 

Still, as mentioned before, I'm proud of this squad, and would not have posted it if I had been dissatisfied at the end result (and I am satisfied!).

 

There's nothing here that's particularly complex, and most of it stemmed from the need to make each member of the squad stand out from the others in some way, though I still get Mathias and Laird mixed up sometimes.

 

Jolan and Vandis had a flamer and bolter split between them to make their bolter variants, while Shaw's bolter required nothing beyond the bolter itself. Jolan's bolter was meant to be a tommy-gun knock-off, though the photo might not be clear enough to convey that.

 

Incidentally, Jolan is my favourite. Between his pose and his collar something about him just screams 'Astartes!' to me.

 

Also, Vandis is one of the older 'robed Dark Angel' models, and I'm sure anyone who has any of those can attest to how amusingly warped and... squished... they are from a top-down perspective.

 

Elem's servo-skull is the 'aimbot' I decided to do, as I mentioned in Part 1's post-amble about my 'wall-hack' Marine.

 

Firepower: Pish-tosh! I doubt the Tau understand the concept of a powerfist! As for the Torren-pattern bolter, ask and ye shall receive. It's a super-simple swap, since I had to share parts from two weapons to make two different weapons. You might even be disappointed a little.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/Disruptor_fe404/Warhammer%2040K/Torren-Bolter.jpg

 

I'm not sure when the next part of Sword Company will go up, even though the models themselves are complete and I just need to settle on a design for the Company Banner that I'm confident will both look good and be within my freehand painting limits. That post itself will be my HQ choices for this list: my counts-as Azrael and his Command Squad, but minus their Land Raider since that model pulls double- (and sometimes triple-) duty in other lists and as such won't be made specific to Sword Company for quite some time, much like the Razorback in Grail Company.

[chaplain belisarius]

wow! very nice squad! :D