Chapter Idea, need support/ideas

[Julgolax]

I think for my loyalist chapter, which at one point will be full strength, I want to make an assault-based chapter who's theme is drawn from a spartan-like army that supported the famous 300 at the battle of Thermopylae. My idea is being drawn from the Thespians, but in that lies another conflict in inspiration.

 

The space marines do not have any ties to love or desire. The Thespians worshiped the deities Eros and Aphrodite, and doing a quick wiki on them, you might see my quandary. Thespians

 

My issues are basically these, 1. would this sort of chapter BE descended from the Blood Angels within reason or would they be something of Ultramarines or Imperial Fists lineage and I could just use the BA codex? 2. Can anyone discern some sort of usable material from the actual historical reference, or is it up to me to make something totally new?

 

My space marines would basically be like this guy... Thespian Hoplite

The armor of the models would be black, and I had the idea of instead using the traditional shoulder plate trim and aquila scheme, I was thinking of making it all black and lining the very corners of the parts I want to be ornate with gold, like the helmets of this command squad...Banner Bearer and the Special Weapon Battle Brother

The other design I wanted to implement is one of the most obvious, I want my VETERANS to have large, full crests, but how can i do this without sneaking into GW and pilfering 200 Sicarius helmets? Furthermore, how do I greenstuff smaller versions of crests onto regular battle-brother's helmets? Something along the lines of Marneus Calgar's honor guardian.

 

Any tips, ideas, and aid is welcome so please feel free to put in your two cents, or 2 bucks. :) I know I'm probably going to be begging quite a few people for a ton of spare "abs" chestplates from the Sanguinary Guard sprues since I'm possibly shooting for my entire army having them. ;)

[Durus]

For all the fluff issues you should probably head over to the Liber Astartes. There are some sticky threads/articles on writing DIYs.

 

I don't think you'd have a problem to justity the Gods. Eros and Aphrodite were about more than sex and love. Fertility and beauty can be found in many more places or interpreted in more ways than you'd think at first. They don't have to be some kind of "different version" of the Emperors Children either. (Obsessed with fine arts blablabla...)

Since you are writing the story you could also just swap the god or change the nature their deity, as you'll probably not going to be able to justify ancient greeks in powerarmor you'll have to make adjustmenst anyway. :P

 

 

Now onto the modeling related stuff:

I'm not going to post links because I'm not getting paid to post them, but I'll drop some names here. :P

maxmini does some hoplite-style heads (black lotus). Secret weapon minis sells small and big crests that fit on SM helmet. You'll find several tutorials in the Librarium on how to add crests to your marines. Scibor miniatures sells "spartan heads"

 

Shields. Scibor miniatures sells some, Hasslefree miniatures, maxmini (black lotus again) and Crocodile Games. You could clean some chaos marauder shields if you wanted to as well.

 

If you want those torsos you could take a look at scibors spartan torsos, I haven't seen those used yet, but my guess is that the fit on normal space marines.

If you are inclined in making them yourself you could take a look at pressmoulding, as that seems to be quite popular to create multiples of one part.

 

Mh. I think that's it for now. Can't think of anything else.

[darth_giles]

Might want to check the War Store's bitz department, I remember seeing helmet accessories somewhere in there...

[Julgolax]

This sounds really pricey now... Getting second thoughts...

[Durus]

It doesn't have to be.

As I said, there are tutorials in the Librarium to make your own crests, you'd just have to adapt the methods for the crests to go sideways over the head.

You can build spears from combat knifes and a bit of plastic/brass rod.

If you "shave clean" the normal chests, i.e. take off the aquilas and just model some pectoral muscles on there you'd have a very distinct theme already. Coupled with a nice color scheme this will look just as good.

A hoplite shield is basically just bowl shape. If you find something in that form you can use that. Or put a blob of modeling putty on a piece of plastic card and smooth it out until it looks nice. Some people use these plastic palettes with small indentations. That's basically already a negative mould for your hoplite shields. Just press some putty in there and trim the edges once it's dry.

 

Oh and when you're in the Librarium take a look at the articles on making capes. If you don't feel comfortable with putty, you could make capes from thick metal foil, for example.

 

When I mentioned all these names, I just wanted to give you an overview on what's already there. Some of these conversion bits are pretty good, some are not. Maybe looking at the stuff I mentioned gives you some new ideas for your own conversions.

 

+edit+

just remembered the Sons of Sparta marines. Normal marines, with some eldar bits (spears and crests) and some old empire shields. But the theme is pretty obvious. You really don't need to do any converting at all, if you just pick the right models (Sicarius for example) and add some evocative imagery.