26th Founding Chapter

[Julgolax]

As of yet I haven't chosen a name, overall theme, icon, color scheme, or written up much fluff behind this chapter I want to SERIOUSLY put together but I do know a few goals that I have put in place.

 

You could call this chapter a "budget chapter" because of both how reasonably small it is and what such a young chapter would honestly be lacking. I have chosen to make this chapter based around all mark 7 and 8 power armors since they are almost identical in appearance, this means no mark 6, 5, or 4 armor pieces and definitely no 3 or 2. This immediately brought up a conundrum because every sprue of tactical squads I've seen has had at least one or two pieces that you HAVE to use, namely the chest plate and leg grieves that would simply be out of place on a young chapter. How can I get around this?

 

Also, since this chapter will be sporting NO Terminators and I'm on the fence about even including dreadnoughts, how can I make the most use out of my Sternguard, Vanguard, and Razorbacks for the Elite section of my force if most of said Sternguard and Vanguard sprues sport much earlier marks of armor than they should? Has anyone ever made elites out of simple tactical and assault squad sprues? How could I do this?

 

My force will only have 6 Apothecaries, 4 Librarians, 4 Chaplains, 3 Captains and 1 Chapter Master, who will also be taking to the field much more than most do these days, so how could I represent "younger" leaders with all the current HQ choices being mostly hodgepodges of different marks of armor?

 

Any help with these issues would be greatly appreciated as always and if you haven't noticed already, I am sort of designing this chapter to be a concept-proxy of the current Crimson Fists chapter in their depleted form, so any CF players out there who could provide insight in how a smaller chapter would function, that would be fantastic as well.

 

Thanks if you can help!

[Odsox]

The only advice I can offer regarding the older marks of armour and using them in a younger chapter is this: they're successors, and in the majority of cases successor Chapters are granted (limited) access to relics or items from their progenitors. I can easily imagine a progenitor Chapter handing down some older marks of armour to inspire their successors to glory and to serve as a palpable reminder of their origins and the heroes from whom they are descended.

 

Od.

[Leonaides]

Equally - the Mk6 armour is still being produced...

[Julgolax]

Not the most helpful posts but not unexpected. Where is the evidence that Mark 6's (my least favorite power armor set) are being produced?

[mr tough guy]

Easiest way I reckon would be to swap the armour pieces you don't want with other marine players, there's loads of people making pre heresy armies looking specifically for the armour pieces you don't want, wouldn't be to hard te get rid of them and get some Mk 7 or 8 in return.

 

As for making elites out of normal marines, if you don't want them too fancy looking you could go with a simple change in colourscheme, differnt colour helmet or an added helmet stripe, or even a backbanner

[puck]

You might be able to grab bulk sets of newer mark legs and torsos from ebay as there are many people who have the opposite idea as yourself (making heresy forces and what not). It entirely possible to make all your SCs, Sternguard, and Vanguard models out of the standard tac and assault squads. Depending on how skilled you are with green stuff, they might even turn out better than the named models.

[Julgolax]

So this far into the thread the general consensus I see is that there is no easy way to achieve this look and it has to be achieved by trading and bit purchases which are both extremely shady prospects. This doesn't look very promising.

[Arikel]

Well unless forge world starts producing Mark 7 and 8 armor marks as they are doing with the earlier marks this is pretty much it. The alternative would be to buy multiple regular boxes and just use the parts that you want. That way you could make a "new" force and a pre-hersey force after with all the extra bits you classify as too old for your younglings;)

 

As for hq's and elites you may want to be a bit less particular in your bits selection so that they stand out from your regular troops, otherwise you'll need to differentiate using alternate paint jobs or other sources of bling (purity seals, fancy weapons, banners, bare heads on officers only etc), unless you are one of those who prefer the realism method of not having your officers marked as special folks, in which case just the weapon load out will be different. Sternguard and vanguard would need to be custom built from regular kits, the available ones from GW are all either finecast or old metal sprues anyways, and while very cool figs would not really be able to modified to other armor marks.