New Imperial Fists player, returning for 8th!

[Wolfy Dan]

With most of the detailing finished, other than the weapons, I've managed to move on to actually building some of the rank and file troops! I decided to start with the heavy weapons as these were the most fixed of the options I needed to select. I didn't really want to have to swap them around because they needed to join to the backpacks as well as the arms (plus I'd only bought enough of the shapeways squad markings to do one per trooper). As this is meant to be more of a casual than a super competitive army I decided to go for one of each for the Tactical squads. Then for the two Devastator squads I went 3xLascannon & 1xMissile Launcher for what will be a mainly anti-tank unit, and then 2xPlasma Cannon, 1xGravcannon, & 1x Heavy Bolter for what will mainly be an anti-heavy trooper unit. Part of the thinking here was the two marine strategems for the Missile Launcher and Heavy Bolter.

 

So that made the build list 14 strong:

• 4x Lascannon (3 Dev, 1 Tac)
• 3x Plasma Cannon (2 Dev, 1 Tac)
• 2x Missile Launcher (1 Dev, 1 Tac)
• 2x Heavy Bolter (1 Dev, 1 Tac)
• 2x Gravcannon (1 Dev, 1 Tac
• 1x Multimelta (1 Tac)

The reason for only 1 Multimelta was purely range; I think this option is best utilised by Land Speeders or Attack Bikes that can swiftly get under half range from a safe position. It was quite interesting in painting the heavy weapons in going from a production line where I did the same single thing over and over as a batch to painting one object from start to finish. Made me realise just how slow a painter I am when it took me 4 hours to do the 3 Plasma Cannon! This also meant the completion of the first round of Forgeworld Imperial Fist Mk 4 shoulder pads, and the gluing of the shapeways squad markings to the shoulder pads. Have to say I was really pleased with how both turned out.

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Your models look good.

[anarchistscourge]

That’s about how long I take so don’t worry about the time too much. Generally go through a character on a Saturday of painting and a weekend for vehicles ( all the edge highlighting ☹️)

[Wolfy Dan]

 

I was making good progress on these and then got to the assault marines and just totally burnt out, so they've been like this on my shelf for a couple of weeks now.

 

I'm very happy with how the tactical and devs have turned out, and just need a few more shoulderpads to complete these (I do them in batches of 25, and again have lost the will to do any more right now). I liked how changeable the basic marine poses were, which gave me something more dynamic but without being silly. Definitely helps to do the helmet last, as that I think creates the balance of the marine. I know all the weapon options aren't the most efficient, but I was mainly looking for variety rather than pure competitiveness. The green in the grav guns definitely needs something, but I'm not sure what (prob a dark green wash). The sergeants got thunder hammers again mainly for the variety.

 

 

I was tempted for yellow on the assault marine jump-packs but thought that this would fade into the rest of the model too much, so went for black as a contrast. I ran out of black so tried to thin down a non-airbrush paint with flow improver, and whilst it worked technically I didn't realise it would have such a glossy finish to it. Would have preferred something more matt, but oh well it's not terrible. The eviscerators were a damn pain, as you basically only get 1 "right" pose (as far as I can tell), and with 2 in each unit it would suck to have 4 identical model poses, so I did a small amount of converting for some variety.

 

 

 

I also started a veteran squad. This was initially intended to be made from the command box set, but I was quite underwhelmed with the options. In the end this box (other than the legs) went to make the two lieutenants mainly. Instead I went forgeworld and bought the Imperial Fist veteran torsos as they have some great iconography, and some of the older symbols I think suits the veteran status of these marines. I was looking through the army options for them and was quite underwhelmed, but then I saw they could all take Storm Shields, so that gave me something to make the unique. I then went back to forgeworld to buy the wonderfully oversized cataphracti storm shields, again mainly because they have a lovely big imperial fist chapter symbol on them.

 

 

 

The characters were pretty easy to paint up using the codex liveries. One thing I did was to shoulder-pad swap all characters, so that the chapter symbol is on the right instead. I'm sure this used to be the way it was done "back in the day", but it was so long ago and I couldn't be bothered to go research fully so I may be wrong on that. One reason I wanted to do it was to help pick out which were characters, especially on the captain and company champion which have yellow helmets (although the big swords should be a give away!). Speaking of the company champion it was just an Emperor's champion model with the right arm shoulder pad snipped off to allow for a IF one to be added. I also popped a combat shield on his left arm (which conveniently just drapes down). The librarian's blue armour was entirely done from Guilliman Blue glaze (over a white prime), and took about 8 coats, until a final Drakenhof wash over the top to give it some depth. I think it resulted in a lot of natural highlighting (I didn't do any), especially around the fingers and edges. His helmet came from the veteran squad box, as I think the ... whatever it is on the front makes an impressive psychic hood! Foolishly I had glued the torso together before putting this in, so had to chop off most of the next and even then it took some force. Fortunately the paint damage is hidden.

 

I think next steps is to finish off the assault marines, then go and tidy up / do detail work on the sergeants and characters here and there. And then after that... well maybe I finally start some vehicles?

[anarchistscourge]

Holy Crapola thats alot of yellow! Looks amazing all arrayed on a shelf like that.

 

Out of interest how manly shelves in that unit are full of Warhammer? Do you not find they get dusty?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Again, your models look good.

[Wolfy Dan]

Thanks Bjorn!

 

It is a lot of yellow. I think at one point I actually started to feel a physical aversion to the colour. That's when I knew I needed a break! I was lucky to find the cabinet, it was only £50 from Argos here in the UK.

 

 

It has a glass front which helps it to not get dusty, but I still need to clean it out every 6 months or so. None of the other models have been painted by me (Space Marines are about the limit of my abilities!). Top shelf is some of my Blood Bowl teams (this is my main game), then we have a High Elf warhost, then the Fists (plus old school Delaques and some Malignancy models which I love). On the bottom shelf are my guildball teams (fish, masons, morts, and some union), plus 2 large bushido armies (tengu and ito clan), plus skaven from the spire of dawn box set. The middle drawer is great as well as I can keep all my cards / dice / tokens / range rulers etc.

[Wolfy Dan]

The burn out has ended! Assault marines have been finished and I'm just about there on the remaining 4th company shoulder pads filling out the tac marines that didn't get one yet. Still need to do the company vet sergeant helmet and some weapons, and these are coming from the sternguard vets sprue which are also base airbrushed and just need detailing now. I also naughtily decided to get some of these bad boys as vanguard vets!

 

 

 

 

 

As a reward for finishing off the 4th company infantry (mostly!) I decided to do my first vehicles. Always liked these models, and happy with how they turned out. Added some fisty upgrades, but I have decided to hold off on things like purity seals and decals until the very end to plan it all out and go over the whole army with them.

 

 

Next up will be completing the sternguard and company vets then I think onto the Rhinos!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Dreadnoughts look most promising.

[Wolfy Dan]

Thanks again :)

 

With the majority of the 4th company complete I moved on to the 1st company support. I'm super annoyed that I didn't open the Sternguard vets first as they have some very cool alternate weapons with different ammo drums and the like. This meant that the 4th company vet with no weapon is getting a meltagun with a nice ammo drum, and one of the Lieutenants is getting a combi-plasma with a barrel drum. Speaking of which I decided to jig the force a little and have one of the Lt have a jump pack instead so that he can join the reroll fun of the Chaplain and 2 Assault Squads.

 

Whilst undertaking this planning I visited Warhammer World and looked through more Imperial Fists from 30k (as I am quite partial to the Mk2 and Mk3 armour sets). This led to a bit of an expensive day as I picked up both the Phalanx and Templar units. I'm going to add some jump packs to these guys and run them as 2 5-man squads of Vanguard veterans.

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Imperial-Fists-Legion-Phalanx-Warder-Squad-2018

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Imperial-Fists-Legion-Templar-Brethren-2018

 

 

In the meantime I managed to get through the other veterans, firstly the Sternguard. I was struggling to think up a concept for these guys. Whilst I don't want them to be super-competitive I do want them to not be a pile of trash that will never get seen even in casual games. And the bolters with special issue ammunition are very nice (-2AP!), but it's more than a little dull to take a squad of all boltgun guys. In the end I decided to take advantage of the ability to take 2 heavy flamers by adding another 3 combi-flamers to the squad. It's over-priced and sounds better than it is, but the idea of making 5d6 auto-hit flamer shots on overwatch was too fun to resist (although they'll just charge from outside range so it'll never be used). Still, it was a concept and I went with it!

 

 

Back in WD whenever Nigel Stillman wrote an article about heraldry - specifically for Bretonnians - which I think has a lot of use for Space Marines. The short version is that White and Yellow are considered metals and everything else is a colour, and the rule is you should not mount a metal on a metal or a colour on a colour. Although black is a bit of a funny one for marines, what's really interesting is how all of the example marines in the Codex follow this rule apart from one. It was with this in mind that I decided to break the rule for the codex compliance of white veteran helmets and also white 1st company shoulder pad trim. And wow does it get all up in your face. They definitely stand out, and I can see why you'd not want a whole army like this. Still, for a few special models it is fine.

 

 

The other unit(s) are the Terminators! It's with a lot of sadness that I think these guys are no longer that good in 8th as they used to be the pinnacle of elite units. What I found interesting here is how contradictory the codex paint schemes were with so many not having white helmets but yellow ones in the research that I did. But then others had it. I wasn't really sure what the 'right' rule was (and the Space Marine Codex has plenty of other mistakes for me not to take it as the definitive source), so I decided to keep with the veteran = white helmet rule anyway. I also used the FW shoulder pads on these guys.

 

 

Both units still need some touch up work, especially on some patchy yellow parts, but I'm happy with how they turned out. My barrel drilling has even gotten good enough that I can drill out all the extra barrels of the assault cannon!

 

Next part of the project: 30 scouts!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Your models are well done.