Preparations for 30k, help needed.

[Cate]

I have pondered for a while if I am going to start up a 30k army, building it slowly in parallel with my 40k wolves. My problem with 30k has always been which legion I should play, tactically they are not that different in 30k. To date I have a Space wolf 40k force, and a post heresy Emperor's children, so those legions are already gone, I really hate painting black and yellow, so there a couple of legions went out the door, Night lords are too common and Iron warriors are too bitter, Word bearers are too religious and they are in the same colour as my wolves. I know too little about White scars and I have never really liked Horus, so what do I have left? Blood Angels, World Eaters, Thousand sons and Ultramarines, then it dawned on me. Why not build two forces in tandem, so I picked out the two easiest to do of these four, World eaters and Ultramarines, and creating fluffy battles and campaigns  between these two legion are fairly easy.
 
Nice! I have begun the journey. A friend wants to start a 30k force to and he is thinking about either Ravens guard or SoH
 
So after reading the two first Heresy books, I started to write down what I wanted the armies to look like and still trying to keep the feel of the legions. World Eaters was easy, Rite of war, Pride of the legion, with a couple of veteran squads for outflanking, Assault marines with chain-axes, Rampagers and Destroyers with jump packs, some tanks as heavy support. What about fliers you say? Couldn't care less as in our meta no one really likes fliers.
 
Time to look at the Ultramarines, how do I want to play them? I am thinking about masses of rank and file troops, tactical marines, tactical support squads, a couple of tanks and a proud and stoic HQ with equally proud and stoic command squad, maybe a champion as a consul. Sure the UM have not gotten their special squads, if I am correct they will get some sort of special command squad, probably some sort of terminator squad, probably a cataphractii variant one. The problem I have with the UM is what rite of war to take, none of the standard one fits maybe I should ignore RoW till later.
 
I hear how my wallet threatens to commit suicide, and I have to explain to it that at the time everything is theoretical. I still need to write a background story for both the armies, at least three pages for both of them. I need to commit to the ETL and I do need to paint at least one experimental mini for both the armies before I hand over all my money to FW. 
 
So now to a couple of questions.
 
Spoliers from Betrayer.

As we know, Angron became a daemon prince after Nuceria, and on Istvaan III Khârn said to Loken "I am the eight-fold path" clearly a hint that Khorne is not far off. Is it to early to start giving the rank and file World eaters bunny ear helmets if the campaign is set on Nuceria, and giving some squads the post heresy colour scheme? Or are the bunny ears and red/bronze armour first seen on Terra or even later?

 
If I am not miss informed, the World eaters had a standard organisation for the Legions, so if my Centurion is the leader of the 64th chapter it wouldn't be that strange, or where there fewer chapters or did they have another organisation or even names on their "chapters"? I have not seen that the 64th chapter is taken, but I could be wrong.
 
Am I wrong thinking that World Eaters often use the "newer" marks of armour and/or are using a mix of armour parts as they salvage parts on the battlefield? 
 
I always have felt that the World Eaters would be using the MK V power armour as it looks awesomely brutal and with all those studs have a World eater feel. Did they use them and if so were they common or were they only a SoH armour mark? I do feel some MK VI parts can be mixed in after Istvaan V. 
 
Is it possible to get hold of those iconic helmets that Ultramarines have in some pictures in Visions of the heresy and if so from where, my green stuff-fu is to weak, so they would look like a bird that collided with their face if I tried to use green stuff ?
 
These heads.
http://a2.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/76/1939f547435e419d8d7b73eef00f69e1/l.jpg
 
 
What special squads did the Ultramarines have during the heresy, I imagine some special sort of command squad, but anything else?
 
Spoilers from Know no fear.

 

 

The red helmet became the sergeant helmet colour after the battle of Calth, did they have other colours on their helmets?

 

 

The Ultramarines did use MK III and MK IV and probably few to none of the other marks, am I right?

 

As soon as I have painted up some test minis I will post them below, and I will also post my background stories when they are written.

 

/C 

 

 

 

 

[GhostMalone]

Honestly the best thing you could do is start with mkiv v & vi packs add some maximini heads and just start by building a core list of troops.

 

I'm stuck with BA special units so I'm focussing on tacticals contemptors and tanks till I find out if I have my sang guard or other units.

 

Welcome to the heresy brother :)

 

A good start I find is;

 

Praetor;

Paragon blade iron halo digital lasers

 

Master of signal;

+1 BS to a unit

 

Champion;

WS7 master crafted power sword

 

Tactical squads;

4 10 man squads

 

Edit:

 

WE have a upgrade pack coming with proto Bunny ears and are going to be on the 8 fold pass soon.

 

Ultras had a couple of units in the fluff but not yet sure what official release will hold.

 

If you start with above mentioned you can build any army from that core list

[Brother-Librarian Haegl]

Regarding your question on Ultramarines' sergeant markings, I recall Guilliman stating in Know no Fear that "some clear, visual marking" is required due to the noosphere being out, and the censure-marked marine having redeemed himself, so that the red helmet shall be a sign of censure no longer.

 

So I suppose that, pre-Calth, markings where either subtle (small markings, amounts of bling) or inexistant (while being indicated digitally via a helmet display).

 

+++ Edit: Clarification +++

[Ishagu]

I'd wait until they create some special characters and rules for the Ultras and focus on your other Legion in the meantime...